KËNGËT E SYNETISË
CIRCUMCISION SONGS

Summary/Abstract: Circumcision ceremonial in many Albanian regions is accompanied with dancing and rituals. A good part of the songs during this ceremonial is characterized by an afflicted and legal joy. It is legal because the son is growing up and becoming sure of life. This affliction is also justified after you become “circumcised”, as it means you are going through a chirurgical operation. The affliction also comes from “the bad eye”, “evil”, shadows “attacking” in such occasions. Thought of these bad things seems to come from centuries ago, or they appear at least as a contradiction of the beginning process of circumcision. In order to “protect” the son from this evilness coming from the dark world, religious rituals were created. Being a spiritual value, the song is at the same time the best protector. It affects on the child psychologically (when he is 4-years old), because it seems to alleviate the child’s pain caused from the operation, that is, it plays an affective role. Apart from evaluating the songs in this work, we have also been trying to make a classification according to the chronology of actions. Rituals and songs seem to have a folkloric life in symbiosis and they are played throughout the circumcision ceremonial. I think that the classification in three groups, in songs before the circumcision day, songs on the circumcision day and songs after the circumcision day, and their subdivision as well, a part of which are motives, will be very worth for the collectors and all those people who study this genre of our folklore.

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