Paper short abstract:

We introduce verbal charms among Veps in Northwest Russia, which are ritualized ways of speaking customarily used to prompt a change in both human beings and environments. We refer to the charms as 'event'—a transformative and suspended period of time, in which human and non-human agencies coalesce.

Paper long abstract:

In our paper, we present 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. Veps understand that in the act of 'blowing' (puhuda) air along with reciting 'specific words' (vajhed), human and often non-human agencies join forces for changes in people and the environment to occur. In fact, the event of 'blowing specific words' can be transformative when channels of communication between human and non-human agencies are open. We refer to this encounter as 'event' (cf. Kapferer 2015), a transformative and suspended period of time, in which human and non-human agencies come together. By presenting the relational and dynamic aspects of the verbal charms and focusing on the movement of air and the utterance of specific words, we also aim to summon the actuality of a strict boundary between language and materiality (cf. Cavanaugh and Shankar 2017; Keane 2008; Wiener 2013). In the 'event', the rigid separation between 'material' and 'immaterial' realms begins to be felt as an artificial construction. It galvanizes a different kind of relations with the environment, objects, body parts, which are not understood as simply accompanying tools. Last, we also challenge the assumption that verbal charms and similar folkloric genres are disappearing and often belong to the past, as part of a long-gone 'traditional knowledge'. These practices still endure, which indicates resilience and resistance.