TRADITIONAL GAMES AND PLAYS FROM SOUTHERN PODLASIE AS AN ELEMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE

Games and plays preserved from generation to generation allow young people to get to know better their ancestors’ traditions. Traditional games are not only about identification with the past generations, but they are also about preservation of those values, which regardless of passing ages, will always be universal. In the past many generations grew up cherishing these traditional forms which served as educating factors attractive to young people. Field research results (interviews with the eldest inhabitants of the Biala Podlaska county in Poland) as well as Polish and foreign literary sources point to similarities between the rules of games from the Podlasie region and from other regions of Europe. This fact is an interesting basis for interpretation in the area of cultural studies of folklore in various parts of the world.