SLFK 212, January 27, 2004
Last lecture &endash; 5 criteria of folklore with emphasis on folk transmission
Loss of this is something I, as a teacher, regret
Because of amount of material that can be transmitted
Effectiveness of thinking/work that is not totally conscious &endash; like driving car
Talked about folk cooking versus cookbook
Within a TRADITION many things are understood
And reinforced by other aspects of culture
When things are no longer understood and need to be spelled out &endash; parallel to full instructions on Lego assembly
The various ridiculous warning signs &endash; recently written up
Old ones &endash; on lawn mower: run off before cleaning blades
On hair dryer &endash; do not use while showering
New &endash; carpenter's awl &endash; not meant to be used as dental drill
Oven cleaner &endash; if you can't read all the instructions and understand them, don't use this product
Back to Russian and Ukrainian material &endash; showed videos
Life today is not all that different from what Tian-Shanskaia describes
Student who went to a dacha outside of Moscow
Map &endash; my work, the Minyonoks, the Klaus expedition
Two videos with Greg
Remember last lecture that there are certain core beliefs, often expressed in a contradictory fashion
You must protect self from cold &endash; but you must also conquer cold
The archives
Running in winter
Swimming in the Dnipro
Teaching your baby to tolerate cold
Reason &endash; cold is associated with the dead
You both fear it and want to conquer
Fear > avoid
Conquer > opposite of avoid, as in confront, actively deal with
Other stuff &endash; mouth and food
Protect mouth
Protect openings in general &endash; to house, on clothing
Show house again
Parallel to kin: fear of strangers, yet once you are "adopted" is quite encompassing
So with food &endash; protect mouth, cover make
Make sign of cross over self before eating
Sign of cross over food, esp. bread before preparing
At the same time food and mouth &endash; sharing common bowl, glass
Including the urban soda fountains
Americans and double-dipping in a dip bowl at a party
Many Seinfeld episodes deal with issues of this sort
You do drink from the same cup on a very special RITUAL occasion
And even here there is debate, esp. after AIDS fears
Among Slavs &endash; Food as test
Sharing food in general
I have a hard time eating in front of others without sharing
Pack of cigarettes goes on the table
Bottle of vodka
Sharing a bottle with strangers &endash; Soviet era
Household hierarchy of eating
Based on
Age
Gender
Inside/outside
Old people have precedence
Esp. older males &endash; if common bowl, then spoon sizes
Eating fast
Lowest person in hierarchy is the bride, esp. before she has borne a child
Recall toys
All the stuff about pregnancy in Tian-Shanskaia
Kin terminology for bride (again, esp. before she has borne a child)
Nevesta < unknown one
Nevestka is the term used for a weasel
Nasty animal, invades farmstead and takes food without contributing
Other kin that is more than kin, at least in terms of words used
Grandmother = baba, babka
Connect to butterfly, a special ritual bread
Grandfather = did/ded associated with a decoration used at Christmas and the ancestors in general
Please note that ancestors are specifically male
Gender differences and one of differences is that the male course of a life seems to be smooth &endash; no breaks
Female course breaks at marriage
Paralleled in clothing
Male clothing stays essentially the same throughout a life &endash; gets bigger and darker with age
Female switch at marriage
Girl's clothing
Young woman, marriage age
Older woman = married woman
Hair parallels &endash; single braid and double braid
Uncovered hair only for conjuring
Woman's marking comes esp. at the time of marriage
Tells you when she is nubile &endash; ready for marriage
When she is already married
Food shared and other things are too &endash; property issues
What do people own?
Are people willing to accumulate property? Tian-Shanskaia complains about peasants on this point &endash; peasant won't provide for future
More evidence &endash; neighborhood granny picking flowers in other people's gardens
Soviet era theft at factories problem
Helping out neighbors in terms of working fields
Helping out neighbors in general
Reaction to compliments &endash; nay-saying
What it all boils down to is that you own essentially nothing
What you do have, you are obliged to share
Not just food, but clothing, bedding, furniture
Sharing clothing &endash; while it is still whole, including the laundry issue
Once the clothing is worn
Reason for deflecting compliments &endash; if someone likes/wants something you have, you are obliged to share
Special position of bride and special emphasis on cloth
She comes into the groom's household with nothing but a skrynia/sunduk
And contents are for her part of the family unit &endash; as in for her and her husband
They are NOT her possession
Only thing she can really own is jewelry and that goes to daughter
Can be used for family finances in time of dire need, but is a stigma and avoided
She is supposed to bring 10 years worth of linens when she comes
Display of the skrynia/sunduk and its contents at wedding
Need to fill one in order to get married
All this = importance of work
A desirable bride is a good worker (and a good producer of babies &endash; but that is a kind of work, contribution to the family)
Men going off to work in cities and needing to get married before they do to leave behind a good farm hand
Display of her embroidery is a display of her ability to work
Presumably hints at her production capacity in other areas, like babies
Importance of work mirrored in clothing
Suitable for working in, even the festive clothing
The practical level of clothing &endash; like the big slits for breast feeding
Importance of work mirrored in proverbs, riddles
Also in layout of house and farmstead
In house &endash; "clean" and "dirty" = work areas
Male and female areas
In farmstead &endash; again, clean and dirty and male and female
Outside farmstead &endash; the fields
Pattern tends to be female inside and male outside
Like care for and painting of house
Kitchen garden/field
Which is kind-of weird since she marries into his household
By the same token, this "stranger" is supposed to continue HIS family line
She takes care of the graves of his parents, her in-laws, when they di
In terms of work patterns:
Women can cross over into men's areas (and do men's work)
But men cannot cross into women's areas and do women's work.
Spirits of the house, farmstead, forest, etc.