Who Has Seen It, Tutaitai? lyrics and meaning
Kas ragieja, tutaitai
tu-tai, tutaitai
Lauki kalnų…
Tai kalnelį…
Lelijalių,…
Tai krūmelis…
Tų mergelių…
Tai pulkelis…
*** Teoriškai tai turėtų būti keturinė sutartinė, tačiau pritarinio partija nebuvo fiksuota ir sutartinės dainavimo būdas lieka neaiškus. Dabar paplitusi kaip trejinė.
*** Kėriškės kaimas, Švenčionių apskritis. Slaviūno rinkinyje SlS II-665.
Who Has Seen It, Tutaitai?: sutartinė interpretation
This sutartinė with the refrain "tutaitai, tu-tai" can be understood as a vivid song built from landscape detail. It asks who has seen the field hills, the small hill there, the lily bush, and the group of maidens within it. This gradual deepening of the image can be read as a gaze that moves from wide landscape toward a cluster of young women.
The stepwise structure, moving from hills to hill, lilies, and maidens, is characteristic of sutartinė poetics, where the image seems to narrow until it reaches a concrete human group. This can be understood as focusing attention on maidens, who are often associated with youth and beauty.
A second reading hears this visual "zooming in" from hills to a lily-covered hill and a group of maidens as more than a landscape. It may be a courtship or youth-gathering scene, as if the girls are being "viewed" during spring games or wedding preparation. In Lithuanian poetics the lily is a sign of maidenhood and purity, so the "lily bush" and "group of maidens" merge: the girls bloom like lilies. The sutartinė becomes a praise of youth and beauty, and perhaps a communal rite of seeing or presenting the young women.
Who Has Seen It, Tutaitai?: symbols and phrases
- Field hills and small hill
- The broad landscape and the hill within it form the visual background leading toward the maidens.
- Lily bush
- The lilies blooming on the hill signify maidenhood and purity in folk poetics.
- Group of maidens
- The group of girls among the lilies signifies youth and beauty; the maidens bloom like the flowers.
- Refrain "tutaitai, tu-tai"
- A vocable refrain with little or no semantic meaning, providing the rhythmic ground of the sutartinė.
Who Has Seen It, Tutaitai?: sutartinė history
"Kas ragieja, tutaitai" is listed in Slaviūnas' collection as volume II, no. 665 and is associated with Kėriškės village in Švenčionys county. Its performance mode is especially interesting: in theory it should be a keturinė, but the pritarinys, the part of the second pair, was not recorded, so its manner of performance remains uncertain. Today it circulates as a trejinė. This clearly shows how sutartinės lived in oral tradition and how some performance knowledge was lost.
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 gradual narrowing of the image, from hills to a small hill, to lilies, to maidens, is a characteristic device of sutartinė poetics.
sources
- Z. Slaviūnas, Sutartinės, vols. 1-3 (1958-1959), II-665
- D. Račiūnaitė-Vyčinienė, Sutartinės: Lithuanian Polyphonic Songs (2002)
Who Has Seen It, Tutaitai?: sources
Who Has Seen It, Tutaitai?: frequently asked questions
What is this sutartinė about?
It follows a gaze from field hills to a lily-covered hill and finally to a group of maidens within it.
Why is it now a trejinė if it should have been a keturinė?
When it was recorded, the pritarinys, the part of the second pair, was not preserved. Because the performance mode is unclear, it now circulates as a trejinė.
What do the lilies symbolize?
In folk poetics the lily signifies maidenhood and purity; here the girls bloom like lilies.
Where is this sutartinė from?
It is from Kėriškės village in Švenčionys county; in Slaviūnas' collection it is volume II, no. 665.
What does "tutaitai" mean?
It is a vocable refrain without direct meaning; it supports rhythm and the interweaving of voices.