The 44th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, 12–14 April 2019, Lancaster. A conference report
Place: Lancaster; Date: 12-14 April, 2019
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Place: Lancaster; Date: 12-14 April, 2019
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Place: Collegium Broscianum (Krakow, Poland); Date: 26th and 27th of April 2019.
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Unofficial surnames are rare because surnames today are generally official in character. However, in the case of Polish citizens who are Lithuanians, they are a phenomenon that has long been present, although visible mostly – and until the entry into force of the Act on National Minorities (2005) predominantly – in intra-group communication. Considering that until recently it was not possible to register the Lithuanian forms of surnames and use them officially, this anthroponymic cultural heritage has long been transmitted between generations only informally. On the basis of the analysis of approximately 330 pairs of surnames extracted from telephone directories covering the area of compact residence of the Lithuanian minority (two of them in Polish, and one – in Lithuanian), the article discusses from the socioonomastic point of view (cf. Ainiala, 2016) the phenomenon of parallel functioning among the members of the Lithuanian minority in Poland of two surname forms: an official Polish one and an unofficial Lithuanian one. The latter differs from the former graphically and morphonologically, and in almost 30 per cent of cases their match is not unambiguous (i.e. one Polish form corresponds to more than one Lithuanian form, and, conversely, one Lithuanian form – to two or even more forms in Polish). It should be emphasised that the presence of formal exponents of Lithuanianness (Lithuanian diacritics, inflectional endings, feminine suffixes) does not necessarily imply the Lithuanian etymology of the surname.
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This article aims at demonstrating why an attitude to view the human diversity according to a criterion of race originated in the society in the epoch of Positivism. It is an outline of a specific approach of Polish popular science to popularize achievements of word science in the field of anthropology. The fact that races exist was then taken for granted and efforts were made to describe them. Readers of periodicals were acquired with racial classifications based on geographical and morphological criteria, often evaluating civilizations of individual races and the races themselves. Opinions of both foreign and Polish scientists, travelers and journalists were influenced by Eurocentric world view, and consequently the recognition of a white man, his appearance, activities and civilization, as a pattern that should be followed and imitated by all others in the name of human progress. The term ‘race’ itself was not defined; moreover, it was used without consistency and arbitrarily, and frequently interchangeably with such terms as ‘generation,’ ‘people,’ ‘branch,’ ‘tribe’ and ‘nation.’ Despite the aboundance of press publications on human races, the knowledge of this notion did not became a systematic one.
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The paper concentrates on the circumstances of the production of anthropological knowledge, created in a dynamic tension between its cognitive goal and the way it is used for political purposes. It provides an insight into a complex network of conditions (intelectual, institutional, financial, personal, political) which determined the production of knowledge in interwar Poland within the then emerging disciplines of ethnology and sociology, in the scope of what today we would call social anthropology. This case study takes a closer look at Polish anthropologist Józef Obrębski (1905-1967), a close student of Malinowski, whose outstanding achievements remained mostly unpublished and thus never came into existence in the master narrative of the history of our discipline. In the 1930s Obrębski conducted ethnosociological field research in the Polesie region
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The aim of this article is to present a sketch of the intellectual biography of Anthony D. Smith who is the creator of the theoretical perspective in sociology of nation, called ethnosymbolism. The text analyzes the impact of his childhood and early school education in a later life as a scholar and his future research of nations. It also presents the stages of his education and the interest in national issues shaped at that time, in particular studies on ancient history, general historiography or classic sociological theories. The article shows three stages of the formation of Smith’s scientific views, from consistent modernism, to its correction, to radical ethnosymbolism. The text is a sketch of an intellectual biography, not a detailed analysis of the ethnosymbolic approach itself.
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This analytical study by Marek Hendrykowski is an attempt to re-read one of the most valuable contemporary films of Israeli production, Footnote, written and directed by Joseph Cedar. The author paid particular attention to the specific way of conducting a seemingly dependent narration, skillfully combining the image of external reality with the sphere of thought and the feelings of the main character.
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The people of Şavak, who are the subject of the article, are traditionally living in a semi-nomadic life in the settlements located in the center, district and villages or neighborhoods of Elazığ, Tunceli and Erzincan. They are the representatives of the Yörük-Türkmen tradition in Eastern Anatolia. In the written sources, they are the Turks belonging to the Bayat Boyu of the Oğuz (Türkmen) and according to oral sources, they are the Turks belonging to the Kayı Boyu. Related written documents have been scanned, and studies on the identity of the Şavak people have been examined. The study is a field research conducted through participant observation.
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From a Christian perspective, childbirth is one of the greatest blessings for men and women, who have been united in love through the Sacrament of Marriage. Among the Georgians, a child’s birth was the most important event in the life of the family. Georgian folk customs and rituals associated with childbirth encompasses the widest range of various rites, rituals, superstitions, and omens timed to certain moments in the life of the mother and the child: pregnancy, labour, the end of the 40-day period of time after the child’s birth, and so forth. Although there are multiple connections between Georgian customs and rituals associated with childbirth and various, mainly pre-Christian, religious beliefs, these customs and rituals nevertheless point to the centuries-old influence of Orthodox Christian cultural mores on this sphere of life. Research in this area enables one to glimpse the spiritual culture of the Georgian people, which is particularly evident in the ideas pertaining to the nation’s worldview, as well as in its religious beliefs, in the peculiarities of family life and interpersonal relations. The article is an attempt to look into this important sphere of life of another nation and its customs. Although they may seem very exotic to us, they will certainly allow us to better understand others and enrich ourselves.
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The article places the contemporary anthropological, ethnological and culturological research of state holidays in Slovenia within the disciplinary tradition of Slovenian holiday research and the broader frame of issues related to political rituals. Up until the past few decades, holidays as celebrated in the Slovenian lands had been a parade of ethnological/folklorist subjects framed within the context of folk culture research. It is thus not surprising that folk holidays were put at the forefront of examination, thematised from the perspective of a relatively static concept of tradition. The rapid political, economic and social change characteristic of the period after the Second World War was reflected not only in the transformed holiday landscapes, but also in a reconfiguration of the research horizons. These are presented through the findings concerning state holidays that resulted from a recent research project on the Slovenian holidays and constitution of national community.
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The paper relates an autoethnographic project consisting in the author’s having a Cieszyn costume sewn for her. It is a symbol of her Silesian identity; also, the project resulted from the need to monitor the process. The paper describes the concept of the costume, relates the stages of producing its parts, and tells of contacts with craftsmen and craftswomen, experts, as well as other users of such costumes. The paper is concluded by remarks about the role and meaning of the costume for Cieszyn Silesian community.
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The article presents an analysis of research reconnaissance carried out in October 2018 in the Augustowska Primeval Forest. The purpose of the reconnaissance was to “enter the field”, so to speak, and to collect source material during a few days’ stay, I had the opportunity to participate in beekeeping workshops. The result of this field trip is the source material, photographic and film documentation that have been acquired, a field research journal, and unstructured interviews. This article aims to present the initial analysis of the pilot research material and the methods of developing the collected material and results. It also contains reflections on the methodology of ethnographical field penetration and a discussion of research methods and techniques that worked well in the field and those that did not contribute to the expected results. The author also reviews the relationship between the methodology and the subject and issues of her ethnographical research.
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In the contemporary humanistic sciences, including cultural anthropology, which is to a greater or lesser extent geared to historical thinking, the approach to war is usually based on the chronotope of reversion, i.e. on the perception of war as the opposite of peace. Such an approach involves a very particular perception of the war-marked everyday; a perception which is, fundamentally, a phenomenological one. According to this perception, the reversed everyday of the wartime is non-ordinary and peculiar; as a result, it is experienced as alien and unfamiliar. Referring his reflections to the cultural reality of the city of Łódź as marked by the Great War, the author attempts to demonstrate that not the entire everyday of a city undergoes a reversion during wartime, or that not all the elements of that everyday are reversed to the same extent. He demonstrates that the daily press is one such element. On the example of “Nowy Kurier Łódzki”, one of the newspapers typical of the place and time, he shows how, during wartime, a daily paper preserves the ways of writing about the world which are familiar to it from the pre-war period, also by making use of all the journalistic genres that make it possible to go beyond the straightforward truth of facts and events. Owing to this approach, the newspaper transgresses the commonplace and mundane everyday of a wartime city.
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The research is devoted to ethno-semiotic characteristic of an image of a mosquito as a factor of entomological code of the traditional spiritual culture of Belarusian people. It has been shown that in the system of entomological imagery a mosquito is a male erotic symbol, and it correlates with concepts of small, weak, blood, victim, fertility, heat, hedonism, demon. The mosquito correlates with mythological elements: zoological (bird, snake, horse, etc.), dendrological (oak, walnut), demonological (devil), anthropological (saint, nun, tsar, soldier) and other conceptual codes.
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In this article we analyse factors that help interpret silence and speaking in different cultures. Economic activities and lifestyle related to natural conditions as well as beliefs are crucial here. In terms of speaking and silence, a relatively good distinction can be made between peoples traditionally engaged in hunting-gathering and agriculture, and the modern Western code of communication that has developed from the latter. The modern code does not tolerate silence and non-speaking very well, considering it either as expression of impoliteness, stupidity or lack of sincerity. For indigenous peoples silence clearly has a magical function in order not to be threatened by ambivalent animistic agents. This also explains the greater carefulness of indigenous peoples in expressing their emotions. For the same reason, in animistic cultures, which are not so human-centred, the usual communication situations (meetings, departures, making compliments) and the corresponding speech acts are very diffuse, minimalist or non-existent. In (monotheistic) agricultural cultures the sphere of spirit beings has generally been demonized, and the norm of silent behaviour that reflects it has become incomprehensible or interpreted as inappropriate.The Veps living in north-western Russia have been in close contact with Russian peasant culture for more than 1,000 years. The relatively emotional and speech-oriented Russian culture has undoubtedly had an impact on the Veps. On the other hand, the Finno-Ugric animistic norm and the corresponding tendency to speak less or remain silent can be perceived. It also seems that from Russians the Veps have acquired speech acts used at meetings and departures – greetings, farewells, blessings, formulas that close and delimit situations, and so on. The corresponding words and phrases taken from Russian also refer to borrowing.Because of the Russian influence the interpersonal relations of the Veps are not that diffuse as those of the non-agricultural indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, as the forest and beliefs related to it are still very central in Vepsian folk life, the Veps are very careful in their ways of speaking because of the animistic spirits around, which very much determines their behaviour in general. In the fieldwork situations we have noticed that silence/speaking significantly depends also on the social role and profession of the informant. There exist also situations that require silence (for example eating, certain works related to starting of something, getting on the road). Our experiences show that silence may arise also when issues related to death and the supernatural sphere are touched upon.
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The article is based on materials collected during fieldwork focusing on mapping place lore objects, including natural holy places, as well as the author’s personal experience. The main focus lies on so-called silent places with scant data in the archives, and also the places difficult to identify in today’s landscape without a local guide. The oldest lore narratives were written down about one and a half centuries ago. Since then landscapes have been extensively rearranged, which has brought about changes in people’s way of life, their recollections of place lore narratives, and the appearance of lore places, sometimes also in their names. Northern and western Estonian hiis (holy grove) lore, for example, manifests fragmentariness and fast fading during the Soviet period. Researchers fulfilling their primary assignment within fieldwork can find themselves in rather wild conditions and therefore the romance that is perceived while reading older holy place lore tends to fade away quickly in reality.The article emphasises that meaningful places speak, first and foremost, through people; most regions have had their own key persons with a sense of mission, thanks to whom we have archival data in the first place. The author highlights the problems of today’s fieldwork, for example, difficulties in finding a well-informed guide, as consistent lore information with its carriers has often shifted away from the vicinity of the historical object and has to be searched for somewhere else. It is not seldom that links between narratives and places cannot be established anymore, as the object has been destroyed, the initial data are too scarce, or the connecting link or the person who has information is missing. So a stone, a hillock, or a spring remains silent until new people come to create new connections. On the other hand, if we interpret archival lore and old maps sensibly and competently, these silent places can sometimes be turned into eloquent ones again. But do today’s people still understand what they are saying? In any case, fieldwork results can be interesting both for guides and those establishing local identity.
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There have always been topics in human communication which are not shared or discussed with anyone. Approaches and attitudes also differ by generations. This article opens the topic of silence from the viewpoint of my own generation – those retired by today. The article is based on the data collected via direct interviews and discussions from about half a hundred informants, and in addition to that also memories and indirect observations as well as radio broadcasts. My questions were concerned with undiscussed or taboo topics in families, work or friends’ communities but also among casual acquaintances or total strangers. The topic of discussions expanded as is characteristic of folklore: one word grew out of another and one story from another one. I grouped the most significant repetitive motifs into topic areas. It turned out that for years people have kept silent about family secrets, diseases, sex, relatives who fought on the ‘wrong’ side of the front or fled into exile. The most frequent reasons for the silence were attempts to save someone from resentment or an unpleasant situation; taboos also emerged due to official prohibitions and orders as well as caution due to political circumstances.
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The Harju County Museum held a memoir collecting competition from February 14 to September 1, 2019, with the goal to collect love-themed memories throughout the ages. The organizing team wanted to highlight the themes pertaining to love, which previously had often been only briefly mentioned. The museum’s competition was directly inspired by the Estonian Literary Museum’s 2015–2017 life stories competition, “Estonia 100: My Life and Love”. After analysing these collected memories, it was clear that the participants were writing about the subject of love rather cautiously. The ambition of the Harju County Museum’s competition was to amass written memories of experiences concerning love – a subject of study not often found in museums’ archives.The organizers started outlining the competition by specifying its target group. Who is a typical contestant and what would they write about love? The team was aware that it would be much easier for the participants to share their memories of the things widely accepted in society. Although the intention was to give the writers as much freedom as possible in sharing their memories, the team felt that the participants should also be encouraged to write about more unsettling or delicate experiences related to love (e.g. complications, taboos). To break the silence surrounding the taboo themes, it was specifically stated that stories of more negative experiences were also welcome. The central message of the petition was: everyone is welcome to share their stories, and the aim is not to collect just ‘proper’ love experience memories.The competition was advertised on social media, in libraries, press and public spaces. Furthermore, the organizers targeted some of the advertisements to underrepresented groups in the museum’s collections: the Estonian-Russian community and the LGBT+ people (two interviews were conducted with the latter). All in all, the museum received 16 diverse stories and one object. Remembrance of the Soviet period remained dominant in the memoirs, although both earlier and more recent times were also recalled. Memories of finding oneself, first loves and relationships, dating, courting, marrying, having children and raising them were some of the more carefree subjects written about; however, some memoirs touched on more painful experiences: a broken heart, a violent partner, a toxic relationship, grief, difficult decisions, escaping home, yearning and remorse.
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Mare Kõiva and Piret Voolaid present a summary of folklorists’ work in the corona-time self-isolation.
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