Geography · Nature · Ethnography
Greek shepherds are a most interesting and, in our day, extremely small group, preserving age-old traditions of transhumant pastoralism and the way of life that goes with them. Barely a century ago, thousands of shepherds would calmly cross mountain valleys many kilometres wide to reach their ancestral pastures, scattered
NB! · Archive · Ethnography
NB! · Archive · Geography · Ethnography
A Greek shepherd and his son on Mount Parnassus. Colourised photograph, 1903
Books · Nature · Ethnography
John Tanner, in his narrative "Thirty Years Among the Indians", relates a curious detail which may undoubtedly bear witness to the hunting role of cries in remote antiquity:. at the piercing war whoop of the Indians a bison might fall into a swoon, and a bear might flee
Faith · Observations · Ethnography · Humour
That's just the sort of people we are. Saint Peter reads on a slip of paper that the departed is a Russian, and at once admits him to heaven. A modern priest reports that a note bearing the so-called prayer of absolution is placed in the hands
In the Press · Books · Mores · Ethnography · Humour
What is better to give one's beloved: sperm whale teeth, a leg of lamb, a little gold, or a bouquet of tulips in the old-fashioned way? In the pre-holiday Kommersant Style supplement I have mused on the place of gifts in the annals of world culture.
In the Press · Books · Ethnography
Colleagues at Vox medii aevi have announced the publication of the book "Parnassian Mockingbird. Tales from the History of World Culture" and shared excerpts from the section "Monsters All Around Us Sit", on superstitions, omens and folk demonology.
Art · Moscow · Museums · Ethnography
A simple story at the Garage Triennial of Contemporary Art: the friendship of two creators, the Russian painter of the Arctic Alexander Borisov (1866-1934) and the Nenets self-taught talent, the first artist of Novaya Zemlya, Tyko Vylka (1886-1960). Vylka learned to draw from a tear-off calendar
Museums · Observations · Ethnography · Humour
Ivan Grinko of the Moscow Agency for the Organisation of Leisure and Tourism offers, in his article in "Ethno Dialogues", a rather original view of museum totemism. Let us replace the word "totem" in the definition with the word "museum", and it really does
Books · Science · Ethnography
When you were born, the owl screamed, Foretelling ill times, the horned owl wept, Dogs howled, a hurricane tore down the trees, An ominous raven settled on the chimney, And a chorus of magpies chattered out of tune. And your mother, though she suffered more Than other mothers do, bore
Aristocracy · Art · Observations · Mores · Education · Ethnography
A snowy day, Ronald Lampitt. One can go endlessly goose-pimpled watching Englishmen, certain continental Europeans and Americans stroll about in shorts in winter. Some will write it off as plain folly, others will recall ancient traditions, still others will put the wardrobe at odds with the weather down to
Faith · The East · Mores · Ethnography
The custom of burning wives after the death of their husbands existed among many Indo-European peoples; its most recent manifestation is the tradition of wives' self-immolation, which survived in India until the mid-nineteenth century. Sati was officially banned in 1829, but cases of widow self-immolation