Folklife vs. Folklore and Folk Architecture

This chapter confused me more than anything else this semester. From the reading, I believe the two terms can be used interchangeably and if there is a distinction between them, it is very small and unclear to me. Perhaps the major difference is that folklife is a way of life where as folklore is the stories told about that way of life. This may also be that folklore covers a larger genre and folklife is more the material things involved. I’m unsure and look forward to discussion in class today to try to piece all this together.

Folk architecture tends to be typical to a specific area or time period. Something like the homes we live in today would not be considered folk architecture, but the homes built on the frontier in the old west might be. The best example I can think of would be Native American structures, teepees and iconic structures of that nature. These are things that immediately bring that culture and that type of lifestyle to mind, even if it is a stereotypical idea. It is often the form the building takes that is important and not the reasons it was built, that make it folk. The traditional structure is folk architecture.