Juodoji knyga

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Jonas Basanavičius; Prietarai; Užkalbėjimai; Liaudies medicina; Šaltiniai; Jonas Basanavičius; Superstitions; Incantations; Folk Medicine; Sources.

ENThe 12th volume of Jonas Basanavičius Folklore Library presents results of a long-time interest of Jonas Basanavičius in Lithuanian folk beliefs, charms, superstitions, incantations and folk medicine. As early as 1878, Basanavičius himself recorded a sample of a rare incantation at his home place; and in 1884 & 1885 he published substantial portions of mythological legends under the title of "Fragmenta mythologiae" in Mitteilungen der Litauischen litterarischen Gesellschaft series. These legends supplied data on the archaic Lithuanian beliefs. Already in the last decade of the 19th century Basanavičius compiled a program pointing out what kind of materials on beliefs should be collected. He also collected a lot of charms and superstitions. During the first decade of the 20th century his collection increased quite noticeably, making a substantial basis for the present volume. The process of collecting materials was successful thanks to his devoted helpers. The prohibition of Lithuanian publications in Latin alphabet and threat of persecutions made many of them to try and conceal the identity of the recorders as well as time and place of recording one or another piece of folklore. The most ancient material in this collection consisted of 86 charms and superstitions, recorded by Motiejus Ališauskas in 1874. However, Matas Slančiauskas, who was a simple village tailor, but has nevertheless accomplished a lot on behalf of Lithuanian national interests, made the greatest contribution of all; most of his material was recorded in the first decade of the 20th century and comprised over 1100 texts.The second biggest amount of material came from an active public leader, a well-known writer, journalist and literary critic Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė. She was mostly interested in folk medicine and folk meteorology. Basanavičius intended to use for the book also materials from the articles published in periodical Живая старина. Interesting texts also came from Vilius Kalvaitis, who was collecting data related to Lithuanian mythology under very difficult circumstances in the end of the 19th century intensively Germanized Lithuania Minor. Materials published in this book could have had different purposes. Mostly they were meant to pass information on various ways of behavior and possible outcomes of different cases in human life. Especially numerous were superstitions, charms, beliefs associated with one of the most important spheres of human activity, i.e. the economical life. A number of texts also mentioned uneven fate of different humans, told of happiness and misfortunes waiting for them, diseases, death and even dangers after death. Very specific poetics is characteristic of incantations. Imperative intonations are typical for curses and expletives. The materials collected by Basanavičius present an open window, leading us into the mysterious world of charms, magic, folk beliefs, superstitions and other related genres of folklore, as well as of various folk ways of healing, which all have seen so little systematic investigation so far. [From the publication]