Elena Boikova. Perm, Russia
Udmurts belong to those few nations of Europe whose life style has preserved some of the ancient tribal division features. The experts number now up to 70 Udmurt kins that have mixed with each other during the historic process. The traces of tribal system are found in the peculiarities of peoples settling in a place (the formation of `secondary kin nests' or vyls - using the Udmurt dialectologist M. Atamanov's terminology) as well as preserving ancient heathen rites. (The Udmurts were converted to Christianity at a comparatively recent time going back from two to three hundred years and there are still some pagan villages south of Udmurt district).
This paper is devoted to the singing tradition of Omga-vyl, one of the territory-kin formations (people of Omga kin extraction), situated South-East of the Alnash district of the Udmurt territory. It includes four villages such as Kuzebaevo, Muvazhie (traditionally called Usso), Chorny Klyuch (Shyod Oshmes) and Chumaly.
Folk music of the South Udmurts is an integral part of the system, the basis of which is considered to be traditional beliefs.
Thus, genre singing system of the South Udmurts contains a certain number of genres with each genre being termed in a local dialect as gur (`a tune') and represented by a minimum number of rite tunes. The fiancé's and bride's kins' wedding tunes (shyuan gur and börysh gur, with each genre represented by a single tune), seeing off tunes; recruit rite tunes (lecrut gur) and the bride's seeing off ceremony tunes (each genre is also represented by one tune) form the nucleus of the South Udmurt singing system.
A special place in genre singing system of the South Udmurts is occupied by vösh nerge gur (`prayer tune'). Unlike the above-mentioned genres relating to the family life vösh nerge gur is a calendar genre, since according to the beliefs the day and the place of performance were strictly regulated and timed to one or another agrarian calendar holiday.
A regional musical tradition usually accounted for one or two calendar tunes. The first one named vösh nerge gur accompanied all the calendar holidays. If there appeared one more tune it used to be timed to the main spring holiday.
One more difference between the calendar tunes and the family tunes is due to their area spreading: calendar tunes have local or `spot' spreading; while family tunes cover much wider areas. That is the reason why the calendar tunes are usually considered to be a peripheral branch of the South Udmurt singing system. The Omga-vyl tradition is an exception.
The Omga-vyl singing system is decentralized, and the calendar tunes are most likely to be attributed to the nucleus of this singing tradition because they are common to all the four villages of Omga-vyl and are preserved in the memory of the performers better than any other genre (numbering from 15 to 44, which accounts for one third).
The aim of this paper is to present the calendar rites recorded in the above mentioned villages to give a good idea of functioning of traditional beliefs, the traditional song folklore being a part of it.
The calendar holidays of the South Udmurts are connected traditionally with the main marks of agrarian calendar: 1) the beginning of field works in spring; 2) border between spring and summer field works; 3) cycle of the autumn and winter stage as gratitude for the present harvest and praying for the future one.
Now we come to the holidays of Omga-vyl tradition. Byjym Nunal (`Great Day') is the largest holiday of annual agrarian cycle, coinciding with Christian Easter. It consisted of several parts, lasting several days. The rite of Kulem potom uy (`The Night of Dead Men's Triumph') took place at the night between Wednesday and Thursday (Maundy Thursday before Easter) the week before Byjym Nunal. The windows, doors and cattle-sheds were decorated with fir branches; people fired guns that night. Also they prepared a special instrument iyggy or tachir made of wood and resembling a bludgeon. It was used for knocking at each gate all over the village, at the end of the village it was thrown away. Everything was done, so that the evil spirit would not call to the house or frighten dead men.
Byjym Nunal began on Easter Sunday. Pichi vösh nerge (`Small Praying Rite') was carried out on that day. Byjym vösh nerge (`Great Praying Rite') in which the prayer leader (vöshyash), chosen from among old men, took part, was held on the next Monday. All men went praying to Bajym Kuala (`Big Kuala'), that is, to a special place for village prayers. (Big Kuala was built of wood without any nails; special dishes also were made of wood.) Then vösh nerge (`the prayer rite') came: people visited their male relatives (bölyak). All relatives gathered together and visited each other families: they dropped into each house and treated themselves to different meals. Vösh nerge gur (`the prayer rite tune') was performed during that process.
The third day, Tuesday, was in Omga-vyl villages was called Akashka Vorttylon Nunal (`The Akashka Horse-Race Day'). Akashka means `Plough Festival'; in some South-Udmurt traditions it is the name of the holiday corresponding to Omga Byjym Nunal. On that day lads had their horse-race. The night before or in the Akashka morning unmarried 18-19-year old girls visited all families, asking for groats and then cooked it just in the street. A special tune Akashka gur accompanied their actions. The fourth day, Wednesday, was the end of the holiday, i.e. Akashka ullyan (`Akashka Seeing-Off'). On that day the horses were fed with bread, they were given wine to drink; the riders entered the houses just on their horses. They used a special tune Akashka ullyan gur secondly timed to this holiday (its style showing its later appearance).
2. The next calendar holiday (or the cycle of holidays) was timed to the finishing of spring field works (sowing). Ghyron bydton (`The Sowing End') is a modern Udmurt name of the holiday celebrated in the Omga-vyl villages. For this holiday lads gathered turbans of young wives and arranged fights. The local name of the holiday is Gheryshyd (the same as Ghyron bydton) or Trochin (`Trinity'): usually the end of sowing coincided in time with Christian Trinity. During Trochin the earth was thought to be pregnant and there were some taboo: it was forbidden to gather flowers, to make hay and also to pray for the dead or to sacrifice.
Yu vösh (`Bread prayer') was carried out during Gheryshyd. Every family had a special basket, in which on that day people put butter, painted eggs, bread. They took those baskets and special small spades to their own fields, dug small holes there, put a branch of fir-tree at the bottom of them, then a piece of bread and other things and buried them. After that all people gathered and repeated this rite all together but in a larger scale. They put pancakes, eggs and other things into the dug hole on a fir branch. Wine was poured into a special vessel shumyk. Only after blessing the wine and meals it was allowed to eat and drink. Also they gathered and sanctified money. Hard-boiled eggs were collected and a competition took place: the fastest and the best runner got all the collected eggs.
If there was no rain and it was needed, people gathered for this rite by the river, cooked porridge and threw it away into the river.
Just at the same time before or after Trinity there was a prayer similar to Yue vösh, which was a specific attribute of Omga-vyl itself. It was called Demen vösh and took place annually in all four Omga-vyl villages, the sacrifice of a heifer, a ram or a lamb being obligatory.
The beginning of hay making and harvest gathering was marked by Uzhly poton vösh prayer (`work beginning prayer'). It was timed to a Christian holiday and was conducted on Petrol, i.e. St. Peter's Day. Only once a year in the village of Chumaly lads gathered on this holiday on a hill where they had a special grass-plot for praying, they killed a ram or a sheep and then the vösh nerge rite took place, which was attended only by brothers.
A great prayer in a Big Kuala took place in all villages on Petrol holiday. Vösh nerge gur (`the prayer tune') accompanied that process of the relatives' roundabout rite. It was just the same as the tune of Byjym nunal holiday.
One more general prayer took place in Omga-vyl villages just at the same period of summer once in three years: it was Bulda vösh (`Prayer to Bulda', which seemed to be their heathen god). All four Omga-vyl villages gathered together for this occasion as for Demen vösh rite. There are some reports that people of Varklet-Bodya non-Christian village took part in this ceremony (this village is situated in Agrys district of the Tartar Republic not far from Omga-vyl villages). Only men took part in this prayer. About two hundred people gathered together in a meadow, they chose four heads: Bajym vöshyash (`the main leader', having a birch branch at his breast), shion pöztysh (`the cook'), tör (`the manager'), shion posudaosys mishkish (`the dish-washer'). They prayed to Inmar (the Udmurt main heathen god) for well-being, warmth, health for themselves and their cattle, asked him to protect them against fire. They sacrificed a white ram (only white one and not a sheep). They also cooked quarnyan, i.e. thin bread rolled in a tube.
During Bulda holiday they used a musical instrument bajym krezh (`big psaltery'). Returning to their villages they also played psaltery, then they had a general walking. Next morning after Bulda they held another prayer.
3. The last stage of the agrarian calendar, autumn and winter, was aimed at expressing gratitude for the present harvest and praying for the future one.
Autumn prayer took place at a meadow, where lads sacrificed a ram. On returning home they prayed more and more, bowing to their god.
The general name of this autumn holiday is Shizhyl yon. In different traditions even in far away villages it could be timed to different dates of Christian calendar, mostly to Pukrol which was celebrated on the 14th of October. The people of Chumaly village celebrated St. Nicholas' Day on the 19th of December.
On that autumn holiday there was also a prayer in the big Kuala. The animal to be sacrificed was a foal. All people brought their cooking for blessing. Young wives were to bring ducks to Kuala and to leave there their turbans. After the prayer people paid visits to their male relatives to have the vösh nerge rite. But they did not sing their special prayer vösh nerge tune at that autumn holiday (there is no mention about it).
Winter holiday, the last in the calendar cycle was Vöy (`Shrovetide'). On that holiday there was the last prayer of the year in the Big Kuala. Both men and women came there and ate sacrificed ducks. They brought a loaf of bread, cut it in pieces and gave a piece to everybody. After that they paid visits to their male relatives and they sang their traditional vösh nerge tune (the same as for Byjym nunal and Petrol). That rite lasted for the whole Shrovetide week.
Summing up the above-mentioned information, it should be noted that the tradition of calendar rites and their musical expression taking place in Omga-vyl villages is rather typical for the South Udmurts and, at the same time, it is more elaborate in comparison with their neighbours as a result of its better preservation.