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The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. № 3 (159), 543—554

UDK 930.2:398.341-035.3(477.83+477.85/.87=161.2)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.03.543

CHEST AND TABLE IN THE TRADITIONAL RITUALS OF UKRAINIAN MOUNTAINS

HOSHCHITSKA Tetiana

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8596-8974
  • Candidate of Historical Sciences,
  • Doctor of Philosophy, researcher fellow of department
  • of Historical Ethnology of the Institute of Ethnology
  • The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: hoshchitska.tetiana@gmail.com

Abstract. Introduction: In the proposed exploration, the author aims to highlight the various beliefs and ideas associated with ancient objects of traditional furniture, which, however, have acquired important ritual significance during the performance of various rituals — a table and a chest.

Accordingly, the object of research is a complex of traditional rituals of the Ukrainians of the Carpathians, and the subject — beliefs and ideas associated with the chest and the table, as with the attributes of traditional rituals.

The main methods that were used are structural-functional, comparative and interdisciplinary. Scientific novelty: For the first time, various beliefs and ideas related to the chest and the table that are reflected in the traditional rituals of Ukrainian mountaineers are comprehensively analyzed, and the specifics of their existence in the traditional ritual culture are analyzed.

Results: The place that these objects occupied in the traditional consciousness of Ukrainian mountaineers has been studied. This is indicated in particular by the fact that it was used for festive meals, not for daily meals; a number of related bans; the fact that it was on the table (and not, for example, on the bench) that most ritually significant objects were made (for example, the baptismal «braid», the ceremonial wedding and construction tree); often the mountaineers were the first to bring the table into the newly built dwelling; a number of divinations were made here; it was the table that played an important role in the funeral rites and served as a place of a kind of «communication» with the afterlife; it is one of the few items of traditional furniture that appears in ceremonial folklore texts (and the image of the table is used to emphasize the solemnity, the unusualness of the celebrated action). Conclusion: In general, similar ideas existed in many Slavic ethnic groups, but in the Ukrainian Carpathians as a fairly isolated region with a specific history of settlement, they are preserved quite fully and contain many local features that significantly complement our ideas about ritual culture and the world of beliefs of Ukrainians in general.

Keywords: traditional rituals, Ukrainian Carpathians, beliefs related to housing, wooden furniture, chest, table.

Received  20.04.2021

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