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« 2019. #2 (146)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2019, 2 (146), 346—353

UDK 392.1 (477.86)
DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2019.02.346

IN ORDER TO GIVE BIRTH TO A CHILD [«ABY ZIJTYSIA Z DYTYNY»]… (MATERNAL CYCLE OF MATERNITY RITUALS OF THE INHABITANS OF POKUTTIA)

HOROSHKO-POHORETSKA Lesya

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8741-2467

Candidate of Historical Sciences (Ph.D. in history), Senior Researcher

Ethnology Institute of National Academy of Sciencesof Ukraine

15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine

Contacts: E-mail: horoshyna@gmail.com

Abstract. At the time of increasing interest in studying the phenomena of traditional culture the research of all its layers is actualized. Therefore, the purpose of the article author sees in the coverage of the layer of custom-ritual and world-view phenomena associated with the birth of a child. The object of research is the traditional outlook and the custom ritual culture of the inhabitants of Pokuttia, and the subject is actually the maternal cycle of maternity rituals, that is, those ceremonial realities that accompanied the appearance of a child in the area of Pokuttia and which resorted to immediately after birth. Among them — folk practices for facilitating and speeding up the birth of a child, rational and irrational (warming up, burning with herbs, drinking consecrated water, vodka, pouring cold water, massaging the abdomen, unplaiting hair, solving knots on clothes and in the house, opening the furniture, strapping by deacon’s belt), cutting and further storage of the umbilical cord, the customary instructions on the first font and the treatment of water after bathing the infant (bathing in the green, spring, consecrated water; attaching to the water herbs, flowers, sugar, honey, money, pencil; preparing a different font for boys and girls; further using of water from the font; pouring water into a designated place), etc.

The basis of the research involves author’s field research during 2013—2014 in the villages 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 paper is based on general scientific methodological principles and the basic requirements that apply to works of historical and ethnographic direction.

It was found out that the ethnolocal version of the maternity customs of Pokuttia has specific Ukrainian features,while maintaining its distinctive manifestation.

Keywords: childbirth, woman in childbirth, child, maternity customs, Pokuttia.

Received 21.01.2019

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