BEHAVIORAL PROHIBITIONS IN FUNERAL AND MEMORIAL RITES OF THE CHUVASH

Igor G. Petrov

DOI: 10.47026/1810-1909-2021-2-158-170

Key words

the Chuvash people, funeral and memorial rites, prohibitions (taboos), behavioral prohibitions.

Annotation

On the basis of literary, archival, folklore sources and expedition materials, the article examines such a little-studied genre of Chuvash folklore as prohibitions (taboos). Special attention is paid to the systematization and analysis of behavioral prohibitions that have long existed and continue to exist in the funeral rites of the Chuvash. By behavioral prohibitions, the author means a set of well-established and generally accepted prescriptions and rules that regulated the everyday and ritual behavior of an individual and a collective within the framework of a funeral and memorial rite – family members, relatives, as well as other members of a rural community. Their observance was due to the fear of the society members before the deceased and death, the desire to appease the deceased and secure his protection, as well as the desire to protect themselves from the deceased and ensure his safe transition to the other world. By adhering to the prohibitions, people ensured their own safety and well-being, and in general secured the protection of the deceased as a representative of the ancestral world. Despite the superstitious nature of most of the prohibitions, they still exist nowadays. On the one hand, this indicates the antiquity of their origin, on the other – their stability in time and space.

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Information about the author

Igor G. Petrov – Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior researcher of Ethnography Department, R.G. Kuzeev Institute for Ethnological Studies, Ufa Federal research center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia, Ufa (ipetrov62@yandex.ru; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8664-3004).

For citations

Petrov I.G. BEHAVIORAL PROHIBITIONS IN FUNERAL AND MEMORIAL RITES OF THE CHUVASH. Vestnik Chuvashskogo universiteta, 2021, no. 2, pp. 158–170. DOI: 10.47026/1810-1909-2021-2-158-170 (in Russian).

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