Star Bride Marries a Cook: The Changing Processes in the Oral Singing Tradition and in Folk Song Collecting on the Western Estonian Island of Hiiumaa. II
Star Bride Marries a Cook: The Changing Processes in the Oral Singing Tradition and in Folk Song Collecting on the Western Estonian Island of Hiiumaa. II

Summary/Abstract: This article is the second part of a longer writing about Hiiumaa older folk songs. Relying on the critical analysis of the folk song collections, which represent the heritage of the second biggest island in Estonia, Hiiumaa, as well as on manifold background information, the character of the singing tradition in the changing social and cultural context is drafted. The first part of the study was published in the previous, 67th volume of Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore. It focused on the history of folk song collecting in Hiiumaa (from 1832 to 1979) and analyzed the representativeness of the collected material. The present article highlights the specific features of Hiiumaa older folk songs, which represent the historical styles of Baltic-Finnic alliterative songs: regilaul, transitional song, and archaic vocal genres. The settlement history of Hiiumaa is studied and related to the putative processes in folk song tradition. The analysis reveals regional western Estonian features and the process of historical changing, especially a pervasive impact of bagpipe music in Hiiumaa songs. The singing tradition has been influenced mainly by cultural contacts with the Estonian and Swedish population on Estonian islands and the western coast, and also by the contacts of local sailors.

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