Lead the Goat into the Street lyrics and meaning

Išmivedi vedi ožį ant ulyčios
Ei, tūta, ei tūtela,
Ei, tūta, ei, tūtela.

Pamin rodyk, oželi, kaip tėvutis šoka…
Šitaip mano tėvutėlis šitaip šakinėja…
Šitaip mana tėvutėlis šitaip trepinėja…
…
matutė (matinėla)…
braliukas (braliukėlis)…

*** Slaviūno dainyne SlS III-1377

Lead the Goat into the Street: sutartinė interpretation

This sutartinė with the refrain "ei tūta, ei tūtela" can be understood as a playful dramatic song in which the goat shows how family members dance. After the goat is led onto the street, it is asked to show how the father dances, hops, and stamps. The image can be interpreted as a humorous mimed performance.

The same structure then repeats with the mother and brother, assigning each their own manner of dancing. This repetition points to a game sutartinė that may have accompanied gatherings or evening entertainments, where the goat's movements jokingly imitate family members.

A second reading places the goat in Lithuanian tradition as a vivid carnival and fertility figure. The goat appears at Užgavėnės, blukis-dragging customs, and other winter-to-spring rites. The "leading of the goat into the street" and its dance imitation can therefore be read not only as entertainment but as ritual laughter: mockery performed through the goat-mask was meant to encourage fertility, vitality, and communal harmony. The dramatic sutartinė becomes a small village theater in which play, dance, and polyphony take on ritual force.

Lead the Goat into the Street: symbols and phrases

Goat in the street
The goat led into the street signifies a playful, carnival-like figure linked with fertility rites.
"Show how father dances"
The request that the goat imitate a family member marks a dramatic, humorous, and ritualized performance.
Hopping and stamping
The named dance movements signify lively mimicry and comic embodiment.
Father, mother, brother
The family members named in sequence create a repeated structure that extends the performance across the household.

Lead the Goat into the Street: sutartinė history

"Išmivedi vedi" is listed in Slaviūnas' collection as volume III, no. 1377. It is a game and performance sutartinė with the refrain "ei tūta, ei tūtela": once the goat is led "onto the street," it is asked to imitate how the father, mother, and brother dance. According to the Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija, dance and game sutartinės include dramatic examples in which movement imitates the poetic text, and this sutartinė fits that description exactly.

Sutartinės flourished in northeastern Aukštaitija from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries and were inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. The game of leading the goat and asking it to imitate others fits well with the tradition of calendar amusements, especially Užgavėnės, the Lithuanian Shrovetide carnival.

sources

  • Z. Slaviūnas, Sutartinės, vols. 1-3 (1958-1959), III-1377
  • D. Račiūnaitė-Vyčinienė, Sutartinės: Lithuanian Polyphonic Songs (2002)

Lead the Goat into the Street: sources