Bonfires for not just Any Dead: Alms for the Aborted Children. Remembrance Rites at Sâmedru and Feminine Coping with the Rigours of Tradition in Rural
Bonfires for not just Any Dead: Alms for the Aborted Children. Remembrance Rites at Sâmedru and Feminine Coping with the Rigours of Tradition in Rural

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents field research on the bonfires held on the eve of the feast of St. Demetrius on October 26 in a region of Romania where remembrance of the dead continues to be very active on that day. The celebration comprises a bonfire and sharing alms with those gathered around it, and is meant to benefit the aborted or miscarried children and those dead before christening. There are more elements to the ceremony, such as the calling over the village, a rural Romanian variant of charivari, a group of youth organizing the bonfire and uttering a specific formula, and jumping over the fire which is believed to be beneficial for children, youths, and the failed mothers. Layers of local ideologies were recorded, providing information on both the individual meanings of the ceremony and the practices, beliefs and imaginary of the communities. The charivaritype performance aims at exposing and condemning, through mockery, the most serious fault in traditional societies, the waste of new lives. The response of the women appears to be to invert, by means of the ritual, the public shame and exposure into a matter of general responsibility of the community.

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