Pâinea de ritual în expoziţia etnografică
Ritual Bread in Ethnographic Exhibition

Summary/Abstract: The author analyses the forms and significances of the ritual bread in the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History in Chişinău. Although it doesn’t cover a considerable space within the exhibition, bread is indirectly evoked by means of samples of crops and arable soils, of work tools, home implements and photos of field labour. Several forms of ritual bread are found in the sections dedicated to the winter customs (‘ajun’, ‘Crăciun’, ‘colaci’ for carollers etc.), to the family and calendrical celebrations. The objects of worship (for the Holy Eucharist) and some carpet ornaments also suggest the ritual bread. Thanks to its complex symbolism, the tradition of bread introduces us in major fields of the traditional culture (social institutions and relationships, visions of life and death etc.), whose values have kept their actuality until nowadays.

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