«Black Kite’s» Songs: Folk Nomination, State of Research and Functional Peculiarities

Author

Shalak Oksana

a Ph.D. in Philology, a leading scientific editor of the editorial staff of scientific editions of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine). ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8275-6703

«Black Kite’s» Songs: Folk Nomination, State of Research
and Functional Peculiarities

Abstract

The songs, called “black kite’s” («shuliakovi») according to folk terminology, are analysed in the article. The rite of «kite chasing», «black kite beating» is well-known in many regions of Ukraine. According to various fixations of the ritual it falls on the first day of Apostles’ Fast. Podillia recorder Serhii Venhrzhenovskyi (1844–1913) has noted at the end of the 19th century that this rite is unlucky, because it is preserved only in a few counties in Podillia (in some villages of Vinnytsia, Lityn, Haisyn, partly – Yampil and Bratslav ones), sporadically, only in such places where there are no churches, i. e. in the attached parishes, where there is no one to ban it. Women participating in the ceremony have performed the so-called «black kite’s» songs, distinguished by their archaic nature and aimed to protect chickens and hens from the hawks, especially black kites. Few researchers have emphasized the orgiastic nature of the ritual and the hidden semantics of both the song lyrics and the nonverbal behaviour of the participants, focusing on the «blackness» of the bird and the allusions associated with the death it personifies. Also important space-time coordinates, specifics, the context of songs performing, that accompany the ceremony, as well as the main functions of both the songs and the ritual itself are analyzed.

Keywords

“black kite’s” («shuliak») songs; rite of «kite chasing», «black kite beating»; apotropaic, prognostic, orgiastic, funeral, purifying functions.

References

1. AGAPKINA, Tatyana. Mythopoetic Essential Principles of the Slavic Folk Calendar.Spring-Summer Cycle. Moscow: Indrik, 2002, 815 pp. [in Russian].
2. VENGRZHENOVSKYI, Sergei, A Pagan Custom in Bratslavshchyna «Chasing A Black Kite». Kievan Past, 1895, vol. 50, no. 9 (September), pp. 282–323 [in Russian].
3. HRUSHEVSKYI, Mykhailo. The History of Ukrainian Literature: In Six Volumes, Nine Books. Kyiv: Lybid, 1993–1995 (Literary monuments of Ukraine). Vol. 1. Compiled by Vasyl YAREMENKO; prefaced by Petro KONONENKO; annotated by Lidiya DUNAYEVSKA. 1993, 389, [2] pp. [in Ukrainian].
4. GURA, Aleksandr. Black Kite. In: Nikita TOLSTOI, ed., Slavic Antiquities: An Ethnolinguistic Dictionary: In Five Volumes. Moscow: International Relations, 1999, vol. 2, pp. 613–615 [in Russian].
5. GURA, Aleksandr. Symbolism of Animals in the Slavic Folk Tradition. Moscow: Indrik, 1997, 912 pp. [in Russian].
6. ELIADE, Mircea. Agriculture and the Cult of Fertility. Sexual Life and Fruitfulness of Fields. In: Mircea ELIADE. Patterns in Comparative Religion. Moscow: Ladomir, 1999, pp. 325–331 [in Russian].
7. Material, recorded by Oksana SHALAK from Dudko Kseniia Ivanivna, born in 1948, on July 17, 2016 in the village of Kotiuzhany, then of Murovani Kurylivtsi (now Mohyliv-Podilskyi) district of Vinnytsia Region [in Ukrainian].
8. IVANNIKOVA, Liudmyla. Feast of the Maccabees. Baptism of Rus-Ukraine. In: Liubov HOLOTA, ed.-in-chief, The Word of Enlightenment, 2007, no. 33 (410), August, 16–22, pp. 14–15 [in Ukrainian].
9. KYLYMNYK, Stepan. The Ukrainian Year in Light of Folk Customs in the Historical Elucidation: In Three Books, Six Volumes. Kyiv: JSC «Charms», 1994, book 2, vols. 3–4, 528 pp. [in Ukrainian].
10. KYRCHIV, Roman. From the Folkloric Regions of Ukraine: Essays and Articles. Lviv: Publishing firm «Poster», 2002, 352 pp. [in Ukrainian].
11. KOROBKA, Nikolai. Eastern Volhynia. The Ever-Living Antiquity, 1895, no. 1, pp. 28–45 [in Russian].
12. IASFE ASFMAR. Fund 24–5 / 76; Fund 24–5 / 69. Songs (with Melodies and without Melodies). Recorded by Sergei Vengrzhenovskyi and by an unknown recorder from him [in Ukrainian].
13. About the Chase of «Shuliak» (Black Kite or Hawk) by Women (of Podillia Province) on the First Day of Apostles’ Fast (Folk Holiday). Podolian Diocesan Bulletin, 1883, no. 40, p. 769 [in Russian].
14. TVORUN, Svitlana. Chasing A Black Kite (Lacerating A Black Kite; Saturnalia). Available from: http://old.library.vn.ua/calendar/6/4/ [accessed July 7, 2021] [in Ukrainian].
15. KHOLODNAYA, Vera. Significance of Apostles’ Fast in the Distinction between «Female» and «Male» Time in the Western Ukrainian Spring-Summer Rituals. Time and Calendar in Traditional Culture. Saint Petersburg: Fallow Deer, 1999, pp. 32–38 [in Russian].
16. CHEBANIUK, Olena, «Do not Look at Chickens, but Look at the Carrion». Women Have «Beaten Black Kite» on the First Day of St. Peter’s Fast. Available from: https://gazeta.ua/articles/history-newspaper/_ne-divis-na-kuri-a-divis-na-padlo-u-pershij-den-petrivki-zhinki-bili-shulyaka/504187 [accessed July 7, 2021] [in Ukrainian].