КИЋЕНA СОВРA, РЕЂЕНA
DECORATED SUFRA

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this research is the Serbian folk wedding song (in the range of variants) recorded on the fieldwork in the region near the Beli Timok river (southeast Serbia), together with Vesna Đukić in 1997 and 1998. The song was documented in the village of Koželj from Anka Cvetković and Dragica Ivković. The song is simple in con¬tent, but it has complex semantic and functional implications. It used to be sung around the ceremonial table (sofra), when girls decorate the main wedding ritual bread (sobornik). It speaks of the tasks that boys and girls do at some point (picking flowers and cutting a tree), then about the death of two young people who do not manage to fulfill the task – the girl is bitten by a snake and the boy cuts himself by an axe. In the continuation of the song victims are taken to the church, where they are buried, and trees later grow on their graves, a pine on the boy’s grave and a fir on the girl’s grave. Finally, the pine talks to the fir asking her to grow so their roots could meet and their tops could intertwine, which brings the closure to the motif variants of the folk songs about a boy and a girl who finally unite after death. The entire content of the song fits the complex of ceremonies connected to obstructed initiation that ends as a sacrifice, which the paper clearly indicates. Therefore, the content of this song which was performed around the ritual bread and ceremonial table was a warning to all those who participated in the wedding.

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