Traditional folk cultures discussion thread

[FR9CZ6]

Since we have hundreds of members from different countries already and -as I noticed- many of us are interested not only in the genetics but also in the history and traditions of particular peoples, I thought it's a good idea to start a thread where we can share and learn more about different traditional cultures. 

Summary:
Feel free to post about your (or other) people’s traditional customs, costumes, dances, music or any other art, studies on the subject are also welcome. 

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An exact, universal definition of ’folk’ doesn’t exist. In the 19th century the term was used to describe the people of rural communities and their traditions, opposed to the ’high culture’ of the literate, urban elite. Originally the indigenous peoples of different ’pre-literate’ societies were also excluded from the definition. The folks were seen as „half-societies” consisting of marginalised, backwards elements of the literate civilizations, so the folk was presumed to exist only where a civilized or elite group also existed. Tribal groups were regarded as entirely uncivilized, therefore researchers thought we can’t talk about a folk or a folk culture there, instead they were a category on their own: ’primitive cultures’ which have to be studied by ethnographers instead of folklorists. In the 20th century a broader concept of the folk emerged which included the groups formerly categorized as ’primitive’. From the second half of the 20th century a new ’broadest’ definition appeared according to which any group (a family, favelados of Brazil, Afro-Americans from the US, the Russians as a nation) with shared traditions and identity can be described as a folk, and these groups can develop their own folk cultures.

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So, what’s this thread about?

1.       I used the term ’folk’ in its broader, more inclusive sense here. The subject is not restricted to the culture of the European rural communities, posts about the traditional cultures of different nomadic and hunter-gatherer groups from any country are welcome.

2.       I also used folk culture here as something opposed to the popular and high culture. The folk cultures share many features with the modern popular culture, and it’s difficult to draw a line between the so called ’high culture’ and the ’folk culture’ because the two are deeply intertwined. However if a certain cultural product have never been folklorised, then it’s probably not relevant to the subject.

3.       By traditional I mean ’authentic’, and I’d like to exclude all kind of contemporary art products only loosely based on actual traditions from the past. So folk-metal and folk-pop can be nice, but I think that they don’t belong here. Or many Eastern European „folk dance” performances have in fact nothing to do with the traditional dances, instead they’re just Moiseyevist character dances. This contemporary art form was developed in the middle of the 20th century in the Soviet Union and it’s mostly based on modern ballet with some folkish elements added. It has its own merits and aesthetics, but it clearly has nothing to do with traditions from anywhere.

See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOgdrrzOi1A

Of course modern folk revival performances based on authentic sources are welcome.

[FR9CZ6]

First, I'm gonna write a few things about a folk dance type very common across Europe. These dances are called spinning or turning dances. 
Before the 16th century three types of dances dominated Europe. 
1. Circle and chain dances
2. Weapon and combat dances, including competitve male solo dances
3. Early couple dances, evolving from the untamed combat-like dances into real courtship dances. These new dances were called hopping or leaping dances, appeared in the middle ages the most famous variants of this type are perhaps the Saltarello and the Galliarde. 

These main dance forms were preserved in many European folk dances. However in the 16th century, a new trend appeared. Couple dances which had the main feature of turning and spinning began to spread rapidly. It reflects the renaissance spirit quite well, these dances allowed closer and more intimate physical contact between the dancers, they were lively and wild especially the faster paced variant which served as a finale. The couples started the dance with a kiss, and ended it with a hug, between the dances in the break the women simply sat in the lap of the men. It was scandalous... Not for the 16th century mothers though, who supervised their kids but reportedly were very happy that their daughters had a good time, and the more guys invited their girl to dance, the happier they were. But the priests and the protestant pastors almost got a nervous breakdown, they called it the devil's dance and the scandal led to complete dance-bans in many places (circle dances were usually an exception as they were easy to supervise). 

This style of dancing likely has its origins in the Low Countries and the West-German regions along the Rhine. It makes sense considering these were economic and cultural centrums at the time. Ethnographers in the 20th century were awed to notice that the peasant dances they recorded basically matched the 16th century descriptions and portrayals of peasant dances by Albrecht Dürer or Pieter Bruegel. This type was preserved in Norway where it's called Springar, in South-Germany and Austria they call it Landler or Dreher, then in the east it's present in dances of Moravians, the Polish Gorals, the Rusyns and it flourished in Transylvania until the 20th century where the Romanians and Hungarians gave many names to different forms of these dances, but Invartita (RO), or Forgatós (Hun) just like Dreher all mean "spinning dance". 


Pieter Bruegel - The wedding dance (1566)



Romanian (slow) Invartita, record archive. 


Hungarian slow and fast csárdás from Transylvania (which is not a "proper" csárdás but a spinning dance in fact). 



Springar from Norway

[Ioas]

In your opinion how different is folk cultures between Romanians and Hungarians

[FR9CZ6]

In your opinion how different is folk cultures between Romanians and Hungarians

Well, it's a difficult question because in my opinion we can't really talk about homogenous ethnic cultures which are easy to compare. There's a huge diversity, on the other hand the traditional cultures across Europe have many common, similar features because in the past different cultural waves (like the High Medieval culture, the Baroque or the Renaissance) spread almost all around Europe, then certain cultural elements (dances, music, poetry, dresses etc.) were integrated into the local culture of different communities and that way local, and regional variants were formed over the time. That's why dances from remote villages of Norway and Romania can be very similar, despite presumably they never really had any direct contact. Of course those dances I've shown are also distinct and unique in their own way but they share many motifs and figures because they have a common root. The same way looking at the Romanian and Hungarian folk cultures we can see plenty of shared elements, especially because these two groups had direct contacts for over a 1000 years so obviously there's a closer relation between the two than between either of them and the norwegian villagers. I think the closest parallels of different elements of the Hungarian culture can be found in the neighboring cultures. 

Talking about the differences, the best example which came to my mind is from one of the books I've read once. It was about folk dances, and it divided the region into main dance "dialect zones". I think there was an Eastern Balkans, Western Balkans, Carpathian or Central European and an Eastern dialect zone. Romania east of the Carpathians fell into the Eastern Balkans zone. It's because when you look at the dances from this region, or from the Balkans in general they're dominated by archaic circle and chain dances, and pastoral dances which evolved from the combat dances. Of course there are some couple dances like de-doi but they're exceptional and even in Transylvania in many regions the romanian couples lined up in a disciplined circle formation for their couple dances. The Carpathian zone is dominated by couple dances, circle dances are virtually non-existent, they vanished sometimes during the late renaissance when the new couple dance forms spread here. It was only preserved in the peripheries, and in some places in western and central Hungary where the Serbian and Croatian immigrants reintroduced it. Girls usually danced in circles when they gathered but that's all. Reseachers think it's because when these couple dances started to spread in the east, the Balkans and Central Hungary were under Ottoman rule already. And it was like an iron curtain, new western cultural waves simply did not pass. Well, but the two Romanian principalities were never under direct Ottoman rule, they were just vassal states like Transylvania, right? Another theory, which doesn't exclude the prior, is that the orthodox authorities were simply too strict, the cultural revolution was not strong enough there to make these new trends -which were often seen as decadent- acceptable. Apart from the dances, in general the Medieval Byzantine cultural traditions also had an important role in shaping the Romanian and Bulgarian folk culture, it's very evident in their music and poetry and perhaps in other customs too. Ottoman musical influence was likely mediated by lautari musicians, but it reached as far as Hungary.

So I would say the Romanian folk culture is closer to the Byzantine Balkanic traditions, while the Slovak and Hungarian folks show stronger western influences, the interactions with the Germans and the Poles are clearly evident. Of course there's an overlap and mutual influences. In the contact zones like Transylvania the two merged. Transylvania also has its diversity of course, but in some regions hungarian and romanian folks converged to the point where it can be difficult for the average person to tell the difference. While the Hungarians of Moldva basically got assimilated culturally into the local Romanian population. Of course the culture of remote regions of northwestern Hungary and Dobruja are going to be much more distinct.

[Ioas]

In your opinion how different is folk cultures between Romanians and Hungarians

Well, it's a difficult question because in my opinion we can't really talk about homogenous ethnic cultures which are easy to compare. There's a huge diversity, on the other hand the traditional cultures across Europe have many common, similar features because in the past different cultural waves (like the High Medieval culture, the Baroque or the Renaissance) spread almost all around Europe, then certain cultural elements (dances, music, poetry, dresses etc.) were integrated into the local culture of different communities and that way local, and regional variants were formed over the time. That's why dances from remote villages of Norway and Romania can be very similar, despite presumably they never really had any direct contact. Of course those dances I've shown are also distinct and unique in their own way but they share many motifs and figures because they have a common root. The same way looking at the Romanian and Hungarian folk cultures we can see plenty of shared elements, especially because these two groups had direct contacts for over a 1000 years so obviously there's a closer relation between the two than between either of them and the norwegian villagers. I think the closest parallels of different elements of the Hungarian culture can be found in the neighboring cultures. 

Talking about the differences, the best example which came to mind is from one of the books I've read once. It was about folk dances, and it divided the region into main dance "dialect zones". I think there was an Eastern Balkans, Western Balkans, Carpathian or Central European and an Eastern dialect zone. Romania east of the Carpathians fell into the Eastern Balkans zone. It's because when you look at the dances from this region, or from the Balkans in general they're dominated by archaic circle and chain dances, and pastoral dances which evolved from the combat dances. Of course there are some couple dances like de-doi but they're exceptional and even in Transylvania in many regions the romanian couples lined up in a disciplined circle formation for their couple dances. The Carpathian zone is dominated by couple dances, circle dances are virtually non-existent, they vanished sometimes during the late renaissance when the new couple dance forms spread here. It was only preserved in the peripheries, and in some places in western and central Hungary where the Serbian and Croatian immigrants reintroduced it. Girls usually danced in circles when they gathered but that's all. Reseachers think it's because when these couple dances started to spread in the east, the Balkans and Central Hungary were under Ottoman rule already. And it was like an iron curtain, new western cultural waves simply did not pass. Well, but the two Romanian principalities were never under direct Ottoman rule, they were just vassal states like Transylvania, right? Another theory, which doesn't exclude the prior, is that the orthodox authorities were simply too strict, the cultural revolution was not strong enough there to make these new trends -which were often seen as decadent- acceptable. Apart from the dances, in general the Medieval Byzantine cultural traditions also had an important role in shaping the Romanian and Bulgarian folk culture, it's very evident in their music and poetry and perhaps in other customs too. Ottoman musical influence was likely mediated by lautari musicians, but it reached as far as Hungary.

So I would say the Romanian folk culture is closer to the Byzantine Balkanic traditions, while the Slovak and Hungarian folks show stronger western influences, the interactions with the Germans and the Poles are clearly evident. Of course there's an overlap and mutual influences. In the contact zones like Transylvania the two merged. Transylvania also has its diversity of course, but in some regions hungarian and romanian folks converged to the point where it can be difficult for the average person to tell the difference. While the Hungarians of Moldva basically got assimilated culturally into the local Romanian population. Of course the culture of remote regions of northwestern Hungary and Dobruja are going to be much more distinct.

Great comment.!  The two Romanian principalities  were vassals of ottomans  but they directly control cities on the danube called raias

[FR9CZ6]

Let's continue the story, and travel further back in time. I mentioned the leaping/hopping dances which were already trending when the spinning dances appeared. 
These kind of dances were first described in the late medieval - early renaissance period in Italy. They were called Saltarello as the most characteristic feature of these dances was the jumping and saltare means 'to jump' in italian. Unlike the earlier, archaic couple dances which had an aggressive and combat-like vibe these were really sophisticated courtship dances, their development reflected a cultural change in Europe. Modest physical contact between men and women in the dances (like holding hands) also appeared gradually during this time. In the renaissance the Saltarello-like dances conquered the continent, initially as courtly dances but it was quickly adopted by the rural people too. Later in the 15-16th centuries many regional leaping dance variants emerged, but the Galliard became the most famous and popular in renaissance Europe. Galliard was introduced to England in the Tudor-period, where it influenced the popular dances of the commoners known as jigs. Many English and American country dances, and the Irish stepdance too evolved from these jigs. Some of these early jigs were probably very similar to the Galliard, which they replaced even in the royal court. The leaping dances were originally danced in couples, but many different competitive male solo dances derived from them as showing off virtuosity during dances developed its own genre. Apart from the dances mentioned above, the limited number of couple dances in the Balkans also belong to this type, they likely appeared there not long before the Ottoman occupation. As couple dances they were also preserved in the Carpathian Basin where the Slovaks called it odzemok, and ugrós (jumping) was its name in Hungarian. They remained popular in Southern Europe too, where these kind of dances contributed to the evolution of the Spanish Fandango, and the Italian Tarantella dances though the latter shows many features of the combat dances too. 


The Basque's Fandango


Ugrós from Southwestern Transdanubia, Hungary


A renaissance Galliard. I don't know if the time-stamp works or not, but it starts at 4:05 ends at 5:24. It's the only proper Galliard performance I found.

[FR9CZ6]

And an Irish stepdance (slip jigs). Interesting to compare it to the Galliards.

[Jalisciense]

This is a traditional dance in Michoacán (Where my paternal grandma and dad are from) it's Purépecha tradition and we always see it each time we went to that State:

[Æsir]

[Æsir]