Howard, I agree completely about terms of art. But in the case of modern societies the ad-hoc categories of "folk" and "traditional" were partly theoretical and conjectural to begin with.

Allow me to get extra boring. (Those not interested should flick on their favorite mp3 instead.)

Everyone agrees that the songs of, say, western Australian peoples of the twelfth century were "folk." But whether those songs and, say, "Casey Jones" belong in the same category seems dubious to me. If the "Iliad" had a tune, was it a folk song? It depends on what you mean by "folk song": Homer and his predecessors seem to have been practiced professionals doing what very few people could do.

My point is that some technical terms are muddier and less useful than others. What to do is to avoid going round and round about irresolvable definitions and to state instead just what one is talking about.

If I refer to "Casey Jones" as a folk song, aboriginal songs will be mostly irrelevant. I'd better stipulate what I mean when talking about either and hope that my listeners will not jump up and cry, "But that's not what *I* mean by 'folk song'!"

(By the way, did/do all aboriginal songs circulate quite anonymously? Would it change the nature of the exceptions if they didn't? Why should it matter anyway if the name of the "composer" is forgotten? Just some cantankerous theoretical questions.)