Woman in Lithuanian folklore

333 Pages·12.692 MB·English

by  Paplauskas-Ramunas, Maria

WOMAN IN LITHUANIAN FOLKLORE
A Dissertation
Presented to
the Faculty of^plPll^aduate School
of 0t1?W |^ver%,ity
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
of Doctor of Philosophy
by
Maria Paplauskas-Ramunas
1952
UMI Number: DC53788
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION XV
I.- THE VIRGIN 1
1. Mergele—The Maiden 2
2. The Sister 27
3. The Orphan Girl 40
4. Chastity 56
5. Modesty 77
6. Diligence 89
II.- THE WIFE 98
1. Waiting for the Chosen One 98
2. The Matchmaking 116
3. Marriage by the Will of the Parents 123
4. Nuptial Rite 130
5. Farewell from the Parents' Home and
from the Merry Youth 146
6. Daughter-in-law 153
7. Member of a New Kindred 156
8. Sacredness of Marriage 166
III.- THE MOTHER 176
1. The Soul of the Family 177
2. Self-denial and Sacrifices for her Children 183
3. The Children's Guardian and Guide 203
4. The Stepmother 213
5. The Immortal Mother 222
IV.- THE STATE OF THE WOMAN 228
1. The Woman in Religion 228
2. The Woman in the National Culture 249
3. The Social State of the Woman 272
CONCLUSION 283
BIBLIOGRAPHY 287
ABSTRACT 307
INTRODUCTION
From the thirteenth to the fifteenth century Lithuania
was a mighty state stretching from the Baltic to the Black
Sea. Today Lithuania is a small, peaceful, Baltic country
whose sons have died by the thousands in heroic defense of
their holy native soil, and which now languishes under the
crushing heel of Soviet domination.
This small idyllic country is a sort of island among
other European nations. It is one of the oldest nations of
Europe, and has preserved to a remarkable degree both its
ancient language and customs. Its language is the closest
to the old Indo-Aryan Sanskrit (Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Greek,
and Latin are the four sister languages of the primeval
Indo-European language, which has not yet been discovered
or reconstructed). Due to a deeply rooted conservatism and
relative isolation, the Lithuanians have preserved very ancient
traditions, customs, and lore. Historical events and geogra
phical factors had a great deal to do with this. For ages
the Lithuanian nation was separated from the other European
nations by the Baltic Sea and the great forests. It was a
time of security and peace. Then the Lithuanians fought for
three hundred years against the Teutonic Knights, who cruelly
pillaged and enslaved the people under the pretense of spreading
INTRODUCTION iii
the Gospel of Christ. It was partly in a violent reaction
to these depredations that the Lithuanians clung all the
more tenaciously not only to the soil of their fatherland,
but to their ancestral religion and customs.
After Christianity had been embraced by Lithuania,
it did not eradicate the old ways and customs: for at least
two hundred years the old religion survived peacefully under
the supremacy of the Cross. Even up to the First World War,
the villagers still kept alive most of the old pagan supersti
tions and traditions handed down by their forefathers. As
a result of all this, there is a rich and varied abundance
of Lithuanian folklore, which beckons, almost irresistably,
the serious researcher in these fields. Much of the material
has been gathered and classified, but the greatest part of
it is still unrecorded. Fortunately, however, it lives even
today upon the lips and in the hearts and minds of the coun
try folk, and reflects the philosophy, psychology and cultural
history of the nation.
It should be useful to enumerate the following typical
elements of folklore: (1) The telling of legends, tales,
narratives, anecdotes, and jokes; (2) Musical compositions
with lyrics and melodies; (3) Recitation of orations, lamen
tations, riddles and proverbs; (4) Mythology, demonology,
superstitions and chants; (5) Customs and habits from practical
INTRODUCTION iv
everyday life and comprising three subdivisions (a) customs
connected with the most important moments of human life —
birth, baptism, matchmaking, wedding, death and funerals
(b) customs connected with annual feasts (c) customs con
nected with communal or collective work — harvesting, etc.
(6) Folk dances and pageants.1
The study of folklore as such is a comparatively recent
branch of science, but it has made great progress and promises
to be a signal aid in the unravelling of the tangled story of
mankind. Through its contributions to history, archeology, and
linguistics, we are constantly coming closer to an understanding
of the cradle of European culture and racial stock. Partly
because of its comparative novelty and partly because of the
difficulty in terminology, the subject matter of tne science
of folklore is somewhat general and its exact boundaries in
regard to related sciences are difficult to define.
English-speaking scientists have done a great and
laudable work in investigating even the smallest and most
uncivilized races, and their speculations and hypotheses
erected to reconstruct the patterns of development of cultures
have been a great contribution to the ethnological sciences.
1 Jonas Balys, Lietuviu Tautosakos Skaitymai. Tuebin-
gen: Patria, Vol. I, p.~5T
INTRODUCTION v
Lithuanian folklore, however, has been almost ignored in
previous English research. The author has consulted all
the books and periodicals from 1804 to the present, available
through the Parliamentary Library, the Library of the Univer
sity of Ottawa, and the Congressional Library; and she found
in these surprisingly few mentions of Lithuanian folklore,
and even these were often garbled and inaccurate. The journal
of the Ethnological Society of London several times confuses
the Lithuanian and Slavonic races, and therefore it skips over
Lithuanian folklore in almost complete silence. Hutchinson,
Natt, Newell, Dendy, Bedoe, and Babington are guilty of the
same error. Not even the antiquity of the language is men
tioned. Taylor, not only includes Lithuania among the Slavic
nations (which are younger offshoots of the Indo-European
parent stock) but he lumps together the Latvians (which are
the closest relatives of the Lithuanians) and the Finns
(which belong to the Uralo-Altaic Mongoloid race).
Lithuania is one of the oldest European nations, and
consequently an investigation of its folklore reveals a
great deal and helps to lift the curtain of ignorance which
has for so many thousands of years obscured the works and
ways of our earliest ancestors. Foreign scholars have not
2 Griffith Taylor, Environment and Nation. Toronto,
University of Toronto Press, 1936, p. 24.
INTRODUCTION vi
been slow to probe this rich treasure. German linguists
have made the most outstanding research. Although they
started out to investigate only the language, their interest
soon widened to include many elements of Lithuanian folklore.
The work of these German scholars remains unsurpassed, but it
has been very well supplemented by Polish, Russian, Finnish,
French, Czech, and Italian scholars. Although Lithuanian
scholars themselves have recorded many collections of folk
songs, tales, proverbs, etc., they have not had sufficient
time and tranquility to analyze all this material in such
a way as to cast light upon the dominant national characte
ristics. Lithuania is on the unfortunate borderland of
friction between East and West, and the many wars which have
swept over her have depleted her material goods, undermined
her culture and disturbed her scholars.
At present we have at our disposal only collections
and classifications of folklore matter. 1'he author has
attempted to go beyond this first stage and to draw from the
available material and her own first-hand research a picture
of the Lithuanian national character, in which we may find
many clues about the culture and traditions of our earliest
European ancestors. We have limited ourselves to the treat
ment of "Woman in Lithuanian Folklore". Much material yet
remains, and even some of our chapters could easily and
INTRODUCTION vii
profitably be developed into theses on their own right. Such
subjects, for instance, as Lithuanian wedding customs, the
Lithuanian ideal of virginity, and the Lithuanian mother,
deserve to be given fuller treatment.
It is the woman who is the principal educator of the
children, and through them, she is the educator of the nation.
She was the first agriculturalist, and through her efforts,
the agricultural age was ushered in. She has greatly enriched
man's spiritual consciousness by her intuitive awareness of
the Mighty Power Beyond. Consciously or unconsciously she
generates high ideals in, those whom she loves, and they in
turn actualize these ideals, fight and die for them.
Man has the dominant part in creating culture, but
culture is a fragile thing, it must be taken care of, it must
be watched, and loved. It is the women who nurse and preserve
culture. In her life, in her family and social status we
find a clear mirror of the cultural level of a race. Highly
cultured races have a higher regard for the physically weak
but spiritually and sensitively strong and subtle. Barbarian
races give recognition only to physical power.
Because women are the most careful custodians and per-
petuators of national and family traditions, the author hopes
3 Zenonas Ivinskis, Dr., "Lietuviu Kulturos Tarpsniai,M
in Aidai, Schwaebisoh Gmuend, June, 1949, No. 23.
INTRODUCTION viii
that this thesis will cast into relief Lithuanian national
and family life throughout its long history. '±'he investiga
tion has not been restricted to women from any particular
class or any particular period, but to woman as she lives in
the heart and mind of the nation and as she is represented in
folklore. However, from time immemorial, Lithuania has been
chiefly a peasant country, and therefore its concept of
woman stands principally for the peasant woman.
We have divided our work into four cnapters. The first
three deal with woman in her three chief roles as virgin,
wife and mother. '±'he fourth deals with the position of the
woman in the nation. The first chapter is based mainly on
the folk-songs which praise the virtues of the virgin. We
see the girl being educated by her mother and being prepared
for her future life, her vacation. i'he second chapter, based
mainly on wedding customs and songs, shows how the family
was created, how the marriage was decided upon, and now the
bride enters the family of her husband. I'he third chapter
depicts the mother at her lifelong task of sacrificing her
self for her children. Since motherhood is seldom the object
of poetry and songs, the material for this chapter has been
taken mainly from tales, legends, and descriptions of customs.
The last chapter discusses the state of the woman in the
nation. Her role in religion is described through the