« 2021. # 5 (161)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. № 5 (161), 1078—1086

UDK 398.3:639.1(477.87)”19/20″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.05.1078

THE TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF OF HUNTERS OF UKRAINIAN CARPATHIANS (BASED ON THE FIELD AND ETHNOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATION OF TRANSCARPATHIAN HUTSULS)

KOROL Vasil

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0471-2115
  • Ph. D. of Sciences in History, Senior Researcher
  • Of the Municipal Institution «Transcarpathian Museum
  • of Folk Architecture and Life»
  • of the Transcarpathian Regional Administration,
  • Kapitulna 33a, 88000, Uzhgorod, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: anshamach@gmail.com

Abstract. This article represents the state of modern life of the traditional hunting ritual, the magical practices which could to ensure successfully shot and to be like a charm for the gun against its spoiling under the influence of magic. Special attention is given to the hunter image in folk hutsuls belief of Transcarpathia. A rite of «calling of the lynx» to alleviate of death suffering of hunter is being analyzed separately. Clarification of specificity of the hunting tradition of the separate ethnographical regions for the modern ethological science is extremely actual.

The main purpose of this article is ethnographical description of the traditional hunting knowledge (about animals, tracking, luring the beast, forms of hunting, folk hunting traps), the beliefs and the magical practices («directional gun» creation, a rite of «calling of the lynx» and etc.) which used by hutsuls of Transcarpathia in the early XXI century.

The methodological basis of the research serves the principle of historicism, objectivity, complexity, systematically; typology and the basic techniques of the ethnological science: historically-comparative, typology, analysis and synthesis.

The research area includes Rakhivsky district of Transcarpathian region, chronological boundaries of study — the first half of the XX — beginning XXI century.

The work is written on the basis of the own field ethnological material gathered by crude methods and covers individuals areas of traditional knowledge and belief of hunters of Transcarpathian Hutsuls region.

Keywords: Hutsuls region, hunter, belief, hunting, trap, gun, charming, shot, talisman, tradition, rite, demonology, magic.

Received  2.08.2021

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