Whose Roosters Are Those lyrics and meaning

Kieno ty gaideliai
Kyko, taria, kakarieko,
Kyko, kyko,
Jei kyko, jei taria,
Lioj kakarieko.

A kų jie dirbdami
Kyko, taria, kakarieko?
Kyko, kyko,
Jei kyko, jei taria,
Lioj kakarieko.

Mieželius lesdami
Kyko, taria, kakarieko?
Kyko, kyko,
Jei kyko, jei taria,
Lioj kakarieko.

Whose Roosters Are Those: sutartinė interpretation

This sutartinė, with the sound-word refrain "kyko, taria, kakarieko," can be understood as a playful song imitating roosters crowing. The singers ask whose little roosters are crowing and what they are doing as they crow; the answer is that they are pecking barley. The exchange works as a simple dialogue rooted in natural sound.

The refrain that echoes the rooster's voice - "kakarieko" - gives the song an onomatopoeic, game-like character. This is a typical sutartinė quality: the force of the piece lies less in narrative than in rhythm, interlocking voices, and sound play.

A second reading hears more than barnyard imitation. In Lithuanian tradition the rooster is not only a village bird: it announces dawn, drives away night and evil forces, and is associated with sun, light, and watchfulness. The crowing in the sutartinė can therefore be read as an enactment of morning, the return of light, and alertness. The polyphony itself, in which several voices "crow" through and across one another, becomes a sonic image of dawn. It reflects a principle often felt in sutartinės: what matters is not only what is said, but what world is being re-created through voice.

Whose Roosters Are Those: symbols and phrases

Little roosters
The crowing birds at the center of the question. They suggest morning, dawn, watchfulness, and a protective bird linked with light.
The refrain "kakarieko"
A sound-word imitating a rooster's call. It marks the song's onomatopoeic, playful character and its imitation of the natural world.
Barley grains
The grain the roosters peck while crowing. It grounds the sutartine in everyday village life.
Question and answer
The conversational structure about the roosters shows the dialogic form often used in sutartinės.

Whose Roosters Are Those: sutartinė history

"Kieno ty gaideliai" belongs to playful sutartinės built on sound imitation, with the onomatopoeic refrain "kyko, taria, kakarieko." According to the Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia, the sound-word refrains of sutartinės are often connected with sounds of nature, work, or dance; here they directly imitate a rooster's crow.

Sutartinės flourished in northeastern Aukštaitija from the 16th to the 19th century and were inscribed in 2010 on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The exact place and collector of this variant could not be confirmed from the publicly accessible Slaviūnas index, so provincial data is not given here.

sources

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

Whose Roosters Are Those: sources