It was believed a long time ago that laughter increases both vital forces and energy, and at the dawn of human culture it was an obligatory element in some rites. From the point of view of modern humans, deliberate, artificial laughter is insincere and objectionable. But this was not always so. In earlier times, laughter was sometimes obligatory, in the same way that crying sometimes was, whether a person experienced grief or not. A detailed examination of this kind of laughter is beyond the scope of this work, especially since it has been studied by others else-where.2 Even though I am concentrating on nineteenth- and twentieth-century material, it is necessary nonetheless to delve into the past in order to understand some cases.
It was thought that laughter could not only increase vital forces but also kindle them, that it could give rise to human and floral life in the most literal sense. The ancient Greek myth about Demeter and Persephone is very revealing here. Hades, the god of the underworld, abducted Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of fertility. The goddess set out in search of her daughter but failed to find her. Consumed with grief, she ceased to laugh and vegetation and cereals stopped growing on Earth. Then the servant Yamba made an indecent gesture, causing her to laugh. Nature came to life again and spring returned to Earth.
There is a good deal of evidence that at one time the human mind did not distinguish between the earth’s fertility and a human being’s. In antiquity the earth was perceived as a female organism and the harvest was equated with childbirth. The phallic processions of antiquity aroused universal laughter and merriment. This laughter was believed to influence the harvest, and some theorists and literary historians trace the origins of comedy to these types of processions. Notions of the comic’s life-giving force are found not only in antiquity but also in more recent tribal cultures. Yakuts once worshipped the goddess of birth, Iyekhsit, who was said to visit women in childbirth and help them by laughing aloud during delivery. At one time among certain peoples, laughter was obligatory during puberty rites when it accompanied the moment of the symbolic new birth of the initiated. Easter laughter was widespread during the Middle Ages, and during Easter Catholic priests made parishioners laugh by telling them obscene jokes during the church service. Religious beliefs about a resurrected deity are basically agricultural, signifying the rebirth of nature and a new life after winter’s sleep, helped along by wild festivities during which all kinds of liberties are allowed.
A princess whose smile makes flowers bloom is a poetic echo of these notions in folktales. But what is now a poetic metaphor was once a matter of faith: the smile of the goddess of agriculture was thought to bring the dead back to life. April jokes meant to cause laughter and told only during that month, in spring when nature awakens, have survived into the present day. They are the last remnants of an elaborate ritualism once connected with laughter. These few examples are sufficient to explain some types of laughter that have not been examined until now.