Art Leete

Editorial Impressions: Foresight or Hindsight?

Understanding any text has something to do with our way of looking at the world. Do the people we (ethnologists and folklorists) study think about thinking in the same way as academics? Both possibilities might be illusions. We might wish to see everybody thinking similarly to us. But we might also project a different mode of thinking to always different others in order to create a clear purpose for our explorations. Hermeneutics tells us that the text is already understood prior to interpretation. Understanding can be achieved by getting symbolically into another consciousness. In order to accomplish this, one needs to use external designators (such as signs). Interpretations constitute the periphery of understanding. Martin Heidegger (2001: 194) assures us that “any interpretation which is to contribute understanding, must already have understood what to be interpreted.” He discusses interpretation as grounded in a forehaving (Vorhabe). In every case an interpretation is grounded in something we see in advance, in foresight (Vorsicht), and grasp in advance, in a fore-conception (Vorgriff). Heidegger (ibid.: 191–192) says that our “interpretation is never a presuppositionless apprehending of something presented to us”. Hans-Georg Gadamer says that the hermeneutic circle of understanding constitutes the existential frame of cognition, given to us before actual reasoning effort. It embodies the potential of the very embryonic mode of perception. But this fore-knowing functions adequately only in the case of methodical analysis:

From ‘Heritage Adepts’ to Historical Reconstructionists: Observations on Contemporary Estonian Male Heritage-Based Artisanry

Abstract On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork, conducted between 2007 and 2013, the authors analyse the communities of male artisans that have had the most significant impact on the development of contemporary Estonian handicraft. A wide range of artisans were surveyed in the course of this research, from professionals who earn a living from handicraft to amateurs, small enterprises and handicraft instructors. The authors concentrate on the motifs and background of different categories of handicraft agent. Details of handicraft practice such as mastering specific items, local peculiarities and materials used will be also explored. The analysis is predominantly based on the artisans’ views on proper ways of making handicraft items, their marketing strategies and the needs of developing their skills. The study* demonstrates that artisanal initiatives support the material reproduction of cultural locations through constant renewal of heritage ideology and practice.

Landscape and Gods among the Khanty

Abstract The purpose of this article is to examine Khanty spatial ritual behaviour in the context of the simultaneous application of different ideas about sacred landscape. I aim to demonstrate the functional pattern behind handling seemingly ambivalent characteristics of cosmological models in the tangible ritual performance of the Khanty, an indigenous people inhabiting the taiga and forest taiga zone of Western Siberia. I explore three cases in which the concept of sacred topography is applied among the Khanty by exploring two public ceremonies of reindeer sacrifice and one episode of a post-funeral rite. It appeared that the spatial conceptualisation is different in different rituals. During sacrificial ceremonies, the Khanty position the Upper World in the southern direction, while in the case of death rituals, the Upper World is projected towards upstream of a river, even if it remains in the north. Studying different spatial orientations during rituals provides a methodological key for approaching other concepts of vernacular belief among Siberian indigenous communities.

Preface to the Special Issue: Drinking Is Not Just Fun

This special issue of the Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics is composed on the basis of papers presented at the University of Tartu’s 5th International Arctic Workshop, titled Responsibility and Authority in Drinking (May 30–31, 2014).