Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T00:39:39.825Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Women Cry with Words: Symbolization of Affect in the Karelian Lament

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Elizabeth Tolbert
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Karelian lament, or itkuvirsi, is an extraordinary expressive form found in eastern Finland and Soviet Karelia that uses music, language, gesture, and the icons of crying to communicate affect and power. It has its roots in the ancestor worship of the ancient Karelian folk religion, and contains vestiges of classical Eurasian shamanism in its ecstatic, trancelike manner of performance. The lament is performed only by women, usually within the ritual context of funerals or weddings; however, it is also performed at non-ritual occasions with strong overtones of affect, such as when old friends meet after a long absence or as a complaint about the hardships of life. The lament is now only barely remembered by a handful of Karelian women, most of them refugees from World War II now living in Finland. The ritual contexts have completely died out in Finland, although the funeral context still partially survives in Soviet Karelia. The primary source material for this paper is drawn from my fieldwork with Karelian refugees in 1984-85, who had learned laments prior to World War II in traditional village settings.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 22 , 1990 , pp. 80 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 by the International Council for Traditional Music

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

This paper is based on fieldwork and extensive archival work conducted in Finland in 1984-85 under the auspices of a Fullbright grant for Research and Study Abroad, and further supported by an American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women and research grants from the Graduate School of the University of California, Los Angeles. Portions of this paper were presented at the 30th Conference of the International Council for Traditional Music in Schladming, Austria, July 1989 and at the Conference on Lament at the University of Texas, Austin, April 1989. Thanks to the reviewers for their helpful comments, to Kathryn Vaughn for her Music Mapper graphs and for many fruitful discussions, to Sue De Vale for her continuing dialogue, and to the Karelian lamenters who so graciously shared their knowledge with me. See Vaughn's computer aided analysis of these same materials (companion paper in this volume) for independent confirmation and new insights into the issues presented here.

References

References Cited

Caraveli-Chaves, Anna 1980 Bridge Between Worlds: The Greek Women's Lament as Communicative Event. Journal of American Folkore 93:129–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feld, Steven 1982 Sound and Sentiment: Birds, weeping, poetics, and song in Kaluli expression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Steven, Feld, ed. n.d. Lament.Google Scholar
Haavio, Martti 1934 Über die finnisch-karelischen Klagelieder. Suomalais-ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia 47. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilainen Seura.Google Scholar
Hajdu, Peter 1978 The Nenets Shaman Song and its Text. In Shamanism in Siberia. P. Hajdu, ed. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 355–372.Google Scholar
Holmberg (Harva), Uno 1964 Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology. The Mythology of All Races. Canon John Arnott MacCulloch, ed. New York: Cooper Square.Google Scholar
Honko, Lauri 1974 Balto-Finnic Lament Poetry. Studia Fennica 17:9–61.Google Scholar
Kiss, Lajos and Rajeczky, Benjamin, eds. 1966 Siratók-Laments. Corpus Musicae Polularis Hungaricae V. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Kolehmainen, John 1973 Epic of the North. New York Mills, Minnesota: Northwestern.Google Scholar
Konkka, Unelma 1985 Ikuinen ikävä. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Toimituksai 428. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.Google Scholar
Leino, Pentti 1874 The Language of Laments: The Role of Phonological and Semantic Features in the Word Choice. Studia Fennica 17:92–131.Google Scholar
Lex, Barbara 1979 The Neurobiology of Ritual Trance. In The Spectrum of Ritual, Laughlin, C.D., and E.G. d'Aquili, eds. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, A.L. 1980 Lament. New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Stanley Sadie, ed. London: Macmillan, p. 407–410.Google Scholar
McConnell-Ginet, Sally 1983 Intonation in a Man's World. In Language, Gender and Society. Barrie Throne, Cheris Kramarae, and Nacy Henley, eds. Cambridge: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Nenola-Kallio, Aili 1982 Studies in Ingrian Laments. Folklore Fellows Communication 234. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. 1964 (1922) The Andaman Islanders. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Rosenblatt, Paul, Walsh, Patricia and Jackson, Douglas 1976 Grief and Mourning in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.Google Scholar
Rüütel, Ingrid, ed. 1977 Soome-ugri rahvaste muusikapärandist. Tallinn: Eesit Raamat.Google Scholar
Rüütel, Ingrid 1980 Soome-ugrilaste rahva-muusika ja naaber-kultuurid. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat.Google Scholar
Rüütel, Ingrid 1986 Muzyka v obriadkh i trudovoi deiatel'nosti Finno-ugrov. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat.Google Scholar
Stepanova, A. and Koski, T. 1976 Karel'skii prichitaniia. Petrozavodsk: Kareliia.Google Scholar
Szomjas-Schiffert, György 1981 The System of Finno-Ugric Speech Intonation. Fifth International Finno-Ugric Congress. Turku: Suomen Kielen Seura, p. 286–290.Google Scholar
Tiwary, K.M. 1978 Tuneful Weeping: A Mode of Communication. Frontiers 3:24–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolbert, Elizabeth 1987 On Beyond Zebra: Some Theoretical Considerations of Emotion and Meaning In Music. Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology 4:75–97.Google Scholar
Tolbert, Elizabeth 1988 The Musical Means of Sorrow: The Karelian Lament Tradition. Unpublished dissertation, Department of Music, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
n.d. in press- Magico-Religious Power and Gender in the Karelian Lament. In Music, Gender and Culture. Marcia Herndon and Suzanne Ziegler, eds.Google Scholar
Urban, Greg 1988 Ritual Wailing in Amerindian Brazil. American Anthropologist 90:385–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Väisänen, A.O. 1926 Karjalainen itkettäjä ja hänen virtensä. Suomen musiikkilehit 6:88–90.Google Scholar
Väisänen, A.O. 1932 Karjalainen kansanmusiikki. In Karjalan Kirja Iivo Härkönen, ed. Porvoo: Werner Söderström, p. 496–509.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kathryn 1988 The Music Mapper: A Computer Application for Performance Based Interpretation of Cultural Variance in Digitized Patterns of Melody and Rhythm. MA Thesis, Department of Music, UCLA.Google Scholar
Virtaranta, Pertt 1973 Paatenen itkuvirsistä. Suomalais-ugrilaisen Toimituksai 150. Helsinki: Suomalais-ugrilainen Seura, p. 467–488.Google Scholar
Zemtsovskii, I.I. 1979-82 Slaavilais-suomalaisugrilainen itkuvirsimelos: ongleman teoreettisia aspekteja. Unpublished manuscript of the Finnish Folkore Society Archives.Google Scholar

Taped References

Tolbert, ET, Elizabeth Field tapes recorded in Finland, 1984–85.Google Scholar
SKS A Finnish Folklore Society Sound Archives.Google Scholar