The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

123
ALLA SOKOLOVA
(RUSSIA, REPUBLIC OF ADYGHEA)
THE MEANINGS AND CODES OF THE AMOEBEAN FORM OF
SINGING IN THE ADYGHE TRADITIONAL CULTURE
<strong>The</strong> paper is dedicated to researching in the specific form of the traditional Adyghe singing – alternate
interchanging of soloists. Having discovered the traces of this form in different genres and having revealed
the folk terminology associated with the issue under study, the author makes an attempt to reconstruct this
disappearing phenomenon.
<strong>The</strong> notion amoebean (from the Greek word amoibaios – alternate, in turn, following one another),
denotes the phenomenon, widespread all over the world, it is alternate interchanging of two soloists or two
choirs, each with the khorega – a directing singer. According to the competent opinion of A. Veselovski, in
the primitive choir the first singer began and led the song, which was repeated and responded by the choir
(Veselovski, 1989: 155-157).
Scholars come across the evidence of amoebean singing in various cultures. I.I. Zemtsovsky notes,
that amoebean-antiphonal singing is attested among the peoples of the Mediterranean basin, in the Pyrenees
and Spain, in the Balkans, the Near East, Northern Caucasus, Transcacuasia, the Carpathian Mountains and
Transcarpathia, with the Finno-Hungarians and other Turkish-speaking peoples, the same concerns Yakuts and
Eskimoes, Mongols, Buriats, Jews of Bukhara, peoples of Tajikistan, native Americans, the Vietnamese and
many others (Zemtsovski, 2006: 170). Quite a number of indications of the presence of this form can be found
in the Iliad, the Karelian-Finnish runes, the poetry of the Scalds, the Lithuanian sutartines and the Abkhazian
and Georgian songs and so on. According to I. Jordania, in Georgia not only labour and epic songs but even
funeral dirges and drinking songs were performed alternately (e.g. in Khevsureti, before drinking wine, the
host and the guest in alternation sang songs in which they praised each other with glasses in their hands).
<strong>The</strong>re are various types of alternate singing: two people singing in turn (without accompaniment), soloist,
with the common drone accompaniment (as in the case of east Georgian drinking songs), the soloist and the
choir (it is the most widespread phenomenon in the world); or two choirs (Garaqanidze, 2009). I. Zemtsovski
considers the dialogue one of the most characteristic features of man’s singing culture and communication
in general. Also, In Jordania’s opinion, the appearance of the phenomenon of “question and response” in
human evolution and the emergence of the human intellect are connected with the existence of the dialogue
(Jordania, 2006). At the same time scholars assert that alternate singing can be observed among birds as well
(Thorpe, 1960: 774-776).
My work is targeted at finding the traces of the amoebean forms of singing in Adyghe culture and
characterizing them from the viewpoint of culturology and ethnomusicology 1 . Here I proceed not so much
from the history and theory of amoebean singing as from the modern and historic practice of Adyghe singing
culture. Many a time I have come across the situation, when a song was performed by one or several soloist.
Sometimes this situation emerged spontaneously, as for instance, in the summer of 2009, when an Adyghe
family from Syria arrived in Maikop. Marshchan Jimuk, a12-year-old Adyghe boy from Syria was given a
CD with the recordings of the ensemble zhyu 2 and from the disc the boy learned the song Tuguzhuko Kazbich,