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Work songs are among the oldest forms of folklore. They came into being when rudimentary manual labor was employed. As farm implements improved and the management of labor changed, many work songs were no longer suitable for accompanying the tasks and began to disappear. Many of the songs became divorced from the specific job and became lyrical songs on the subject of work to be sung at any time. Work songs vary greatly in function and age. There are some very old examples, which have retained their direct relation with the rhythm and process of the work to be done. Later work songs sing more of a person's feelings, experiences and aspirations. The older work songs more accurately relate the various stages of the work to be done. They are categorized according to their purpose on the farm, in the home, and so on. Herding songs
The melodies of nightherding
songs have certain common stylistic characteristics. Many have a galloping
rhythm and tell a love story.
Ploughing songs
The cycle of fieldwork on
the farm begins with ploughing. Compared to others song genres, not many
ploughing songs have been written down. From a poetic standpoint they are
among the most artistically interesting of Lithuanian lyrical folk songs.
They describe the work itself, as well as rural life. Often relationships
between young people and the love between a boy and a girl are described.
The melodies do not have any common characteristics and these work songs
are not musically related to the movement of the work being done. However,
the rhythm of the song could be coordinated with the step of the ploughman.
Haymaking songs
A great number of haymaking
songs have been recorded in Lithuania. They are also subcategorized into
hay
mowing and raking songs. Many songs combine both topics. Hay
raking songs are more melancholy than the mowing songs, and they often
contain imagery about an orphan girl. Other songs describe all of the tasks
associated with haymaking, beginning with the mowing and ending with the
feeding of the hay to the animals. Haymaking songs often personify a clover
or other beautifully blossoming flower, and often contain references to
love. Young peoples' feeelings are expressed through the images of the
haymaking process. For example, the song "Ein bernelis per lankelæ"
(There
goes a lad through the field) tells of of a brother working in the field
with a steel scythe. He plans to mow the clover and adorn his hat with
it before enticing the young maiden. In contrast to these love songs are
songs focusing on the topic of war. They ruefully sing of the brother who
must go off to the great war. Many songs tell off the rounding up of recruits,
which shows that these songs are from the first half of the 19th
century.
Rye harvesting songs
One of the
most important stages in the agricultural cycle is the harvesting of rye,
therefore it is quite natural that the most abundant repertoire of work
songs is related to rye. Some songs actually tell of the harvesting of
rye, while others do not even mention it. The harvesting of the rye is
metaphorically portrayed by the image of a driven, running row. Work is
portrayed in two ways. In some songs it is considered noble, while in others
the reverse is depicted, stressing the difficulty of the work; the mood
is doleful and sad. In the songs that make no mention of the harvesting
of rye, love and marriage are the prevailing topics. Images of nature are
very frequent, often making up an entire independent branch to a song.
Family relationships between parents and children are often discussed,
with special emphasis on the hard lot of the daughter-in law in a patriarchal
family. Orphans are empathized with. Once in a while we encounter the topic
of war, others contain mythological elements. In humorous songs specific
villages are mentioned, mocking the young residents, the poor harvest,
the inept masters, the surly mowers, etc.
Oat harvesting, flax and buckwheat pulling and hemp
gathering songs
Rye
harvesting songs ar also closely related to other work songs: oat harvesting,
pulling buckwheat and flax. The same kinds of circumstances surrounded
all of these tasks, which were all performed by women. They also have rhythmic
and tonal structures in common, which attests to their antiquity.
Milling songs
Milling songs
are among the oldest work songs. The
Malu malu viena [mp3]
Spinning and weaving songs
Spinning and
weaving songs are the most important of the songs about work done in the
home. The imagery of both is very simialar and it is not always easy to
distinguish one from the other. In spinning songs the main topic
is the spinning itself, the spinner, and the spinning wheel. In some there
are humorous references to the tow or the lazy spinners who have not mastered
the art of spinning and weaving by the time they are to be married. Some
spinning songs are cheerful and humorous, while others resemble the milling
songs which bemoan the woman's hard lot and longing for their homes and
parents. These songs have characteristic melodies. There are also highly
unique spinning sutartinës (polyphonic songs), typified by
clear and strict rhythms. The texts describe the work process, while the
refrains mimic the whirring of the spinning wheel.
Laundering songs
Song which
are sung while laundering and bleaching are interesting and unique, but
rather infrequent. The bleaching process receives more attention than the
laundering. Sometimes the refrain imitates the sounds of the beetle and
mangle—the laundering tools. The songs often hyperbolyze images of the
mother-in-law's outlandish demands, such as using the sea instead of a
beetle, and the sky in place of a mangle, and the treetops for drying.
But the daughter-in-law protests, that she is not a fish who swims in the
sea, a bird who flits among the trees, and she is not the moon, which whirls
through the sky.
Fishing songs
Fishing songs
are about the sea, the bay, the fisherman, his boat, the net, and they
often mention seaside place names, such as Klapëda or Rusnë.
Some songs depict the fishing process: "three fisherman ar fishing in the
Korkø floodplain, catching bream, the bream spawn, and the zander
are leaping." The emotions of young people in love are often portrayed
in ways that are unique only to fishing songs. For example, as two brothers
went fishing, the didn't catch a pike, but a young maiden. The monophonic
melodies are typical of singing traditions of the seaside regions of Lithuania.
Hunting songs
There aren't
many hunting songs and not much is known about their evolution or the time
and place they were to be sung. Unique polyphonic hunting songs—sutartinës
are believed to be very old. Hunting motifs are very clearly expressed—one
tells of a rabbit shot in the forest, in another it is urged that the greyhounds
be released to chase the rabbit, deer or sable.
Berry picking and mushroom gathering songs
These are singular songs. Berry picking songs describe young girls picking berries, meeting boys and their conversations. Mushroom gathering songs can be humorous, making light of the process of gathering and cooking the mushrooms, describing the "war" of the mushrooms or their "weddings." Compiled by Skirmantë Valiulytë
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