Verbal Charm Vs. Prayer: An Emic Approach To The Lithuanian Terminology

Abstract

In 20th-century folkloristics, it was commonly held that prayer was a religious phenomenon, while verbal charms were associated with magic. However, this dichotomy formed by scholars is often not accurate or useful in practical terms when attempting to differentiate between these genres. In Lithuania, verbal charms and prayers form a common text corpus, and the emic terms užkalbėjimas “verbal charm” and malda “prayer” do not align with the etic system of folklore classification, which categorizes them as separate genres. In an emic perspective the Lithuanian word malda encompasses a broad category of texts, which includes prayers, verbal charms, and any other texts intended to establish communication with non-human entities such as gods, plants, animals, etc. This category also includes Christian prayers. The article reveals that in Lithuania the relationship between a prayer and a verbal charm is not binary (religion vs. magic), but complementary: malda is the text of the charm, while užkalbėjimas is a charming ritual that involves both the text and the process of its recitation, complemented by ritual actions and performed by a qualified person (a charmer).