Обычные и странные части тела у латышей (к концепции человека в традиционной культуре)
ORDINARY AND STRANGE BODY PARTS OF THE LATVIANS. A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CONCEPTION OF MAN IN TRADITIONAL CULTURE

Summary/Abstract: The assumption that the conception of the human body is culturally determined serves as the basis for considerations of the conception in Latvian folk awareness. In Latvian folk culture, giving birth to a child is treated as ‘collecting’ the child’s parts by the parents. The human body is said to have the so called ‘endings’ of particular importance as points of contact of a person with the outside world: these are eyes, hands, fingers and fingernails. In the symbolic sense and in rituals they can represent the whole person.In the traditional Latvian worldview, the human body is an unstable and largely illusory entity. Hence a song can be treated as a peculiar body part: a contact-type ‘ending’, inherited after one’s ancestors, an ever-present tool indispensable in normal full life.

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