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the various stages of a chumak’s life and his relation ship to others, especially to his beloved. In the book Ukrains’ki Narodni Tantsi,1 these choreographies are called “first chumak” and “second chumak;” in a mod em 1960 ballet composition, one is simply entitled “chumak.” The folk dances require a chorus of men (up to thirty) to sing and dance along with one female performer. A folksong in the “second chumak” illus trates how a young woman in love barters her personal possessions to offer her beloved chumak some of the ancillary items for his next journey. She exchanges a chicken (kurku) for a pipe (liul’ku), a comb (hrebin’) for a small flint (kremin’) to light his pipe, her sleeved corset-jacket (jupku) for a sponge (hupku) to refresh himself with water, and some lard (salo) for a stronger flint to strike a fire in the open (kresalo). In the end she offers him a roll of tobacco leaves. In the Eastern tradition, to this day, salt is used as a sign of good faith when welcoming guests. It symbolizes honor, friendship, trust and hospitality. It is in this spirit that in the Ukrainian community, salt ac companies the heartfelt welcoming of guests in the traditional “bread-and-salt” greeting. The origin of this tradition can be traced to the Greeks who evidently brought this tradition to the northern coast of the Black Sea and Scythia (the ancestral name of today’s Ukraine) when they were trading gold for wheat and horses. The Greek historian Homer (circa 500 B.C.), who traveled to Scythia and to Africa, described salt as “divine,” and the Greek philosopher Plato said that salt was “dear to the gods.” Greek poets wrote odes to celebrate salt. In modem times, the Chilean poet, Pablo Nemda, revived this tradition by composing an “Ode to Salt.”8 Today only 5% of the salt produced is used for food. Through the ages man has found thousands of new uses for salt, for instance, to preserve wood, to set paint and color in textiles, and to make pottery. It is used in the making of soap, bleaches, cleaning agents and disinfectants; it is also used for water softeners and refrigeration; for making paper, refining gasoline and oil and smoothing paved highways. Thousands of tons of salt are used every winter to clear the streets of snow and ice and keep machinery from freezing. Doc tors, dmggists, cattle growers, meat packers, bakers, and food processors however use the greatest quanti ties of salt. Chemists continually search for new uses of this miracle substance. There is so much salt in prepared and pack ages foods that we hardly use a salt shaker anymore. Yet there was a time when people not only used salt but also invested in beautiful salt cellars or containers to store it. People also knew the difference between gourmet salt (fleur de sel) and ordinary salt (gros sel). Good cooks today know what a difference the use of salt can make in cooking pasta or potatoes. Recently, a contemporary cooking magazine enlightened its read ers about the different kinds of salt used for cooking, and their outlandish prices, in an article entitled “The Emperor’s New Salt.”9 The old chumaky have passed into history, their legendary journeys a distant memory that is re called in riddles, folksongs and folk dances. But the salt that brought them their moment of glory is still an important commodity, one which humankind relies on for many different things, including life itself. There is much to learn from our Ukrainian chumak forefathers, and one can even speculate that the chumak tradition is one that may be worth reinventing in toady's Ukraine where tapping into salt and its manifold uses could prove to be a significant economic treasure trove. The implications for the tourist industry alone are endless. Copyright 2003 Helene Turkewicz-Sanko John Carroll University 1 New York, U.S.A. 2 Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. 3 See Salt Part I. 4 New York: Columbia University Press translation (2001) {Paris: Hachette (1998). See also, Salt, A World History. Mark Kurlansky. New York: Walker and Company, 2002. 5 Video Prolog (1980). 6 It is even possible that some French travelers adopted this term in the XVIIIth century and that this term gave birth to the French name “bourlingueur” with exactly the same meaning. 7 A.I. Humeniuk and R.R. Virs’kyi. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 1962, 1969: 434, 445, 446, and 540. 8 An excerpt of this ode : In the saltcellar, I once saw in the salt mines... It sings, Salt sings, the skin Of the salt mines . . . [http://sunsite.dcc.uchile.cl/chile/misc/odas.html- 7/23/02] 9 C ook’s Illustrated. October 2002: 26-27 . “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, КВІТЕНЬ 2003 13
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