Артыкул

2014 - Валодзіна, Т. Сушчы/старошчы: этналінгвістычны анамнез і тэрапія(беларуская традыцыя ў еўрапейскім кантэксце)

Materials from a variety of both Slavic and non-Slavic European regions demonstrate the popularity and prevalence of particular ideas about childhood tuberculosis. The first information about the disease dates back to the early Middle Ages. Of course, the defining symptom (abnormal emaciation) could accompany a variety of diseases, and so there is reason to believe that children ailments of different nature were perceived as tuberculosis in the old days. Incantations are built on a request to the sacred characters or to the deceased (whose functions are actually the same in these texts) to give «meat» or interrupt the child’s disease with death; impressive in this case is the categorical nature of the dichotomy «health – death». The middle link, disease, is practically omitted. In this context, it seems likely to treat the ideas about tuberculosis among the most archaic in the sphere of traditional medicine, when the so-called law of natural selection acted as a treatment for infants (very weak and nonviable kids were actually deprived of proper treatment). The high degree of archaic traits is also witnessed by the prevalence of such ideas in Europe, with extreme semantic unity of folk names for tuberculosis in different regions, their mythological etiology and ritual therapy). Meanwhile, the Belarusian tradition reveals almost all the tangible elements of European ethno-cultural complex of tuberculosis.