Ethnologica Dalmatica, Vol. 23 , 2016.
Original scientific paper
Christmas Carolling And Door-To-Door Singing On The Island Of Korčula
Katarina Žanetić
orcid.org/0000-0003-4632-5700
; Lučićeva 1, 21000 Split
Abstract
The oldest mentioning of carolling appears on the Bulgarian territory in the 9th century, whereas the tradition of carolling among Croatian folk dates from quite a distant history. The oldest written data in Croatia can be traced to 13th century, in the Statute of the Republic of Dubrovnik. Carolling tradition has been preserved to the present day, and the island of Korčula is no exception. The word “koleda” (carol) bears a heavy semantic burden; however, it primarily means choir singing, the choir consisting of either boys aged twelve to thirteen, young or adult men. It also frequently refers to singing of a boy to a girl, but the most common meaning is associated with Christmas carols, wellwishing, religious rituals, gift exchange, Christmas Eve, and the New Year. It is also important to emphasize that “koleda” used to denote the bonfire lit to celebrate Saint George and Saint John. Groups of carollers usually sang the whole night, and were most frequently offered dried figs, oranges, carob, and all sorts of homemade sweets, wine and spirit by the local hosts. Nowadays they are most commonly offered money. This paper deals with the folk tradition of carolling on the island of Korčula. Since this tradition has been popular to the present day in all nine parishes of the island, the data in this paper cover the areas of Vela Luka, Blato, Smokvica and Korčula. Other towns usually have the variations of the carols of the afore-mentioned locations. Taking a continuous existence of traditional oral poetry on the territory of the island of Korčula as a starting point, this paper will try to grasp the data associated with Christmas carolling in this area to the greatest extent possible.
Keywords
carolling; door-to-door singing (“veseljanje”); Christmas Eve; New Year; Epiphany; The Slaughter of the Innocents (“Mladinci”)
Hrčak ID:
163453
URI
Publication date:
14.8.2016.
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