Cupping therapy is an ancient technique of healing used for a whole spectrum of health problems in a wide range of ways, variations and methods. Besides the type of material used, the forms of application and explanation of the mechanism of the effect, the methods of its conduct differ. In addition to medical grasp of the subject, a broader and more comprehensive view of this method is also supported by a comparison of the historical variations and forms across territorial units and time horizon. For this purpose, both the historical context of cupping therapy on the territory of the Czech Republic, its archaic form captured within the community living in emigration in Ukraine and a brief overview of the current situation in the Czech Republic are depicted. The data was collected in 2008–2018 within three waves of resettled Czechs from Ukraine all over the territory of the Czech Republic.

*This study was written with the institutional support of the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v.v.i., RVO: 68378076.

The paper represents an effort to understand what it means to be a father in modern rural Northern Sudan. After a brief consideration of a local model of manhood and various forms of fatherhood in the Sudanese societies, its rich cultural context is examined in some detail. It is evident that fatherhood is intricately related to a wide variety of practices, customs and narrations, all of which can throw some light on the local model of masculinity and its dynamics. The paper suggests that in case of Muslim communities of Northern Sudan fatherhood is, first of all, a father-son relation which is aimed to prepare a boy to the role of “a very important man.” Just so little and so much. Since quite often a young generation is not willing or not able to fulfil the fathers` expectations, it is neither a simple or obvious matter. The issue is also to explore the discourses and the practices of “globalized fatherhood”– for example, how new communication technologies are used to cultivate the fatherchildren relations. Though the paper refers to certain ethnographic experiences in Northern Sudan, it is not a result of systematic research on fatherhood. It can be rather called a “personal ethnology” – it comes from author’s ethnographic observations (field research in 2010 and 2013) as well as from the fact being a father himself.

This article introduces an ethnographic discussion of the afterlife of a legendary sailing tavern, the Zęza (The Bilge), in a small sailing resort in the Masurian Lake District, Northeast Poland. The existence of the tavern falls within the high times of post-socialist “transformation”: it worked from the 1980s to the early 2000s, when it was re-located as part of re-designing the marina. The author suggests that the discourse of longing for the community and atmosphere in the old tavern has mobilised members of the sailing community, local entrepreneurs, and, most recently, new investors to revisit and subvert the locally realized version of touristic “transformation”. The article analyses the debate of longing, loss and exclusion among the sailing community, then moves to introduce the owner of an emerging local enterprise that re-appropriates the values of the old tavern community for creating a new touristic alternative and self-gentrify. A closer look at the evolving local gastronomy provides insights into the compatibility of diverse sets of values in a shared place of longing in contemporary Poland.