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is empty. They decide to go to the open market to re plenish their supply of salt. However there is no salt to be bought anywhere. They learn that the chumaky, have been attacked and robbed of their goods by a powerful lord’s army. The Three Kozaks find the salt carts at the lord’s estate. The lord and his men are rest ing and roasting a pig, and the Three Kozaks undertake to recover the stolen property. The ox carts are driven away and the tiny Kozak even manages to steal the roasted pig for lunch! Soon after they leave the estate, the lord wakes up. He and his men pursue the Three Kozaks and a war is fought, with salt used as ammuni tion in guns and canons. Ultimately, the Three Kozaks win the battle and bring the chumaky’s carts with their loads of bagged salt back to the market. They refill their salt pouches and return to their stronghold. In the 1800s, there was a new development to the salt trade with the establishment of new businesses that provided work for cart drivers. The chumaky be came independent entrepreneurs who can be compared to today’s semi truck drivers. In fact, a chumak was also called a “burlak,” or someone who travels the roads.6 With the purchase of a cart and a pair (or more) of oxen, he could offer his services to transport any goods. On the one hand, it was a risky business to sell land-and-farm and to invest in cart-and-oxen. Some lost everything in the process and in many songs the term “pryhodon’ky,” meaning a mishap on the road, appears. On the other hand, if business was good, the chumak was sometimes greatly tempted to go to the tavern and lose every penny he had earned. The chu mak could also end up in jail. The songs “Oj, pje chumak, pje” and “Oj, bre more bre!” depict the weary salt driver, obviously under the influence of alcohol, who needs to be bailed out of prison. He calls for his parents to come and bail him out. They come but have no money. Then he calls for his brothers; they too come but have no money either. Then he calls for his wife. She finally arrives with the needed money to bail him out. The song “Zazhurylas’ chumachynka” (The Chumak's Wife Worries) clearly describes the chu mak’s itinerary that led to Odessa or Kherson on the Black Sea, and from there to the market in Poltava. In other songs alluding to this itinerary, one finds the ex pressions “Oj” or “Okh!”— expressions that suggest hardships because the chumak faced an uncertain fu ture. Traveling by day and perhaps even more often by night (following the“chumats’kyi sljakh” of the stars) to avoid the scorching sun, he could be attacked by thieves or Tatars and left for dead. The well known Ukrainian love song “Okh, і ne stelysja khreshchatyi barvinky” (Okh! My dear four-leaf periwinkle, do not carpet the ground anymore), attributed to Marusia Churaj, depicts the sad story of a salt driver who sold everything to buy a cart and oxen. Both cart and oxen are taken away from him by the lords and the tax col lectors, leaving him destitute. His heart is broken at the thought of his young wife and his small children whom he has not seen for long periods of time. Now, in order to continue with this occupation, he will have to earn enough money to buy a new cart and a new pair of oxen, but that would mean another seven years of work in distant Bessarabia before he can come home and start his business again. While on the road, a chumak could also be badly injured while working. As he loaded and un loaded the cart he could be killed. In the song “Oj chumache,” a chumak who has just returned home and has. little time to attend to his domestic obligations, is asked “Why don’t you plough nor sow?” The sad an swer is that he is mourning his brother who died in Crimea. The words “the salt split his head open” indi cate that there was an accident—perhaps a heavy bag of salt fell from the cart and crushed his head. These bags weighed a “pood,” a measure that was equivalent to forty pounds. Other songs illustrate animals associated with a chumak’s life, particularly the oxen that shared the chumak's road to-and-from the Black Sea. The chumak would develop a very close friendship with his animals and treat them with pride; many folk songs portray the chumak treating his oxen with a decoratively painted new yoke. Birds are also associated with the chumak’s life. Along the coastal region, it is the seagull that sometimes ends up in the salt driver’s lunch! The song “Та і hore tyi tchaitsi” (This seagull is crying) is a la ment in which a seagull begs the chumaky to spare her little ones. But it’s too late! They have already incor porated the baby birds into their porridge (kasa) and the distraught mother seagull curses them. Another bird mentioned in the chumak folk songs is the cuckoo bird (zozulia). In the song “Smert’s chumaka і myla zozulia” (A Chumak’s death and the dear cuckoo bird), for instance, the dying chumak asks the bird to bring the sad news of his death to his loved ones, especially his mother. The fish is also mentioned in chumak folk songs. In the previously mentioned ”Okh, і ne stely- sia, kreshchatyj barvinku,” the salt driver boasts that he will bring carts full of salt and barrels of fish. The fish image is also used to depict a dying salt wag- goneer. In the lyrics of one song, the chumak lying on the salt cart looks as lifeless as a fish: “vezut’ chu- maka..tak jak vjaluju rybku.” Some of the folk songs are sung while other danced. There are two specific ballet patterns depicting 12 “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, КВІТЕНЬ 2003 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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