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The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. # 2 (158), P. 327—341

УДК 398.33:2-545(477)”18/20″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.02.327

Olena Serebryakova

  • candidate of Historical Sciences,
  • research worker of the department
  • of the modern ethnology
  • of the Ethnology Institute
  • of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine
  • e-mail: o-sereb@ukr.net

RITUAL USE OF SOME HOUSEHOLD THINGS AND RITUAL FOODS IN THE CALENDAR RITUALITY OF UKRAINIANS: MANTIC AND MAGIC ASPECT

Actuality of the article is due to the fact that there is still no special article paper of the peculiarities of the existence of mantic and magic actions in different regions of Ukraine during the year. They were carried out the time mainly of the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany in order to predict the crop, favorable days for plowing, weather, health of family members and livestock, marriage. Therefore, the aim of the offered article is coverage of the layer of the custom of ritual and world-view phenomena associated with the divination and magic actions about the harvest of cereals, vegetables, fruit trees, honey, amount of bees, cows and calves etc. Among them — varieties, prophetic signs, mythological presentations, archaic elements etc.

The object of the research is the traditional world view and the custom and rite culture of the inhabitants of Ukraine, and the subject — calendar mantic and magic actions with different ritual attributes (coal, ritual foods, grains of bread, spikelets of cereal, vegetable crops etc.), which carried out to during various holidays of calendar. The basis for the article are the materials of the field research, local lore articles and works of the end of nineteenth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. Also comparative material from other regions of Ukraine is presented. For the best opening of originality of divination and magic actions in Ukraine use also information about them in the traditional culture of other people of the world. The methodology of this work is based on general scientific methodological principles and the basic requirements that apply to the works of historical and ethnological direction.

Mantic and magic traditions related to the ceremonial use of coals, seeds of cereals and vegetable crops of different varieties etc. in the fortunetelling and magic actions the time to during various holidays of calendar of the inhabitants of Ukraine are analyzed. Their functionality, semantics, attributive, verbal levels, functional purpose, symbolism and magical properties of ritual attributes, modifications, and also degree of preservation of investigated phenomena in modern time are revealed.

It was found out that the considered variants of calendar divination and magic actions with different ritual attributes in the Ukrainians have peculiar features. Among the remnants of archaic phenomena the cult of ancestors, belief in the truth of the results of divinations, verbal, productive magic, the magic of protection, magical properties of ritual attributes and their use in various mantic and magic actions etc. was preserved.

Keywords: mantic and magic actions/practices/customs (divination), calendar holidays, Ukrainians, coals, ritual wheat porridge, bread, cinder, crop.

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