Ceata flăcăilor şi hora satului. Instituţii tradiţionale de afirmare a culturii socio-normative

Author(s): Varvara Buzilă / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 15/2015

The paper aims to disclose the contribution of the band of lads and village “hora” (traditional circle dance) in the assertion of the traditional social-normative culture. Both traditional institutions, having a considerable age, being interdependent, manifest themselves during great calendar feasts, during the year, and on Sundays, except the periods of fasting. Youngsters lead both these institutions, but the entire community takes benefit from their activity. The author analyses the relationships inside these institutions, as well as those developed with other structures. Both institutions accomplish complex functions: social, juridical, educational, cultural, communicative and axiological ones. Firstly, the socializing function imposes itself. Both the band of lads and the village “hora” socialize youngsters according to the traditional morality, according to the norms of behaviour known and checked up by the community. The socialization takes place gradually, under the supervision of old people, being mediated by lads with greater experience. The latter ones assist youngsters to pass easier through the stage of bachelor and achieve skills in order to aspire to marriage. This is the way in which the transmission and assumption of roles and functions take place among the members of the band and of the “hora”, learning models of behaviours, essential principles and values for the traditional culture. The group supports youngsters in order to understand and become aware both of the privileges and risks of the life inside a community, of the responsibilities they have to assume from a juridical perspective. The economical functions, inherent to the activity of any institution, aim to ensure the performance of customs and their continuity through time, as well as of these institutions themselves. Lads learn how to earn and manage money commonly, using them for the benefit of the community. They train themselves in negotiations with old people, also with other bands of fellows, with girls and their parents, learning thus how to achieve a consensus in any activity.

Contextul performării povestitului

Author(s): Oana Valeria Chelaru / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 15/2015

The present study brings to attention pragmatic aspects of telling folktales, in order to set up a complex perspective on this type of narrative construction. The spatial coordinates of narrating are reconsidered by relating them to the temporal aspects, which highlight the moments of the day which are favorable to telling stories, as well as the favourite seasons. The enumeration of the Narrative functions emphasizes the ritual-magic function, based on the force of the spoken word, as well as the defensive, purifying/cathartic, psychological, formative, educative, and artistic functions. Closely connected to these, Performer’s personality must be carefully discussed, especially through the narrator-hero-audience interaction. Therefore, the space and time of telling folktales and the narrator’s personality equally influence and determine the folktale’s specific features, as an independent narrative species within all the forms of folk literature. Furthermore, the audience’s expectations have a decisive role in both establishing whether the narrator is a good story-teller and shaping this literary form.

Din activitatea etnografului Tudor Pamfile. Etapa ieşeană

Author(s): Gheorghe Iutiş / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 15/2015

This article brings forward a part of the vast work of the writer, ethnographer and historian Tudor Pamfile (1883-1921), namely the one published in “Viaţa românească” (The Romanian Life), a famous journal printed in 1906 in Iaşi. Tudor Pamfile did not publish a lot in Iaşi, he ran his activity locally instead, in Tecuci and Bârlad. There he edited prestigious magazines such as “Florile dalbe” (“White Flowers”), “Ion Creangă”, “Miron Costin”, in which he included most of the information collected during his folklore expeditions, stories inspired by the life of the Romanian village and his historical contributions. After a short general introduction concerning Tudor Pamfile’s activity and the journal “Viaţa românească” (which was published from 1906 to 1916 and from 1920 to 1930 in Iaşi, and then, after 1930, in Bucharest), the author presents the most important ideas and highlights the ethnographic elements included in the eleven articles published in “Viaţa românească” in 1910 and from 1920 to 1922, as well as in the article published in “Însemnări literare” (“Literary Notes”), the journal issued in the absence of “Viaţa românească” from 1919 to 1920. A possible republication of the literary and ethnographic works published by Tudor Pamfile in Iaşi would represent an act of cultural restitution, contributing to a better understanding of the activity of the ethnographer born in Tecuci, but also outlining the evolution of the prestigious literary and scientific publication from Iaşi, “Viaţa românească”

Forme etnoculturale în peisajul antropogeografic rural din Basarabia

Author(s): Dorina Onica / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 15/2015

This article analyzes the village as an expression of the anthropogeographical landscape, by means of its specific major ethnocultural forms: house and household, work, traditional transport networks, clothing and alimentation. These forms, part of the anthropogeographical landscape, reflect a symbiosis of the archaic people’s parsimony and cleverness in adjusting to the resources and conditions of the neighbouring nature, on the one hand, and their ingenuity in sustaining a process of space culturalization in time, on the other hand. Through these ethnocultural forms, the rural people managed to stay close to the nature, integrating and harmonizing the results of their wishes and expectations with the specific conditions of the environment. Moreover, the ethnocultural forms represented by these elements of material culture constitute an argument for the idea that the present villages of Bessarabia are the followers of the old rural settlements

Câteva consideraţii cu privire la târgul de pe Muntele Găina

Author(s): Sorin Sabău / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 15/2015

The fair takes place on the mountain named Găina (Hen) and is the most important popular feast in the area where Apuseni and Bihor Mountains interfere. In addition to a quick overview of this course of events, the article proposes to call into question and debate some of the problems less covered up until the present time, such as: the origin of the mountain’s name - Găina, the dates on which the feast has been organized, the existence of a “demarcation line” between participants from the regions neighbouring Găina Mountain and their positioning on the eve of and during the feast

Câteva lămuriri

Author(s): Ion H. Ciubotaru / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

Etnograful Cantemir şi folclorul Orientului asiatic (Partea întâi)

Author(s): Petru Caraman / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

The present study emphasizes the remarkable value of the work of Prince Dimitrie Cantemir, a Renaissance autochthonous scholar. In the first part, the savant is presented as a predecessor of both Romantic movement and modern ethnomusicologists. His contributions in the field of Turkish music are absolutely original. The other chapters of the study present Ottoman Empire beliefs and customs, known by Cantemir either in a direct manner or by means of the ample bibliography he has consulted. Professor Caraman’s main source is Historia incrementorum atque decrementorum Aulae Othomanicae, the fundamental yet little known work of the scholar. The eulogy to Cantemir is enhanced as the ethnological and mythological importance of the reported facts is identified. Each section of the work becomes a small scale study of linguistics, ethnography and folk philosophy. Therefore, the grandness of Cantemir work takes the shape of a luxuriant sapiential frame that enriches our knowledge.

Obiceiuri şi datini privitoare la construcţia casei la românii de la est de Prut

Author(s): Eugen Bâzgu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

The study discloses practices, beliefs and representations concerning the usage of a natural space by man in order to build a house. Basing on field investigations, accomplished a quarter of century ago, and on surveys among old people, bearers of traditional culture, the author has revealed step by step the customs associated with the building of a dwelling. Due to these cultural practices, the natural space becomes gradually a cultural one and within this process all the actions are related to cosmos. The gestures and ritual objects, used while shaping the space, according to the principles of cosmos, have an important semantic weight, ensuring thus the mediation. The author determines that the sacrifice in the name of the building, in all its variants, doesn’t appear in the rituals of building wooden houses, preserved more time in the north of Moldova, a fact that proves the differences of perception of these two essential building materials: wood and stone. Wood is considered alive therefore this quality extends also to the wooden buildings, while stone is considered dead and its usage in the process of building requires, from the point of view of rituals, a sacrifice in the name of the building, in order to ensure thus the life of the people that will inhabit the house

Rituri funerare străvechi: pomana de viu

Author(s): Ion H. Ciubotaru / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

Also known as Pomana de voie (Voluntary alms), Pomana din timpul vieţii (Alms during one self’s lifetime) or Sărindarul pentru vii (Priest’s prayer for the living ones), the ritual and ceremonial practice analyzed within the present study may be encountered all over the country. It represents an archaic, universally spread funeral custom that has persisted from antiquity until nowadays, being performed by all social categories, irrespective of their material condition. Usually, alms gifts are offered for the benefit of the living ones. However, there are examples of giving alms for both the living and the dead on the same occasion. Priests say their prayers for both categories, as the finality is the same, namely providing a pleasant atmosphere in the underworld. Although some have considered them desperate or hopeless, the performers of this custom are in fact persons who have the faith that acting in this manner would help them have a restful passage from one world to another. Far from being an embodiment of “a new death mythology”, pomana de viu (alms while alive) represents just an aspect of traditions persisting over centuries.

Pentru o istorie socială a cultului moşilor în România

Author(s): Marin Constantin / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

As it has been accounted for in Romanian ethnographic areas, the ancestor worship is accomplished within the framework of Christian religion, to the extent to which the ceremonial process and the ritual artifacts that are associated with one’s venerated forebears are consecrated by Church. However, the ancestor cult is not entirely originated into Christianity. As a matter of fact, the sacredness of ancestors does not stem from sanctifying departed people, since they are neither deities, nor semi-deities. Likewise, as a rule, ancestors in Romania do not populate any local mythology of supernatural beings or facts. It follows that the ancestors’ prestige appears to be rather cultural, than a mere religious one. Especially in Wallachia and Moldavia, as well as among peasant communities in Maramureş, relying on native genealogies, the ancestor worship usually evokes the descent of a village’s kinship groups. Within Romanian folk terminology, the ancestor worship is also relevant for traditional institutions of inheritance and customary law, which both emphasize the normative role of elders in the life of peasant rural populations during their restructuring demography, social structure, and economy, in late Middle-Ages period

Doliul alb. Culorile doliului

Author(s): Constantin Eretescu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

The author approaches one of the main issues related to the funeral rites, of an impressive age and of great importance in understanding the phenomenon of the Great Passage. In time, mourning and mourning colours have been studied by many specialists; therefore, any contribution within this field is more than welcomed. As a form of exteriorization of the grieving for the dead one, mourning presents several ways of manifestation. The author concentrates on the colours used for this purpose, on white especially. He concludes that white – more than black or other colours within the analyzed range – has represented the prevailing colour of mourning, not only in Romania, but also in more wider cultural areas

Obiceiuri de primăvară la vlahii (românii) din Valea Timocului

Author(s): Natalia G. Golant / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

The article describes some rites of Vlachs (Romanians) which lives in Eastern Serbia and North-Western Bulgaria. Rites discussed in the article are associated with various holidays such as St. Theodore’s day, the first days of March, and the feast day of the Forty Martyrs, St. George’s day and Holy Week. A great deal of the article's data was collected by author during field research in Vlach villages in Eastern Serbia such as Bukovče, Kobišnica, Raduevac (municipality of Negotin), Šipikovo (municipality of Zaečar) and Grabovica (municipality of Kladovo) in 2013-2014 years. Some data were collected in the town of Bregovo (Vidin district, North-Western Bulgaria) in 2005 and 2012 years.

Vocabular magic: amuletele

Author(s): Sanda Golopenţia / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

Undertaking this scientific task, the author turns to the miraculous fountain of charms, an inexhaustible source for linguists in pursuit of the archaic way of using the Romanian language. Terms related to the semantic field of amulets are considered. Each word is separately analyzed within the context of an adequate bibliography, searching origins and semantics. The first semantic meaning is focused on the idea of writing – in Hebraic, Greek, Slavic, Latin, possibly with numbers -, the second one is related to the idea of contiguity with the human body they are attached to, the third to the magic target: luck or cure. A special interest is generated not only by the magic of writing itself (numbers, words, texts), but also by the heuristic and metalinguistic function of some terms rarely used in the rural area

Prolegomene la jocurile cu măşti

Author(s): Lucian-Valeriu Lefter / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

The present study represents an introduction to mask plays, from the perspective of documentary and historiographical sources, as well as ethnographic field researches. Similar rites occur in the passage of the two milestones represented by death and crossing from one year to another. There are similarities between wake songs by the body of a dead person and mask plays in the New Year period. Mask plays give evidence of human activities transcending their natural course. The Visible World meets the Underworld, the skies open, and the living intermingle the dead disguised with masks.The impressive shows performed during winter feasts by suits of masked men dancing on the stage represent a consequence of modern time secularization, a loss of the original ritual sense gradually produced in a ceaselessly transforming world

Personaje fantastice în eshatologia populară românească

Author(s): Andrei Prohin / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

In the Romanian folklore, fantastic creatures occupy both the mythical past, the end of the world and the remote territories, being a deformed projection of the human world. The end of the world, conceived as an outbreak of evil, of destructive powers, brings forward several fabulous creatures, being hypertrophied representations of evil realities from the Earth (flying snakes, birds with iron beaks, plague, boyars) and incarnations of the universal evil (the dragon, the shrew, Judas, Antichrist). In this respect, the Romanian folklore proves the continuity of some medieval representations, having parallels in the “Alexander’s Romance” and in several eschatological writings.

Expresivitatea limbajului oltenesc în lucrarea „La lilieci” de Marin Sorescu

Author(s): Gabriela Boangiu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

The article highlights the main ethnographic elements present in the work “La lilieci” by Marin Sorescu. The way Marin Sorescu writes about his village includes ethnographic elements in order to focus more objectively on this space without inclosing it into a local view. It is fascinating the game of his perspectives from inside – by remembering biographical events - and from outside, like a true historian of the feelings which tries to record a reality that disappears step by step in front of urban challenges. In the work “La lilieci”, the space is organized in circles. The change is present everywhere: into the mental representation of the sheet dowry – sign of a social status, the harvest – the image of the Mother who knows “three types of harvest”. The most painful was the one during the communist period of time when there was the harvest and then the grains were carried away. The land, the village, everything is changing, and the peasant is aware of this change because there is a starting point, a past were the old meanings retire

Deschideri ale basmului fantastic spre modernitate

Author(s): Oana Valeria Chelaru / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

The present study is just an aspect of an extended work dedicated to the Romanian fantastic folktale and consists of three parts, which are concentrated on the folktale’s perspectives towards modernity, in the complex form of the innovative aspects into the folktale’s language (such as transforming the initiatory, medial and final formulas into innovative ones or changing the hero’s status), of the folktale’s evolution, from folk to a bookish perspective (with particular reference to the texts of Nicolae Filimon, Mihai Eminescu and Ioan Slavici) and it opens the folktale towards modernity in the forms of cartoons, commercials, film adaptations, movies, in just a few words, the image folktale.

Festivalul de folclor şi doina ca gen, tradiţie şi stil muzical

Author(s): Vasile Chiseliță / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

In the article “The Festival of Folklore and Doina as Genre, Tradition and Musical Style”, the author approaches theoretical and practical aspects regarding the scientific criteria of identification, evaluation and promotion of Doina in modern folklore festivals, regarding it as a defining element of the Romanian cultural identity within a contemporary globalised world. The study realizes a short analysis of the materials presented in The National Festival of Doina (1st and 2nd editions, Chişinău, 2012-2013); underlines the deficiencies of the public perception and the methodological problems in the process of identification and stage, media promotion of Doina in the contemporary society; gives a synthesis of main folkloristic and musicological concepts on this subject; offers a register and a short classification of musical stylistic elements, which distinguish the genre of Doina from other categories of the Romanian folklore

Materii prime, instrumentar, tehnici şi produse finite în industria casnică din Gârda de Sus – Alba

Author(s): Petruţa Pop / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

In Apuseni Mountains, in the valleys of Arieş and Ampoi rivers, three distinct ethnographic areas have developed in time: Ţara Moţilor, Mocănimea Arieşului and Abrud Zlatna Gold Basin. These are neighbouring areas, culturally delimited by different natural, socioeconomic and historico-administrative factors. The villages within the commune of Gârda de Sus belong to Ţara Moţilor, an area that corresponds to the hydrographic basins of the rivers Arieşul Mare and Arieşul Mic, from their sources up to the town of Câmpeni. As main occupations, the geographic features of this mountain area from the heart of Ţara Moţilor helped develop woodcraft and animal raising. Agriculture was poorly exploited, or not at all. The geographic environment, with few pasture areas, determined the local style of sheep grazing: smaller flocks of sheep, no shepherd communities and small seasonal sheep moving, depending on agricultural necessities. In the summer of 2014, we undertook a detailed research in Gârda de Sus, Alba county, on the way of people's lives in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Interviewees mentioned that most people had between five and ten sheep, two head of cattle and one horse. Wealthier people had more animals and, therefore, a higher social rank. Men practiced woodcraft, travelled around the country for selling their products and brought back cereals and clothes for their families. In the household industry, the first step in obtaining the raw material is the processing of wool, hemp or flax. This requires special traditional procedures. Thus, the text presents traditional techniques and operations used in the 19th century for wool (shearing, washing, carding and combing), hemp and flax (seeding, harvesting, melting, breaking and distaff brushing). The 20th century brought some kind of confusion in the local clothing tradition. On the one hand, this was an effect of the people's tendency of introducing new clothes and fabrics, brought from towns and cities, and on the other hand there was an inappropriate intervention of some intellectual circles, which led to a falsification of the local costume

Obiceiuri de înmormântare la românii ungureni din Timoc (satul Vlaole, regiunea Bor)

Author(s): Emil Ţîrcomnicu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

We present some of the funeral customs recorded at the Romanians from Serbia (Timoc Valley), Vlaole village, county of Bor on 2014, July. In this research done through the Romanian Cultural Institute we interviewed persons attending a repast given as alms 4 years after the funeral, finding the alms ritual, the forms of the knot-shaped breads on the alms tables as well as the custom of “releasing” the water.