« 2021. # 2 (157)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. # 2 (158), P. 278—286

УДК 392.1 (477.86)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.02.278

Lesya HOROSHKO-POHORETSKA

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8741-2467
  • Candidate of Historical Sciences (= Ph. D. in history),
  • Senior Researcher at the Ethnology,
  • Institute of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • e-mail: horoshyna@gmail.com

CHRISTENING OF A BABY IN THE TRADITIONAL PLOT OF POKUTTIA

The purpose of the article is in the coverage of the layer of custom-ritual and world-view phenomena associated with the birth of the child. Theobject of the research is the traditional outlook and the custom and rite culture of the inhabitants of Pokuttia, and the subject — christening of an infant in Pokuttia. In particular, the article examines a number of ritual realities that accompany the church rite of baptism of a child — a holy sacrament designed to cleanse the child from original sin and incorporate him to the Christian faith and community. Among the customs that preceded the church baptism of an infant, it is worth mentioning the «half cross» («pivkhrest») of a weak child, and its symbolic «sale» («prodazh») to strangers, the choice of godparents, the child’s name, especially born out of wedlock, the behavior of godparents: to place a child on a bench in the house, to cross on the threshold of various objects for the purpose of programming to the child of certain qualities in the future, etc. Among the rites that took place after church baptism, the gifting of a child, a midwife, a godparents, the washing of a child, etc. are considered. Beliefs and signs accompanying the church sacrament (observation of the child’s behavior, burning of candles, placing the child under the bench in the church) are not left out either.

The basis for the research are the materials of the author’s field research during 2013—2014 in 40 villages and 3 towns of Kolomyjs’kyj, Gorodenkivs’kyj, Sniatyns’kyj, Tlumats’kyj and Tysmenyts’kyj districts of Ivano-Frankivs’k oblast’, and works of the end of nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The methodology of this work is based on general scientific methodological principles and the basic requirements that apply to the works of historical-ethnographic direction.

It was found out that the ethnolocal version of the maternity customs of Pokuttia has specific Ukrainian features. At the same time it conserves the distinctive manifestation.

Keywords: christening, christening-party («khrestyny»), child, naming of a baby, Pokuttia.

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