Dr Beata Czechowska-Derkacz, Head of the Department of Cultural Studies at the Faculty of Philology, University of Gdańsk, talks with dr Aleksandra Wierucka about holidays as a time of sacrum, customs, tradition and shamanism.

- You study other cultures from an anthropological perspective. What is the tradition of celebration and why are holidays in different cultures important?

- Every group and every culture has its own festivals and these can be related to religion, among other things. From the point of view of anthropology, we have to start with a definition: in simple terms, religion is a certain way of ordering the world. Introducing a system that makes it possible to explain what cannot otherwise be explained. This is how things and issues are explained that man cannot deal with himself: either he does not understand them or he cannot accept them in any other way than as something supernatural. On this basis, religious systems are created, i.e. collections of different types of practices that are rationalised through myth and various stories. Religion is thus a way of taming reality. In every religion, there are certain rites, rituals and ceremonies.  

- Do festivals mark the cycle of the year, of life? Are there holidays that have similar meanings in different cultures? And how does Christmas fit into these traditions of celebration?

- The unifying element is that culture, celebration and religion are characteristics of a group. They arise from the group practices of a community and, above all, have as their purpose a communal action. They are meant to bring us together. And Christmas, the birth of God, is a festival characteristic of many religions. It seems to us that our Christmas is the most important holiday and for us, it is so because of the traditions and customs associated with it. But the appearance of a god, or another supernatural being, is celebrated in different cultures and is given special significance.

- Is it possible to talk about Christmas only from the perspective of the sacred?

- Of course not. In addition to religion, rites, rituals and ceremonies, we also have customs. In the Western culture to which we belong, customs and religious rituals are, as it were, mixed and interlinked customs are immersed in religion. Many people do not practise the Christian religion in any variety and Christmas for them is a ritual that they have received in generational transmission as a certain cultural practice. It is purely a tradition, a certain custom, a way of behaving. At a certain time of the year, we indulge in fixed rituals: preparing traditional dishes, decorating the Christmas tree, baking cookies, buying presents and so on. Religion has many different functions, including psychological and social functions; it influences how people behave, how education takes place and what the order is in a given culture. All of these elements are transmitted in different ways, but we also learn them through our very participation in certain rituals, and from an early age. We do the same things, we perceive things the same way and we have a common value system. This makes us a community. Christmas is an integral part of this cycle, so it is important from the point of view of both community and individual identity.

- What other meanings can Christmas have for non-believers, apart from the traditional family gatherings?

- What meaning we attach to Christmas is a very individual matter. I am a non-believer and I celebrate Christmas on a customary basis. Of course, not all people in my family have this approach. But for me, Christmas is an excuse for family gatherings, which mostly take place in our home. Because of the special festive time, we naturally give them a certain order: we celebrate Christmas Eve with all its attributes, the first and second days of Christmas and we practise all the cultural customs belonging to this holiday. Depending on life circumstances and experiences, Christmas can mean very different things to many people. I think that for some of us, they are an element that introduces normality into our lives. Especially in times of uncertainty, of social anxiety. It is such normality through a special time. Even if you can't gather the family around the Christmas table, what is important is the repetition, the cycle that has always taken place. Christmas was celebrated and is celebrated all the time even in times of war. The situation outside is unsettled, but we celebrate Christmas because it has always been so, it becomes a substitute for normality and the hope that it will return permanently.

- Does widespread globalisation affect Christmas? Do local traditions stand a chance of being preserved?

- I regret to say that I have been very disturbed by the Americanisation of our Christmas in recent years. I don't think we see St. Nicholas in the form of a bishop anywhere anymore...

- Today it's the bearded grandfather from the Coca-Cola adverts...

- Some say an overgrown leprechaun... The Santa Claus from the Coca-Cola adverts is a novelty that came to us from the West and has settled in for good over the past decades. Just like the reindeer that you are so keen to put in your garden, but which, after all, are not even found in our native fauna and were not previously part of the Christmas tradition. We celebrate Christmas in the same way, we give it a commodity dimension, where objects and superficiality become the most important thing. I don't want to offend anyone, but I, for one, am irritated by the Christmas songs that reverberate everywhere, and on top of that they are the same tunes repeated over and over again. But it's not just about Americanisation. In general, in the modern global world order, we unify everything, we want the same things and we pursue the same goals. In my opinion, in the dimension of the holidays, this locality, difference and uniqueness are most important. The greatest value is in what our grandparents and great-grandparents have passed on to us. Some of these practices and customs are very individual, others are common to certain social groups. For example, in my house, apart from traditional Polish Christmas Eve dishes, Lithuanian dishes also appear on the table. Part of my family comes from Lithuania and I have learnt to prepare these traditional dishes. They have been a part of our Christmas Eve for almost forty years and I cannot imagine a different Christmas Eve table. But some customs do not stem from the practice of the home and require a certain community, a group of people, to cultivate them. An example is Kashubian carol singing.

- Do we still know the tradition of gwiżdży or Kashubian carol singers?

- The tradition of Kashubian carol singers is firmly rooted in our region. It is one of those local customs that requires the whole community to organise itself. There must be a few or even a dozen people who are willing to devote their time and their creativity, to the benefit of others. It is not just a matter of going from house to house. After all, beforehand you have to sew costumes, get traditional instruments, prepare carols and hold several rehearsals. All this takes effort, but at the same time, it very much unifies the local community and has the community dimension we talked about earlier. It is not enough to have one house and nurture this tradition there; there must be the will of the community to organise such carol singing and to welcome such carol singers. These are valuable traditions and may they remain with us for as long as possible. Cultural diversity is one of the most beautiful qualities of humanity. Provided that we want to show what is different in a friendly way, without feeling that it is better. Unfortunately, we tend to homogenise because it's easier, it doesn't require effort and we don't expose ourselves to criticism... But to celebrate Christmas in the same way everywhere would be very sad.

- Was it out of this love of cultural diversity that the idea of organising a Christmas Eve from other cultural backgrounds at the University of Gdańsk was born by the Mozaika Student Scientific Club, which you supervise and which has been active at the Faculty of Philology for many years?

- It was the students' idea. This year will be our sixteenth Christmas Eve. The idea is simple, it's about showing how Christmas can be celebrated in different ways. We are looking for scholarly sources as well as people who can tell us about other traditions. It's not about dressing up, but about showing other traditions while respecting the culture from which they come. We prepare re-enactments, cook traditional foods and learn carols. We have already held several Christmas Eves from culturally very distant regions; we have organised, for example, an Ethiopian Christmas Eve, a Filipino Christmas Eve, as well as a Spanish Christmas Eve, a Greek Christmas Eve and many others. However, I have to say that this year, when we started thinking about the next one, there was no doubt about what traditions we should show. There was no discussion or dispute.

- Let me guess, it's not difficult - it will be Ukrainian Christmas Eve?

- Of course.

- Did you seek help from refugees from Ukraine?

- We contacted refugees from Ukraine, we tried to reach out to Ukrainian students with information, we looked to other sources and I have to say that we were more stressed than in previous years.

- Since we are talking about the Other and Others... You conducted field research among the Huaorani and Quichua Indians in eastern Ecuador and the Buryats in Russia. What surprising traditions, festivals or customs did you encounter there?

- From the point of view of anthropology, this is not a well-posed question. An anthropologist must keep an open mind and not be surprised by other customs and traditions.

- I am referring to the European perspective, which can often be quite limited.

- I have dealt with shamanism for many years. In our cultural circle, it evokes wonder, especially because it is perceived very stereotypically. It has taken a strange path from science to pop culture. It is strange for Westerners to believe that there is a supernatural world inhabited by spiritual beings with whom one can communicate. That is what shamanism is, whereby I use the term 'spirit beings' because it is about spirits, not ghosts. According to the idea of shamanism, spirit beings can infiltrate our world and harm us - they are rarely friendly. Ordinary people cannot contact them; the only such person is the shaman, who enters a trance and thus communicates with spirit beings. He can negotiate with them, ask them for help or fight with them. Quite often I have encountered questions: Does shamanism work? Does the shaman really heal people and do I believe that one can contact spiritual beings from the supernatural world? I was even asked about evidence of such contact.

- Now I'm the one surprised... What about the question of belief?

- We supposedly know about it, because what evidence is there that there is a Christian god, a Jewish god or any other god? It is a question of our faith, of deep convictions. But it is difficult for us to accept, especially Westerners, that faith can be so different in other cultural circles.

- Are there any practices in other cultures and traditions that would be worth transferring and cultivating with us?

- This is a difficult question and again I will stress that from my, anthropological point of view, it is not feasible. You cannot transfer a piece of culture to another world, forgetting the context and disregarding the consequences. Unfortunately, there are such practices, and since we were talking about shamanism... There is a current of neo-shamanism today, which is just such a borrowing, or rather - appropriation. One practices shamanism purely on the level of physicality, in order to discover some inner self, one takes out a fragment and puts it into our culture, doing it 'our way'. And shamanism is about helping the community, that's what the practice is for. So I would answer this question a little differently. It seems to me that in Western culture, in this rush of ours for progress, technology, goods and convenience, which has been going on for centuries, we have lost our spirituality. And we have noticed that we are poorer for something important, we are missing it. Perhaps this is why people today are so drawn to various practices that are different from Christianity, such as meditation or yoga, and religions such as Buddhism. And if I were to talk about something that is missing, it would be a completely different approach to the relationship between the 'human' and the 'non-human'. By which I do not mean 'non-human' in the negative sense, but what does not belong to the human world: human and non-human. In the indigenous cultures I have studied, the notion that human beings are part of nature is immanent to functioning in the world. In our culture, we are brought up from an early age with the belief that man is in control of nature - we have to 'unlearn' this later. I'm going to say something cliché, but that's the way it is: nature can manage without us, but we can't without it. It is a question not only of respect for nature but also of survival. If we could see and perceive the world in harmony between the human and the non-human, of which we are also a part, we would benefit greatly. I also miss the communal elements, for example learning from the elders, being cared for by the younger ones, cultural and intergenerational continuity, which are so strong in indigenous cultures and have been lost somewhere in ours.

- In today's unsettled world of wars, migration and climate catastrophe, a lot of people are afraid of a stranger, of people from other cultures. How do we tame these fears?

- Fear of the Other, of the Stranger, of something we do not know and therefore do not understand, is natural. The only key to getting rid of it is to get to know, and therefore try to understand - other people, cultures and traditions. Through the individual, it is easier for us to see that what is different is also interesting and therefore just as valuable as 'ours'. In anthropology there is talk of cultural relativism: every culture and practice is equally valid, it must not be taken out of context and viewed in terms of our values.

- Is Christmas, if only in the context of the traditional extra place at the Christmas table for an unexpected guest, a good time to tame these fears?

- This is one of the most beautiful Polish traditions and it seems to me that it somehow shows the openness of Poles, although, of course, I have my doubts about what happens to it in practice...

- Isn't it an empty gesture in most Polish homes? When I was discussing this last year, just before Christmas, with Professor Cezary Obracht-Prondzynski, he recalled an experiment conducted a few years ago that showed that almost no one would let a stranger into their home during Christmas Eve in Poland. On Christmas Eve, a woman went from door to door. She said she was a Muslim and had nothing to do with herself on that day. She was Polish. There were times when people called the emergency services asking them to take her away because she was crazy and was bothering people.

- I too don't know whether if Poles were to take in a stranger from the Polish-Belarusian border, where refugees have a different skin colour, that plate would be waiting for them. But I still maintain that this is one of the most beautiful Polish customs and that I have not encountered such a custom in other cultures, although I must caveat that I have not researched this thoroughly. When I tell my foreign friends about it, they are amazed but also delighted. I have never had a stranger knock on our door on Christmas Eve. We have a lot of guests, often from different, distant parts of the world, but they are still invited guests. So I have not been 'tested' for this circumstance. But I would very much like to, although I question whether we would be able to welcome a stranger into our home on Christmas Eve and treat them like a member of the family, to share the joy of Christmas and being together. I hope so, and I am very much looking forward to it.

- Thank you for the interview and, in conclusion, I would like to share just such beautiful wishes. Health, happiness, being together with family and loved ones, but also the unexpected - a guest who knocks on our door and brings new joy.

Aleksandra Wierucka - a culture expert and anthropologist, assistant professor in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Gdańsk. Research interests: indigenous cultures of the Ecuadorian part of Amazonia, traditional shamanism, handicrafts, migration of indigenous youth. Member of the American Anthropological Association, Polish Cultural Studies Association, Association for Cultural Studies and Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America.