Orthodox Rituals Research Articles

Korean Shamanism : Women's Rites and a Chinese Comparison

The series, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and recalls from distant memory a college board examination question: Which of the items in this series is least appropriate? I would necessarily answer with my own area ofinterest, shamanism. The other three isms are anchored, however loosely, in a corpus of written text and orthodox ritual as they float about in geographic diffusion. is a researcher's category, a heuristic tool for comparing analogous practices in diverse societies (Cf. [PETERs'and PRicE-WiLLiAMs 1980] ), We do find shamans in China, Korea, and Japan, but we also find them in Siberia, Southeast Asia, Oceania, Africa, and the Americas. Outside Europe, we would be hard pressed to find an area of the world that did not have some form of shamanism.2) For some religious historians, implies a single and ancient religious tradition diffused from Siberia (Cf. [EuADE 1964] ). In this tradjtion, scholars do speak of Shamanism as a discrete religion and historical stratum. Yim Sokchae and his students have discussed the limitations of this approach: The term mucinng 2gZ# indicates both the hereditary priestess and the inspirational shaman. As in Okinawa, shaman and priestess perform many of the same ritual functions, a distinction obscured by the blanket use of the term shamanism or the indigenous title, mudong. Shamanism, as an ancient north Asian faith, intimates primitivism and obscures the development and complexity of Korean religious traditions [YiM 1970: 215-217; CH'oi 1978: 12-30]. In this paper, I will use the term shama-

Gender of Infants Conceived on Different Days of the Menstrual Cycle

The baby's sex was studied in 3658 births to Jewish women who observed the orthodox ritual of sexual separation each month and who resumed intercourse within two days of ovulation. The day of resuming intercourse relative to ovulation was estimated from the characteristics of each woman's menstrual cycle and the number of days of sexual abstinence observed after the last menstruation. The proportion of male babies was significantly higher (65.5 +/- 3.9 per cent, mean +/- S.D.) in the offspring of women who resumed intercourse two days after ovulation. This proportion tended to be lower on or near the day of ovulation than on the previous one or two days. These results, which were consistent in different demographic subgroups, demonstrate that insemination on different days of the menstrual cycle does lead to variations in sex ratio. Couples should be cautioned against attempting to conceive a boy by delaying intercourse until after ovulation, until further research has established whether delayed fertilization causes birth defects.

Gender of Infants Conceived on Different Days of the Menstrual Cycle

The baby's sex was studied in 3658 births to Jewish women who observed the orthodox ritual of sexual separation each month and who resumed intercourse within two days of ovulation. The day of resuming intercourse relative to ovulation was estimated from the characteristics of each woman's menstrual cycle and the number of days of sexual abstinence observed after the last menstruation. The proportion of male babies was significantly higher (65.5 +/- 3.9 per cent, mean +/- S.D.) in the offspring of women who resumed intercourse two days after ovulation. This proportion tended to be lower on or near the day of ovulation than on the previous one or two days. These results, which were consistent in different demographic subgroups, demonstrate that insemination on different days of the menstrual cycle does lead to variations in sex ratio. Couples should be cautioned against attempting to conceive a boy by delaying intercourse until after ovulation, until further research has established whether delayed fertilization causes birth defects.

Three Jewish Narrative Strategies in Humboldt's Gift

Few admirers of Saul Bellow have not encountered, in one of its variations, his famous disclaimer. One version is: This whole Jewish writer business is sheer invention-by the media, by critics and by 'scholars.' It never even passes through my mind. I'm well aware of being Jewish and also of being an American and of being a writer. But I'm also a hockey fan, a fact which nobody ever mentions.' What is it that enables critics to acknowledge Bellow's discomfort with this label and then proceed to classify him with other JewishAmerican writers in spite of his obvious reluctance to be so defined? Bellow is prominently featured in a recent collection called JewishAmerican Stories.2 editor justifies the inclusion of Bellow's story, The Old System, on the grounds of its subject. It shows the familial tensions in two generations of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Although it richly details Orthodox rituals including a consultation with a learned rabbi, it is Jewish in deeper ways. Its underlying structure shares with all of Bellow's fiction three narrative strategies derived from the Yiddish storytellers. These definitive structures are: a characteristic narrative perspective, a characteristic mode of ordering the events, and a characteristic mode of closure. That is, Bellow uses a Jewish point of view, a Jewish plot, and a Jewish ending. These authorial techniques are what mark him as a Jewish writer whatever his subject. How this deep structure disqualifies all disclaimers becomes quite apparent in Bellow's latest novel, Humboldt's Gift. It is quite possible that Bellow's own sensitivity on the point led him to minimize the pronounced Jewishness of the character based upon Delmore Schwartz. Although Bellow recorded his appearance, his conversation, his behavior with incredible accuracy, he deliberately underplayed Delmore's self-chosen role of quintessential Jew. A contrast of Bellow's fictionalized memoir with Schwartz's biography makes clear how careful Bellow has been not to present Schwartz as a Jewish writer.

Two Letters from Dostoevsky's Grandson

N September 18, 1968 Andrei Fyodorovich, grandson of the novelist, died in Leningrad. He had suffered for more than a year from cancer of the stomach, but despite this ordeal he managed until mid-summer to carry on the work to which he was devoted, the collecting of materials related to Dostoevsky and the development of the Dostoevsky Museum in Leningrad. For the last year and a half I had been corresponding with Andrei Fyodorovich. We had developed a most interesting and fruitful correspondence, and I had been dreaming of a visit to Leningrad especially to see him in 1969. Now it is too late. On November 9 a requiem service was held in Paris at the Orthodox Cathedral. This was only a little later than the forty-day period following a death, honored in the Orthodox ritual by the Sorokovina, the requiem mass. As we know from his diary, Dostoevsky himself intended in his last years to write of the significance of this tradition, but did not live to do so. The statement issued by the Tass Agency indicated that Andrei Fyodorovich died at the age of sixty. One wonders whether he was not actually a little older. He had been retired for some years. He was an engineer by profession, and by avocation a racing car driver. His father, Fyodor Fyodorovich, was born in 1871. This would have made him thirty-seven when his son was born. An article about Andrei Fyodorovich, Monsieur Dostoevsky, with a photograph, appeared in Soviet Life, October 1967, the whole issue being devoted to Leningrad; a small picture of him also appeared in the September issue for that year. In one of my letters I had asked Andrei Fyodorovich whether he was the only lineal descendent of Dostoevsky (as I suspected) but he did not answer. Nor has he ever mentioned any others. What a pity if he was indeed the last of the line! The two long letters I received from him, here translated into English, contain so much information of interest to Dostoevsky scholars everywhere that I have abstracted them. The information about the plans of the Soviet government regarding the Dostoevsky Museum and the hundredth anniversary of Dostoevsky's birth, which Andrei Fyodorovich describes, is of general concern to students and is therefore shared. These letters are inscribed in green ink, in a firm, flowing handwriting not unlike that of Andrei Fyodorovich's grandfather.