HUMOROUS AND EROTIC ELEMENTS IN SERBIAN FOLK SONGS SUNG IN THE PAST AT AUTUMNAL NIGHT GATHERINGS (SEDENĆA) – THE FIELDWORK COLLECTION FROM THE TERRAIN AROUND THE RIVER BELI TIMOK

Abstract

The subject of this paper is recording of Serbian folk songs that were performed in the past at the autumnal night youth gatherings (sedenća). They were collected in the villages around the river Beli Timok (southeastern Serbia), in 1997 and 1998, from elderly
llocal peasant women who as young girls gathered in the mentioned sessions. Sedenća used to began on autumn Hristian holidays (like Feast of the Transfiguration) marking changes in nature and refering to the end of the vegetative period too. The participants
were predominantly young people, opposed to the elderly who were not welcomed. Sedenća took place during the night, outdoors, by the fire – in spatial-time boundaries of the community. And the freely behavior of participants – masking and disguise, orgy, with
various narratives and expressions (songs, jokes, stories, games, reasoning, riddles) – were in inversion with the rules of everyday life. That way sedenća gathering refers to initiation isolation of those who are biologically ready for marriage. And all this corresponds to the carnivalization of the ritual in its actions and verbalizations (songs) which are the subject of this paper. All of this indicates that colected verses are based on the corresponding rituals, what I am trying to prove.