Ritual and Narts epic in the context of local traditions: vocabulary and pragmatics

The study examines chapshch – the Circassian (Adyghe) healing game, the archaic rite entertaining night gatherings arranged at the bedside of a sick or wounded person, including timed games, songs, dances, and poetic lists.

The purpose of the article is to identify the local terminological versions of the chapsh mythological ritual complex, its connection with the mytho-epic tradition, the pragmatic and semiotic features of the rite, to draw attention to the existence of the narrative reflective judgments regarding the text (the verbal or action one) of the now-defunct rite.

The relevance of the study is due to the demand for the new developments in the field of localistics and regional studies. The article contains the field materials of the author including the ones on the folk terminological lexicon, first introduced into the scientific circulation. This determines the relevance of the study.

The author considers a number of symbolic elements of the chapsh including subject symbols (a rod in the hands of the ritual master, skins of the sacrificial animals, the ritual food). It is noted that verbal-action texts (the spell – “blowing and whispering”, the apotropic actions, the chapsh games, etc.) must be considered in connection with the communicative context. The terminological variants of the chapsh rite vocabulary fixed in the different local traditions of the Circassians are compared.

The research methods: comparative, pragmatic, semiotic, functional approach. The stated observations are based on the author’s field materials collected both in the historical homeland of the Circassians (the republics of the North Caucasus) and in the diaspora (Turkey).

It is concluded that the destruction of the communicative context of the rite entails a certain “misunderstanding”, a denial associated with the transformation of the ethical ideas, in some cases – silence, and sometimes the refusal of informants to spread on the theme of the chapsh plays. In comparison, for example, with epic texts that informants refer to prestigious genres, chapsh folklore is pushed to the periphery of the collective memory.

A return to the study of the rite with the use of the new field and research methods is a promising task for studying the semiotics of folklore culture, the history of the poetic language of the verbal genres, and the identification of the local versions of ritual and the mythical epic texts.

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