Ritual Complex Research Articles

The divergent orientations of the buildings of the Franciscan complex of San Gabriel Cholula, Puebla, Mexico

The Franciscan complex of San Gabriel in Cholula was one of the first establishments of the order of minor friars in New Spain. Its buildings were erected on the ruins of the pre-Hispanic ritual complex dedicated to the god Quetzalcóatl, using the materials from the old temple and annex buildings. The particularity of the structures built by instruction of the Franciscans is that they do not follow the orientation of the layout of the Cholula city, which is apparently solstitial, and therefore has given rise to multiple speculations in the studies of Cholula. In the present investigation we show evidence that the Royal Chapel of the architectural complex has a temporal orientation coinciding with the so-called sacred orientation of Teotihuacan, while the convent temple presents an orientation that is difficult to interpret, but where one of the definitions of equinox and the date of the patron saint's holiday are possible explanations.

Characterizing and Classifying Mayan Ritual Deposits

Initiated almost a century ago, the study of Mayan ritual deposits has undergone a gradual genesis, which until recently distinguished only caches and burials, while all cases that didn’t fit neatly into these two categories were classified as “problematical deposits”. Over the past decades, thanks to technical advances and a better understanding of the contexts, new types of rituals have been identified, such as secondary burials, termination deposits, ritual feasts and, more recently, foundation scatterings. The aim of this methodological approach is therefore to bring together the various hypotheses already formulated to propose different ways of characterizing ritual deposits. To this end, the discoveries on the site of Tikal, the most prolific site in the Lowlands in terms of traces of rituals, will be supplemented by those of seven other sites occupied during the Preclassic and Classic periods. The first series of criteria questions the stratigraphic position of the deposit in order to replace the ritual within the historical trajectory of the building or of the architectural group. The second point concerns the repetitive nature of these rituals which can sometimes be classified according to recurrent Ritual Complexes. These stratigraphical, morphological, chronological and artifactual information thus makes it possible to establish different etic categories and subcategories, while taking into account the probable variability of the emic meanings and purposes of these deposits.This proposed typology is neither definitive nor exhaustive and will evolve with futurefindings and studies of archival collections.

On the Yašt Gāhān (= Gāh Sārnā)

Abstract The Gāϑās are known to be a central building block of the Yasna/Visparad liturgy as well as of the Vīdēvdād Sāde and Vīštāsp Yašt Sāde, liturgies which are based on the Visparad. The functional difference of these liturgies (the Yasna/Visparad are intertwined with sacrificial, the Vīdēvdād with purification acts; the function of the Vīštāsp Sāde is obscure) shows that the Gāϑās can be used in a variety of ritual contexts, in other words, that they are hermeneutically open. In Zoroastrian Studies the impression prevails that the Gāϑās could and can be used only in connection with their Younger Avestan embedding in the Yasna and in the Long Liturgy. However, with the text Yašt Gāhān, in which the first Gāϑā encounters a liturgical embedding that corresponds to that of the so-called Short Liturgies, there is a counter-example attested to in the manuscripts. Remnants of a parallel use of the second Gāϑā indicate a) that once (probably before the 2nd millennium CE) all five Gāϑās could be recited in the way the Yašt Gāhān is recited still today, and b) that the five Gāϑās formed perhaps a liturgical sequence also beyond the Yasna ritual complex. Since the Yašt Gāhān is a liturgy in the context of the rites of the dead – it is recited at the moment when the corpse is lifted up and carried out of the house – it seems reasonable to assume that a recitation of all five Gāϑās formed once the chant accompanying the dead from the place of death to the daxme. Furthermore, there are indications that there was a connection between the separate recitation of the five Gāϑās and the five (or twice five) year-end days named after the five Gāϑās.

Семантика повитухи в родильных обрядах традиционной культуры бурят

The study of maternity rituals in the traditional culture of the Buryats makes it possible to identify preserved and actively functioning archaic traces of the mother cult. Maternity rituals are associated with a developed complex of initiation rituals, when a large-scale change of spatial, temporal and cultural paradigms occurs for a newborn. This process takes place under the guidance of a midwife, who is the figurative embodiment of the cult of the Mother ancestor. According to mythological and ritual views, from the first moments of the birth of a child, thanks to the midwife, the sphere of the iconic is actualized when the newborn undergoes the processes of ritual transformation necessary for his socialization and integration into society. The analysis of the structure of maternity rituals revealed the semantic connection of the midwife with the archaic image of the Mother ancestor. This can be seen, firstly, in the special requirements – “to be a prosperous woman”. These include age, health, but most importantly, “offspring without loss”. Secondly, the concept of a midwife as a “utoodai” (grandmother) made it possible to identify the motive of the ancestry of the Mother Earth in the image of a “gray-haired old woman”, which is simultaneously identified with the image of a hoofed animal “possessing an udder”. Such a woman, with qualities and linguistic definitions corresponding to the characteristics of the maternal cult (“Mother Earth”, “Mother Beast”), conducted, firstly, the ceremony of transferring a newborn from another world to this one, fixing it as a living person, and secondly, constructing sexual identification, launched a male coding program or female stereotypes of behavior, introducing a newborn into the members of the generic society and the corresponding gender and age group. The use of modern research methods allowed us to substantiate the ancient traces of the mother cult preserved in the traditional Buryat society, associated with the vital activity of society, which was a key basis in the formation of such vital elements as external structures, linguistic definition, and internal sacred content.

Name Day in Bulgaria in the Light of Ecclesiastical and Secular Practice

This article presents an ethnolinguistic analysis of the phenomenon of Bulgarian name days, which are experiencing a remarkable boom in the twenty-first century, supported by the mass media and the Internet. The article examines the origins of this holiday (family and ancestral ritual complexes dedicated to the patron saint, personal vows), characterises the ritualism of name days, timed to the dates of the church calendar in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The author also considers their modern state. The peculiarities of the Bulgarian name days and their differences from the Russian ones are described in detail: Bulgarians celebrate the name itself, there is no notion of an angel’s day, name days are celebrated not only on saints’ days, but also on major and minor church feasts. The peculiarities of the name day in Bulgaria are closely connected with the practice of naming, baptism and the specifity of the system of personal names. The transmission of the ancestral link through the repetition (“renewal”) of the name of older relatives (or its letter, syllable) for the name of grandchildren supports the idea of a family celebration and often dictates the choice of the name day. However, since a grandfather’s or grandmother’s name is changed according to fashion, parental preferences and other circumstances, there are variants of a different name day. In addition, the Bulgarian list of names is an open system, constantly replenished with neo-anthroponyms and loans, most of which are not represented in the church calendar but are used as baptismal names. The principles of the “selection” of the name day include the restoration of the original canonical name, the translation of borrowed names into Bulgarian, the interpretation of the semantics of the holiday, its epithets and the folk chrononym in order to find a connection with the anthroponym. The religious component of the name day is gradually receding into the background, leaving behind a predominantly secular celebration.

Заповедные места в дискурсах сакральной географии

The paper explores the phenomenon of sanctuaries from the perspective of religious semiotics. The authors have identified the ambivalence of the perception of a mystical place by folk religion: a mystical place can be simultaneously perceived both as a topos in which ritual is performed, and as an object of worship. At the same time, stable ritualogemes of veneration of mystical places are developed, forming elaborate ritual complexes. Analysis of the mytho-semiotic specificity of narratives about sanctuaries made it possible to propose their typology: places of power, mysterious places, places of refuge, places metonymically associated with special religiously significant events. Specal areas that are dangerous and harmful to humans are considered separately. The study includes analyzing of basic mytheologems that form the discourse of sacred geography. It has been proven that the narrative about sanctuaries is not only formed as a result of the functioning of the mechanisms of mythological hermeneutics characteristic of folk religiosity, but also turns out to be capable of generating new mythological plots. At the same time, a religious studies analysis of the specifics of sacred sites revealed the impossibility of their unambiguous confessional identification due to the presence of syncretic mythologemes in their interpretation. Stories about visiting sacred places and the experiences of various events and states associated with these visits are actively mythologized and become sources for the generating of new semantics and semiotics of sacred geography.

ДИСКУРСИВНІ ФУНКЦІЇ ДАВНЬОГРЕЦЬКИХ ФОРМУЛ ПРИСЯГАНЬ У КОМЕДІЯХ АРІСТОФАНА

Background. This paper investigates the pragmatic and sociolinguistic features of oaths in the corpus of Aristophanes' comedies, with a particular focus on "Acharnians" and "Lysistrata." From a communicative perspective, oaths are part of a complex ritual that combines verbal and non-verbal actions to confirm the truthfulness of a declaration and ensure the fulfillment of promises through an appeal to a deity. Typically, concise formulas invoking higher powers generally introduce the declaration and only occasionally specify sanctions for breaking the oath. Thus, oaths function not only as commissives, expressing promises and commitments, but also as representatives, focusing on the truthfulness of statements; expressives, enhancing the emotional background; and declaratives, performing speech acts. Methods. This article employs structural and corpus methods, functional and discursive analysis, conversational analysis, and hermeneutic techniques. Results. Using constructivist approaches to language study, the article analyses multifunctional idiomatic units, considering their structural elements such as particles, theonyms, noun case forms, articles, and sentence position. The analysis reveals that variations in these elements create pragmatic and sociolinguistic implicatures related to the presence or absence of propositional or presuppositional negation, focus of attention, modification of the illocutionary force of the utterance, and representation of the speaker's socio-cultural identity. Specifically, gender, dialectal, thematic, and genre-stylistic markings of the formulas are identified. Conclusions. The application of constructivist and hermeneutic methods allows for the examination of idiomatic oath formulas on both the local and discursive levels, uncovering implicit meanings essential for comic effects that cannot always be reflected in translations. A corpus analysis of formula variability in dramatic genres highlights their stylistic predominance in comedy and conversational style in particular. The study concludes with a comprehensive examination of a fragment from "Lysistrata" (78-89) to reveal the contextually driven dynamics of the oaths.

Буриад хурим дахь хадамд мордох басганы ёслол, үйлийн антропологийн судалгаа

In Buryat wedding, the ceremony of basgan’s (bride’s) leaving to in-law is a ritual complex that takes place in three steps: the beginning – visiting relatives, the peak – basgan’s great celebration and the end – basgan’s leaving. In this case, theory of social transition ceremony from Van Gennep will be considered and applied. As the reflection of the Buryat social culture, the ceremony of basgan’s leaving has a unique meaning and expressive behavior. In this report, in addition to analyzing the process mentioned above, I clarified the meaning of this ceremony and the its features, roles, and importance by comparing the nomadic cultural Buryat basgan’s leaving ceremony and farming cultural Tujaa bride’s leaving ceremony, according to the theory of Franz Baos.

A unique funerary and ritual complex at the border zone of the Northern and Eastern European Plains as a record of cultural and social changes at the turn of the Neolithic and Bronze Age

In the 3rd millennium BC, the area of the Masurian Lake District, located at the border zone of the North and Eastern European Plains, was still dominated by hunter-gatherers. It was then that the Late Neolithic farming and pastoralist communities reached the region, where cultural and social changes were initiated. Tracing these changes is possible through an analysis of the unique funerary and ritual complex on the island of Lake Lanskie. Burials of representatives of the elites of rankingcommunities from the Late Neolithic were found there, as well as the discontinuation of such burials in the Early Bronze Age, which has already been associated with egalitarian communities.

Rock art of Titovskaya Sopka: the results of the latest research

The article presents the results of field work carried out in 2022-2023, during which the rock art monuments of the Titovskaya hill were re–examined - Sokhatinyi Kamen, Sukhotino–13 and Titovskaya Hill, presumably dating from the II millennium BC. The first millennium A.D. A new pisanitsa Gorge was discovered with two groups represented by images of lines and a zoomorphic figure. Much attention is paid by the authors to the recently discovered groups with ancient images on the planes of the Sokhatina Stone and Sukhotino-13, as well as to the analysis of the semantics and dating of all the monuments of rock art of the Titovskaya Hill. In the course of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that rock carvings, mainly on the Sokhatin Stone, were systematically applied by nomadic pastoral tribes, and could be used as ritual complexes. At the same time, the problem of preservation of monuments and their further museification within the framework of the Ethno-Archeopark "Sukhotino" is being raised. To clarify the more accurate chronology and semantics of the drawings, further research is needed using various interdisciplinary methods, such as ethnography, as well as natural science, which will allow for a more detailed study of these objects in terms of dating and cultural affiliation.

Russian Neo-Paganism: Organization and Propaganda

The development of modern paganism in Russia as a projection of alternative religiosity, a socio-political and ideological phenomenon has been around for several decades. Arisen at the end of the 1970s as a project of a lonely passionary A. А. Dobrovolsky, it soon acquired the status of a public institution, whose various units (communities, unions and an extra-systemic community of sympathizers that are potential neophytes) constitute a cult environment. During the development of this new religious movement, several independent directions appeared (rodnoverie, Odinism, primitive paganism, Druidism, Wicca, neoshamanism, neotengrism, etc.) with appropriate festive and ritual complexes, mythologies, source bases, ministers, and sacred languages (Newspeak). Currently, we may say that a whole neopagan diasporic community has emerged, claiming to have its own system of upbringing and education, projections of a new “correct” history, and social and structural forms that are parallel to the existing state and public institutions of the Russian Federation. The proposed paper aims to consider the most important concepts of the organization and specifi cs of propaganda that contribute to the successful functioning of Russian variations of neopaganism. The researcher concludes that modern Russian paganism is a constantly updated living worldview system with a well-developed ideology and organizational structure. Its most important element is the fi gure of a charismatic ideologue, who at will constructs both the microcosm and its position among other confessions in the domestic and international arena. It is the community leader who is responsible for the diversity of organizational forms, taking into account external factors (the needs of the fl ock) when modeling the latter. The propaganda of the neopagan diaspora includes a complex of various methods and practices, using the widest range of means, such as specialized printed materials, lecture courses, research activities, opening of educational institutions, religious mimicry, active development of the media space, and international activities.

극동 오로크족의 죽음관과 상례(喪禮)

This paper examines the death view and customs of the orok, which belong to the three major indigenous peoples of Sakhalin Island along with the paleoasiatic nivh and tungusic evenki. The orok link life and death with the presence or absence of a soul. Life is a state in which the soul resides in the body, and death is a state in which the soul is separated from the body. The funeral protocols encompasses the entire process from death, funeral, y, and the soul transfer rites. Although shamans do not participate in funeral, do participate in the soul transfer rites. In the past, funerals for children were absolute. The size and procedure of adult funerals vary depending on the deceased's surname, age, social status, and cause of death. The funeral is gradually converted into a rites for the soul of the deceased, a rites for the middle realm between the soul of the deceased and an ancestor spirit, and a rites for an ancestor spirit. Three or four years after the funeral, the soul transfer rites is held near to the tomb, led by a shaman, to guide the soul of the deceased to the underworld. After the soul transfer rites, the souls of the deceased are completely integrated into the underworld, and after a certain period of time, they are reincarnated into their own clan. The funeral protocols of the orok are a complex ritual in which mixed and fused of various tribes of different ancestry, such as the neighboring paleoasiatic nivh, tungus nanai, ulchi, evenki, russian, chinese, etc. In addition, various layers of ideas from different eras, such as shamanism, animism, the soul view, and the cosmic view, are mixed and fused here.

Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread as a Single Ritual Complex

Abstract Discussions of the prehistory of the rituals Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread have frequently held that they stem from distinct origins and purposes. In part, this claim corresponds with the biblical presentation of the rituals as distinct and separable. But in an academic tradition reaching back to the early 19th century, scholarly reconstructions have additionally assumed that the rituals suggest sociological details about the putatively distinct populations that observed them—that Passover was a rite associated with nomadic pastoralists and Unleavened Bread served an agrarian populace. This article challenges such notions based on ritual texts from Emar. Emar’s ritual writings—especially those detailing the zukru festival—demonstrate that Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread share a structure for equinoctial ritualizing that suggests a history of those rites as integral to one another and refutes notions of their separability based on equation with social lifestyles.

Burial of a warrior of the Rouran period from Northern Altai

The article introduces into scientific discourse cultural, chronological and social interpretation of the warrior burial, investigated during the excavations of the necropolis of the Bulan-Koby Culture of the Choburak-I funerary and ritual complex. The site is located on the right bank of the Katun River, to the south from the Elanda village of Chemal district, Altai Republic. During the research, a burial of a man with a horse and accompanying equipment, including a representative set of weapons (bow, a large number of arrows with iron tips, a sword, two combat knives), a belt decorated with numerous belt fittings, horse equipment, and other items were studied. A detailed description of the finds, including both widespread and very rare types of items, has been carried out. The indi-cated circle of analogies from the sites of the Bulan-Koby Culture of Altai, as well as complexes excavated in ad-jacent territories, allows us to determine the date of burial mound №30 to the 4th c. AD. This conclusion is con-firmed by the results of radiocarbon dating of a series of objects from the Choburak-I necropolis. The complex of elements of ritual practice indicates that the burial mound belongs to the previously identified Dialyan burial tradi-tion of the Altai population of the end of the 1st mil. BC — first half of the 1st mil. AD. This is suggested by the combination of the following features: an oval mound with a crepidoma, inhumation burial rite, northwest orienta-tion of the deceased, accompanying of the deceased by a horse laid “at the feet” of the person and its orientation with its head in the same direction as the deceased, inner grave construction in the form of a deck. The composi-tion of the grave goods allows us to conclude that the buried man was of a high social status, possibly a warrior who commanded a large unit of professional warriors, and also, possibly, the leader of a local group of pastoral-ists who left the Choburak-I necropolis. Some peculiar features of the analysed complex reflect the ideological paradigm of the Bulan-Koby population, such as placement into the grave of a broken (disassembled?) bow and a large number of arrows, covering the person’s body at the time of the burial.

Sable in the traditional culture of the Buryats

The work is aimed at identifying the image of the sable in the traditional worldview and rituals of the Buryats. The chronological boundaries of the study are determined by the time of functioning and translation of the com-plex of traditional beliefs and rituals among the Buryats — the end of the 19th — middle of the 20th century. Geo-graphically, the study is focused on the Baikal region, which encompasses the ethnic Buryatia. Linguistic, folklore and ethnographic sources have been used for this research. Comparison-collation and structural-semiotic meth-ods have been used to explore the research topic. As a result of assessing the utilitarian value of the sable, it has been determined that the animal's fur was used in sewing winter outerwear and hats, and its meat was occasion-ally eaten, as well as applied in folk and veterinary medicine. The all-Mongolian origin of the term for sable, and its gender nominations, is proved. It is assumed that this predator could be revered as a totem by some of the ancestors of the Buryats of the pre-Baikal clans. It has been found that in the traditional Buryat culture, the image of sable was ambiguous. In the traditional views of the Buryats, sable was endowed with a heavenly nature. It acted as a female symbol. At the same time, a negative characteristic of this fur-bearing animal has been deter-mined: it was associated with the chthonic world. In the traditional family ritual of the Buryats, a sable fetish was associ-ated with the image of this fur-bearing animal, which performed a protective function for children and represented a female image. The sable skin was an attribute of the shaman: for some black shamans, it represented the emblem of the clan. Furthermore, in the shamanic ritual of the Buryats, a fetish, embodying the shaman's spirit-assistant, was as-sociated with this animal. In shamanic poetics, the soul of a deceased shaman turned into a sable; this predatory animal was endowed with the function of a shaman's transport in his mystical travels to other worlds.

African Vernacular Symbols of Black Intersex Children in Sinethemba Ngubane's Installations (2007-2016)

African Vernacular Symbols of Black Intersex Children in Sinethemba Ngubane's Installations (2007-2016)

MYSTERIOUS RITUAL OBJECTS OF THE SCYTHIANS: SEARCHING THE ANSWERS

The paper is devoted to the analysis of versions of the probable use of gold cone-shaped objects that were in use from the last decades of the 6th centuries BC to the end of the 4th centuries BC. They are differ in size (base diameter varies from 5 to 19.8 cm, height — from 4 to 18 cm) and some shape features. At the same time, they are characterized by hollowness, a wide round base, which is usually 1.2—2.0 times greater than the height, and the obligatory presence (with two exceptions) of a small round hole in the «upper» part. All of them are made of gold or covered with this precious metal. Currently 26 such objects are known, and they originate from 19 assemblages from the Northern Pontic and Azov Sea regions (12), the Middle Don (1), the North Caucasus (2) and the Southern Urals (4).
 The context of finding objects is considered in detail. It is concluded that they were mostly worn attached to the gorytos. This is also confirmed by the images on the stone sculpture. It is believed that the cones could have been a decoration of the gorytos or a sign of prestige. But, probably, the purpose of these items was different. Some of the cones were found in ritual complexes — hiding places within the burial chamber or next to the burial.
 Researchers have put the different versions of the possible functional purpose of cone-shaped objects: ritual objects, part of a ceremonial headdress; a cap for tassels that were tied to the horse’s neck; pommel of a standard or staff; «case» for storing scalps; censer; ritual utensils. But most versions are based on arbitrary assumptions that contradict both the archaeological context of the find and the general cultural context.
 From all versions, it is probable that the majority of the cones were used as ritual vessels for sacrifice by pouring out liquid. In several cases, these objects were found in caches together with ritual utensils. Other examples of ritual vessels with holes in the bottom are known. Some objects have a decoration in the form of a rosette (it surrounds the hole) which is placed only at the bottom of the bowls. It is possible that Herodotus’ information about the bowls that the Scythians wore on their belts is related to these objects. They could be used for sacrifices to «Scythian Ares», which we also know about from Herodotus’ «History».

Ritual Hitching Posts Serge Among the Buryats in the 21st Century

The article deals with a little-studied topic with the aim of studying localization of Buryat ritual hitching posts serge in the space from Ust-Orda district to Cape Khoboy on Olkhon Island in the 21st century. The article is based on the field observations and materials, literary and electronic sources. The hypothesis of the study was proved – in conditions of globalization and active increase in international tourist flows, the Buryats are expanding the boundaries of their own sacred world to create a specific system of protective mechanisms against intensive foreign cultural influence. Sacred objects contribute to the preservation of the fragile ecology of the region. One of the key methods used in the article is ideographic method, which is supplemented with analysis and generalization. There are three entrance signs/complexes, in which the central place is given to ritual hitching posts on the section of the R-418 highway from Irkutsk to the border of the Olkhonsky district. On this section of the road there is a barisa, a ritual complex, with three serge. In the Olkhon region, nine serge are located at the mouth of the river Angi near Mount Yordo where the Yordyn Games are held. On the island of Olkhon near the cape Burkhan, 13 ritual hitching posts have been erected in honor of the “13 northern noyons”, occupying a special place in the shamanic pantheon of Buryats. There is a ritual hitching post serge on Cape Khoboy. The researched cult objects were established in the 21st century by the decision of the population and are all-Olkhon, and possibly all Buryat. The innovative character of the ritual hitching posts lies in their considerable size and in their installation in places where they were not previously installed, thus expanding the sacred territory. These considered Olkhon serge, despite of their increased size, retain their authenticity, in contrast to the stylized serge standing on the entrance steles. A new organization of the socio-cultural space with the help of ritual hitching posts indicates that the ethnic culture has been transforming into a national one.

Building the Ohio Hopewell Chronology: An Incremental Approach to Historical Reckoning

AbstractOhio Hopewell is an archaeological concept that is known worldwide but that suffers from “a disarray of radiocarbon results” (Lynott 2015:60). Here, we establish a comprehensive dataset of 425 14C dates from Ohio Hopewell sites and apply formal chronometric hygiene criteria to all dates. We then iteratively assess the temporal placement and span of the six most important Ohio Hopewell sites—the Hopewell Mound Group, Liberty, Mound City, Seip, Tremper, and Turner. A staged relaxation of hygiene criteria for our best three categories (Classes 1–3) permits alternate but generally consistent conclusions. As the first large-scale analyses of Ohio Hopewell temporality since the publication of IntCal20 (Reimer et al. 2020), the available data show a ritual complex that begins 90 or more years later than generally has been recognized circa 2010 14C BP, or as Bayesian modeled, AD 90–120. Our analysis reveals site histories of differing spans, more late dates than early dates, and with most Hopewell activity ending across these sites circa 1640 14C BP, or as Bayesian modeled, AD 395–430. An increased consideration of contingency in contemporary temporal reckoning increases the utility of the historical narratives that we as archaeologists can construct.

Psalmu dziedāšanas tradīcija Stirnienes draudzē

Office of the Dead, or officium defunctorum, or saļmes is a form of traditional Catholic music – a complex ritual consisting of several hours long prayers sung at home, dedicated to saving the souls which, in accordance with Catholic provisions, have entered purgatory after death. The main function of this ritual is to pray, basically through singing, for the soul of the deceased. The goal of the study is to research of the tradition’s historical development in Stirniene and monitor its current preservation efforts. Empirical materials from the field research – interviews with local informants, biographical narratives, audio and video recordings – as well as articles in local and regional mass media have been used in the research. The tradition in Latgale was introduced by Jesuits at the end of the 18th century. The first church in Stirniene parish was a Jesuit mission centre in the 18th century. It can be concluded that the primary purpose of the chant is to sing and pray for the soul of the deceased. It can be assumed that the Office of the Dead chanting tradition in Stirniene, just like in other parts of Latgale, could have begun at the end of the 18th century and thus may have existed for more than 200 years. The texts of Christian psalms and the original Gregorian chant have transformed and intertwined with folk singing practices; the ritual or its parts are traditionally transferred orally. Usually, saļmes are sung before and after funerals, on death anniversaries, specifically on November 1 and 2, as well as throughout November and in cases of supernatural occurrences at home. Through two centuries and to this day, Office of the Dead chants in Stirniene is a common religious practice, and almost every family has experienced it, as the chants are a crucial part of the funeral rites. In 2021, Saļmes Stērnīnē was included in the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.