Present-day Iroquois are seeking to preserve traditional healing methods. Members of the False Faces Society routinely perform cleansing rituals using Hodo masks. The spiritual significance and proceedings of the rituals were conveyed by the employees of the Iroquois community center (Longhouse) and the fellow tribesmen gathered around these centers. The participants provided information on the ways of acquiring, crafting, invoking, storage, and honoring the sanctified, animated artifact – the mask. The author of the article confronts the current position of the Onondaga Reserve and the Grand River Reserve Iroquois with historical teachings. The elder generation of Indians has maintained their faith in the mystical power of the rituals, while the secularized new generation approaches them with a strong skepticism.

This study is based on data acquired by the oral history method and discusses the reflections of two generations of Jews in relation to the socialist regime in Czechoslovakia (1948–1989). The first generation is represented by people who had survived the Holocaust. The second generation is represented by the ‘children of the Holocaust’ (born 1945–1965). They grew up at a time when the political realm was completely dominated by the
Communist Party. Their attitudes only changed with the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. This probe suggests differences which stem from contrasting life experiences.

Over the past 25 years, Łódź has seen an evolution in attitude towards the city’s post-industrial heritage, both material and non-material. Exemplifying these processes of loss, seeking, and retrieval is Art_Inkubator, a complex of 19th-century factories in the city’s central district of Księży Młyn that once belonged to Karol Scheibler and Ludwik Grohman. The goal of the project, carried out by a municipal cultural institution known as Fabryka Sztuki, has been to revitalize and adapt former factory buildings, including them in its incubator program dedicated to the support of activities within the creative industries sector. Another cultural heritage site known as MuseumABC is also located in this area. Fabryka Sztuki’s efforts have preserved the factory buildings as part of the city’s cultural heritage and made it possible to put their historic features to good use in the development of innovative and creative activities. After decades of neglect, the characteristic red-brick buildings have been
given “new life” as centres of culture and business enterprise.

This article presents ethnographic research undertaken in the region of Bałchatów at the initiative of the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum in Łódź. The primary focus of the research is upon villages that do not exist at present, having been liquidated during the construction of the brown coal opencast mine known as “Bełchatów”. Of special interest has been the village of Wola Grzymalina, nonexistant since the 1980s. The study’s objective has been to reconstruct the village’s spatial layout, including traces of the social and economic lives of its residents, and to track the liquidation process itself. Special attention has been paid to the building industry, small industry and crafts, and commercial contacts. The study has also located material remnants of the former village which survived thanks to relocation. The research at hand is presented against a backdrop of the archaeological and ethnographic works which had been completed prior to the building of the mine.

This article discusses the use of the concept of social capital in relation to the elements of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and the need to protect it. At the outset, the author examines theoretical concepts which researchers have employed, in past decades, outside the area of ethnological studies. The article highlights one of the basic principles, that of social capital, which consists in sharing real and potential sources, knowledge, and information, which an individual person or group acquires through relations that may to some degree be characterized as institutional. Based on experiences gathered both in a national context (the Czech Republic) and within that of an international organization (UNESCO), the article attempts to assess the extent to which it is possible to apply the theoretical foundations of the idea of the social capital to ICH, where the principles of the sharing of and mutual respect towards cultural elements are two of the basic premises.

This article is devoted to an interest in local folk culture, regional heritage, and the past of Cieszyn Silesia, as well as to methods extending back through the 19th century for the documentation, popularization, and protection of the unique cultural knowledge of the region. Attention is primarily given to the activities of the Cieszyn Silesians themselves. The author examines multiple sources, including local periodicals, for elements of local culture (folklore, dialects, traditional outfits, customs). He tries to capture how the phenomena of cultural heritage is defined both regionally and nationally, and also how it can be used as a resource in tourism and in broadly-understood identity policy.

The aim of this article is to re-examine the methodology of ethnographic research vis a vis the influence of methodology on the shaping of ethnology and cultural anthropology as a scientific discipline. Field research, which presupposes the scholar’s active participation and involvement in the life of the group under investigation, as well as the accompanying challenges to such an approach, are here treated as elements that shape the heritage of ethnology, reinforcing its power and securing its place among other disciplines. The author has undertaken the anthropological analysis of excerpts from field notebooks and subjective records by scholars involved in the creation of the Polski Atlas Etnograficzny [Polish Ethnographic Atlas].

The process of the carnivalization of urban space is aided by contemporary media, which, in popularizing myriad events, amplifies community activities ranging from festivals to mass public shows connected with historical events. Contemporary fascination with such phenomena finds its sources in ritualized models of paratheatrical activity rooted in the traditions of peasant culture, as well as in forms of mass folk protest. As a result, we can observe the rapidly-developing ability of citydwellers to occupy public space while creating emotional communities that extend into virtual, and other, realms, with the aim of realizing political goals.

This text focuses on comparing two images of the rite of the blessing of animals in Mikstat, based on 19th and 20th century literature, as well as on research from August 16, 2018. The analysis of old symbols, magical activities, and longforgotten celebrations is juxtaposed with contemporary changes in tradition which have created new symbolism for, and interest in, the older elements that comprise the cultural heritage of Mikstat. For at least 300 years, the purpose of the traditional rite of the blessing of animals on the Day of St. Roch (August 16) has been to preserve the health, happiness, and fertility of farm and livestock.