{"title":"Faith and Overcoming Trauma in an Evangelical Romani Community","authors":"M. Slavkova","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0018","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article addresses the role of evangelicalism as a means of overcoming the trauma caused by natural disaster or disease. Using an ethnographic approach, it examines the connection between the beliefs of Roma in the Asparukhovo neigh-bourhood of the Bulgarian city of Varna and the hazards from which they suffered: the flood in June 2014 and Covid-19 during its first wave in 2020. People make sense of tragedy using different interpretations. It is seen as a form of divine punishment, a test for religious people, or it is associated with human negligence. Disaster provokes a variety of reactions among evangelical Christians, ranging from solidarity to distrust. Most importantly, their religious practice provides them with survival tactics and a direction to follow after catastrophe has disrupted their routine.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"55 supp60","pages":"64 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138627554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Two Wars for One Life: Verbalisation of Experience During the War","authors":"Iryna Koval-Fuchylo","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the oral recollections of Leonida Stanislavivna Panchyk, born in 1939 in Makariv district, Kyiv region, where she has lived all her life. The oral recollections were recorded from February 26 to March 5, 2022, during the beginning of the active phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The uniqueness and special value of the presented records lies in the fact that they demonstrate the living life of the Ukrainian narrative tradition. The recorded narrative is a direct reaction to the war. The analysed material and the study of the living situation gave grounds to distinguish the following three groups of reasons that caused the emergence of a memory: characters, events, place. The associative logical sequence of plots in memories is described. All the stories are a child’s memories and primarily describe events that are important to the child. Panchyk’s memories are sustained in one ideological, thematic and genre direction, they are not diluted by other themes or genres.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"120 38","pages":"12 - 24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138608946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Instrumental Vernacular","authors":"Ülo Valk","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Written as a response to professor Simon Bronner’s critical analysis of the concept vernacular and its uses, published in the Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics (2022), the article highlights the functionality of the term ‘vernacular’. It has become a folkloristic category, binding conceptual domains such as ‘folk’ and ‘institutional’, ‘folkloric’ and ‘authored’, ‘oral’ and ‘literary’, ‘belief’ and ‘knowledge’, which have often been set apart in former scholarship. The main focus of the article is on vernacular religion as a concept and methodology, introduced by Leonard N. Primiano in the 1990s, which opened up a new perspective in the study of religions. The article considers ‘vernacular’ as a flexible concept, instrumental in developing folkloristics in its trans-disciplinary dialogues. Projected on the history of folk-loristics as a multilingual field of studies with roots in multiple national, regional and ethnic traditions, vernacular as an outlook enables us to think of folklore as a transcultural concept and disconnect it from colonial legacies.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":" 17","pages":"1 - 11"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138613617","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Relationship Between the Karbi and the Dense Forest Environment: The Role of the Kenglong-Po and Other Entities","authors":"Michele Tita, Kareng Ronghangpi","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0021","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Karbi are an indigenous community who mainly live in Assam, a state in North-Eastern India. The territory they inhabit includes dense forest, hardly accessible to humans that is said to be populated by different non-human and humanlike entities, such as deities, spirits, and a humanoid figure named Kenglong-po. According to Karbi folk narratives, the Kenglong-po is a jointless entity who used to be a Karbi child or man but was abandoned in the jungle and survived there. The narratives regarding the Kenglong-po are today confined to elders and are vanishing from Karbi folklore due to the disappearance of the dense forest environment. The present work outlines the perception and transformation of the forest environment within the Karbi community through analysis of the Kenglong-po and other entities that are said to inhabit the territory of this indigenous group.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":" 38","pages":"117 - 134"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138614040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Living Uncertainty: The 16th Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (Sief)","authors":"Siarhiej Makarevich, Alexandra Forra","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":" 13","pages":"204 - 207"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138619398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Kazakh Pregnancy, Childbirth and Childcare Traditions","authors":"Meruyert Karpykovna Yegizbayeva, Mukhtarbek Karpykovich Karimov, Gulnara Bestibaevna Kozgambaeva, Ainur Kydyrgalievna Beisegulova, Natalya Yurievna Soikina","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0020","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article deals with customs and rituals related to pregnancy, childbirth and childcare among Kazakhs at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, and the preservation and changes in these traditions today. The article is based on written data, as well as field data collected by authors from East Kazakh-stan. The customs of the Kazakh people are connected with those of neighbouring people, including the Turkic-speaking people of Siberia and Central Asia. The rituals associated with a pregnancy and childbirth have been divided into three main stages: prenatal customs, childbirth customs, and postpartum customs. We analysed the formation of these customs and their semantic meanings. This helps us to identify factors that have influenced and affected women’s position in the family and in society, as well as those factors that led to an increase or decrease in status. Kazakhs have a particular respect for pregnant women, and the status of women who give birth to sons, or to many children, is especially high.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"206 2","pages":"100 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138621194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Guillem Castañar Rubio, Anastasiya Fiadotava, L. Laineste
{"title":"“Laughter and Sex Prolong Life”: Current Trends in the Humour Practices of Russian-Speakers in Estonia","authors":"Guillem Castañar Rubio, Anastasiya Fiadotava, L. Laineste","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We investigate the humour production, consumption and sharing of Russian-speakers in Estonia, based on the self-reflections and self-perceptions of their humour preferences and other humour-related behaviour. By studying the representation of the humour practices of this important minority community we can get a more complete picture of humour in Estonia. Analysis of survey results reveals that according to Russian-speakers, among their favourite topics were everyday life, and sex- and family-related matters. Visual humour was the most popular form. Respondents mentioned social media as the primary way of sharing humour, but oral transmission remained important as well. The language of the shared humour was primarily Russian, and the content was mainly not specific to the Estonian cultural context. As humorous vernacular expression offers insights into the mechanisms of identity-building and integration, the choice of language and of source can be interpreted as a way to create and maintain a local identity. On the whole, Russian-speakers in Estonia are reluctant to discuss their minority status in a humorous manner.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":" 43","pages":"176 - 203"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138616593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“That Must Have Been Uncanny!” Experiences of Invisible Others in Contemporary Finland","authors":"Kia Andell","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article* examines experiences of invisible others considered uncanny in the context of secularity in contemporary Finland. Drawing from experience-centred theories of religion and spiritual belief by Ann Taves and David Hufford, the article analyses how uncanny experiences are differentiated from other kinds of experience and how they are justified as real in first-person narratives written by Finnish experiencers. The empirical analysis distinguishes four characterisations of experience the authors consider uncanny, which also serve to convince them of the realness of their experience. By conversating these findings with studies of experiences deemed religious or supernatural, the article seeks to reinforce dialogue with research on similar experiences that people rather consider in scientific and everyday terms. The article then suggests a framework for cross-secular enquiry that would allow scholars in different fields to address differences in how secularity manifests in different locations. Such a methodological framework may create possibilities to juxtapose and compare similar kinds of experience that people may or may not consider supernatural in different secular societies.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":" 48","pages":"135 - 163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138616744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Saint Euplus Miracle in China: The Local Version of a Motif Complex","authors":"A. Starostina","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A Eurasian motif complex built around the illusion of a flood was described by Artёm Koz’min in 2011 under the preliminary name of the Saint Euplus Miracle. Subsequently, this discovery proved to be productive in the understanding of the development of some Chinese plots including the image of a magic paintbrush. This article deals with a combination of the magic paintbrush image and the borrowed motif complex centred around water that apears miraculously, or the illusion of it, in Chinese tradition. The image of a magic brush has been widespread in the literature and folklore of China for centuries, although this combination, which underlies the famous tale Ma Liang and his Magic Brush, remains unnoticed. The aim of the article is to describe the Chinese version of the Saint Euplus Miracle and to point out its characteristic features. In all the Chinese examples analysed, the role of the magic helper was prominent, while in the non-Chinese cases the helper was generally absent. Another feature specific to the Chinese cases was the helper giving the hero a magic object for use in drawing.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"17 1","pages":"21 - 33"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42725740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Cult of the Chinese God Guan Yu in the Studies of Russian Sinologists: Fieldwork Observations, Approaches, Methodology","authors":"Ekaterina A. Zavidovskaya","doi":"10.2478/jef-2023-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2023-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper explores materials, methods and approaches used by Russian sinologists to define and analyse the cult of Guan Yu (also known as Guan-gong, Guandi, etc.), a popular god of the Chinese pantheon, revered by Daoists, Buddhists and educated Confucians, and who was also granted a number of imperial titles. Guan Yu was worshipped in late imperial China as god of war and wealth, paragon of moral virtue and loyalty to the ruler. Published and unpublished materials by Russian scholars shed light on beliefs and practices related to Guan Yu and display an array of methods including translation of original Chinese sources, field observations, scrutiny of numerous written and oral sources as well as mythological motifs. The paper displays how various angles and approaches to the same subject – worship of Guan Yu – allow a multifaceted and wholesome vision of this god’s place in Chinese traditional culture.","PeriodicalId":37405,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics","volume":"17 1","pages":"51 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43105666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}