Folk healers and their ability to heal can be connected with death or the being owned by death. This deeply archaic structure is evident in how knowledge is acquired, namely that it is passed on from mother to daughter or granddaughter/grandson in a place that suggests a connection to the other world (water, bridge). It is also evident in the fact that the women performing charms must be postmenopausal. Also important is the fact that when knowledge is acquired through dreams and visions, the soul of the initiate or the initiate him- or herself must be in touch with the other world and then return to life by passing over a thin line: a bridge as wide as a hair or a straw. This is a condition akin to death followed by eventual recuperation. Another important point is the difference in physical appearance to those treated, for example, old, white, a pale face, piercing eyes, small, slouching, etc. All these incorporate the idea that the communication with the “other world”, “the other side”, is always given to those people that somehow were in touch with the other world, which from that perspective are far from us, but originating from our environment and transferring the message that they are also close to us. The connection with the other side, with the other, distanced world was also seen in the time-space structure on the charms.
MK
Folk healers and their ability to heal can be connected with death or the being owned by death. This deeply archaic structure is evident in how knowledge is acquired, namely that it is passed on from mother to daughter or granddaughter/grandson in a place that suggests a connection to the other world (water, bridge). It is also evident in the fact that the women performing charms must be postmenopausal. Also important is the fact that when knowledge is acquired through dreams and visions, the soul of the initiate or the initiate him- or herself must be in touch with the other world and then return to life by passing over a thin line: a bridge as wide as a hair or a straw. This is a condition akin to death followed by eventual recuperation. Another important point is the difference in physical appearance to those treated, for example, old, white, a pale face, piercing eyes, small, slouching, etc. All these incorporate the idea that the communication with the “other world”, “the other side”, is always given to those people that somehow were in touch with the other world, which from that perspective are far from us, but originating from our environment and transferring the message that they are also close to us. The connection with the other side, with the other, distanced world was also seen in the time-space structure on the charms.
This article focuses on the phenomenon of folk healing in the Polish region of Podlasie. Folk healers, commonly known as szeptuchy (which translates as whisperers) are elderly women who treat a number of diseases by applying different methods of healing such as prayers and incantations. The practices of the folk healers are related both to magical thinking and folk medicine in which main remedy and the most essential part in the process of healing is a magic word. Szeptucha emerges herself in sacrum and by whispering incantations mainly of Orthodox provenience she persuades the disease to leave a sick person. The existence of the healers in Podlasie can be linked to the Orthodox faith and the East Slavic minorities present in this land since early Middle Ages.
W artykule przedstawiono analizę historiografii polskich badań etnograficznych z zakresu tradycyjnej ukraińskiej medycyny w drugiej połowie XlX–na początku XX wieku. Na podstawie wiadomości z literatury odtworzono proces powstawania i rozwoju zainteresowania polskich naukowców ukraińskim lecznictwem ludowym.
EN
The article contains historio-graphical analysis of Polish ethnographic researches of the folk medicine of Ukrainians from the second half of the XIX to the early XX century. The process of emergence and development of interest of Polish researchers in Ukrainian folk treatments is considered on the base of literature sources.
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