Music in Northern Khanty Folktales

The paper describes the musical component in the folktales of the Northern Khanty. The work is based on published and unpublished sources. The author selected eighteen samples of folktales in three formats: sound recording, text transcript, and translation. Three basic types of intonating in the Khanty folktale were identified: singing, speech, rhythmized speech. Singing, in this case, is considered as intonating, intermediate between vocalization and speech. It can be shown in the musical notation indicating the pitch and rhythm. Rhythmized speech can be written without transmitting the sound pitch. Based on segmentation, the author analyzed the structure of folktales, determined the role of musical episodes and the specifics of tunes. As a result, it was established that the Northern Khanty folktale with music has two genre varieties (subgenres): a sung folktale and a folktale with musical (sung) episodes. The first variety is sung from beginning to end, with its tunes correlating with the epic nature of the narration. The second variety includes introductory tunes on the jaw’s harp, episodes with singing, with rhythmized speech, with a clear rhythmic formula in its tunes. The melodies from the group of tales about the greedy mouse are similar to the songs performed in dramatic performances at the Bear-Feast. Music in folktales acts as a differentiating factor within the genre and also shows the ambiguity of the boundaries between genres of the Northern Khanty folklore.

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