Original scientific paper

Cattle discourse and wolves at the wedding in Dinaric folk tradition: metaphors, motivations, performances

Pieter Plas

Abstract

On the basis of the available 19th and 20th century ethnographic, oral literary, lexical and phraseological data, this article proposes an ethnolinguistic and poetic-performative reading of the motivations and strategies of cattle and wolf metaphors in traditional wedding customs of the Dinaric area. As the author shows, a comprehensive analysis of wolf symbolism in the given context must necessarily depart from those aspects of expressive culture that are inextricably bound up with cattle breeding and 'cattle idiom' in the area in question. Wolf metaphors, then, are linked mainly with 'bride-takers' and with consummation. The metaphoric predication of bride-taker : bride ; wolf : cattle in its different aspects is actualised most pervasively in the Dinaric wedding ritual of vukovi 'wolves', the semantics and pragmatics of which correspondingly form the focus of the investigation.

Keywords

wedding customs; Dinaric area; cattle breeding; wolves; cultural metaphors; ethnolinguistics; ethnopoetics

Hrčak ID:

27794

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/27794

Publication date:

22.12.2003.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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