Nonverbal Event as Part of Belief Narrative

Abstract

A communicative act that involves the presence of two or more persons always involves a nonverbal aspect. The focus of the article is on nonverbal situations as a basis for the evolution of belief narratives. This pre-narrative aspect has not received much attention in narrative research as most analyses are based on texts that already exist in verbalised form. However, on many occasions the basis for a belief narrative is a nonverbal act that has triggered its witness or re-narrator(s) to interpret it within the framework of vernacular belief. Hence, texts that contain a nonverbal part consist of two components: 1) description of a nonverbal occurrence; 2) its meaning/interpretation that is verbalised by the narrator within the framework of a topical belief tradition. By bringing examples from Estonian belief narratives, the author points out some models and patterns that leap to the eye in texts narrating about nonverbal occurrences (e.g. the context of described situations, the types and results of activities described, etc.). As a theoretical basis, works on communication theory and vernacular belief research are used.Keywords: belief narrative, narrating, nonverbal behaviour, nonverbal communication INTRODUCTIONStudies into belief narratives are in most cases based on recordings of narrators' stories in writing. I am interested in the evolution process of such texts and, above all, the role of the nonverbal component in belief narratives. A communicative act with the presence of two or more persons always involves a nonverbal aspect, both when transmitting and receiving information (cf. Streeck & Knapp 1992: 3), and often it seems that the folkloric narrative is based on a nonverbal situation that has inspired an eyewitness or a re-narrator to interpret the situation in terms of vernacular belief. So far this facet has remained largely outside researchers' sphere of interest, as the deductions made are bound to be somewhat hypothetical. Nevertheless, involving the nonverbal aspect enables a more complete approach to belief narratives, promising at least heuristic added value. In the following I am not trying to reconstruct exact original situ-38 www.folklore.ee/folklore Reet Hiiemäe ations that have engendered belief narratives, but my aim is, on the example of mainly older folklore tradition, to point out some regularities that could be observed in narrating nonverbal occurrences, as well as the circumstances that have made it possible for these narrations to persist in the tradition. The belief narrations under study originate from the manuscript collections of the Estonian Folklore Archives. In addition, I am trying to find out to what extent it is possible and efficacious, by merging communication and narrative theories and applying them to concrete archival texts, to study the nonverbal aspect in the context of belief narratives. Communication theories predominantly focus on spontaneous communication acts rather than nonverbality in the written text or even in folktales including a supernatur...

Belief Narratives of Spirit-Animals: A Case Study on Estonian Contemporary Folklore

“…According to a poll about religious views of Estonians, conducted in 2014, 61 percent of the respondents considered the local pagan earth religion (maausk) to be the proper religion for Estonian people (RSE 2014 1 ). Besides receptivity towards religious ideas related to nature, there is a wider openness towards various views, object-use, and behaviour related to protective magic (Hiiemäe 2016; about views of angels as protectors see Uibu 2012) and esoteric teachings related to one's inner balance and wellbeing; for example, 46 percent of respondents to a poll about religious views in Estonia expressed their belief in spiritual self-development (Saar Poll 2015).…”