-. '. ~ 128 REFLECTIONS OF BELIEF SYSTEMS IN KARELIAN AND LITHUANIAN LAMENTS: SHARED SYSTEMS OF TRADITIONAL REFERENTIALITY?* EILA STEPANOVA Abstract Known the world over, laments are one of the oldest genres of oral ritual poetry. They are usually performed by women during rituals: funerals, weddings or leaving to join the army. Laments are works of a special kind of improvisation; they were cre- ated during the process of performance, drawing upon traditional language and motifs. The objective of this article is to open a discussion of relationships between Karelian and Lithuanian lament traditions, as representative examples of Finnic and Baltic traditions, respectively. I focus on representations of 'belief systems' as these are reflected through the poetic features, images and motifs of both Karelian and Lithuanian funeral laments. . Key words: Lithuanian lament, Karelian lament, register, word-power, funeral ritual, conceptions of death, traditional refer- entiality. I Laments' are one of the oldest genres of oral ritual po- etry, and scholars agree that they belong among pri- mordial varieties of folklore, with their roots in the cult of the dead (Honko 1974, p.9, and works there cited; Tolstoi 1958, p.25). Lament poetry has also been viewed as the origin of all lyric poetry (Werner 1924; cf. Stepanova A. 2003, pp.25-2G). Laments may be generally defined as: 'melodic poetry of varying degrees of improvisation, which nonetheless follows conventionalised rules of traditional verbal expression, most often performed by women in ritual contexts and potentially also on non-ritual grievous occasions'. Lamentations - also called dirges, wailing, weeping or elegy - have been known all over the world, and are still found in some cultures of the present day. In most cultures, they are performed by women, although men have also been found to perform them in some exceptional clrcurnstances.! The most common ritual · ...._ ..... _-_._-_ ....__ ..._._--_._._ .. I I would like to thank Ausra Zickiene for providing me with copies of her own works which I would not otherwise have been able to access, Frog, for his discussion, comments and assistance with the translation of lament texts into English, and also jirn Wilce for his insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I am deeply indebted to anonymous peer-reviewers for comments and corrections. I would like to thank Jiirate Slekonyte for helping me organise and coordinate contacts with Lithuanian colleagues. Finally, I would like to thank the organisers and participants of the Baltic Worldview conference, especially Daiva Vaitkeviciene. 2 For an example from Bangladesh, see Wilce (2002). contexts for lamenting are funerals, weddings and the departure ceremonies for men conscripted into military service. However, laments were also performed 'oc- casionally', i.e. outside of ritual contexts. Aims and objectives The objective of this article is to open a discussion of relationships between Karelian and Lithuanian lament traditions, as representative examples of Finnic (oth- erwise known as 'Balto-Flnnlc') and Baltic traditions, respectively. I will focus on representations of vernac- ular religion or 'belief systems', as these are reflected through the poetic features, images and motifs of both Karelian and Lithuanian laments. I have selected fu- neral laments and their ritual context for comparison. As Aili Nenola points out: . 'As a folklore genre, laments are part of the song tra- dition of the community, and they often represent an archaic layer both musically and poetically. Funeral la- ments (dirges) in particular were also part of religious tradition, in that they reflected communal concepts of death and the fate of the dead, as well as relations be- tween the living and the dead' (Nenola 2002, p.73). Word power My central research interests are Karelian laments, their language as a formulaic system that functions as a channel for cultural expression for the generation, * The above article is published here without prior review by our language editor.