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THE LAMENT OF ONEGA-VEPS WOMAN ON THE GRAVE OF HER HUSBAND (Maaratledes ennast suulises esituses. Aanisvepsa naise itk oma mehe haual)

100%

Arukask M., Lashmanova A.

Mäetagused

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2009

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vol. 42

55-75

EN

While conducting fieldwork in Russian Karelia, the authors encountered in an abandoned forest village of Yashozero the last native inhabitant - an almost 80 years old Veps woman Maria. There, at noon on 11 July 2005, at the lake-side cemetery, Maria lamented to her husband. Her lament, rich in archaic words and concepts, is more a one-sided dialogue than a monologue. It is possible to point out three different features in the lament as a performance. (1) Lament is addressed to the person residing in the grave. At the same time the lamenter defines oneself as a person on the edge - her senses are extremely responsive to the perspective beyond the grave as well as (2) to personal life and the problems linked to it. These two perspectives alternate and sometimes almost rival in Maria's lament text. (3) The third perspective of a lament is the sense of surroundings derived from the real situation or, more accurately, from other people currently at the cemetery. In the lamenting situation it was possible to notice Maria's ability to switch from the poetic recitative of a lament to regular speech, from the other side and/or personal orientation to current reality.The text of the lament examined in the article is relatively unstable as the performance situation was occasional rather than closely following the ritual order. Primordial fear of the dead, psychological problems and possibly also a new personal inclination towards the deceased vary all the time and are expressed in the composition and poetic language of the lament text. But instead of the historical naturalistic, wild and desolate Karelia, Maria's lament narrates about a traditional society gnarled in the Soviet cataclysm of the 20th century. Instead of a typical Karelian family one sees an increasing commitment to the problems of a modern core family, which has been drawn apart by the renewed society that separates children from the parents both in life and death. There are the desires and doubts of a woman, touched by emancipation, which wait to be expressed in the lament use. Burial lament links the person, the world(s) and the mental culture in an existentially dramatic situation, where there is little left of what is art or entertainment.

2

THE MAGIC OF LAMENTS IN FUNERAL CUSTOMS AND IN WARDING OFF VERMIN/WEEDS (Itkud komi matuse- ja torjekombestikus)

88%

Misharina G.

Mäetagused

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2011

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vol. 47

65-82

EN

The article dwells upon two types of Komi ritual lamentation: funeral laments and the ones used for expelling bedbugs from the house or for ridding the fields of burdock. The focus is on the magic aspect of ritual lamentation, together with the analysis of the genres of laments within protective rites - although the texts used in such rites actually operate as charms and incantation, the context of the custom reveals a number of elements which are intrinsic of the logic of presenting laments. The author comes to the conclusion, by way of analysing the texts performed at funerals and ward-off rites that besides the poesy, uniform popular terminology and recitative presentation, these texts have similar performing characteristics and unitary magic. As an integrated whole, these characteristics make it possible to use the same terminology with regard to the texts used in protective magic rites and the ones of funeral customs.

3

COMMUNICATING ACROSS THE BORDER: EXHUMATION AND THE GENERIC MEMORY OF LAMENTS FOR THE DEAD (Suheldes ule piiri: ekshumatsioon ja surnuitkude zhanriline malu)

75%

Arukask M.

Mäetagused

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2011

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vol. 47

39-64

EN

The present article discusses the issue of elimination of the fear of the dead as it appears in archaic cultures; first and foremost in connection with laments as a folklore genre and lamenting as a ritual practice. Primarily, it is the relevant Balto-Finnic and North Russian traditions that will be observed, in which lamenting has retained its original function of balancing the relationships between the spheres of the living and the dead, and of establishing borderlines, as well as that of restoring the interrupted social cohesion. Lament texts can be viewed as a multifunctional genre that may possibly even be addressed variously, but wherein nevertheless the interests of the community stand foremost, whereas personal psychological problems come only after them and as related to them. The lamenter's role and function in the society will also be examined. The second part of the article will, in connection with overcoming the fear of the dead, discuss exhumation - a phenomenon that has not been preserved in the North European cultures but that can, in the light of treated bones or incomplete skeletons in the graves of Bronze and Iron Ages, be assumed to have at one time existed even in Estonia. In cultures where exhumation has remained a living practice up to the present (Greek culture, for instance), it has probably also solved problems linked to the fear of the dead, since part of the person's skeleton is posthumously reincorporated into the society of the living, in the shape of an amulet or a talisman. The relevant rituals have been performed to the accompaniment of laments. The final part of the article will take a look at certain textual examples of the Seto laments for the dead, which may have preserved a distant memory of the practices connected with exhumation.

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3 Mäetagused

2 2011

1 2009

2 Arukask M.

1 Lashmanova A.

1 Misharina G.

THE LAMENT OF ONEGA-VEPS WOMAN ON THE GRAVE OF HER HUSBAND (Maaratledes ennast suulises esituses. Aanisvepsa naise itk oma mehe haual)

THE MAGIC OF LAMENTS IN FUNERAL CUSTOMS AND IN WARDING OFF VERMIN/WEEDS (Itkud komi matuse- ja torjekombestikus)

COMMUNICATING ACROSS THE BORDER: EXHUMATION AND THE GENERIC MEMORY OF LAMENTS FOR THE DEAD (Suheldes ule piiri: ekshumatsioon ja surnuitkude zhanriline malu)