Exercise5. Read the short passages and answer the questions about them giving your opinions to the point.

1. Tradition is a chain which links the present with the past, part of our task is to interpret the life and activity of tradition as a formative and perfecting factor in the development of man in society.

What is the role of the tradition in our life?

2. Some people find it difficult to tell the difference between a custom and a habit. Custom are social and habits are personal. Smoking is a bad habit and certainly an exspensive one. Customs are common to a large number of people who belong to e society or a nation. For man giving up his seats to old people, to women carrying babies, to people who are ill should be a national custom.

Can you describe any national customs?

3. Story-telling and story-collecting used to be an old tradition in tha times before the scientific and technological revolution.The tales and legends have been handed down by word of mouth often for generations. Many were passed on by wandering storytellers, others were composed for special occasions such as wedding and etc.

Can you give your impression of a traditional wedding you recently attended (Kazakh, Russian, etc.)? Describe the old and new customs and rituals you saw there.

Exercise5. Topics for discussions.

The advantages and disadvantages of multinational states for the development of national traditions.

The continuity of folk traditions in modern life (pros and cons).

Customs and holidays

Topical vocabulary:

Symbolic calendar days of rest and celebrations:holidays; festivals; bank holidays; public holidays.

Types of holidays: international; national; local; family; political; cultural; seasonal; religious; ethnic.

Activities in observance of holidays: to mask; to observe; to celebrate; to commemorate; to recognize an occasion, a date; to keep, to preserve a tradition; to give a party; to have family to get together; merry-making; to give presents (BE), gifts (AE); to send greeting cards; to ask a penny for the guy.

Constituent parts of national celebrations: New Year tree decorations (BE), trimmings (AE); small lights; ornaments, fairy-lights; baubles, glitter; evergreen; garlands; holly; mistletoe; fir-cones; bonfires; fireworks; party-poppers; Santa Claus and his reindeer; Father Frost and Snow Maiden; witches; stockings.

Gifts: toys; sugar mice; red roses; chocolate (Easter) eggs; boxes of candies or cookies (AE); boxes of sweets or biscuits (BE).

The types of folklore: verbal (proverbs, rhymes, myths, legends, folksongs, ballads); partly verbal (superstitions, customs and festivals, games); non-verbal (folk gestures, handicrafts, folk music).

Terms of partly verbal folklore according to their degree of generalization:

rites; ceremonies; rituals; customs; traditions; festivals.

Do you any Kazakh traditions?...

The Traditional Wedding Ceremony
of the Kazakh People

The Kazakh people, like other nations, developed its particular wedding

ceremony. The ceremony consisted of three stages. The first stage was matchmaking. It started with betrothal. For this purpose the father of the future bridegroom sent a relative or some respected person to the father of the future bride as a matchmaker (zharshy). When sitting on horseback the matchmaker tucked one trouser-leg into the high boot while the other trouser-leg was worn over the high boot. That was done to ensure an indulgent attitude of the future bride’s father to the matchmaker. The disordered appearance of the matchmaker is an ancient symbol, which means that a guest has come to disturb the usual order in a family. Men were sent for matchmaking on ‘happy days’. Each family had its own ‘happy days’.

If the girl’s father had agreed to give s caner in marriage the matchmaker presented a so-called nail robe. That robe had symbolically to fasten the agreement of matchmaking like a nail. After a ransom (kalym) for the bride was partly paid the second stage of the wedding ceremony started. The bridegroom visited the bride’s nomad village (aul) and presented clothes, dry fruits and other sweets to the bride’s parents and relatives and a filly to his future father in law.
After crossing the threshold of the nomad tent (yurta) the bridegroom had to bow down three times. Those bows were addressed to the parents of the bride and to the old women sitting there. The visit of the bridegroom to the nomad tent of the bride’s father was called esekashu (opening of the door). The bride’s mother gave the bridegroom a cup (kesse) of cows’ milk or mare’s milk (koumyss) and blessed him. Then the bridegroom was taken to the fire of the nomad tent’s hearth and given a scoop full of melting fat. The bridegroom poured the melting fat on the fire. That ceremony is linked with the ancient cult of fire. Some of the women strewed dry fruits on the bridegroom. That ceremony was called shashu. Finally everybody except the bridegroom and the bride left the nomad tent. After coming back the bride’s parents pretended that they did not notice the bridegroom.

It was preferred to marry off sons and daughters in autumn or in the end of summer. According to popular belief the future fate of a young family is linked with the character of the day of the wedding. If the day is bright the life of the young couple will be happy.

After the first night of marriage the bride had to wear a special lady’s wedding head-dress (saukele). By custom a girl had to do her hair in one braid only, while after marriage a young woman had to do her hair in two braids. During the trip to the bridegroom’s house the bride had not to look back. Residents of villages through which the wedding procession passed put different obstacles in its way. For instance they used to stretch a rope across the road and ask for ransom. Several lookouts hurried up to the bridegroom’s village to deliver the good news. They were consequently presented with gifts for that news.

The wedding nomad tent went in front of the wedding procession. On arrival at the nomad’s village it was immediately set up. Then the third part of the wedding ceremony started. Close relatives met the bride, greeted her and brought her to the village. The bride was always covered by a wedding curtain in order to protect her from the view of outsiders. During two or three days the bride as kept in the nomad tent in a circle of girls. Nobody could see her, even the husband. During all that time relatives and friends were gathering in no age and feasts were arranged for them. On the third or on the fourth day the bride was brought to the nomad’s tent of her father in law. She was dressed in her smartest clothes with the saukele on her head and with a shawl covering her race. Before entering the nomad tent of her father in law the bride had to touch the upper part of the tent with her forehead to receive the patronage of the spirits of her husband’s ancestors.