Contemporary Research on the White Cloth as a Ritual Item in the Bulgarian Wedding: Anthropological Approach
Contemporary Research on the White Cloth as a Ritual Item in the Bulgarian Wedding: Anthropological Approach

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to investigate the white cloth in the contemporary urban Bulgarian wedding in anthropological perspective. The white cloth as a ritual item in the contemporary urban wedding ceremony is a simple white rectangular fabric, usually made of cotton, which looks like a path on which the newlyweds have to walk during the wedding celebration. Immediately after entering the restaurant in which the wedding party is held, they step on the cloth. At this point a number of symbolic actions are performed, involving ritual items and characters. Based on profound fieldwork materials gathered by the author, the paper discusses the fertility function of the cloth and its protective qualities regarding the methods of the functioning of the cloth as a ritual object in the sphere of symbolic thinking today. In this paper, this ritual object is interpreted also in a social context, in the sphere of ritual practises in contemporary and traditional weddings, as an item by means of which people consciously or unconsciously fix a boundary between the public and private spheres of their existence; on the other hand, it is analysed as an object that metaphorically expresses kinship links. The author argues that, as a result of the changed socio-cultural characteristics of the Bulgarian society today, the tradition of close kin relations, which is expressed through objects, gradually loses significance.

• Details
• Contents