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« 2019. #3 (147)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2019, № 3 (147), 660—669

UDK 394.262.5 (477.86)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2019.03.660

SOME FRAGMENTS OF THE FORTUNE TELLING ABOUT THE HARVEST FROM CHRISTMAS TO EPIPHANY TIME (ON THE FIELD MATERIALS ON POKUTTIA)

SEREBRYAKOVA Olena

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1039-2920

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

Contacts: e-mail: o-sereb@ukr.net

Abstract. Actuality of the article is due to the fact that there is still no special intelligence about the local peculiarities of the existence of mantic and magic actions in Pokuttia region. They were carried out the time of the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany in order to predict the crop. Therefore in the offered article the aim is coverage of the layer the custom of ritual and world-view phenomena associated with the divination and magic actions about the harvest of wheat, potatoes, cabbage, onions, beets, carrots, fruit trees, honey, amount of bees, cows and calves etc. Among them — varieties, prophetic signs, mythological presentations, archaic elements etc.

The object of research is the traditional world view and the custom and rite culture of the inhabitants of Pokuttia, and the subject — the mantic and magic actions with different ritual attributes, which carried out to during various holidays of Christmas and Epiphany time. The basis for the article are the materials of the author’s field research during 2013—2014, 2016—2017 in the villages of Kolomyjs’kyj, Sniatyns’kyj, Tlumats’kyj, Tysmenyts’kyj and Gorodenkivs’kyj districts of Ivano-Frankivs’k oblast’, 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 Pokuttia region 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 ritual meals, straw crosses, axe, coals, seeds and vegetable crops of different varieties, salt, candle etc. in the fortunetelling and magic actions the time of the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany of the inhabitants of Pokuttia are analyzed.

It was found out that the ethnolocal version of the mantic and magic actions with different attributes in the inhabitants of Pokuttia is included in the all-Ukrainian canvas, while preserving its peculiar features (local variants of catching wheat, the use of wheat that was collected from the ceiling, functional purpose of straw crosses, ritual «feeding» of fruit trees etc.). According to field records some divination and magic actions are now taking place or they are still stored in memory old local people in some villages of Pokuttia region. It gives an opportunity in future to study the investigated fenomena on this territory.

Keywords: mantic and magic actions/practices (divination), Pokuttia, holidays of Christmas and Epiphany time, crop.

Received 25.03.2019

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