An Analogy between Karakalpak Rites and Bakhtin’s Carnival
Abstract
Karakalpaks furnished some of their traditions with the rites that praise and demand fertility for their women and earth, that convey the society’s acknowledgement of the integration of death and birth, and that depict the importance of threshold. Mikhail Bakhtin’s observation of the carnival and the grotesque reveals similar concepts: fertility, juxtaposition of death and birth and the idea of threshold. This article draws an analogy between some of Karakalpak rites and Bakhtin’s carnival in terms of these three concepts. It concludes that Karakalpak traditions and rites, as well as carnival as discussed by Bakhtin, were formulated as a consequence of the society’s infallible unity which was firmly subordinated to the privilege of people’s collaboration with nature and their negation of the absolute one-sided truth and certainty.
Keywords
References
- Arginbayev, Halel (1973). Kazak Halkindagi Semya Menen Neke. Alma-Ata.
- Ayimbetov, Kalli (1977). Karakalpak Folklori. Nukus.
- Bakhtin, Mikhail (1984a). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Bakhtin, Mikhail (1984b). Rabelais and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Indiana University Press.
- Basilov, Vladimir (1992). Shamanstvo u Narodov Sredney Azii i Kazahstana. Moskva.
- Dentith, Simon (1995). Bakhtinian Thought. London: Routledge.
- Emerson, Caryl (2002). “Coming to Terms with Bakhtin’s Carnival: Ancient, Modern, Sub Specie Arternitatis”. Bakhtin and the Classics. Ed. R. Bracht Branham. Evaston: Northwestern University Press. 5-26.
- Esbergenov, Hojahmet and T. Atamuratov (1975). Traditsii i Ih Preobrazovaniya v Gorodskom Bitu Karakalpakov. Nukus.
Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Publication Date
October 22, 2019
Submission Date
August 29, 2018
Acceptance Date
-
Published in Issue
Year 2019 Number: 91
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