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@article{JEF, author = {Tatiana Vagramenko}, title = { ‘Blood’ Kinship and Kinship in Christ’s Blood: Nomadic Evangelism in the Nenets Tundra}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, year = {2017}, keywords = {kinship; blood; Nenets indigenous people; Evangelical Christianity; missionary movement; Russian Arctic}, abstract = {The article addresses a conflicting encounter of two ideologies of kinship, ‘natural’ and ‘religious’, among the newly established Evangelical communities of Nenets in the Polar Ural and Yamal tundra. An ideology of Christian kinship, as an outcome of ‘spiritual re-birth’, was introduced through Nenets religious conversion. The article argues that although the born-again experience often turned against ancestral traditions and Nenets traditional kinship ties, the Nenets kinship system became a platform upon which the conversion mechanism was furthered and determined in the Nenets tundra.The article examines missionary initiatives and Nenets religiosity as kin-based activities, the outcome of which was twofold. On one side, it was the realignment of Nenets traditional kinship networks. On other side, it was the indigenisation of the Christian concept of kinship according to native internal cultural logic. Evangelical communities in the tundra were plunged into the traditional practices of Nenets kinship networks, economic exchanges, and marriage alliances. Through negotiation of traditional Nenets kinship and Christian kinship, converted Nenets developed new imaginaries, new forms of exchanges, and even new forms of mobility.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {151–169}, doi = {10.1515/jef-2017-0009}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/261} }

@article{JEF, author = {Valentina Mironova and Julia Litvin}, title = { Young People’s Joint Leisure Activities in Traditional Karelian Culture: Norms and Social Practice}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {11}, number = {2}, year = {2017}, keywords = {youth leisure; socio-cultural history of Russia; traditional Karelian culture}, abstract = {The paper considers common youth leisure activities in traditional Karelian culture, from the point of view both of the culturally prescribed norms and the actual behaviour. Special attention is paid to official and social adolescent development frameworks and to reflection of these age-related stages in folk vocabulary. The paper uses a large number of recently published and unpublished ethnographic and folkloristic sources. The authors come to the conclusion that in Karelian culture there is a specific age-group framework for adolescence, as well as gender-related differences between male and female behavioural patterns. The paper shows that girls had to undertake more varied tasks than boys as, on the one hand, they were to play socially prescribed roles and follow moral obligations, remaining modest and, on the other hand, had to be active in order to get married and give birth to children.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {85–100}, doi = {10.1515/jef-2017-0015}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/259} }

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The article examines how a search for identity attempted by Žemaitians (Samogitians), a Lithuanian local cultural group, eventually evolves into the demand that Žemaitian community should be recognised as an autochthonous nation, and Žemaitian dialect – as a separate language, with all implicit rights. Attempts to implement the idea of a self-governed region as a guarantee of reconstruction and protection of Žemaitian identity is the most recent and vivid representation of such proceedings. Since Lithuania’s accession to EU is increasingly perceived as a threat to cultural identity, other local cultural groups also tend to support the idea of self-governed regions. A suggestion that four (4) self-governed regions covering respective local culture distribution areas should be created in Lithuania is promoted. The authors of such demands, due to a multitude of historical, political, and social reasons, still do not have many supporters in central government bodies, and even in local communities, although in Žemaitija their number is greater.

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@article{JEF, author = {Zoltán Bódis}, title = { Storytelling: Performance, Presentations and Sacral Communication}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {7}, number = {2}, year = {2013}, keywords = {traditional tale telling; sacral communication; tale as a language event; hermeneutics; phenomenology}, abstract = {Various schools of tale research manifested the relationship of tales of the sacred based on their ideological preconceptions: the relationship between tales and the sacred is refused or accepted. In this article tales are investigated not from the perspective of the possible sacral referent(s) but rather it looks at them as a kind of communicational subsystem that is part of human culture. The focus is on revealing the specific features of sacral communication in the communication system of tales. Sacral communication is a special form of communication in which the elements of the communication model are transformed. The goal of sacral communication is exactly this kind of identity creation. This may be oriented towards creating a personal or a communal self-identity. Among its characteristics we may find the special type of language forms in which the predominance of linguistic elements pushes the sense conveying possibilities more into the background than usual, and those linguistic forms that restructure consciousness become emphasized. In this communication the tale telling is transformed by a language use characteristic of sacral communication (rhythm, repetition and rhetorical forms). Various examples explain that traditional tale telling creates a complex effect related to the visual, auditory, and kinetic senses: a modification and transformation of the self-understanding and self-identity that connect the world of tale telling to sacral communication.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {17–32}, url = {https://www.jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/145} }

This article analyses Estonian fairy tales with regard to perceiving supernatural lapses of time, focusing on the tale type cluster A Mortal Visits the Other World, which includes tale types ATU 470, 470A, 471, and 471A. In these tales the mortal finding himself in the world of the dead, heaven or fairyland experiences the accelerated passage of time. Returning to the mundane temporal reality and learning the truth the hero generally dies. The difference in time perception has been caused by the hero’s movement in space and between spaces. Three vertical spheres can be detected: 1) the upper world (heaven, paradise); 2) the human world; 3) the netherworld (the world of the dead, hell). Usually, the events of a particular tale take place only in the human world, and either in the upper or the netherworld. The relativity of the passing of time on earth and in the other world makes the tales ‘behave’ in a peculiar manner as regards genre, bringing to prominence features of representation of time typical of legends or religious tales. Although the tales contain several features that make them close to legends (a concrete place and personal names, the topic of death, dystopic endings, characters belonging to the reality of legends, etc.), based on Estonian material they can be regarded as part of fairy tales.

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This article is based on the results of recent fieldwork among the Evenk reindeer herders in the northern Baikal region. It argues that reindeer domestication should be approached as a never-ending process that happens in the context of animal and human movement and can be described as domestication-in-practice and domestication-on-the-move. An important signal of the fact that animals became closer to people is their constant return to a camp. This article presents the ethnography of how people try to facilitate these returns by feeding reindeer with salt, producing smoke and binding calves to stakes and poles. On the one hand, animals periodically come back to a camp. On the other hand, reindeer herders know the places to which the animals return outside the camp and this helps them to find reindeer in certain places. Reindeer herding in the northern Baikal region is based on constant relocation of the herd from place to place, implying daily short-term movement in order to bring animals to the camp and meaning a continuous monitoring of reindeer and predator movements.

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Authors retain the following rights:

– copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights,

– the right to use the substance of the article in future own works, including lectures and books,

– the right to reproduce the article for own purposes, provided the copies are not offered for sale,

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jef-2017-0018 Book review of Riturile de trecere în actualitate – The Rites of Passage Time after Time, edited by Adina Hulubaş and Ioana Repciuc (Iaşi: Editura Universităţii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza“, 2016. 394 p.).

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Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the author(s) and users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) under the following conditions: 1. they must attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor, 2. they may not use this contribution for commercial purposes, 3. they may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Authors retain the following rights:

– copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights,

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jef-2017-0012 The article focuses on the dynamics of contemporary beliefs related to involuntary childlessness. Firstly, the methodological issues of collecting source material on delicate matters and the advantages of anonymous and narrative presentation modes in certain contexts will be discussed. Secondly, conclusions drawn from the collected material, i.e. the temporary and changeable nature of those beliefs, their relations with the mass media, the social and the individual aspects and the motifs of guilt and supernatural punishment in the context of identity issues will be presented, concluding that such belief-based models of explanation and help-seeking eventually function as a mental self-defence mechanism.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the author(s) and users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) under the following conditions: 1. they must attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor, 2. they may not use this contribution for commercial purposes, 3. they may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Authors retain the following rights:

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jef-2017-0017 Interview with Professor Simon J. Bronner (Penn State University).

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Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the author(s) and users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) under the following conditions: 1. they must attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor, 2. they may not use this contribution for commercial purposes, 3. they may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Authors retain the following rights:

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@article{JEF, author = {Zulfadli Aziz and Yunisrina Yusuf and Burhansyah Burhansyah and Meutia Muzammil}, title = { To Say or Not To Say? Construing Contextual Taboo Words Used by Acehnese Speakers in Indonesia}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {14}, number = {2}, year = {2020}, keywords = {}, abstract = {This study describes the types of taboo words used by the Acehnese people in Aceh, Indonesia. Ten language informants in the district were interviewed for this qualitative study. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed prior to analysis. The data were then analysed by the procedures of condensation, display, and conclusion drawing. The findings of the research reveal that the most common taboo types used by Acehnese speakers are taboos of vulgarity or obscenity, epithet, and the taboo of disease. This implies that calling people bad names, talking about sex, mentioning incurable or ‘repulsive’ diseases are among the most taboo discussions in Acehnese society. Taboo words related to religion are found the least in the data, which could imply that these words are small in number because the Acehnese people embrace their religion strongly and thus minimise verbal abuse related to it.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {83–98}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/351} }