Nominations for magic knowledge (in the case study of mythological texts of Perm krai)
Abstract
The article is devoted to the nominations of magic knowledge that sorcerers and healers have. The purpose of the study is to consider a set of words and expressions that determine secret knowledge of ritual specialists in the Russian dialects of Perm region. The research is based on the materials of dialects dictionaries of Perm region and mythological texts about “competent” people, recorded by the scientists and students from Perm State University during folk and dialect expeditions. The texts have been published in folk and ethnographic collections about the region. The article reveals thematic groups of the vocabulary and describes its motivational peculiarities. First of all, in the language this particular type of knowledge is considered to be a set of private, sacral knowledge that a sorcerer or a healer possesses. Another group of the secret knowledge is associated with the fact that it the knowledge is contained in the texts that sorcerers and healers use in their practice. Nominations of the third group are motivated with the names for the evil force connected with a sorcerer. Mainly, it is evil spirits that are considered to be a dangerous weapon in a sorcerer’s hands. The idea about the witchcraft being a type of professional human activity or craft is fixed in the names for secret knowledge. Lexical units characterizing a sorcerer or a healer’s activity as one demanding proficiency and skills and that may also be considered as an art form the next thematic-motivation group. The units that describe magic knowledge as inborn or gained inner spirit energy of a sorcerer, a healer, as a capability of these people to influence other people, animals and nature for different purposes using the energy have been registered in mythological texts. The capability is considered to be a talent or gift. Lexical units can stress an uncanny feature of the knowledge, its insularity or unavailability for ordinary people. Thus, the data from dialect dictionaries and mythological texts about Perm region testify motivational variety of nominations for secret knowledge that ritual specialists have.
References
Bakhmatov A. A., Goleva T. G., Podyukov I. A., Chernykh A. V. Russkiye v Komi-Permyatskom okruge: obryadnost' i fol'klor [Russians in the Komi-Permyatsky okrug: ritualism and folklore]. Materials and researches. Perm': OTiDO (in Russian)
Chetina Ye. M., Rogotnev I. Yu. (2010) Simvolicheskiye real'nosti Parmy: Ocherki traditsionnoy kul'tury Permskogo kraya [Symbolic realities of Parma: Essays on the traditional culture of the Perm region]. Perm': Izdatel'stvo Permskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. (in Russian)
Gorbachevich K. S., Gerd A. S. (eds.) (2006) Bol’shoy akademicheskiy slovar’ russkogo yazyka [Great academic dictionary of Russian language]. Vol. 4. Moscow; St. Petersburg: Nauka. (in Russian)
Khristoforova O. B. (2010) Kolduny i zhertvy: antropologiya koldovstva v sovremennoy Rossii. [Sorcerers and victims: anthropology of sorcery in modern Russia]. Moscow: OGI, RGGU. (in Russian)
Levkievskaya E. E. (1999a) Znakhar' [A Medicine man]. In: Tolstoy N. I. (ed.) Slavyanskie drevnosti: Etnolingvisticheskiy slovar' [Slavic Antiquities: Ethnolinguistic Dictionary]. Vol. 2. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya: 347–350. (in Russian)
Levkievskaya E. E. (1999b) Koldun [A sorcerer]. In: Tolstoy N. I. (ed.) Slavyanskie drevnosti: Etnolingvisticheskiy slovar' [Slavic Antiquities: Ethnolinguistic Dictionary]. Vol. 2. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya: 528–534. (in Russian)
Mazalova N.E. (2019) Narodno-meditsinskoye “taynoye znaniye” russkikh ritual'nykh spetsialistov: semantika, status, funktsii (konets XIX — nachalo XXI v.) [Folk medical “secret knowledge” of Russian ritual specialists: semantics, status, functions (end of XIX — beginning of XXI century)]. Doctoral dissertation (History). Moscow. (in Russian)
Moroz A.B. (ed.) (2013) Znatki, veduny i chernoknizhniki: koldovstvo i bytovaya magiya na Russkom Severe [Connoisseurs, sorcerers and warlocks: witchcraft and household magic in the Russian North]. Moscow: FORUM; Neolit (in Russian)
Ozhegov S. I., Shvedova N. Yu. (2008) Tolkovyy slovar' russkogo yazyka [Dictionary of the Russian language]. 4th ed. M.: ITI Tekhnologii. (in Russian)
Podyukov I. A. (ed.) (2006) Slovar' russkikh govorov Komi-Permyatskogo okruga [Dictionary of Russian dialects of the Komi-Perm region]. Perm: Izd-vo PONITSAA. (in Russian)
Podyukov. I. A. (ed.) (2010) Slovar' russkikh govorov Yuzhnogo Prikam'ya (Dictionary of Russian dialects of the South Kama Region]. Vol. 1. Perm: Permskiy gosudarstvennyy pedagogicheskiy universitet. (in Russian)
Skitova F. L. (ed.) (2003) Slovar’ govora d. Akchim Krasnovisherskogo rayona Permskoy oblasti (Akchimskiy slovar’) [Dictionary of dialect of the Akchim village of the Krasnovishersky district of the Perm region (Akchim dictionary)]. Vol. 6. Perm: Izdatel’stvo Permskogo universiteta. (in Russian)
Vinogradova L. N., Levkiyevskaya Ye. Ye. (comp.) (2010). Narodnaya demonologiya Poles'ya: Publikatsiya tekstov v zapisyakh 80-90 gg. XX veka [Popular demonology of Polesie: Publication of texts in the records of the 80-90s of XX century]. Vol. 1: Lyudi so sverkh"yestestvennymi svoystvami [People with supernatural properties]. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskikh kul'tur. (in Russian).