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Awards by Croatian Ethnological Society in 2015
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Paragraffiti represent those marks on the walls that are not drawings or writing. They are usually involuntary, yet those on the church walls are made deliberately and related to some magical and religious practices, being determined by the sacredness of the church walls. Therefore, the scratch marks made on the name initially registered in the proskomide or diakonikon or on the name included in the memorial prayers written on the walls of the monasteries and churches of Bukovina were made with the purpose of deleting the remembrance of these people and, implicitly, chasing away the divine protection from them. On the other hand, cavities prelevations were made in order to swallow the material extracted from the sacred building with the purpose of healing diseases or sterility, to sprinkle it in the eyes of the person afflicted with conjunctivitis, or to stop children from crying. Moreover, within the entire Romanian space, the custom consisting of extracting the eyes, ears, lips or clothes of the saints painted on the walls had magical purposes. Thus, the mutilation of the devils’ faces represented a way to punish the demons in case of unsuccessful spell, as the witch has the possibility to avenge on the devil painted on the walls by removing his eyes. Sometimes the mineral material resulted from the devil’s eyes was used for stealing a married woman’s man, while the dust resulted from the scratching of the devils’ genital organs was used in men’s food or drinks with the purpose of making them virile. At the same time, the witches used the dust resulted from the mutilation of the faces of the saints on the church walls to enhance the power of their spells, ensuring their success. The dust from the saints’ eyes was used in love spells, to make peace between two persons, to bring disease in the house and the body of a certain person, to make a man madly in love with someone, to blindfold the enemies or judges, but mainly to prevent husbands from seeing the adultery of their unfaithful wives. “The devil’s scratches” paragraffiti have magical and religious beliefs, too. They were made on saints’ sarcophagi or statues, as well as on the walls of Catholic churches in order to heal diseases or women sterility; in periods of food scarcity, consuming the extracts of mineral material was believed to have the power of calming hunger pains. Small cavities represented a symbol of the prayers for the dead, while the marks and horseshoes present in the church walls were ex-votos for healing a horse or a sign of gratitude made by a knight who had had a safe trip, or for healing fever. There was the belief that the nails hammered into the church walls had the power to inhibit the evil, so healing the ill was hoped. Therefore, by means of paragraffiti (striations made with sharp objects, ritual scratching, extracting stone dust for preparing drinks, small perforations and cavities, horseshoes and nails hammered into the church wall), their authors made a direct connection with the divinity, and scratching the church walls was not a sacrilege, even if it contradicted the ideas of Christianity. Lastly, paragraffiti are made on the church walls even today in all Christian Europe, being a proof for the survival of traditional beliefs in a postmodern world. Their aim still is prevailingly magical and religious.
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Jusqu’à la fin du XX-ème siècle, les ethnologues roumains n’ont accordé que peu d’attention au sujet du jeu formel. Ils se sont limités à donner des descriptions des jeux et les définitions et les taxinomies proposées n’ont pas réussi à délimiter clairement le jeu formel de toutes les autres catégories.En même temps, on a accordé peu d’attention à l’étude des jeux joués dans le milieu urbain, qui représente cependant le milieu de vie pour une partie importante de la population: en Roumanie (qui a autour de 21 millions habitants, selon différentes statistiques) il y a 5 villes ayant plus de 300.000 habitants, 5 villes qui ont plus de 200.000 habitants, 13 villes ayant presque 100.000 habitants, et en Bucarest, la capitale, il y a 2 millions habitants. Comme le jeu est un phénomène culturel complexe, influencé non seulement par le degré de développement cognitif des joueurs, mais aussi par ses contextes (social, culturel etc.), l’auteur utilise dans sa démarche analytique des résultats de l’anthropologie et de la sociologie, appliqués à une recherche de terrain originelle réalisée pendant 12 ans en Bucarest. L’auteur arrive à une définition du jeu formel, en le délimitant des autres catégories de jeux, propose une taxinomie et présente un tableau des jeux formels joués en Bucarest entre 1996 et 2008. La taxinomie offre à l’étude du jeu formel des classes de jeux facilement utilisables, tandis que la situation des jeux de Bucarest a une valeur historique et ethnologique.
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In this paper, the author analyzes the meanings of stone in the peasant understanding. The system of representations is coherent enough and is focused on the primordial gestures of the making of the world by dual couple: God the Father (the one who has no father) and the Unclean (Nefârtache – the one who has a father), the latter being initially subordinated to the former.In this context, the essence of stone as an unfertile and inanimate matter, created by the Unclean together with the creation by God of the fertile world, is followed by the author from antiquity (god Mitras the one born out of stone, the role of the stone menhires of capturers of the souls of the deceased) until the 19th-20th centuries, when the role of soul and bed spirit capture is transparent in numerous Romanian, Aromanian, Slavic and south Balkan beliefs and popular superstitions. This dualist antagonism fertile/infertile, animate/inanimate etc. is also present in the ballad „Meşterul Manole” (Manole, the Craftsman). Any edifice built out of stone, unlike those made of wood, need the finishing of a soul, which can be acquired by the new construction only by the sacrifice of the masons, by the violent death of a grown-up, more precisely of the craftsman’s wife in the above ballad.
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The paper entitled The Intentional Structure of the Image of the Devil in Creanga’s Works refers to an aspect specific to the Creanga’s works, both famous and neglected: that is the question concerning Creanga’s relation to folklore, focusing on the representation of the devil. According to the author of this paper, imagining a «literary object» of the devil’s type is possible by means of two imaginative modalities: via analogica and via ethnologica. The former consists in the free association of the idea of the devil with images and representations illustrating in an exemplary way the idea of the evil, the latter consists in imagining the devil by the appeal to the representative tradition of a community. Given than Ion Creangă takes over the poietic repertoire following the via ethnologica, why so many discussions around his works? The author’s answer referring to the matter of the representation of the devil but which probably has a wider pertinence concerns the intentional character of the images. The image, taken over from the folklore, carries its intentional load. The writer that wants to valorize esthetically a folkloric image such as the one of the devil, must first establish a relation with the intentional inheritance of the concerned image. Thus, from the perspective of present analysis, Ceranga’s ingeniosity is to be found in the way he manages to deviate the initial intentional project of the image of the devil and impress it a new intentional orientation. The way of achieving the alteration of the original intention of the devil’s image also includes the violence the artist used to distance himself from the folkloric pattern.
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The paper focuses on the preliminary stage of the feminine initiation, when the girl is taken out from her familiar world and dies in a symbolic manner. Being complementary to the masculine process, girls’ initiation is static and nocturnal. Fairy-tales show a physiological change for the secluded princesses, while the winter solstices songs reveal a maid fallen into a heavy sleep, as a metaphor for the spiritual journey to mythical times. Together with the girls who foretell their death, these neophytes can enter the main phase of initiation only by experiencing physical dissolution.
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Starting from the thinking pattern specific to peasant craftsmen that created perfectly equilibrated and functional buildings, within the Romanian space there developed the brilliant art of wooden constructions, and the historical region of Maramures excels in this regard by the originality and diversity of the applied techniques and procedures. Wood processing with its various forms was granted in time the artistic feeling of folk artists, fact which explains the exceptional results that were obtained. It is in this category that falls the shingle maker Ioan Bud, of Budesti-Maramures, known locally as Lorinz’s Bud. Using traditional tools such as the hatchet, axe, wooden beater, shingling chair, the craftsman works in fir tree wood and spruce wood, creating the shingles specific to the roof of the Maramuresan houses. Representative of an archaic community characterized first of all by its impressive churches and monumental gates, craftsman Bud whose artistic mastership and creativity find their most adequate expression in wood processing, has created his fame by special achievements, reason why he is frequently invited in the ethnographic museums throughout Romania to help with his knowledge the works of restoration-conservation of the monuments of traditional art.
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En ce qui concerne l’ethnologie, le cycle des poèmes La Lilieci ne représente pas − comme l’on affirme souvent dans le contexte de la critique littéraire − un panorama fictionnel du village Bulzeşti, le village artifex, création de l’ironiste qui aspire à rompre avec la tradition. Intégré dans le territoire ethnographique superordonné, l’univers rural projeté par Marin Sorescu montre son adhésion parfaite aux coordonnées universelles du monde traditionnel de l’Olténie. On s’assume, dans ce projet descriptif, la complémentarité des avatars ethnologiques et de leur transformation poétique. Les architextes folkloriques sont des raisonnements pour les liaisons entre la réalité et le texte, ils valorisent le potentiel du quotidien et les expériences originaires auxquelles l’univers imaginaire fait appel. Les paysans de Sorescu n’adoptent pas l’attitude contemplative pour sonder le transcendent; par contre, ils mettent l’accent sur les sens du réel, la vie rituelle et les forts liaisons intracommunautaires.
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L’étude se propose de débattre les problèmes actuels posés par la constitution du document ethnologique. La démonstration a pour point de départ des objectifs plus anciens tels: l’objectivité du chercheur, l’investigation des communautés par des méthodes spécifiques à l’ethnologie et à d’autres sciences et la concrétisation des démarches de recherche dans un travail scientifique. Le pas suivant est d’analyser avec acuité les concepts et méthodes classiques et de démontrer que, tenant compte de la position du chercheur (d’une part, outsider, d’autre part, attaché à son propre terrain), son objectivité est une illusion. En fait, toute méthode qu’on pourrait utiliser, à partir de la description ethnographique jusqu’à sa mise en page (ce qui implique un style personnel, une «écriture», en termes littéraires) et à l’immortalisation de phénomènes sociaux (par la photographie, film), la présence du chercheur, de sa personnalité et des relations avec l’objet des recherches est toujours ressentie. On présente les avantages d’une méthode à la limite entre l’ethnographie et la littérature: la «narration personnelle» et à partir de celle-ci la «narration de la tradition», lesquelles se sont avérées très fertiles aussi bien dans le domaine de l’histoire orale que dans celui de l’ethnographie (la reconstitution des traditions et des coutumes d’un village de Transylvanie).
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The paper begins by the presentation of several archaeological and historical aspects of the locality Bucium in the Occidental Carpathians, pointing out the importance of gold extraction for the people living down there. It should be pointed out that most of the population is Romanian. Of course there are foreign influences as well, mostly German. Gold exploitation is presented according to bibliographic sources, but it is also enriched by the memories of the informers. Mention is made of the terrible temptation the yellow metal has on the local people, the author reminding in this context some of the most famous thieves of gold. Equally attractive are the lines presenting various personages who in time became almost legendary in the area, and who becoming rich as a result of working in the gold mine did not know how to use their fabulous fortunes and did bizarre and sometimes even grotesque things. Another part of the paper is dedicated to the analysis of the life style of the people in Bucium, observing their quite high living standard; then the author insists on the exchanges and trade as practiced by the inhabitants of Bucium with those of the surrounding sites; in this context, there is also the description of the pubs in Bucium, as well as of other leisures specific to the youth in these villages. This way the author assures the transition to the presentation of those assemblies where people would meet to do things in common, of the habits of the Easter fast, the Saint Martyrs, the Good Week and Easter, as well as of St. George, Armindenul, Holy Emperors Constantin and Helena, The Ascension, the Ispas, the Birth of St John the Baptist, Christmas, New Year and the Baptism; a larger space is dedicated to the description of the traditions related to events in the cycle of life, pointing out that these are more conservative than those in the calendar cycle. Therefore several pages are reserved to events such as the birth, wedding and funeral (especially the last two!). Somehow specific to mining areas is the belief in spirits of the ores, who appeared either in zoomorphic or in anthropomorphic shape; interesting information is thus being made available to the readers. The conclusion of the paper is that in Bucium there lives a special community, as testified by the life and spirituality of the inhabitants of the place.
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The funeral ritual has strong archaic reminiscences in the 19th, even 20th, century Romanian village. Documents as those from Zapodeni (Vaslui county), dating from 1847 and 1860, give us some clues about the funeral ritual, that contains strong pre-Christian signs.The feasts or charities were done after 3, 9, 20 and 40 days, 6 months, 1 year, and then annually, until 7 years were elapsed from the death, when the un-burial of the deceased took place. They are, in fact, archaic expiatory customs, that facilitate the journey of the soul to the Other World. The water charity has the same role: in his long journey the soul should not suffer from thirst and should reach the Other World well. There has always been a blessing service after building a well, mentioning the deceased soul. An ethnological study based on documents as those presented in this paper gives us a vision on the ancestral mentality of the 19th century peasant.
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Car l’occupation du pâtre (du berger) a été l’une des activités traditionnelles principales des roumains, une étude sur la houlette, accessoire obligatoire du berger, apparaît comme absolument nécessaire.Sans aucune prétention d’être exhaustif, le travail ci-dessus a égard aux houlettes qui se trouvent dans la collection du Musée d’Ethnographie de la Moldavie et tente d’analyser leurs techniques d’exécution, le matériel dont elles sont réalisées, les symbols qui apparaissent dans les entailles avec leurs connotations esthétiques et magique-religieuses, de même que leurs fonctions.
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The text is a record of the conversation with Ablaye Badji – a musician born in a Senegalese griot family, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist playing traditional instruments. The maintheme is griot –storyteller, musician, who cares for nurturing the oral tradition. The griots come from the areas of present Mali, Guinea and Senegal. They enjoy a special esteem in the society of West Africa, which they owe to wisdom and care for tradition and culture. The conversation also concerns the differences between the music of particular ethnic groups and the way of its reception, also outside of Africa.
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The article is based on etnographic research of the Polish drag scene. It focuses on the performers’ bodies as the crucial tools used in the performance to create a specific model of femininity. The masculine body is modeled, and often oppressed, to create the perfect illusion, which has to be completed in a performative act with the use of gesture, movement and style. The body itself is not only the canvas, on which an image of a woman is painted, but also a plane, where different models of gender cross paths. Increasingly, performers purposefully collide somatic styles and codes of masculinity and femininity on their own bodies in a subversive way – posing questions regarding the boundaries of sex and gender, of artificiality and artlessness and exploring the possibility of building one’s identity outside of the cultural system of significance.
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Drawing as a method of gathering and analyzing data is neglected in contemporary ethnographic research. It is also underutilized in qualitative social research in general. The paper discusses the research possibilities offered by drawing, as opposed to those offered by photography and film. Drawing is a highly multimodal medium. It allows for the integration of data that cannot be captured using other visual methods. We present the advantages of drawing as a research method. We illustrate the advantages of drawing using an example of a study carried out in courts. The text concludes with remarks on limitations of drawing as a method of gathering. We also indicate areas of research in which drawing should be treated as a viable research tool.
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This paper represents the second of two planned articles in which we focus on the issue of the study of human-animal relations in ethnology and anthropology and archaeology. In the first paper (Žakula & Živaljević 2018), we mapped out the ways in which the issue of animals and their interrelations with humans was treated in our disciplines up untill, roughly, the 1980's. In this paper, we will present new research tendencies which developed since the 1980's and are characterized by the treatment of animals as active participants in human society and culture, and can be lumped together under the umbrella term the animal turn.
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In this paper, we observe and compare the habits, customs, value system and metaphorical language of the Serbian, French and Italian, by using comparative-contrastive analysis of the idioms whose components denote food names (e.g. ser. dočekati s hlebom i solju;fr. la crème de la société; it. testa di cavolo). The results of our research show that despite the expected differences caused by particularities of national cultures, there are numerous similarities in the metaphorical language of the three nations (e.g. srp. добаркаохлеб, fr. bon comme du (bon) pain, it. buono come il pane). Among other things, these similarities may be influenced by the language affiliation to the European cultural circle.
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Our motivation to reflect on the origin and the ways of using the concept of gender in the work of (mostly female) associates of the Zagreb Institute for Ethnology and Folklore Research was prompted by the recent social moment, often recognized as the "cultural war", within which the term ‘gender’ occupies the central place of dispute. The need for an ethnological articulation of gender-sensitive approach to cultural phenomena in the domestic context emerged as the result of two outcomes. First, female scholars started to reflect shortcomings of their social and academic position in socialist society, and second, they were influenced by Western feminist critique within historiography, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, literary theory, which resulted in women’s studies, later to be followed by gender studies as academic field and civil activism. Bearing in mind these diverse epistemological outcomes and the intellectual tradition of social critique of scholars in the IEF (sub)disciplines, this article aims to show when and how the concept of gender was created and constructed, starting with the female authorship of Radić-inspired ethnography (Kata Jajnčerova), through sociology and anthropology of family (Vera Stein Erlich), the ethnology of everyday life and the zadruga studies (Dunja Rihtman-Auguštin), feminist historiography (Lydia Sklevicky), and interdisciplinary research of the past twenty-five years in which almost all IEF associates have participated to a greater or lesser degree.
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