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« 2021. # 3 (159)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. № 3 (159), 621—629

UDK 398.47(477.82)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.03.621

TRADITIONAL WAYS OF PROTECTING FROM WITCHES IN THE CALENDAR RITUALS OF VOLHYNIANS

KRYVENKO Anastasiia

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9353-2919
  • Candidate of Sciences in History, Senior Researcher,
  • the Institute of Ethnology of the National
  • Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • The Department of Modern Ethnology,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine
  • Contacts: е-mail: n.d.kryvenko@gmail.com

Abstract. According to ethnographic sources of the XIX—XX centuries and materials of modern field research in the article it is analyzed the worldview and rite expression of the ritual and mythological motives of «fighting with witches» in the calendar custom of the Volhynians. Author describes traditional methods of magical neutralization of witchcraft bearers, averting and preventing from their magic. It is also shown the occurrence of rituals, its local variants and explained to what extent ancient ritual practices and demonological beliefs are retained on the territory of Volhynia nowadays.

The study of the general ethnic features and local specialty of magic neutralizing the withes represented in the calendar tradition of the residents of the ethnographic Volyn is the actual task in modern ethnological science.

The object of the research is calendar rituals of Volyn, and the subject — warnings, prohibitions, protective rites in the folk calendar, defined by demonological notions about witches.

According to the comparative analysis and the use of various methods (field observation, typological analysis, structural-functional, comparative-historical, reconstructive, structural-semantic) allowed to conclude that some apotropaical practices belong to those ethno-local customs and ritual phenomena, which are clearly emphasized in the calendar tradition of the inhabitants of ethnographic Volhynia. At the same time, many of the other means of protection against witches have an all-Ukrainian, another-ethnic equivalents and typological parallels in family, construction, agrarian rituals. Their further ethnological study is scientifically promising for a holistic and in-depth research of the entire field of folk rituals.

Keywords: witch, calendar customs and rituals, beliefs, protective magic, apotropaic objects.

Received  2.06.2021

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