Folk Mystic: A Narrative of a Polish Highlander Cunegonde Siwiec
Folk Mystic: A Narrative of a Polish Highlander Cunegonde Siwiec

Summary/Abstract: This article presents the figure of Cunegonde Siwiec, a folk mystic and a highlander, who lived in one of the villages in Lesser Poland at the end of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. Stryszawa is a linear village located in the Sucha County, an ethnographic region inhabited by the highlanders of Babia Góra. Kundusia – this is what she was called by people around her – became an inherent part of this area, at the same time being considered to be both one of the fellow countrywomen and an extraordinary neighbour. Making use of the available literature, I present in the text relations between Cunegonde and the place of her residence, and on the basis of the field research I show her impact on the environment. The structure of the text is made up of the following three parts: elements of the ethnography of the Babia Góra region, reconstructed fragments of Cunegonde’s biography, and the narrative about Cunegonde circulating among the inhabitants of the village and pilgrims.

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