Cancelled “hex” as an event, as a ritual, and as a text

The article presents an analysis of the oral memorandum, which tells about a certain domestic incident (suspicion of “hexing” the child), a purification ritual and about a subsequent re-evaluation of what has actually happened by the narrator who is also the central character of the story. It considers other versions of the same plot and describes text-generating mechanisms based on the worldview of that tradition. The author attempts to reconstruct “the prototypical episode”, and identify those event elements that, apparently, did not take place in reality. Such study allows assessing the mythological model role that helps to enrich the oral memorandum with the circumstantial details which at the same time assure its conceptual completeness and credibility.

The article is based on Mongolian and Buryat expeditionary records made during the field expeditions organized by the Center for Typological and Semiotic Studies of Folklore of Russian State University for the Humanities in 2006–2010.

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