Galina Erdneeva, Naming Practices and Rules of Behaviour

Duration: 2 mins 58 secs

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Galina Erdneeva, Naming Practices and Rules of Behaviour's image

Description:	Galina talks about how married women behaved, and how they addressed their husbands’ brothers. She also laments that the Kalmyks have forgotten their traditions and native language.


Created:	2018-01-26 12:18
Collection:	Kalmyk Cultural Heritage Project (FAMILY STRUCTURE AND RESPECT OF KIN)
Publisher:	University of Cambridge
Copyright:	University of Cambridge
Language:	xal (Kalmyk; Oirat)


Abstract:	This is her story: Married women kept taboos. It was forbidden for women to address their husbands’ relatives by their first names. Instead women used other forms of address. For example, one’s husband’s older brothers were addressed as ‘deede’ or ‘baav’ and younger brothers as ‘baaja’. I still don’t call my husband’s brothers by their first names. A married woman also could not show her hair or be bare foot in front of her husband’s relatives. When paying a visit to someone, women had to sit close to the door. Parents-in-law could not sit on the bed of the young couple. The same was true vice versa. Today, by contrast, people sit wherever they want and go wherever they wish. Even children became capricious. People have forgotten their traditions. Everyone speaks Russian, even old women barely know Kalmyk. I always ask them: ‘Whom were you born from, Kalmyks or Russians?’ One woman said to me: ‘We were taught so in Siberia’. I also lived in Siberia, but I still speak Kalmyk. Siberia is in Siberia, and Kalmyks are now in Kalmykia. Kalmyk people should speak their language.

Abstract:

This is her story:

Married women kept taboos. It was forbidden for women to address their husbands’ relatives by their first names. Instead women used other forms of address. For example, one’s husband’s older brothers were addressed as ‘deede’ or ‘baav’ and younger brothers as ‘baaja’. I still don’t call my husband’s brothers by their first names.
A married woman also could not show her hair or be bare foot in front of her husband’s relatives. When paying a visit to someone, women had to sit close to the door. Parents-in-law could not sit on the bed of the young couple. The same was true vice versa. Today, by contrast, people sit wherever they want and go wherever they wish. Even children became capricious. People have forgotten their traditions.
Everyone speaks Russian, even old women barely know Kalmyk. I always ask them: ‘Whom were you born from, Kalmyks or Russians?’ One woman said to me: ‘We were taught so in Siberia’. I also lived in Siberia, but I still speak Kalmyk. Siberia is in Siberia, and Kalmyks are now in Kalmykia. Kalmyk people should speak their language.

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