Employing the ethnography-of-speaking approach, this paper
describes and interprets some of the tape-recorded data the author
collected and observed during her field trips to some Hungarian villages
in Transcarpathia (Ukraine). After introducing ethnography primarily as
a method, it describes the collection of two dirges and a wake observed
during fieldwork in Fornos. Using information from interviews and
past research, the essay also highlights the individual and communal
functions of dirges, and points out a dramatic change in Fornos which
renders the dirge inaudible and hence dysfunctional. According to the
interpretations, the dirge can be viewed as an indicator of change of
socio-cultural context, since it is perceived in opposing terms by dirgeperforming
individuals and non-dirge-performing individuals, as well as
by dirge-performing communities and those having lost this genre.
