Traditional neck jewelry of Pokuttya ethnic region in western Ukraine
Pokuttya ethnic region is considered to be the plain part of Ivano-Frankivsk region between the Dniester and Prut rivers. Pokuttya includes all settlements of modern districts of Ivano-Frankivsk region: Horodenka, Kolomyia, Sniatyn, Tysmenytsia, Tlumach, most of the settlements of Bohorodchany and Nadvirna districts and some settlements of Halych and Kosiv districts.
The main feature of Pokuttya is a large number of neck ornaments. Sometimes there were so many of them (Tyshkivtsi village) that it is hard to imagine how a girl could turn her head.
Among the breast ornaments the main components were: coral necklace and its imitations, colored glass necklace, "painted patsyorky". Of the pendants, a single coin pendant on a chain or lace was used, which was placed in the center of the breast ornaments. In some places, coin jewelry was used on top of other jewelry - a row of ducats on a chain (in Kolomyia and Horodenka districts) or several coins suspended from a necklace in the middle of the row.
It was in Pokuttia that the name of coins in jewelry - "ducats", which most likely comes from "ducato" - a Venetian coin, was widespread.
Also among the neck ornaments of Pokuttya is a glass necklace of small diameter made of many beads that formed a three-dimensional strip.
The most expensive jewellery of Pokuttya women were real corals and coin jewellery ("talyary", "rynski", "cheshky"). The rows of frosted glass beads of white and milky color ("perelka", "misyurki") similar to small pearls were widely known.
But the largest group of Pokuttya women's ornaments has long been made of beads - beaded monistas ("patsyorky", "shnurky", "mokhtalyky"), ribbon gerdan, ribbon gerdan with pendants ("gerdan with kluchyky") and one-part sylianka ("sylianka", "gerdanets", "gerdanka", "lapka", "pletinka", "tklyanka", "shleika").
In the first half of the XX century, other types of beaded ornaments were added to the Pokuttya folk costume, in particular: rosette gerdan, corner gerdan, cross gerdan, membrane gerdan and toothed sylianka.
Complex (and relatively long in width) multi-element motifs of geometric shapes are widespread in the ornamentation of Pokuttya beaded jewelry, in particular, motifs of a rhombus, double rhombuses ("eights"), a cross, an eight-petal rosette ("ruzha"), sometimes depicted in half ("pivruzha"), a zigzag, horns, S-shapes, as well as comb and corded looks.
Thanks to the technique of weaving, geometric forms of phytomorphic motifs - flowers and branches - began to spread in the ornamentation of Pokuttya gerdan.
The strung decorations of Pokuttya women often had a two-tiered decor. The main ornamental stripe (always occupied the upper tier of the composition) was built from complex multi-element motifs of a rhombus, hexagon, rosette, cross, ram's horns. Additional (the lower tier of the composition) - had the form of several parallel zigzag lines, which were occasionally interspersed with a row of small motifs, such as single or paired (in the form of small rectangles) crosses. Both types of Pokuttya decorations were characterized by long pendants ("bomblyky", "klyuchky", "tsiomblyky"), which usually had a loop-shaped form. Often such pendants were made of red beads (less often of glass beads). This enhanced the active sound of the red color that dominated in the ornament and was often the color of the ribbon on which the finished product was sewn.
White, yellow ("ocher"), dark green and dark cherry colors dominated in the color of ancient Pokuttya beaded jewelry. And in the twentieth century, the color of the jewelry was filled with open shades of yellow, red, green, blue, much more often the masters began to use black (dark brown) color.
At the same time, Pokuttya decorations of different centers had certain local differences. In particular, neck gerdans and syliankas of Kolomyia region were characterized by the greatest variability of motifs and color combinations. There were decorations with a white and dark (dark cherry, dark brown, dark purple, black) background, the ornamentation of which was based on a rich palette of colors.
But the beaded jewelry of Sniatyn region was characterized by a light palette, dominated by white and bright yellow, blue and red colors, the sound of which was enhanced by additional colors, in particular, green. Decorations with a dark background made up a very small percentage of Sniatyn jewelry.
Zoriana Kuryliak