Provlačenje kroz „Rupu”: magijski obred zaštite zdravlja dece
Passing Through the „Hole”: A Magical Ritual for the Protection of Children’s Health

Summary/Abstract: Once a year, the residents of Glavinci, a village near Jagodina, perform the rite of the so– called Passing through the „Hole”, which was initially conceived for the purpose of preserving the health of local children. In this article, we describe the actual and ideal-typical form of the ritual, followed by a two-step analysis of our theoretical and empirical findings. The objective of the first, comparative analysis is to present and categorize the broadest array of ethnographic materials on rituals of passing through. The goal of the second, structural analysis is to find the answers to three interconnected questions: how (on the level of deep mental structures), why (on the level of cultural conceptions of health and illness) and with what purpose (in the sense of the final outcome) is the ritual performed.

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