Dan Reitman

• Dan Reitman 30 Nov 2021 8:14 UTC

  8 points

  on: The bonds of fam­ily and com­mu­nity: Poverty and cru­elty among Rus­sian peas­ants in the late 19th century

  A Russian folklorist found that about 8 percent of her collection of thousands of lullabies were songs wishing death on babies, presumably weak infants like those mentioned here whose survival was uncertain and who may have been in pain.

  I am not sure that this should be taken at face value – death lullabies can be interpreted as a sort of protection ritual, aiming to ward off the actual danger to the child. See, for example, https://​​hekint.org/​​2017/​​01/​​30/​​death-lullabies-in-russian-culture/​​

• Dan Reitman 31 Mar 2022 18:41 UTC

  1 point

  in reply to: mingyuan’s comment on: Ways to or­ga­nize a search for a miss­ing per­son in LA from abroad?

  Thank you, it sounds really great!