Blowing specific words: verbal charms as material suspended events

• Published in: Multilingua
• Main Authors: Siragusa, Laura, Zhukova, Ol’ga Yu.
• Other Authors: University of Helsinki, KONE Foundation, ERC Advanced Grant
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Walter de Gruyter GmbH 2020
• Subjects: Northwest Russia; vepsian
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0049; https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/mult/ahead-of-print/article-10.1515-multi-2020-0049/article-10.1515-multi-2020-0049.xml; https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/multi-2020-0049/xml; https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/multi-2020-0049/pdf

Abstract This article undermines the actuality of a strict boundary between language and materiality by presenting verbal charms ( puheged , vajhed / pakitas in Vepsian) among Veps, an Indigenous minority group of Northwest Russia. Vepsian verbal charms are ritualized ways of speaking that are customarily used to prompt a change in both human beings and environments in very tangible ways. When observing how they are conceived, distributed, and performed among Veps, the rigid separation between “material” and “immaterial” realms begins to be felt as an artificial construction, since Veps understand that in the act of “blowing” air accompanied by the recitation of “specific words,” human and often non-human agencies join forces to promote changes in people and the environment. This paper engages not only with the academic interest in the material intersections between language and the world (see, Cavanaugh and Shankar 2017; Keane 2008a; Wiener 2013, to name a few), but also aims to reframe the notion of “event” as a transformative and suspended encounter between human and often non-human agencies (Kapferer 2015) and thus deepen our understanding of what living relationally might entail.