scholarly journals “Ritual” mushrooms in the traditional culture of the Ob Ugrians

Author(s):  
Tatiana V. Voldina

Introduction. In the traditional culture of the Ob Ugrians, certain types of mushrooms have received a special mythological “status” that reveals their place in the traditional picture of the world and explains the power of their impact on humans. The purpose of the study is to present the role of mushrooms in folk medicine and ritual practices of the Khanty and Mansi. These interconnected areas have not been sufficiently studied at the moment, which reflects the relevance of the work. Materials and Methods. The article uses the published data and field materials of the author, as well as folklore sources. The study was carried out on the basis of an interdisciplinary and systematic approach using the structural-functional method. Results and Discussion. In the treatment and cleansing rituals of the Khanty and Mansi, the use of birch tinder fungi has become widespread. Their healing properties have been known since antiquity, since image of the Tree of Life was associated with this tree. Another representative of the mushroom kingdom, the fly agaric, was used sporadically, primarily as a hallucinogenic agent used in ritual practices. The properties of this mushroom allow researchers to make an ambiguous conclusion that the secret of soma, the drink of the gods, lies in the portion made from the fly agaric. Conclusion. Changes in living conditions led to the gradual disappearance of the traditions of folk medicine and ritual practices of the Ob Ugrians, which significantly complicates their study at the present period.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-183
Author(s):  
Yevgeniy V. Karakin ◽  
Tatyana V. Pashkova

Introduction. The article studies the role of the furnace in funeral-memorial rite and folk medicine of the Karelians. The study examines the functions of the furnace at all stages of the funeral-memorial rite, starting with the death of a person. The authors address the issue of the function of the furnace in folk medicine, focusing on healing and protective magic, which also traces the furnace with one of its functions: an intermediary between the earthly and the afterlife. The relevance of this study is determined by the absence of special works based on Karelian material, as well as in comparison with the Finno-Ugric and Slavic peoples. Materials and Methods. The material for the study was the funeral-memorial rites of Karelians and Karelian folk medicine studied using comparative-historical and comparative-comparative methods. Results and Discussion. This article analyzes the functioning of the furnace in funeral-memorial rites and folk medicine of the Karelians. The analysis considered the data of the Baltic-Finnish peoples (Karelians, Finns, Vepsians) and, more generally Finno-Ugric peoples. In addition, it reviewed the information about the traditions of Russians who originally lived at the same territory with the Karelians. In the course of the study, it established the common features in the rites at all stages of burial of the studied peoples, and in folk medicine at the moment of a person passing away when a dying person departs to another world and. Conclusion. Household items, funeral ceremonies and folk medicine appearing in funeral rites, as well as some representatives of the fauna were endowed with the ability to be an intermediary between the earthly and the underworld. Among the household items, a furnace and its utensils associated with the cult of ancestors, which were endowed with cathartic and apotropic functions and played a crucial role in the final rite of a person’s life cycle. According to data on Karelian folk medicine, it was believed that a dog, a snake and a crow have a connection with the “other” world, where diseases come from. For example, a dog was used in medical rites to remove the disease from the world of people to the «other» world. In some cases, both a dog and a furnace appear in the process of treatment.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Kristupas Sabolius

Kitybės klausimas dažniausiai kyla iš ego santykio su kitais arba su pasauliu. Šiame straipsnyje daroma prielaida, kad įsivaizdavimo funkcija ištirpdo subjektą ir jame pačiame atveria intersubjektyvią perspektyvą. Šiuo tikslu sugretinami Sartre’o, Husserlio bei Merleau-Ponty įsivaizdavimo funkcijos tyrimai, kuriuose išryškėja vaizdo kaip iš ego centro išslystančios ribos statusas, ir Holivudo filmo „Kovos klubas“ siužetas. Viename iš šios juostos epizodų pasirodantis pingvinas žymi egologinės schizmos akimirką ir tampa fantazijos apsireiškimu ir įsikūnijimu.Išgryninus žaidybinį, savarankišką ir multiformišką charakterį, galime konstantuoti, kad įsivaizdavimas, jei kalbėtume Kanto terminais, yra ne papildanti tarpinė funkcija, bet transcendentalinio subjekto genezėje atlieka paradoksalų „svetimos vidujybės“ arba „vidinės svetimybės“ vaidmenį. Vaizduotė yra katalizatoriaus, kuris, likdamas šalia, įgalina transcendentalinių formų išsikristalizavimą.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: vaizduotė, įsivaizdavimas, fantazija, ego, kitybė, sąmonė.PENGUIN AND PROTEUSImagination as Otherness in meKristupas Sabolius SummaryThe question of Otherness is usually taken into account while discussing the Ego’s relation with Others as well as with the World. This article is based on the premises that the function of phantasy melts the subjectivity, revealing the perspective of intersubjectivity within it. On this purpose Sartre’s, Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s researches on the function of imagination, which elucidate the image as the boundary slipping from the centre of Ego, are compared to the story of Hollywood’ movie „Fight Club“. The penguin, which appears in one of the episodes, registers the moment of egological schism, thus becoming the revelation and incarnation of phantasy. While the playful, autonomous and multiform character of imaginary is cleared out, we can ascertain, speaking in Kantian terms, that it has not a complementary or intermediary function, but, in the genesis of transcendental subject, plays the paradoxical role of „allien innerness“ or „inner alienity“. Thought remaining always beside, imagination is a catalyzer which enables crystallization of transcendental forms.Keywords: imagination, imaginary, phantasy, ego, otherness, consciousness.


2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
DAVID WALTON

Recently hearing Fred Singer from the USA lecture on what he perceives to be the uncritical ways in which global change has been attributed to anthropogenic effects reminded me of the importance we should attach to those who question our current beliefs. For Fred it was not sufficient that the IPCC had engaged many of the best scientific brains in the world to reach the existing consensus; they might all be wrong because the original question or assumption was wrong. Fred was strongly challenged by the audience of Antarctic scientists, not least because some of his quotations were selective in order to initiate discussion. And we know that there are areas of considerable weakness amongst the several proxies used to compute the rate of temperature change, that we have only poorly quantified and modelled the role of clouds, energy transfer between the oceans and atmosphere, water vapour as a greenhouse gas and that we have yet to be certain that the Global Climate Models really do have all the most significant driving variables. So the IPCC conclusions are drawn on the best available evidence with complementary patterns derived from several different approaches and constitute the best we can do at the moment.


Author(s):  
L. Lytvynchuk ◽  
I. Rashkovska

The article reveals the actual question of the role of the ideal as a model for teenage inheritance in the process of studying at a university. The multiplicity of problems associated with the formation of the idea of the "ideal" implies the interdependence of various aspects of this process, a holistic approach to the problem. This study used a systematic approach to identify the leading ideals of persons of adolescence as a way of seeing the world.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Boer

This study offers a specific interpretation of the Taiping Revolution in China in the mid-nineteenth century. It was not only the largest revolutionary movement in the world at the time, but also one that was inspired by Christianity. Indeed, it marks the moment when the revolutionary religious tradition arrived in China. My account of the revolution stresses the role of the Bible, its radical reinterpretation by the Taiping revolutionaries, and the role it played in their revolutionary acts and reconstruction of economic and social relations. After providing this account, I raise a number of implications for Marxist approaches to religion. These involve the revolutionary religious tradition, first identified by Engels and established by Karl Kautsky, the question of political ambivalence of a religion like Christianity, and the distinction between ontological and temporal transcendence.


Author(s):  
Oksana D. Fais-Leutskaya

Summary: This article analyzes the empirics of mental and behavioral models of Sicilians in existential conditions, namely in February – May 2020 during the coronavirus epidemic and quarantine measures in Italy. The study is based on the author’s field material. In the course of the paper, the author addresses such aspects of traditional culture as folk medicine, local cuisine and rituals. Analysis of the realities clearly demonstrates the devotion of a large part of Sicilian society to the ancient cultural strata that have a particular connotation: the ancient remedies, rational and magical, and prevention of diseases and demonic apparitions, as well as therapeutic practices aimed at healing various ailments, but mainly plague and dysentery, which repeatedly struck Sicily. The dietary changes of alimentary habits of the Sicilians, and appeal to certain "health" and cleansing rites have the same focus. The study of empirical material reveals the medieval roots of beliefs and recipes, which the Sicilians appeal to, the role of historical memory, which guarantees preservation of archaic culture, the predominantly folk nature of the cultural substrate addressed by representatives of local society, and the oral way of information transmission. The theory and concepts of anthropology of fear and anthropology of disasters allow to understand the mechanism of this behaviour and the reasons for the revitalization of such a specific culture in these existential for Sicilians conditions, and also to focus on other social issues (the assertion of the society’s identity and the problems of relationships with other communities).


Author(s):  
E. G. Zheleznova

He necessity of language that would be spoken by all the people in the world, has existed in all times. As a common language that has developed naturally, does not exist, then the world developed the idea of creating an artificial international language, which, among other things, could perform a unifying function. The article discusses the concept of “language" and “artificial language", provides definitions of these concepts, also considers the causes of these concepts and provides an overview of the various artificial languages. The relevance of this work lies in the fact that at the moment of development of our society there is a need to create common language, the purpose of which would be international negotiations or settlement of international conflicts and other political, economic and cultural activities. It is also possible to increase interest in such science of language as interlinguistics, and as a result, further development of linguistics as a whole thing. At the moment there are about five hundred artificial languages, but only a few of them are more or less suitable for real communication. The aim of this work is to investigate the role of artificial international languages within the framework of modern culture and modern society. The objectives of this article: to reveal the very notion of language; to select the types of artificial languages; to give the description of each of the most well-known international artificial languages. In the article we have used the following research methods: analysis, synthesis, and abstracting.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 595-605
Author(s):  
Aleksey O. Bezzubikov

The article provides the analysis of mytho­logical dimension of the film “Ilych’s Gate” (Zastava Ilycha) by M.M. Khutsiev. The author concludes that the text of this film represents self-reflexive structure. Firstly, the plot of the film quite clearly depicts the mythological perception of reality. Secondly, the course of narration reproduces the influence of mytho­logical codes on the perception of the audience. The text of the film contains a description of its own mechanism of influence on the viewer as well as the processes taking place in the minds of the audience at the moment of viewing.The first part informs of the main principles of mytho­logical thinking and the idea of time and space in the myth, referring to the works by C. Lévi-Strauss, R. Barthes, M. Eliade, A. Losev, E. Cassirer and others. Special attention is paid to the role of myth and initiation ritual in the psychological formation of a personality, as, based on the following, this is the theme that forms the basis of the film plot.The second part deals with the methods by which the mythological dimension is manifested in the text of the film.In the third part, the researcher shows how the contrast of secular and sacral becomes the main semantic opposition promoting the motion of the plot.In the fourth part, the author proves that the reflection of reality in the characters’ minds is a referent of the images shown on the screen. The characters’ development lies in the actualization of the sacral and mythological perception of the world. In turn, the cultural codes contained in the text of the film are designed to evoke a kind of response in the minds of the audience — to actualize the same sacred modus of perception in its ideas, the achievement of which is the ultimate goal of the characters. Thus, the inner path of the characters in the film reflects the processes that excite the studied film in the perception of the audience.The relevance of the article lies in the discovery and description of the principle of self-reflection in the structure of the film “Ilych’s Gate”, which allows us to understand at a qualitatively new level its structure and place in the historical development of Russian cinematography.


Author(s):  
Annelies Kamp

Actor–network theory (ANT) is an approach to research that sits with a broader body of new materialism; a body of work that displaces humanism to consider dynamic assemblages of humans and nonhumans. Originally developed in the social studies of science and technology undertaken in the second half of the 20th century, ANT has increasingly been taken up in other arenas of social inquiry. Researchers working with ANT do not accept the unquestioned use of “social” explanations for educational phenomena. Rather, the social, like all other effects, is taken to be an enactment of heterogenous assemblages of human and nonhuman entities. The role of the educational researcher is to trace these processes of assemblage and reassemblage, foregrounding the ways in which certain entities establish sufficient allies to assume some degree of “realness” in the world. Aligning most closely with ethnographic orientations, ANT does not outline a method. However, it could be argued that a number of propositions are shared in ANT-inspired approaches: first, that the world is made up of actors/actants, all of which are ontologically symmetrical. Humans are not privileged in ANT. Second, the principle of irreduction—there is no essence within or beyond any process of assemblage. Actors are concrete; there is no “potential” other than their actions in the moment. Entities are nothing more than an effect of assemblage. Third, the concept of translation and its processes of mediation that transform objects when they encounter one another. Finally, the principle of alliance. Actants gain strength only through their alliances. These propositions have specific implications for data generation, analysis, and reporting.


Author(s):  
Z.J. Naurzbaeva ◽  

The purpose of the study is to reveal the mythological symbolism of the “saba” leather wineskin, revered in the traditional culture of Kazakhs and related peoples. The methods of structural-semantic and comparative analysis, the analytical school of K.G. Jung, the mytholinguistic school of S. Kondybai, as well as the concept of symbolic capital of P. Bourdieu used to analyze the Kazakh folklore, linguistic and ethnographic material about the saba wineskin, in which koumiss is sourd and butter is beaten. The originality and value of the research lies in the fact, that the available ethnographic, folklore and linguistic materials about the wineskin-saba were interpretedby the author in a new way in the context of the assumption, made by S. Kondybai. The essence of S. Kondybai's idea is that the image of Sauap-khan in one of the versions of the epic "Koblandy" was originally a female character named Saba-apa and represented one of the incarnations of the mythological Great Mother. The results of the study: the symbolism of the wineskin-saba as the Great Mother and the World Mountain is revealed, the connection of this symbolism with the images of a woman and a mare, and the special role of women in traditional rituals associated with kumis are explained. Process of butter beating in saba interpreted as cosmogonic act, in which the Great Mother creates the world.


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