The article concentrates on mapping continuities and changes in the contemporary Estonian school lore about experiences with supernatural beings: main characters, fears, and emotions connected with such supernatural beliefs as well as supernatural protective mechanisms are highlighted. One of the central topics of the article is cultural and linguistic loans (e.g. international newcomers like the Slenderman) and their sources (e.g. films, computer games, narrative folklore). I also investigate the interactions of fantasy and real life, believing and non-believing in schoolchildren’s memorates. The article is mainly based on materials that have been collected from schoolchildren since 1992, but I also draw parallels with traditional older folklore.
This empirical research intends to analyse the use and functions of the image of an angel in advertisements. The aim of the article is to follow the modifications and adaptations that the image of an angel has gone through during centuries, and to find out whether the portraying of angels in advertisements would allow us to draw conclusions about people’s contemporary beliefs and values in Estonia as well as elsewhere in the world. The analysis is based on about 50 advertisements that have mainly been produced during the last ten years.
The article provides an overview of the dynamics of local lore in Hargla parish, its importance and meaning, as well as the influencing factors in the cultural space of a parish nowadays. The article is based on the fieldwork carried out in Hargla parish during the summer of 2012, with an aim to inventory the natural sacred sites, archaeological monuments and collection of oral heritage concerning those sites.
The article gives a short overview of the Estonian werewolf tradition in the 16th and 17th centuries and a glimpse into the 19th–20th-century werewolf beliefs. The image of werewolf of the earlier and later periods is compared. The differences between the images of these two periods are explained with the help of the approaches of Tim Ingold and Philipp Descola, which ground the changes in the worldview taking place together with the shift from the pre-modern society into modernity. The mental world of the 16th–17th-century Estonian and Livonian peasant did not encompass the category of nature, and the borders between the human being and the animal on the one side and organism and environment on the other side were not so rigid as they are in today’s people’s comprehension of the world. The ability to change into a wolf was seen as an added possibility of acquiring new experiences and benefits. As the popular ontology had changed by the second half of the 19th century – the human mind was raised into the ultimate position and the animal was comprehended as being inferior – the transformation of a man into an animal, if it was seriously taken at all, seemed to be strange and unnatural.
Orthodoxy is the majority religion in Bulgaria and Macedonia. While the influence of the Orthodox Church fades away in the presentday society, the religion´s importance grows, among other things, as a symbol of ethno-identification. The current expressions of belief of Bulgarians and Macedonians can be understood as a kind of individual syncretism – the expressions of belief include, in everyday life, the canonical acts (lighting of candles at icons, prayers, making the sign of the cross, fasting) as well as acts which could be identified as being magic (use of a red ribbon against evil eye, belief in sorcery, and relating prophylactic rituals, etc.). As one of the contemporary belief´s expressions, the article depicts a memory feast forty days after death in the village of Bitovo in western Macedonia, which it puts in the context of funerary rituals. This micro-probe shows, using a real material, the symbiosis of religious and magic practices, and it points out the current functions of the ritual (the stabilization, integration, and religious ones) and the positions of the Orthodox Church representatives in these rituals.
The paper discusses the origins of the Estonian word jumal (‘God’). First, it summarises the versions proposed by previous treatises, and thereafter the linguistic material of Estonian runo songs is analysed in order to detect variations in its usage, pointing to the possible pre-Christian meaning of the word. The body of the paper consists of presenting and discussing the alternative stems that the word jumal could be derived from. Among them are some appellatives (jumm/juma ‘log’; jumi/jume ‘colour of the face’) as well as proper names of the mythological creatures of the neighbouring countries (Finnish Jumi and Latvian Jumis) and the name of the Indo-European divine twin (Yemo).The linguistic and geographical distribution of the term as well as the background information obtained from archaeology suggest that the latter version fits the best. In the following a somewhat more extended summary of the abovementioned sections of the paper is presented. The previous treatises agree that the term jumal is of genuine origin. It is considered to be a derivative term consisting of the stem jumV (the last vocal varying between (a/e/i) and of a suffix (-l-). They disagree on its proposed original meaning (‘cover’, ‘face’, ‘sound of thunder’, ‘good’, ‘essence’, ‘shivering’, ‘dead body’) and on what the function of the suffix has been. There are also different opinions on whether the supposed supreme being has been of “heavenly” kind or it could have been located elsewhere. The analysis of the context in which the term jumal was used in the runo songs revealed that besides the usages in the Christianity-related contexts (co-located with Jeesuke (‘Jesus’) and Mari (‘Mary’)) there were other uses where it omitted such a company. Among them were the stereotypical phrases and addresses for help and the pantheistic nature-related usages (in connection with wind, trees and light). There were also some references to the genuine Baltic-Finnic mythological heritage (the God-Smith, the ‘golden trace of god’, etc.) and some usages that could be cultural influences from the neighbours. Tracing back the dialectal stem jumm/juma (‘log’) reveals its cognate in ancient Russian ‘connected rafts; catamaran’. The wood-related origin of the word jumal is considered semantically motivated (the wooden statues of gods being the link between the ideological content and the material), but the stem as the actual origin of jumal is questionable because of its presence not only in the Baltic-Finnic languages but also in Mordvinic and Mari. The stem jumi/jume (‘colour of the face’) appeared to be used in different meanings mainly in the archaic runo songs, indicating ‘vital force’ and ‘mental force’. These meanings fit perfectly with the Estonians’ animistic worldview in general and their obsession with the vital force noticed by the earlier authors. Also, the usage of the term reveals that metonymy (paleness stands for physical/mental weakness) and metaphors (e.g. vital/mental force is liquid, vital/mental force is a person) have been at work. Derivation of the notion of jumal from such a concept seems highly probable. However, the abstract meanings are only locally distributed in a part of southern Estonia while the word jumal(a) is known in the Baltic-Finnic languages and its cognates also in Mari and Mordvinic. In the Finnish heritage there was a mythological creature called Jumi. He appeared as double-faceted: causing of sudden diseases was attributed to him, and at the same time he was the fertility deity, worshipped in a special type of play-weddings. Jumi has been referred to as the Finno-Ugric pantheistic “spirit of the world” having a cognate at least in Mari (Jumo). Derivation of the appellative jumal from such a proper name seems highly probable. In Latvian there is a word jumi-s (f. juma-, n jume-) (‘double fruit’), and its supposed derivative jumala (‘fat female’). Historically, there has been a fertility deity called Jumis in the Baltic pantheon. Derivation of the appellative jumal (‘god’) from the borrowed proper name of the fertility deity also seems probable. In addition, there is a possibility that the whole word jumala has been borrowed. Again, the linguistic and geographic distribution of the term makes this particular version of borrowing somewhat questionable. The Latvian Jumis is etymologically connected to the Indo-European divine twin Yemo, which has cognates in the creation myths of several Indo-European cultures and his role has been to symbolise the connection of living people to the dead ancestors. The original meaning of the stem is believed to be ‘to bind together’. Purely linguistic evidence leaves it uncertain whether this could be the actual origin of the term jumal, but the word has been borrowed to the Finno-Ugric languages at least once (the Sami juomek ‘twin’). The linguistic distribution (cognates in Mari and Mordvinic) suggests that the stem Jum must have been coined or borrowed during the prehistoric period 1900–900 BC. At that time bronze spread from the East to the West, and together with it the fortified settlements similar to the Indo-Iranian ones. The herding and cultivating economy produced more food than hunting and gathering, thus giving an advantage to the tribes who had changed their economy. The archaeological evidence (types of graves) in Estonia reveals a collectivist mentality and a cult of ancestors. Therefore, within the whole economic, cultural and ideological package, borrowing of the name of the deity of dead ancestors YemoJum seems highly probable. There are several other religion-related Indo-Iranian loanwords in Estonian (taevas ‘heaven’ <*‘god’, peied ‘wake’, mana- ‘spell; underworld’, marrask (of skin) ‘dead’). The original ancestor-related meaning of the name/stem jum, however, has been reinterpreted according to the evolving needs of the Finno-Ugric speaking societies: it could refer to the pantheistic “spirit of the world”, the fertility deity, the life force, the ultimate helper, the creator, the heavenly supreme being, etc.
The Estonian Folklore Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum hold a valuable collection of Livonian ethnography and folklore – Oskar Loorits’ collection of Livonian folklore. Oskar Loorits started his journey to Livonians and the Livonian language in 1920, when he participated in a Livonian expedition in Courland as an assistant to Lauri Kettunen, professor of Finnic languages at the University of Tartu. His great interest in Livonians and the Livonian language, Livonian ethnography and folklore developed during this expedition. The Livonian folklore collection is valuable material concerned with the Livonian language and culture. The materials were mostly collected in the 1920s from 12 Livonian villages. The article provides an overview of the collection that physically consists of folders and file boxes in quarter format. The materials include both Livonian folklore texts and their translations. An important component part is the Livonian ethnographic dictionary. In 2013, the digitalization of materials started. The entire physical collection and its partially digitized materials are available to anyone interested. Tuuli Tuisk on Tartu Ülikooli läänemeresoome keelte foneetika teadur, kes kaitses oma doktoritöö TÜ eesti ja üldkeeleteaduse instituudis 2015. aastal. Tema teaduslik uurimishuvi on seotud eeskätt liivi keele hääldusega, samuti teiste lähedaste sugulaskeelte (eesti, vepsa) hääldusjoontega. 2006. aastast on ta olnud tegev eesti keele spontaanse kõne foneetilise korpuse juures. Ta on ka TÜ eesti murrete ja sugulaskeelte arhiivi administraator.
The director Andrzej Barański can be seen as portraying local, mundane life. His oeuvre presents a personal vision of our reality. It is a vision devoid of emotions, Polish myths andRomantic clichés; instead, it is delicate and filled with a detached humour. The artist interprets the world from afar, so to speak; like an anthropologist. Niech gra muzyka (Let the music play) is a 72-minute film consisting of six etudes relating the fortunes of provincial musicians. The narration is unusual, partly realistic, partly fairy-tale; it presents strange happenings in the lives of the protagonists, village musicians, as if they were heroes of folk tales or creatures from folk belief.
PL
Reżysera Andrzeja Barańskiego można nazwać portrecistą lokalnego, codziennego życia. Jego twórczość to indywidualne spojrzenie artysty na naszą rzeczywistość, pozbawione emocji, polskich mitów i romantycznych klisz – natomiast pełne delikatności i zdystansowanego humoru. Artysta interpretuje świat trochę „z oddali” – jak antropolog. Niech gra muzyka to 72-minutowy film składający się z sześciu nowel opowiadających losy prowincjonalnych muzyków. Niezwykła narracja po trosze realistyczna, po trosze baśniowa, przedstawia niesamowite przypadki bohaterów – wiejskich grajków, jakby byli bohaterami ludowych wierzeń i opowieści.
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