Some of the most recent articles from open access anthropology journals (beta)
Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):21-60 1. Today’s Performance of the Long Liturgy The Long Liturgy (later LL) is the main Zoroastrian ritual. The central part1 consists of the recitation of the Gāϑās and the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, a series of texts in Old Avestan, an Iranian language older than the one of the rest of the liturgy. […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):61-76 Arguably, the problems of studying modern Zoroastrianism are not dissimilar to those associated with the study of Zoroastrianism in the ancient world. In both cases, the idea of orality and how to deal with it is an issue that demands attention. And in both cases, one of the problems concerns exegesis; […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):77-102 Our girls fell into the hands of the kafirThey sold our girls to strange countriesThis girl ran to the mountain to flee the kafir and she fellHadiya escaped the kafir, but she fell, she threw herselfIt is a Great Holiday,2 but those in the hands of the kafir have no oneThe […]
The post Singing the Pain: Yezidi Oral Tradition and Sinjari Laments after ISIS<a name=”_ftnref1″ href=”#_ftn1″><small>1</small></a> appeared first on Oral Tradition.
Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):103-18 Introduction Among the world’s roughly one million Yezidis, adherents of a monotheistic faith that does not accept converts or allow marriage with outsiders, as many as half are living in exile, with the highest concentration of refugees outside the homeland living in Germany. Yezidis, originally from parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):141-50 The Yārsān This paper will discuss the complex “textual” heritage of the Yārsān of western Iran and northern Iraq, which is mainly transmitted orally but has partly been made available in writing in recent decades. The Yārsān (“Group of Friends”), also known as Ahl-e Haqq (“People of Truth”), and in Iraq […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):119-40 1. Introduction: Types of Performances and Learning Techniques While the Yezidi religious textual tradition, including its collection, translation, and analysis, has already become a separate subject of investigation in the field of Yezidi Studies,1 its religious music remains largely unstudied. Based on the analysis of Yezidi religious vocal performances, this contribution […]
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Introduction The great astronomer and social commentator Adam Frank says: “We are fundamentally storytellers . . . . Every society . . . has had a system of myths, a constellation of stories that provide a basic sense of meaning and context” (2018:8). So what is this constellation of stories for the Ahl-e Haqq (AH) […]
The post Religious Musical Knowledge and Modes of Transmission among the Kurdish Ahl-e Haqq of Gurān<a name=”_ftnref1″ href=”#_ftn1″>1</a> appeared first on Oral Tradition.
Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):407-18 A group of dervishes known as ʿAjam belonged originally to the dervishes without an order (bi-selsele). They are closely related to the Khāksāriyya and are considered as one lineage of this order today. The Khāksār order, as one of the three Shiʿi dervish orders of today’s Iran, used to have three […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):419-40 The field studies of Neo-Aramaic dialects that have proliferated recently have yielded many folklore texts.1 During the author’s fieldwork (together with Christina Benyaminova) with one speaker of Neo-Aramaic, the sophisticated plot of a folk story with a hero named Mirza Pamat attracted his attention. A comparison of this story with other […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/2 (2022):3-8 Whilst the study of “oral verbal art” in the literary sphere is now receiving a certain amount of academic interest, much less attention has so far been paid to the dynamics of orality in the sphere of religion, not least in non-Western traditions.1 Many specialists in such fields as religious studies and […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/1 (2021):37-66 In spite of ourselves, epic absorbs us.1 And then we encounter issues that are more tangled than grass roots. For example, we have now identified two other versions of the adventures of Ajkuna, wife of Muj, and they give quite different explanations for what happened to her. It must have been […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/1 (2021):67-86 Little has been published on the oral traditions of the Coast Miwok that provides any information on the original language and linguistic verbal art of this group.1 The Coast Miwok language was spoken north of San Francisco Bay, largely in an area corresponding to modern Marin County and parts of Sonoma County, […]
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Oral Tradition, 35 (2021):3-36 1. The Study of R̥gvedic Repetitions1 In the second volume of his 1877 edition of the R̥gveda, Theodor Aufrecht collects about three thousand repeated verses and phrases from that text. Beginning with the paired Vālakhilya hymns 8.49-52, which he describes as “two versions of the same material . . . like two […]
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Readers of Oral Tradition will find in this issue an exceptionally rich and varied assortment of topics. The six essays presented here discuss texts and performances in eight different languages, several of them appearing for the very first time in the journal’s pages. As George E. Dunkel (“The Oral Style of the R̥gveda”) points out […]
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Oral Tradition, 35 (2021):103-66 Many peoples of the world conceptualize what English speakers call poetry and music or song as a single integrated unit, what I will call the “poem-song.” Poem-songs may function as models or molds, opening up possibilities for singers, poets, and composers to structure and remember texts, and to convey their ideas […]
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Oral Tradition Volume 35, Number 1 George Eugene Dunkel After studying Greek, Sanskrit, and Comparative Indo-European Linguistics in Paris, Philadelphia, and Erlangen, George Dunkel taught in the Departments of Classics at Johns Hopkins University (from 1975) and Princeton University (from 1978). He then served as chairman of the Indogermanisches Seminar of the University of Zurich, […]
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Oral Tradition, 35 (2021):167-88 Introduction In African Muslim societies, religious values are transmitted and reinforced through “voiced texts,” poetic texts recorded in writing but designed to be performed orally and received aurally (Foley 2002). Aural reception implies the participatory and/or virtual involvement of an audience within sacred or hybrid frames. For most Muslim preachers, voiced […]
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Oral Tradition, 35/1 (2021):87-102 In March, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced hundreds of thousands of Basque citizens into full lockdown,1 the electronic revolution in communications allowed the Association of the Friends of Bertsolaritza (Bertsozale Elkartea)2 to extensively share, advertise, and disseminate their online offerings. (Bertsolaritza is the Basque cultural practice of singing improvised verses.3) The scheme presented bertso followers with an […]
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The post Traditional Nuosu Origin Narratives: A Case Study of Ritualized Epos in <em>Bimo</em> Incantation Scriptures appeared first on Oral Tradition.
The post Palestinian Improvised-Sung Poetry: The Genres of <em>Hidā</em> and <em>Qarrādī</em> Performance and Transmission appeared first on Oral Tradition.
Oral Tradition, 34 (2020):3-441 On an 1820-21 trip into the fledgling Serbian Principality, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (hereafter “Vuk”), the language reformer, orthographer, folklorist, and ideological father of the modern Serbian state,2 collected the song “The Building of Skadar” (“Zidanje Skadra”) from the guslar (bard) Old Man (Starac) Raško3 at Prince Miloš Obrenović’s manor in Kragujevac.4 […]
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I am pleased to present to readers Oral Tradition Volume 34, comprising four essays that demonstrate, in the diversity of their topics and approaches, the broad reach of the study of orality and oral tradition. This volume brings together traditions from three continents—as well as, perhaps unexpectedly, the work of one of the twentieth century’s […]
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Oral Tradition, 34 (2020):45-72 Introduction Proverbs are storehouses of traditional wisdom and are highly valued in Africa. Among the Akan of Ghana, proverbs are used in everyday conversations, storytelling, ancestral and royal praise singing, and conflict resolution, among other contexts. Proverbs may be expressed through drumming, horn-blowing, and dance gestures, and they may be illustrated […]
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Oral Tradition Volume 34 Dorian Jurić Dorian Jurić is a Canadian cultural anthropologist, folklorist, and railroad maintenance foreman whose research explores the political life of folklore in the Western Balkans. He has also recently become the Vice President of the Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association. His writing, on topics ranging from oral traditions […]
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Oral Tradition, 34 (2020):73-104 In memory of Barre Toelken “This is so, isn’t it?” —F. R. Leavis (1972:62) “Hane’ doo t’óó saad t’éí át’é jinóózį́į́’ át’éé da, t’áá bí be’iina’ haleeh.” —Rex Lee Jim (cited in Casaus 1996:10) Rough translation: “Stories (poems) are not just words to be thought about, they are to become life.” “[Poetry] […]
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