A visszajáró halott hiedelemkörének szerkezete és funkciója Székelyhodos község hiedelemvilágában
The Structure and Function of Popular Beliefs involving Revenants in Székelyhodos

Summary/Abstract: The study presents the popular beliefs involving the revenants in four villages situated in the upper course of the Nyárád (Niraj) Valley. This character is one of the most active supernatural beings in the world of popular beliefs of the inhabitants of these villages. After showing the shapes, places, temporal circumstances and causes of appearance, deeds of the revenants, as well as the countermeasures meant to prevent its appearance, the author analyzes the functions of these beliefs. The relation between the revenant and the “haunted” person is ambivalent, nevertheless necessary, since the gradual departure of the dead from this world, the permeability of the offi cially impermeable borders and the interaction between the living and the dead are indispensable for the mental and physical health and equilibrium. The loss of popularity of this belief is not foreseeable for the time being, since, through its teaching and ceremonies, the Catholic Church itself indirectly supports and strengthens this belief, while, on the other hand, the anxiety, pain, uncertainty and doubts awakened by the thought of ephemerality of human life is also a nourishing soil for it.

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