THE THINGS WE DO...: The medium is not always the message (12/18/05)

THE THINGS WE DO...

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

The medium is not always the message

Marshall McLuhan was only partially right. The medium is the message, but not always - certainly not when it comes to particular aspects of Ukrainian culture, especially the folk. The medium is the "how," while the message is the "what" and "why." In quite a few instances, while things should be as presentable, or as beautiful as possible, it does not matter if they are not as long as the message gets through.

In the folk arts, where geometric ornaments abound as do free-form floral and abstract motifs, the former are precise, neat, expertly formed designs, while the latter often go off madly in all directions. These sometimes look as if a child had created them, and this is where the naïf style appears.

Woodcarving, weaving, metalwork and counted-thread embroidery are primarily geometric in style, and the result is clean and orderly.

Folk motifs on pottery and painting on walls and furniture are free-style, usually not geometric but floral, and here there is less precision. Even the infrequent geometric motifs are not too even.

The contemporary pysanky (from the late 20th century on) are very exact and accurate, especially the ones written in North America. But if we observe the earlier pysanky, and the ones still written by traditional pysanka writers, they are not as accurate. Lines are not always even, the solid areas are not always completely filled in, and the motifs on all sides of the eggshell do not necessarily match.

As long as that solar symbol and the tree of life and the female figure appear on the egg, or on the house wall, or on the plate, the task has been accomplished - the prayer and the wish for all that is good has been done.

The same happens in singing, especially in the ritual songs. These are the "obriadovi," the wedding songs, the koliadky and schedrivky of the Christmas and New Year season, the hahilky (spring songs) and the Kupalo (Midsummer's Night) songs. The words of these songs are most important. How they are sung, and whether by the best voices or not, is not the point.

Usually they are sung by the women. The message must get through - about calling spring and the sun, about fertility, about matchmaking and weddings, about best wishes for the individual members of the family, and the multitude of themes on "schastia" (bliss and well-being).

It is the people's lyrics and melodies that are important, not their voices. Ukrainian polyphony is part of both the medium and the message, and Ukrainians sure sing beautifully, but if the voice is a bit ragged, it does not matter. The words and melodies do, as does the act of them being sung at a particular time and place in the ritual.

Often, in the recent centuries, the original ancient purposes of the actions behind our traditions may have faded from our memory - either because people were far away from the source in the diaspora or, in the homeland, under Soviet and other foreign pressure to assimilate or lose those "primitive" (i.e., ancient Ukrainian) habits - or with the passage of millennia that would subtly erase the reasons. But the rituals remained.

It is remarkable how so many of these traditions were preserved wherever in the world Ukrainians settled. In Ukraine, even before 1991, the rituals kept clandestine all those decades burst forth. We no longer need to hunt for that one rare album of ancient koliadky from Ukraine, or the one book on pysanky as we did during Soviet times - now there is almost more material than we can collect.

The message is to be cherished indeed. And the media in which it is presented are so varied that we have as many choices as we can manage and enjoy. So this Rizdvo (Christmas), sing your heart out in the koliadky and schedrivky! It will sound just fine.

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