essay
Genealogy as genre
Selected papers on a Serbian village : social structure as reflected by history, demography and oral tradition • Amherst, Mass. • Published In 1977 • Pages: 141-163
By: Halpern, Barbara.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Heroic epics have long been studied by scholars as primary examples of oral literature in many south Slavic areas of Yugoslavia, and have been extensively analyzed as to linguisitc and structural content. This paper draws on this background of impressive scholarship, adding to it the results of the author's own field work, to present evidence '…for an oral genre not previously isolated or described: recitation of genealogy' (p. 141). Halpern reproduces here an actual genealogy provided by one of her informants, abstracts the underlying metrics, and analyzes its structure. Through this analysis the author attempts to show how complex data can be recollected (not memorized), and suggests that the prosodic characteristics of the recitation, used in conjunction with the socio-cultural values of the society in which it occurs, makes possible the preservation and oral transmission of detailed and complicated genealogy in Serbian peasant society (p. 141).
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Traditional history
- Language
- Literary texts
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Serbs
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 1997
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Europe
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southeastern Europe
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 1996
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1953-1968
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1953-1968
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Sumadija region, central Serbia and Montenegro
- NotesAdditional notes
- by Barbara Kerewsky Halpern
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-163)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- sf80001606
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Serbs