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@article{JEF, author = {Ekaterina Iagafova}, title = { Simēk in Modern Chuvash Ritual Culture}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {14}, number = {2}, year = {2020}, keywords = {}, abstract = {The paper describes the features of the Simēk ritual (compare semik in Russian) in different ethnic and religious (Orthodox Christian, ‘pagan’, Muslim) and ethnic and territorial groups of Chuvash. The author shows the key role of Simēk in the structure of rituals of the semik and Trinity block and reveals its links with funerary, commemorative and wedding rites. Simēk is one of the main rituals on the Chuvash ritual calendar. Traditionally, it is associated with commemoration customs of the people and is one of the three compulsory days of commemoration of family ancestors. It corresponds to semik in the Russian ritual calendar and is held either on Thursday (for unbaptised Chuvash) or on the Saturday before Trinity (for the majority of Orthodox Chuvash). Today Simēk is performed in the villages as a commemoration ritual with a visit to the cemetery, which involves both villagers and those family members who live in cities. After visiting the cemetery family members conduct visits, turning a commemoration ceremony into a festival. Thus, Simēk strengthens family links between villagers and city dwellers. With increasing levels of religiosity in society the importance of Simēk as a means of preserving and spreading ethnic traditions has also increased. In modern rituals there is some structural transformation of Simēk among the Orthodox community, but at the same time it is possible to trace the actualisation and expansion of the ritual together with the general trends in unification of the Chuvash ritual complex.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {67–82}, url = {https://jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/379} }

@article{JEF, author = {Patrick Laviolette and Alla Sirotina}, title = { Karakats: the Bricolage of Hybrid Vehicles that Skate and Swim}, journal = {Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics}, volume = {9}, number = {1}, year = {2015}, keywords = {hybrid technology; car culture; east Estonia; masculinity}, abstract = {This paper explores the material culture of ‘karakat’ (Russian karakatitsa) hybrid vehicles in the town of Kallaste, east Estonia. It focuses on the social factors that allow karakat culture to change. The region of study was part of the Soviet Union so the phenomenon of self-assembled vehicles implies socialist and communist considerations. Local people are still surrounded by the material legacy of that time. Technological assemblages from the past therefore continue to live in the present. It was popular in the USSR to maintain off-road vehicles, which were put together with the owner’s own hands. Such a bricolage technique has been preserved since the middle of the 20th century and is something that is used as a marker of local identity. The distribution of spare parts was problematic in former Soviet times and this has influenced the way men now make karakats. Current owners spend a lot of time servicing their vehicles. The issue of masculinity is highly relevant here because dealing with technology is seen as a masculine activity. Moreover, because it is increasingly open to tourists, karakat culture is becoming a tradable commodity.}, issn = {2228-0987}, pages = {21–40}, url = {https://www.jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/188} }

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Of all Romanian dances with ritual functions the most archaic and dynamic is the căluş, a custom of great complexity in its functionality and manifestation, in which dance prevails. Over the course of time, the dance aroused the admiration and interest of many scholars due to the ancient ritual elements it contains, as well as for its spectacular virtuosity and the beauty of the performance and music. The purpose of this study is to reveal the meanings and functions of the căluş, primarily at the social level, in its natural environment – the traditional Romanian village – and to make an analysis of the key moments, the logical order of the dance sequences, gestures and ritual acts, the importance of its props and of group composition and organisation.

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In this article I attempt to analyse the way in which the Estonian national costume, as heritage, was defined through the cooperation of the state, the museum and ethnographers in the 1930s. The nationalist state wished to strengthen the national identity of Estonia. The Estonian National Museum (ENM) as a repository of memory and knowledge availed its resources to support cultural propaganda. The ethnographer Helmi Kurrik, a woman of strong will and keen interest in folk textiles, managed to fulfil her obligation at the expense of her own health. The primary result of her labours was a handbook entitled Eesti rahvarõivad (Estonian Folk Costumes) (1938) which has influenced general knowledge of folk costumes in Estonia up to the present day – the ‘right’ national costumes are believed to derive from authentic ethnographical folk costumes held in the Estonian National Museum.

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In this article, I investigate some of the elements and mechanisms involved in the process in which cultural heritage, in the form of narrated local history, emerges. My argumentation is that certain collectively known phenomena achieve such a strong agency of their own that they have the power to force themselves into individuals’ life histories. In analogy with Albert Eskeröd’s concept dominant of tradition, I suggest that these elements from local and national history be called dominant units. The interplay between several individual narratives in a local community and the collective elements takes the form of a joint negotiating process, generating agreements and discrepancies, shared ‘truths’ and contested disagreements, the acceptance of shared local symbols and the forgetting of less captivating material. The emerging products of such processes are grand narratives in different degrees of development circulating at different levels and in different cultural arenas in a community.

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This personal exploration of “tradition” started after my father died, an event which sparked a series of inner conversations about being a son, being a parent, and the learning that happens over generations. What do I mean by “tradition”? What kinds of conversations would I like the term to open up for me? If I were to consider it as a signpost, what conversations, communities, and contexts might it point to? I work to clarify what “tradition” can mean for me, outlining a wish-list of the aspects I would like my own understanding of “tradition” to encompass. I highlight two common approaches to “tradition” I would like to steer away from: “tradition” as prescriptive-invariance, and “tradition” as resource management. I offer a personal-is-political account of “tradition” to open up analytic opportunities, as I seek to make more appropriate sense of learnings, relationships, and death.

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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This article explores different perspectives on indigenous communities and their traditional knowledge on the national level as well as on the global stage. It aims to provide a survey of such perspectives and the links and interdependencies between them using the example of the world Intellectual Property organization’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (WIPO’s IGC). It is argued that different socio-political constellations and power relations lead to terminological perspectives of differentiation, i.e. the semantic construction of an external Other in the past that is used to evaluate the present and place oneself in a position of advantage.

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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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The conceptualisation of culture in international law has been rooted in two main conceptual poles: persons – protection of cultural rights of individuals, groups and communities, and property – protection of cultural goods. This finds an explanation within the subject and object dichotomy that is fundamental in law but seems to be insufficient for the interpretation of ‘intangible cultural heritage’. The article analyses whether ‘intangible cultural heritage’ can be interpreted as being linked to the one, the other or both of the named poles of conceptualising culture in international law. The purpose of the article is to seek a conceptual sequence that in the history of international law has lead to an existing network of legal concepts and the ‘intangible cultural heritage’ therein.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2019-0006 Missionary work by Pentecostal Finnish Roma (Kaale) started among the Roma in Estonia during the 1980s. These mission activities, carried out by both Finns and local Roma, intensified over the next two decades and continue today. The article looks into a specific case of how converted (Pentecostal and Baptist) and non-converted (Russian Orthodox, Lutheran, Catholic) Roma women in Estonia conceptualise the practice of fortune telling. For this purpose, the role of fortune telling as a traditional Roma skill and occupation is discussed as a part of the conceptualisation, together with the possible efficacy of fortune telling and its relation to beliefs in magic that also shape the women’s attitudes towards it. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the article argues that although fortune telling is considered satanic by born-again believers and is therefore abandoned, its condemnation is not straightforward in less controlled narration situations, thus posing an extra challenge for Roma women in the conversion process.

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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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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2019-0006 Missionary work by Pentecostal Finnish Roma (Kaale) started among the Roma in Estonia during the 1980s. These mission activities, carried out by both Finns and local Roma, intensified over the next two decades and continue today. The article looks into a specific case of how converted (Pentecostal and Baptist) and non-converted (Russian Orthodox, Lutheran, Catholic) Roma women in Estonia conceptualise the practice of fortune telling. For this purpose, the role of fortune telling as a traditional Roma skill and occupation is discussed as a part of the conceptualisation, together with the possible efficacy of fortune telling and its relation to beliefs in magic that also shape the women’s attitudes towards it. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the article argues that although fortune telling is considered satanic by born-again believers and is therefore abandoned, its condemnation is not straightforward in less controlled narration situations, thus posing an extra challenge for Roma women in the conversion process.

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:

– 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,

– the right to self-archive the article.