Jocul Moşilor – reconstituirea antropologică a unei străvechi forme de cultură populară românească
The ”Play of the Old Men” – anthropological reconstruction of an ancient form of Romanian folk culture

Summary/Abstract: As part of the immaterial cultural heritage, the Men’s group Colindat, Christmas-time ritual has come to be the focus of many consecrated scholars, both inside and outside the country. The value connotation of custom was a considerable argument for its inclusion in 2013 in the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Mostly manifested in several villages in the southern Bugeac, it takes place in a special and original mode in the Romanian locality Cartal from the Odessa region, Ukraine, and is still maintained today. The unmistakeable form of the Colindat in actu is called in rural lexic the Old Men (Moşii). In this approach the author will insist on the apotropaic significance of the Old men, generated by the beliefs of the Romanian people in mythical creatures, the protective geniuses of the family hearth/ parent house, of the traditional habitat. The recorded materials reveal that the invocation of the old men and ancestors is associated in the collective mentality with the establishment of the customary period of rites and ceremonies that are beneficial and necessary to the community of nation. Starting from the archive documents and the field investigations of the author, will be initiated the reconstruction of the dynamic unfolding of the ethnofolcloric phenomenon Men’s group Colindat with anthropomorphic masks, which will allow the conclusion about the existence of secular principles strictly observed by all the actors of this ancient form of popular culture.

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