У статті обгрунтувано думку, що в межах
міфопоетичного мислення, в контексті української (і загалом слов'янської)
традиційної культури одяг відіграє роль не оздоби тіла, не обігріву
тіла і навіть не захисту тіла, одяг є самим тілом - символічним тілом. Одяг є репрезентантом тіла на рівні культури.
In traditional culture, clothing served to cover and heat the body, as well
as fuifilling a major symbolic function as cultural représentative of the body.
Clothing served as a cultural analogue of the body, precisely as a symbolic
body. Without clothing, a body did not exist: stillborn and unbaptized children
were regarded as bodiless and deprived of an anthropomorphic, mythical
character. Such children were not ritually allocated with clothing at birth
(thus, the way to separate them from the demonie was to give them a scrap of
cloth or to sew a small shirt). Clothing acted as a mode of formation, completion
and organisation of the body during the préparation and realization of
production and reproduction. Clothing “completed” , or “made out” those
body parts, the functionality of which grew at corresponding stages of life.
Sometimes nonfunctional or diseased parts of a body were rcplaced with clothing
(the childless woman dressed in a shirt of childbearing women, in the hope of
giving birth as a resuilt).
