Lupul în mentalitatea tradiţională românească
The Wolf in the Romanian Traditional Mentality

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims at emphasizing the unicity, complexity, greatness and the sacred image of the wolf, the impact which this totemic symbol has on the traditional Romanian mentality. It was assumed that the wolf, inserting a variety of meanings, is a complex zoomorphic symbol that can be analysed both synchronically and diachronically. The wolf interacts with the ritualistic–magical–symbolic manifestations (vital moments: birth, death, celebrations), with diverse categories (legends, fairy tales), with nonverbal arts (the fangs of the wolf that can be seen on seal engravers, fortune chests, traditional gates, etc.). Regardless of what perspective the wolf is approached (ethnological, linguistic, mythological, etc.), the osmotic relation wolves–Dacians should not be omitted. The Dacians’ banner (head of wolf, snake-dragon body), the spirit of the White Wolf of the Dacians correlated to Saint Andrew the Apostle, the Romanian legends about wolves, Saint Andrew, Saint Peter, the magical-ritualistic practices within the rites of passage. (For example: the new-born wrapped up by a malady received another name (Lupu [“Wolf”]); the child was bathed in the water where the wolves had previously bathed or was breastfed in a ritual through a wolf mouth or with the dry teat of a she-wolf; at the birth of a child circles were traced with an apotropaic role by means of a wolf claw; the wolf from Cântecul Zorilor [“Dawn Song”] has a psychopomp role, the days devoted to the wolf in the Popular Calendar (more than 30 days) certify what Mircea Eliade had already found, namely, that, in the mythological perspective of the history, the Romanian people was born under the sign of the Wolf.

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