Category: Folkloor

The Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics is the joint publication of the Estonian Literary Museum, the Estonian National Museum and the University of Tartu. Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics (JEF) is a multidisciplinary forum for scholars. Addressed to an international scholarly audience, JEF is open to contributions from researchers all over the world. JEF publishes articles in the research areas of ethnology, folkloristics, museology, cultural and social anthropology. It includes both studies focused on the empirical analysis of particular cases as well as those more theoretically oriented.

JEF is indexed by Sciendo (De Gruyter Open), Elsevier – SCOPUS, Anthropological Index Online, Central and Eastern European Online Library (C.E.E.O.L.), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), ERIH PLUS, MLA Directory of Periodicals (EBSCO), International Scientific Indexing (ISI), MLA International Bibliography (EBSCO) and Open Folklore Project.

From March 31, 2016 the Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics has been published in partnership with Sciendo (De Gruyter Open), the world‘s second largest publisher of Open Access academic content, and part of the De Gruyter group which has over 260 years of publishing history. Sciendo closely cooperates with the majority of abstracting and indexing services, universities and libraries, providing a wide availability of journal‘s content and increasing its visibility. Journal‘s full-text articles, starting from issue 10, can be found on the Sciendo‘s platform at https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/jef/jef-overview.xml.

JEF has neither article submission nor article processing charges.

Rejection Rate 50%

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OA statement

JEF is issued two times per year, both in print format and online. The journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. 

Review process

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics is a peer-reviewed journal. All submissions are reviewed initially by the editors. Submitted research articles that meet the scientific and journal’s editorial standards will be read by two anonymous referees. Based on the reviewers reports, the Editor-in-Chief can accept, reject, or request modifications to the manuscript.

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The non-commercial use of the article will be governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license as currently displayed on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.  Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, the users (other than authors) 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: 1. copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the article, such as patent rights, 2. the right to use the substance of the article in future own works, including lectures and books, 3. the right to reproduce the article for own purposes, provided the copies are not offered for sale, 4. the right to self-archive the article.

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Folklore has been linked to national identity formation. In this article, informed by Johann Gottfried Herder’s romantic nationalism and following Alan Dundes’s (1965) method of folklore studies, it is argued that Indonesia has historically followed this trail, and its recent movement of collecting and disseminating Indonesian folk narratives from across the archipelago is a culminating point in this endeavour. Although the move was claimed to support the national literacy and character building movement, the rigorous endeavour of the government in garnering folktales from all 34 provinces can also be read as part of the national political agenda of strengthening the national integrity, promoting unity in diversity and disseminating so-called national values. Examining further the contexts and procedures of how the narratives were collected and selected for publication, the study reveals an effort to inculcate national values targeted at students in formal education, but more particularly young children as the future harbingers of national values.

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 article presents the results of textual studies of the early recordings of the Yakut heroic epic Olonkho, recorded from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that scientific research of the texts of the early recordings of Olonkho with full broadcasts of the plot is most widely, systematically carried out. At the same time, researchers today continue to pay less attention to early recordings of Olonkho, producing brief or incomplete schematic statements of content. A review of early texts on Olonkho shows that these reviews have incomplete, overly concise, summaries of the plot, although they do confirm the stability of the ancient thematic content, plot structure, motifs, and image system. The richness of the poetic language and the beauty of the style, and the surprisingly artistic content and archaic motifs, which can be seen even in translations, are of considerable value for establishing a full picture of the unique oral creativity of the Yakut people. This study attempts for the first time to systematise transcriptions of early recordings of Olonkho using a summary of the plot in Russian compared with a summary of the plot in the original language. The systematised texts will be used in a comparative study of Olonkho texts recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries. This analysis shows that there has been a transfer of plot with epic texts of the late period in order to maintain a degree of continuity, using both common and specific features to bridge between traditional and modern forms of Olonkho, taking into account regional and local features. 

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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In this case study I offer an insight into the activity of an association for local traditions in a Hungarian village. In addition, I provide some general analytical frames for the examination of such tradition-based locality projects. The field of the observation is Kóny, a village in north-west Hungary. Its peasant traditions – especially the famous male dance, Kóny verbunk – were re-contextualised from time to time in the 20th century. The latest, recent, wave of re-construction concentrates on the systematic (re-)valorisation of locality by highlighting its former peasant traditions and the vernacularisation of the concept of heritage. While the organising work means a new, shared everyday practice for the association’s members, performing the traditions in the public space offers the villagers an occasion to reinforce local identity and identify with the locality.

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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After the disintegration of the Soviet Union Russians had to search for a new identity. This was viewed as an urgent task by ethnic Russian nationalists, who were dreaming of a ‘pure Russian country’, or at least of the privileged status of ethnic Russians within the Russian state. To mobilise people they picked up the obsolete Aryan myth rooted in both occult teachings and Nazi ideology and practice. I will analyse the main features of the contemporary Russian Aryan myth developed by radical Russian intellectuals. While rejecting medieval and more recent Russian history as one of oppression implemented by ‘aliens’, the advocates of the Aryan myth are searching for a Golden Age in earlier epochs. They divide history into two periods: initially the great Aryan civilisation and civilising activity successfully developed throughout the world, after which a period of decline began. An agent of this decline is identified as the Jews, or ‘Semites’, who deprived the Aryans of their great achievements and pushed them northwards. The Aryans are identified as the Slavs or Russians, who suffer from alien treachery and misdeeds. The myth seeks to replace former Marxism with racism and contributes to contemporary xenophobia. 

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

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To exemplify the legitimation processes of a pluralistic health field this article focuses on representations of Chinese medicine and its most popular spokesperson, Rene Bürkland, in the Estonian media. From 320 media texts published between 2009 and 2018 we chose 12 for close analysis with the aim of detecting specific discourses, untangling implicit meanings, and demonstrating the complexity of the rhetorical formulations used to legitimate Chinese medicine. We identified five key discourses – discourses of Bürkland’s charisma, holistic health, individual autonomy, subtle body, and integrative medicine – underpinning various legitimation strategies which aim to change the position of Chinese medicine from alternative to integrative. Our study reveals that the absence of scientific rhetoric together with key discourses has left Chinese medicine and its spokesperson without the attention of biggest critics of CAM and, therefore, has secured a positive image for Chinese medicine in the public discourse.

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-2017-0010 The Yupik language has a word to signify ‘work’ derived from the stem qepgha(gh)- (qepghaq ‘work’ [noun], qepghaghtuq ‘he works’, qepghaghta ‘worker’, etc.) The scope of the meaning of this word changed drastically after the Russians came to Chukotka to stay in the 1930s. While in the pre-(intensive) contact times the word mainly meant ‘house work’ or ‘processing the carcass of a killed animal’, in mid-20th century it acquired new meanings, borrowing them from Russian. The usage of the word also became a replica of Russian usage: the concept acquired new dependent words, like evaluative adverbs and adjectives, or inanimate agents. This change of meaning reflected social changes that took place in the Yupik world as a result of the modernisation process of the 1950s and 1960s, and is an indicator of the deep transformation the society underwent under Russian (Soviet) influence. The paper analyses this process using two sources from two different epochs: Yupik texts recorded by Yekaterina Rubtsova in the 1940s, that is, in the pre-(intensive) contact period, and a modern Russian-Yupik dictionary compiled by Natalia Rodionova, a teacher of Yupik Eskimo at the Anadyr college, and published 70 years later, in 2014. 

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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 following article explores the meaning of roads and the practices of movement for a small group of forest inhabitants in the Western Siberian lowlands on the middle Ob. The indigenous people known as the Khanty live as reindeer herders, fishermen and hunters in the midst of oil fields in the Surgut Rayon. The article examines their emic point of view opposed to the evaluation of the state administration. Anthropological research can access the mobility of people in two ways. At first researchers map movement in physical and metaphysical time and space, they observe and record the practice of movement. The second important source for anthropological insight is what people say about their practices of movement and how they evaluate them and the spaces in which they move. The following article tries to show that these perspectives remain incomplete without a synthesis of both. The first perspective allows only for a functionalist classification and the second allows the researcher to be taken in by the black and white pictures of moral evaluations that render the complexity of everyday life invisible. Only a synthesis of both, a careful interpretation of indigenous narratives before the background of social and political circumstances let us understand the practices of movement we can observe in the everyday life of people. Khanty reindeer herders try to build up a distance from the world of intruders and try to defend their autonomy in the forest. By accessing everyday practices and motivations instead of ready-made explanations it is revealed that the Khanty are not doomed to adapt to new situations, but they try to negotiate and manipulate them in their favour. The article tries to prove that one has to skip the objectifying approach to a hermeneutic one to grasp their abilities to do so.

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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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Based on the ethnographic study of Estonian spiritual Internet forum The Nest of Angels, the article observes the process of sharing virtual social support and creating-confirming spiritual meanings. The forum, explicitly opposing the consumeristic side of new spirituality, has become popular and demonstrates the nature and various roles of contemporary spiritual angels. The study identifies two main modes in which the Nest and the presence of angels might be useful for users. Firstly, emotional support is shared, either by fellow users directly or by confirmations that angels will definitely help. Secondly, the Nest allows people to acquire knowledge both on spiritual and practical issues. As the Nest is dialogical, users can pose questions and find confirmations for their otherwise deviant experiences. Discussions in the Nest encourage everybody to interpret some situations and objects (like feathers) as signs from angels. This interpreting process might change people’s perceptions of the world by adding a layer of positive emotions. The study demonstrates how the angelic presence (or at least endeavour towards the presence) helps to establish and keep the tonality of benevolence which functions as the cornerstone of this virtual space. The Nest supports a specific epistemological stance manifested in the angelic, traditional ‘feminine’ values of empathy, softness, and caring. Angels and the idea of angelic presence is the main factor helping to keep the ‘high-vibrational’ and benevolent atmosphere of the forum and empowering the users inside the traditional understanding of ‘feminine softness’.

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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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This article discusses contemporary vernacular theory about the elusive energies that emanate from the ground. These energies are reported to be the ultimate reason for different remarkable occurrences, both natural and supernatural. The hypothesis of special energies is expressed in local tourism, in ecological debates and healing practises, driving the curiosity of amateur science. In these expressions knowledge as a form of engagement with the supernatural plays an integrating role between the individual and the forces beyond. Dowsing reveals the ‘energetic’ nature of reality, which will be discussed using three examples. Tuhala Nõiakaev (the Witch’s Well) as a peculiar natural sight in the north of Estonia has drawn together many reports of energy columns that are linked to underground rivers and cultic stones. Another place under discussion is also famous for healing energy points: Kirna Manor works as a centre for spreading knowledge of the interdependence of physical health and the search for a spiritual path with the help of energies that the next example, the Society of Dowsers, attempts to discover using scientific methods. In these examples ‘energy’ designates the position of the individual, in which the participative relationship with the environment works as a form of folk epistemology within the limits of cultural understanding.

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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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