Meat in the diet of North Russian peasants: ethnolinguistic aspect

The author reconstructs the complex of folk ideas connected with meat in the Russian North (Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions, north of the Kostroma region). The analysis involves Russian dialect vocabulary, folklore texts and folk beliefs. The new data collected by the Toponymic Expedition of the Ural University are introduced into scientific use. The methods of motivational analysis, semantic reconstruction, as well as semantic-motivational parallels between linguistic facts and data of non-linguistic forms of culture are applied. The study characterizes the attitude of the peasants towards the meat of different animals, slaughter rituals, methods of storing meat, features, important for meat products (raw - boiled, fresh - harvested for future use, clean - unclean, etc.), and food preferences of local social groups. The author concludes that meat served not only as food but also as a cultural and linguistic symbol. Analysis of the vocabulary, rituals, and folk legends associated with the slaughter of live-stock allows reconstructing the tradition of the sacrifice festivals (svezhina, Svinarnoe zagovenie, Svinoboy). The vocabulary associated with meat food reveals a difference in the meat ration of Russians and aborigines of the Russian North, who consumed raw meat, as well as not familiar to Russian reindeer meat, seal meat, and walrus. The paper clarifies the motivation of some lexemes, for example, the designations with component tsarskiy and tserkovnyy. Nicknames, the folk motivation of which is associated with the use of meat, are analyzed (volog. telyatniki, volog. veksheedy, arch. morzheedy, arch. kostogryzy, volog. Samoed, etc.).

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