International Ethnological Conference on The Ritual Year

Abstracts

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International Ethnological Conference on Ritual

in association with the Sief Ritual Commission

  First conference of the Sief Working Group on

THE RITUAL YEAR

 in association with the

University of Malta Junior College

Msida, Malta

 March 20-24, 2005

Għażżiela miż-Żebbuġ, Għawdex

SIEF is the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore, founded in Athens on September 8, 1964. It has a number of working groups, including the commission on The Ritual Year which was established at the SIEF conference in Marseille on April 29, 2004. Information on SIEF is available on the website www.meertens.knaw.nl/sief/

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ABSTRACTS

Afolabi M. AGBONDE

Maria Teresa AGOZZINO

Prof. Arne Bugge AMUNDSEN

Tommy U. Andersson and Ritwa Herjulfsdotter Andersson

Dániel BÁRTH

Prof. Jeremy Boissevain

Anna Borg-Cardona

Olena BORYAK

Dr Marion Bowman

Dr Dace BULA

Jenny BUTLER

Molly Carter

Dr Carmel Cassar

Dr Vicky Ann CREMONA

Prof. Swietlana M. CZERWONNAJA

Kristín Einarsdóttir

Prof. Bartha ELEK

Dr Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig

Dr Maxim Sergeevitch Fomin

Prof. Oleg GERASIMOV

Anca Giurchescu and Prof. Owe Ronström

Margaret GOUIN

Dr Joseph F. GRIMA

Dr Terry Gunnell

Evy Johanne Håland

Ritwa HERJULFSDOTTER ANDERSSON

Marlene HUGOSON

Giovanna IACOVAZZI

Rev. Lukman Alabi Ibrahim

Eleyowo Odunayo Jacob

Dr Fournier Laurent Sebastien

Dr Aado LINTROP

Dr Emily LYLE

Dr Neill Martin

Prof. Mariya MAYERCHYK

Prof.  SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Nancy McEntire Cassell

Dr Lina MIDHOLM

Dr George MIFSUD-CHIRCOP

Prof. Katya MIHAILOVA

Dr Tatiana Minniiakhmetova

Dr Giovanni Orlando Muraca

Joseph Muscat

Dr Annika NORDSTRÖM

Olusoji Olaoye Emmanuel

Dr Anthony Pace

Ann Pettersson and Anna Ulfstrand

Prof. Leander Petzoldt

Prof. Ferenc POZSONY

Dr Jonathan ROPER

Prof. Jan RYCHLIK

Ya’acov Sarig

Dr Irina Sedakova

Prof. Michèle Simonsen

Mats Sjölin

Prof. David STANLEY

Dr Helga STEIN

Prof. Kincső VEREBÉLYI and Prof. Vilmos VOIGT

1          Afolabi M. AGBONDE

EPA Masquerades Ritual Year

The EPA masquerade, according to Yoruba belief, is a wooden helmet mask. It consist of two parts: the lower part, which has always a constant form and known as Ikoko, is sacred, and the superstructure, which is secular and records everyday activities in the community. Epa masks are made in the Ekiti area of North-East Yoruba, and are used as cult to honour heroes and ancestors. During the cult festival young men who are on the point of becoming adult wear these masks (some of which weigh up to thirty kilogrammes) and perform ritual acrobatic feats as evidence of strength and endurance. The images are usually repainted in a traditional earth colour before performance of the ritual. Festivities and dancing take place in front of a sacred grove. The ceremony takes place once or twice a year

Egungun Masquerade Ritual Year. Most African societies do not dissociate the dead member of their families from the living. This is true of Yoruba. Dead parents are believed to continue to exercise control and influence on the lives of the living. For this reason, once a year or sometimes more often, the spirits of the departed parents return to earth in the guise of robed masquerades, some of whom may wear masks or head-dresses, carved in wood. When they appear they may represent specific individuals who died or the generality of ancestors of the lineage or town. Usually, the whole town participates in the rituals when the living people are symbolically re-united with the dead. It has been suggested that the cult originated in the Nupe country and it is widely adopted in many localities within the Yoruba kingdom. However, it is observed in Ile-Ife, the acclaimed ancestral home of most Yoruba kingdom.

Gelede Masquerade Ritual Year. The Gelede masks are used in the Gelede cult, which is connected with witches. It takes place only in the south-west part of Yoruba on both sides of the boarder with the Republic of Benin. The witches of the Ketu kingdom are said to have founded the cult, whose purpose is to appease the spirit of witches and utilize their power to protect the communities against more malevolent forces. The ritual usually takes place annually and at the funerals on the death of members and, as in EPA, the mask consists of two parts, a mask and a superstructure. The superstructure may depict many secular motifs (e.g., sewing machines, farmers, motor cars, and cycles). A mask may be made to represent a great mother of society. Membership of the society is open to both sexes, but women hold some of the most important titles. In fact, the festival is often in celebration or honour of the great mother, the ancestor of all women and witches. When the dances are to be performed, the priest and the old women gather in the market square to perform the ritual and pray to the spirits.

2          Maria Teresa AGOZZINO

Divining King Arthur –

the Calendric Significance of Twelfth Century Depictions in Italy

 The sixth-century pagan Welsh legendary figure of King Arthur appears in two twelfth-century renderings in the Italian cathedrals of Modena and Otranto respectively. This paradoxical conflation of a secular Celtic legend cycle and sacred continental high-religious art may be explained in part as Christian appropriation of pre-existing folklore. However, when considered contextually and intertextually, I suggest that we are witnessing the popular medieval tradition of mock battles, in which the critical winter/summer opposition is managed. Ritualized mock battles are staged in response to a calendric crisis; a crisis brought on by the uncertainty of the liminality of the transition between seasons, with the seasons personified and the transition represented as a battle waged between victor and vanquished – a metaphor for the annual transition as summer supplants winter and the cosmological balance is restored – a theme well documented throughout medieval Europe in genres such as folk narrative and festival. I hereby propose a hitherto uninvestigated hypothesis, based on close examination and comparison of the artistic symbolism and drawing on folkloric empirical evidence, anthropological theoretical paradigms, Indo-European proto structures and Medieval Welsh narratives, which together reveal and reflect a complex yet fundamental folk belief system.

 

3          Prof. Arne Bugge AMUNDSEN

St Olav’s Day in Norway –

Invented Tradition or an Old Popular Feast Day?

The national saint of Medieval Norway, King Olav Haraldsson (d. 1030) was for centuries the centre of a series of rituals, hymns, processions, travels – both popular and ecclesiastical ones. The most important period of the St Olav rituals during the liturgical year was the day of his death and martyrdom, 29^th July, which was called Olsok (i.e., ‘the vigilia Sancti Olavi’).

After the Lutheran reformation in Norway in 1537, these rituals and traditions were of course prohibited. Still, in many parts of Norway there existed popular feast traditions especially at Olsok time and referring at least to the name of the pre-reformation saint king. Most of these ritual traditions were related to the high season of pasturing in the mountains of Norway.

During the last decades of the 19^th Century, Norwegian nationalists showed a growing interest in the Olsok-rituals and traditions. As an important part of their myths about the heroic past of Norway, they also tried to re-ritualize Olsok as a meeting place between historical traditions and ecclesiastical symbols. The new, nationalistic Olsok rituals focussed on flags, dancing, historical tableaux, national speeches, youth performances and church services. During the 20^th Century, Olsok has become acknowledged as an important feast day and annual ritual in many parts of Norway.

The aim of my proposed paper will be to examine what happened when these nationalistic efforts met older, popular feast traditions, and to outline what became the result of this meeting.

4          Tommy U. Andersson and Ritwa Herjulfsdotter Andersson

A Spring Procession from the Bronze Age on a Rock-Carving

in Högsbyn, Western Sweden

Prehistoric rock art constitutes one of the richest resources we have in hand to enable us to begin reading cosmologies and their rituals.

In this paper we want to discuss a procession at Bronze Age rock-carvings from the west of Sweden, concentrating on the carving site of Högsbyn in Dalsland, Sweden, and in particular on the form and character of the depiction of a procession with ships, animals, instruments and human figures.

The carvings at Högsbyn form the only substantial concentration of rock art in this region, being separated by a distance of around 70 km from the major concentration of carving sites along the west coast of the country. The rock carvings were probably all executed in a relatively brief 300-400 year period towards the end of the Bronze Age.

The carved rocks are located on the north-east shore of the Råvarpen lake. The very special landscape setting of these rock carvings must constitute a significant element in their meaning. Högsbyn may well have been a seasonally visited cult site, possibly only visited during the spring and autumn and connected with fertility rites. From November until the end of March rock-carvings would have been buried under deep snow.

At the procession there are two ships. Their significance goes far beyond being just something people ride in on water. This connection of the boat with cosmology has long been pointed out by archaeologists. One suggestion has been that the ship may be connected to agricultural rites and it may represent fertility ceremonies. In the folklore of both Scandinavia and Western Europe there are traces of ceremonies in which ships were borne over fields in spring as part of fertility rites.

We want to discuss the procession as a seasonal marker between winter solstice and vernal equinox.

5          Dániel BÁRTH

Desacralization and Re-Sacralization of Spaces –

the Ritual Year in a Hungarian Village

The paper studies the ritual year of an ordinary Hungarian village in the last three centuries. In this long term there are shorter periods, which are sectioned out in the context of socio-political changes.

In the first period from the 18^th to the 19^th Century the Church and partly the Hapsburg Royal Court played an important role. The first part of the 20^th Century brought a high value on national religious feasts with their earlier importance. Then there was a drastic change under the Communist Regime, when religious feasts were totally suppressed and official national feasts dominated society. The socio-political changes in 1990 changed to a great extent the latter system and now we can observe the most complex feast-structure for all periods.

The structure of local feasts in the village under examination is connected with the question of local identity: this configuration is modelled on a fictitious old past and the conception of a former honour.

Consequently, I present changes of ceremonial usage of space, especially dwelling on the process which brought about simultaneously the profane, ideological feasts to replace the sacred place of the village at the end of the 20^th century.

My presentation is the result of archival and direct fieldwork research as well as photographs, documenting this centuries-old cyclical procession.

6          Prof. Jeremy Boissevain

Changing Aspects of Parish Rituals in Malta (1960-2000)

Intensely Roman Catholic, Maltese parishioners celebrate numerous calendrical rituals. The most important of these are the annual festa of the parish’s patron saint and Holy Week. Following their curtailment during World War II, parish celebrations slowly recovered, only to decline somewhat in the late 1950s. Heavy emigration, the growing popularity of football and escalating politico-religious tension deprived parish organizers of the labour required to stage these rituals.

By the mid-1970s a revitalization of parish rituals were noticeable. For example, in Naxxar the participation and costuming of the processions on Good Friday and Easter Sunday had grown substantially since 1960. In Kirkop the escalating competition between the factions (partiti) celebrating the village’s two ‘rival’ saints had reactivated their respective brass bands, which had been dormant for decades.

Factors influencing this revitalization include the country’s growing affluence, the democratization of public rituals under the Labour government (1971-1987), government’s attempt to regiment aspects of these celebrations, the steady increase oft the tourist interest in these folk celebrations, and the developing awareness by the bourgeois establishment that traditional ritual pageantry was an important element of the nation’s cultural heritage. The revitalization of Malta’s ritual pageantry forms part of a more general revival and (re)invention of ‘traditional’ folk rituals in Europe.

7          Anna Borg-Cardona

Evidence of Ancient Ritual in Malta’s Musical Instruments

In a Catholic country such as Malta, life has for centuries rotated around the Christian calendar and the celebrations associated with it. The greatest of these feasts are undoubtedly Christmas and Easter. Closely connected with Easter are the pre-Lenten celebrations of Carnival, the church rituals of Holy Week and the feast of St Gregory. Also given particular prominence in the Maltese culture are the cults of the Blessed Virgin, of Saint John, and of Saints Peter and Paul (l-Imnarja).

If one examines the dates of our Christian festivities, the majority will be found to fall on or around the time of previous pre-Christian seasonal rituals. That which for centuries formed part of the local culture prior to Christianity was not automatically erased or discarded with the arrival of the new religion. Many of the ingrained ancient customs were tenaciously clung to and were transferred into a new context and given a new meaning.

In spite of the long passage of time, vestiges of these now-forgotten seasonal rituals may still be spotted in present day Malta. This paper will be concentrating on musical instruments which originally pertained to primitive ritual functions but which have managed to persist into modern days during certain times of the year or in connection with a particular function or festivity.  The paper will discuss the instruments’ previous and later function and context of use, within a religious, agricultural or social context and will also include surviving music and dance.

The term “musical instruments” will be referring, in the broadest sense, to any object which is made to produce sound intentionally. Though several instruments will be briefly discussed, particular attention will be given to the natural cow horn, the friction drum, and the different instruments used on the Islands during Holy Week. 

Original video clips, tape and CD recordings, and photographs will be used to enhance the presentation.

8          Olena BORYAK

Special “Rules of Behaviour” Concerning Weaving

in the context of Ukrainian Calendar Rites Cycle

The paper is devoted to the special role of calendar ceremonial rites in connection with the domestic weaving in Ukrainian villages. The discovery of the sphere of regulation of human activity and its tabooing on certain calendar dates show that spirituality defines every kind of traditional culture. For example, the process of combing (sorting) and spinning of fibre was very long (practically half a year). So, it was strictly prohibited to do this kind of work during holidays (Christmas, the feast of the Epiphany, etc.). Moreover, special rules, or, more precisely, the rules of behaviour, were elaborated for the scratching of wood fibres. There was a belief that if stems would stay untouched before the spring holiday feast of the Annunciation (April 7^th), this village will suffer from drought. On this occasion women gathered together for searching the violator of this taboo to punish the guilty ones. On the other hand, there was a belief that bits of straw which were scratched after this holiday bear a strong protection against witches.

Various kinds of motives for taboos in the context of the calendar rites cycle will be analysed. All appear to be extremely informative. Their semantic spheres widely demonstrate ideas of welfare, wrath, fertility and reproduction.

9          Dr Marion Bowman

Reclaiming Glastonbury – 

Processions as Pageantry, Protest and Power

Glastonbury, a small town in the south-west of England, is considered significant by a wide variety of spiritual seekers. Although, for the most part, groups and individuals of very different religious persuasion co-exist comparatively peacefully and a laissez-faire attitude to pluralism has developed in the town, increasingly some rivalries are played out in the form of processions.

The Anglican Glastonbury Pilgrimage, revived in the 1920’s, was the first public processional display of religiosity to develop in the modern period, followed in the 1950’s by a Roman Catholic Pilgrimage with procession.  Together these pilgrimages in some sense reclaim Glastonbury for Christianity, although ironically they also function to highlight internal divisions within and between churches.  However, since 1996, there has been processional activity connected with the annual Glastonbury Goddess Conference, always held around the “Celtic” festival of Lammas/ Lughnasa (1 August).  The development of this tradition, its fluid nature and the different agendas that it addresses will be the main focus of the paper.

Inspired by “an old Celtic image” of a cart with huge wheels containing an image of the Goddess, the Conference Organiser had the idea of the “Goddess in the Cart Procession”, in which an image of the Goddess would be pulled through the streets of Glastonbury, (re)establishing Her presence in the town.  Over the years this procession has developed in a variety of ways, with changes and expansions in the ground covered by the Goddess effigies, the material culture surrounding the activity, and the agendas being pursued.

In exploring the development of processional activity in Glastonbury, the paper will address issues concerning the fluid nature and visual power of pageantry, the extent to which material culture and creativity play a part in its survival and strength, and the political / politicised power of the procession.  Increasingly the Goddess Conference agenda has expanded to make claims not just in relation to Christianity but to other aspects of spirituality in Glastonbury.

Proclaiming and reclaiming are very much part of the ethos of processional activity in Glastonbury, and a valuable tool in establishing presence and priority in both overt and subtle ways.

9          Dace BULA

Ideology, Calendar and the Power of Tradition –

the 8^th of March in Latvia

The paper will discuss recent changes in popular attitudes towards the celebration of the International Women’s day in Latvia. As they belonged to a major national holiday of the Soviet period, the 8^th of March rituals were abandoned in the ideological shift of the 1990s. Presently, we can observe the return of this date to the rank of ritually marked days of the popular calendar. The elements of nostalgia, irony and parody are present in the ways people celebrate this day.

10        Jenny BUTLER

Life Cycle Parallels to the Ritual Year Cycle

in Neo-Pagan Worldview

This paper deals with the Neo-Pagan view of the relationship between the ritual year and the celebration of the life cycle within the ritual year.  In Neo-Pagan worldview, there are many parallels between the life cycle and the seasonal progression or Wheel of the Year.  There are correspondences between the magical elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) and the annual cycle and also with the human life cycle.  The life cycle of the deities is viewed by many Neo-pagans as being a tripartite life cycle.  There are three phases of the Goddess’ life cycle, namely maiden, mother and crone, mirroring the waxing, full and waning phases of the moon respectively.  These three phases of maiden, mother and crone also are paralleled to the life cycle of real flesh-and-blood women.  In the case of the male deity, the phases are young ‘seeker’ God, consort of the Goddess and old Father God and correspondingly the lives of flesh-and-blood males are understood by some as following similar phases of young male in a time of learning, husband/partner and old age. These triple phases are more symbolic constructs in the everyday lives of individuals.  For instance, being in the phase of ‘Maiden’ can mean that a female possesses qualities like inquisitiveness and youthfulness and the ‘Mother’ phase can be relevant for women who have children or a more representational notion of a phase of fertility and creativity, a time for ‘giving birth’ to projects and new initiatives.  The third aspect of ‘Crone’ is a positive one in pagan worldview.  Feminist Witches and Wiccans have reclaimed the terms ‘Hag’ and ‘Crone’ and re-evaluated the menopause and old age as a positive time of wisdom and power, a stage when a female becomes a ‘Wise Woman’.  In the Neo-Pagan community, ‘Elders’ are cherished for their knowledge and many officiate at rituals or teach younger members of the Neo-Pagan community.  The dark half of the year and the corresponding element of Earth is a time for death and also rebirth.  Some Neo-Pagan beliefs about death reflect the notion of rebirth after death and the ending of one cycle of human life is seen as a transition into the next cycle of being.  Samhain (October 31^st) is a time when the dead and the ancestors are honoured.  It is also a time for new beginnings and initiations may take place at this time of year.  Some Neo-Pagans celebrate the transition from puberty into adulthood and certain groups have devised ‘welcoming to adulthood’ rituals for adolescent members of the Neo-Pagan community. Neo-Pagan Handfastings (Weddings) may be held on Bealtaine (May Day), as springtime is a time of fertility in the natural world.  Another time that is chosen for marriage rituals is the summer solstice, which, in Neo-Pagan cosmology, is the time when the Solar God and Goddess of the land unite in a ‘Sacred Marriage’ and is accordingly associated with marriage.  Contemporary Pagans view their own lives in the context of the cycles of the ritual year, the moon’s phases and the natural progression of birth-death-rebirth.  The comprehension of the seasonal cycle, and the myths associated with each festival, are echoed in personal mythology of individual Neo-Pagans in regard to the development of their personal lives.  This paper draws on ethnographic interviews with informants who interpret their own lives as a cycle within these wider cycles.  Within Neo-Pagan cosmology, the individual human life cycle is understood as meaningful when viewed as a microcosm of wider cycles that exist in the universe.      

11        Molly Carter

Who is Jack a Lent?

Personifications of Shrovetide and Lent

in 16^th and 17^th Century England

“Jakke a’ Lent comes justlynge in, / With the hedpeece of a herynge, / And saythe, repent yowe of yower syn, / For shame, syrs, leve yowre swerynge,” declared a ballad of 1570. About fifty years later the poet John Taylor wrote of “Jack a Lent” and “the mad pranks of his Gentleman-Usher Shrove-Tuesday.”

In this paper I will explore the figure of “Jack a Lent” and other personifications of Lent and Shrovetide depicted in the art, drama, literature, folk customs and proverbial expressions of 16^th and 17^th century England. One type of Jack a Lent was a kind of effigy set up on Ash Wednesday and pelted with sticks until Easter. In proverbial language, “jack a lent” became a synonym for ‘scapegoat.’ The other type of Jack a Lent, found in drama, literature and art, was a symbol of Lent in allegories imparting moral instruction and often humorous social commentary. There he was pictured as an emaciated figure surrounded by herrings and other symbols of Lenten fasting, perhaps riding a fish or brandishing a soup ladle in combat with “Shrovetide” or “Carnival,” who was likewise adorned with the symbols of his season (a merry glutton garlanded with sausages).        

Although Shrovetide (the three days leading up to Ash Wednesday) was ostensibly reserved for the ‘shriving’ or confessing of sins before the long penitential period of Lent, Shrove Tuesday festivities were characterized by the frenetic consumption of foods forbidden in Lent, violence and scapegoating. Blood sports (such as “throwing at cocks” and cock fighting) and the ritualized punishment of social malefactors (via charivaris and the ransacking of playhouses and brothels) were typical of this period. I will be examining the figure of Jack a Lent against the backdrop of Shrovetide and Lent as they were popularly observed in order to shed light on his function and meaning. Depictions of Jack a Lent will also be considered with regards to allegorical traditions rooted in the Middle Ages, such as the “food utopia” (Land of Cockaigne) and “seasonal combat” (Carnival versus Lent) motifs and the personification of moral qualities in the medieval “moral plays.”

12        Dr Carmel Cassar

The Maltese Festa – 

a Historical and Cultural Perspective

During the early years of the Order’s stay in Malta the festa was a small affair. The elaborate and colourful manifestation of this Maltese tradition began to emerge in the eighteenth century and reached its present form by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sporadic references to the celebration of the festa in the sixteenth century indicate that the activity was often celebrated thanks to the generosity of a local benefactor, and it often consisted mainly of the distribution of food or money among the poor of the village.

The Maltese festa is often associated with Malta’s attachment to the Catholic faith. Indeed Christianity was well-rooted in Malta by the time the Order of St John arrived in 1530. The attachment of the Maltese community to the Church was so great that it often enabled the diocese to act as a separate, if not an independent entity in Malta throughout the rule of the order of St John. But this condition was not peculiar to Malta. Such a situation was attained in practically all pre-industrial societies where religion is often looked upon as a symbolic code of communication and a focus for social organization. In fact, organized religions have generally always had to come to terms with the existent economic and cultural divisions of society. The rural aspects of life conditioned the way people perceived time and space. Every activity was seemingly saturated with religion so that even the divisions of night and day were largely ecclesiastical. Thus it was customary to refer to the hours of the day in relation to the striking of church bells.  Even the calendar spoke the Christian language every­body understood. Religion surrounded food with rules, rituals, and prohibitions and was eaten partly on the Church's orders. People ate fat or lean according to whether the Church said so or not. Some may have rejected the over-dogmatizing attitude of the clergy, yet Christianity was the major popular force for the early modern Maltese. It may be argued that the hold exerted by religion was perhaps related to the insecurity of life. In fact as a salvation religion dealing with life after death, Christianity offered an escape from damnation in the all too likely event of a sudden or early death.  After all death was a phenomenon that pervaded pre-contemporary Maltese society and was a major talking point in both theological and political thinking among all sectors of society. The cult of saints was particularly strong among the masses of the population, especially due to the fact that the Counter Reformation firmly restated the usefulness of invoking saints. Devotion to the Virgin Mary increased in intensity, while some new saints emerged as well documented popular hero figures. On their part the Jesuits promoted studies on the Pauline cult where the Apostle’s role as protector of the Maltese was particularly stressed.

Petitional and penitential processions, involving both clergy and laity, were often undertaken at the behest of the community as a response to natural disasters like plague, drought, and hailstorms and so on. They entailed the carrying of sacred images and sometime relics of saints suggesting that ritual served as a defence against plague. Celebratory processions, such as the ones held after liberation from catastrophic plagues, were also highly in demand. On its part the Church pushed the belief that just as God could punish and then heal individuals, the will of Heaven could likewise heal an entire society. God’s wrath was thus frequently judged as the cause of plague epidemics, as it was of any other natural calamity. In short devotion to saints and the belief in miracles was a fundamental part of Catholic religiosity, which was shared at all levels of society. During processions the masses of the population let free their pent up feelings and began to cry and shout. It seems however that processions were mostly reserved for strictly devotional services such as processions with the exposed sacrament. The inclusion of the titular saint in parish processions on the day of the festa was a development of the eighteenth century and the role of the festa as we know it gained ground on the appearance of the band clubs in the late nineteenth century.

13        Dr Vicky Ann CREMONA

The Ritual of Carnival: Spontaneity vs Control

Carnival can be seen as a celebratory ritual, involving its participants, through play in the assertion of identity.  Carnival can be examined as a theatrical event, created by citizens who would not normally aspire to any particular artistic inclination, but who are temporarily recognized as performers and involve themselves and their onlookers in a popular event, that occurs annually. The Carnival event is supposedly situated at the margins of power, in fact, in certain societies it is seen as the means to reflect power back to society by making fun of politicians and prevailing power structures.  However, what happens when the power structures impede political expression? When spontaneity is regulated by control?

In my paper, I shall be discussing the role of ritual and power in Carnival, taking Malta as a case study. I propose to examine this in a historical perspective, showing how the ritual elements of Carnival have been modified by the influence or pressure of power structures.

14        Prof. Swietlana M. CZERWONNAJA

Spring National “Holidays of the Plough/of the Sowing Campaign” –

Experiences of the Twentieth Century

The spring “Holiday of the Plough” (Tatar Saban tuye, Sabantui, Chuvash Akatui, Crimean-Tartar Khadyrlez, and other variants) originates from ancient agricultural cultures’ traditions of Turkish peoples of Eurasia. It was not adopted wholly by Islam, Christianity or by another world religion but preserved elements of the old-time, primeval magic. Soviet authorities were tolerant enough and broad-minded towards those holidays and their traditional rites, trying not to notice their pagan, heathen essence and considering them as “Holidays of Workers”. Such holidays were permitted in the Soviet Union already from the late 1930s and played an important role in the ethnic mobilization of the Turkish peoples. They became the object of  idealization, to the main motive of national painting and poetry, that tried to show “a sound mind”, “a beautiful and heroic character” of people in the scenes of athletic competitions, public crowd  merry-making, folk round dances and other rites concomitant with “Holidays of Plough” (e.g., pictures “Akatui”, 1935, by Chuvash painter Juriy Zaycev, “Sabantui”, 1957, by Tartar artist Lotfulla Fattakhov, “Wrestling Khuresh”, 1968, by  Tuvian artist Saryg-ol Saaya, “Race in Bags”, 1974, by Bashkir painter Abrek Abzgildin, and “The Round Dance Yssyakh”, 1990, by  Yakut Afanasiy Osipov.

My fieldwork (1990-2000) proves that the traditional spring “Holidays of the Plough” of Turkish peoples have a rich moral and aesthetic substance, but their formalization and administrative interfering lead to their deformation in the Soviet and Post-Soviet world.

15     Kristín Einarsdóttir 

Ash Wednesday Customs in Modern Iceland

On the morning of Ash Wednesday in Iceland, the streets and shops of the capital city of Reykjavík and also the villages around Iceland tend to be crowded with a strange assemblage of children dressed as witches, babies, hippies, cats, old women and so on.  These persons go from shop to shop, singing all kinds of songs, and receiving in payment sweets and other edible products. However, the festival is not limited to Ash Wednesday itself: during the days leading to the festival, children spend various amounts of time preparing for their temporary transformation. Some would have spent days preparing, while others do nothing until the night before. This preparation includes deciding which role they are going to take on for this particular Ash Wednesday; finding clothes and masks; and deciding which songs to sing.

So much for the custom itself. Of particular interest regarding this custom however, are the various dynamics that lie behind it, and especially the basic social conflicts that it entails. This will be the main subject of my lecture.

One can look at the custom from several angles, especially in terms of the implicit conflict between generations, not least between the modern tradition known by the children and that which existed in the past as known by many parents and shop workers in rural societies.

Other conflicts appear in the threats posed by the nature of the costumes (and by masks in general), and also in the lyrics sung by children (which often depict further conflicts between authorities and children). Indeed not all shopkeepers are very keen on having disguised children singing in their shops, taking a whole day from the shop assistants.

These conflicts among others are bound to have effects on the development of the tradition over time.

16        Prof. Bartha ELEK

Variations of the Church Calendar –

Examples from the Contact Area of the Eastern and Western Liturgy

It is a well-known fact that in Christian Europe the ecclesiastical calendar of the West, follower of the Latin rite, and of the orthodox East differed. In the middle of the continent, along the dividing line of the orthodoxy and the western Christianity, a specific denomination came into existence centuries ago; it was a branch of the Christians following the Byzantine rite. This community presented a special mixing and alternation of the ecclesiastical calendar. The lecture presents this transitional form of the ritual year with examples from some current states of this area.

17        Dr Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig

Ritual and Liturgy in Southern Germany in the Early Modern Period

Ms. 7058 in the Library of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg is a miscellany, containing various Hebrew texts of a religious nature. Most of them pertain to home liturgies. Additional texts are Midrashic exegesis and Minhagic literature.

Within the framework of the history of the Hebrew book of the late sixteenth century in Germany, the manuscript stands out as a rare example of a book written and illustrated by hand in the age of printing. Judging by its contents, the manuscript may have either been a gift, perhaps for a bridegroom, or meant for private use of the scribe. It seems safe to suggest that the manuscript was copied and illustrated in Southern Germany, probably in Swabia or Franconia. On historical grounds, supported by the names mentioned on fol. 45, and corroborated by art-historical considerations, the suggested origin is Southern Germany.

Dated by its colophon to 1589, this illustrated manuscript provides an insight into daily religious life of the Jews of Southern Germany in that period. The manuscript contains altogether 55 decorated leaves, of which 7 are on a full page. 25 text illustrations embellish it, with an additional 58 decorated initial words or letters.

The paper will focus on the cycle of the Jewish year, as it comes to light in the manuscript. This will be done on the basis of the text – both liturgical and exegetical – as well as the images that illustrate it. On another level, a comparison will be drawn between the objects depicted in the book and contemporary artifacts of Jewish and non-Jewish origin alike.

18        Dr Maxim Sergeevitch Fomin

Easter, Beltaine, St Patrick and Conversion of Ireland

When describing St. Patrick’s conversion of Ireland, Muirchú - the author of Vita Prima Sancti Patricii – tells us exact day when it happened:

“I 10. (1) In those days Easter was approaching, … (2) Patrick … decided that this great feast of the Lord, … should be celebrated … there that there was the greatest kingdom among this tribes, the head of all paganism and idolatry.”

Muirchú also mentions that the celebration of Easter coincided with the celebration of the local festival.

15 (1) It so happened in that year that a feast of pagan worship was being held, which the pagans used to celebrate with many incantations and magic rites and other superstitious acts of idolatry.

It can be determined that the pagan feast mentioned above is Beltaine, the May-Day festival, of which the descriptions survived in medieval sources as well as in the accounts of the early 20^th Century Irish Folklore Commission. Muirchú goes on in his description of what St Patrick did on that day, revealing that he violated local custom not to light fire before it was done so in the king’s house.

(3) They also had a custom, which was announced publicly, that whosoever, in any district, whether far or near, should have lit a fire on that night before it was lit in the kings’ hose, that is, in the palace of Tara, would have forfeited his life. (4) Holy Patrick, then, celebrating Holy Easter, kindled the divine fire with its bright light and blessed it.

Although it has been recently argued that the descriptions of Patrick’s celebration of Easter and locals’ celebration of Beltaine presented by Muirchú owe much to the fire symbolism found in the Bible (cf. Dan 3:1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 22-27), the evidence that the bonfires played important role in the celebration of Beltaine should not be ignored. In the talk we shall try to look at the different ways of celebrating Beltaine by Celtic peoples on the basis of evidence collected in Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man and Ireland.

19        Prof. Oleg GERASIMOV 

Revival of Traditional Religion of the Mari People

The world has entered the third millennium in a new civilization connected first of all to information technologies. Deep, cardinal political and socio-economic transformations have appeared in the Russian Federation and in the sovereign republics. In turn, these changes have caused growth of self-conscious ethnicities. The easing of atheistic pressure promoted the beginning of the revival of many forgotten and forbidden, centuries-old traditions which were part of the living culture of whole generations of peoples. The gradual legalization of traditional Mari religion has resulted in the creation of a religious community (the “Oshmari-Chimari”) and its official registration by the Ministry of Justice of Russia in 1991, and of “Candle” also, a Mari republican heathen religious-cultural association registered by the Ministry of Justice of the Mari El Republic in 1995.

To be sure national traditions from the distant past have suffered great influences through various circumstances. A very good example is the “Chimari vera,’’ an old pagan Mari belief. Atheism for a quarter of century was strong to undermine the moral spirit of the people in the twentieth century, but not break it; it could not eradicate the people’s beliefs in the sacred public places or cüsö where many were offered  their ritual prayers, pagan sacrifices, etc.

The ancient Mari faith was always considered as the constraining factor. Respect and conviction in pagan norms of behaviour constrained the people in the strict observance of holidays and rituals by one and all. The табу system [the taboo system] for many peoples was practically the most ancient form of morality, a universal form of a control of public life. In such an environment most wedding rites and their rituals (clothes and ornaments, food and entertainment, songs and character of their performance) were there to stay for a long time.

Nowadays in many Mari regions people still live in meadows and mountainous areas. Patrimonial, communal and peasant families still pray in sacred groves. Annual or biennial communal praying sessions in sacred groves by peasants are accompanied by sacrifices to the Most High (Osh Cugu Jumo, the Great White God), and gifts vary and alternate from year to year, ranging from geese, ducks to young foals. Food is prepared in groves and must be eaten, except internal organs and bones of birds or animals which are to be burnt.

In the pre-Soviet atheist era all services were accompanied by the performance of special tunes on the küsle (psaltery) and played by men dressed in a white shirt. As of antiquity women were not supposed to pray in groves, and the küsle was always considered as the “divine” tool, while bagpipes represented the devil. The revival of the küsle tradition now represents a serious problem for several reasons.

Devout people used to spend their time praying in groves and this was always cherished by all levels of society. If during the first years of the revival of tradition praying was regarded by many young people as “a new way” of life, presently we are witnessing similar praying as a spiritual need of the majority of representatives of various ethnic peoples.

20        Anca Giurchescu and Prof. Owe Ronström

“Căluş,” Dance for the Living, Dance for the Dead –

a Romanian Ritual in Contemporary Social Contexts

Căluş is a healing ritual, which in spite of industrialization, and 45 years of campaign against mythic beliefs (under the Communist regime), is still an integral part of the cultural life in many villages of the Danube Plain (Romania). It is a form of communication between the real world, represented by a social community, and the mythical world, represented by female demons (Iele/elves). The communication is mediated by a group of men, supposedly endowed with supernatural power that may protect the community against the Iele's malefic deeds, cure sick persons, and bring fertility. Elements of the Southeastern and Center-West European cultures are mingled in Căluş.

Căluş exercises its power through: dance, music, dramatic skits, ritual texts, objects, and actions. The survival of Căluş ritual is due to its polysemic character, meaning that the members of a given community are free to decode the complex event on several levels of meaning, from sacred ritual to entertainment or artistic performance.  

The paper will present Căluş in a diachronic perspective, revealing the processes of functional and structural change and its manipulation as national symbol in a political context. Our presentation is based on a filmed performance of Căluş in the village of Vitanesti, in Oltenia, Romania, 1993. It covers the preparations, rehearsals and the actual performances of dance, music, comic sketches, healing and more, during a couple of days at Whitsuntide.

21        Margaret GOUIN

Ethnography in Shangri-la –

Tibetan Buddhist funerals as folk religion

The focus of my doctoral research is Tibetan Buddhist funeral rituals. I contend that in the West we know very little about what Tibetan Buddhists actually do when someone dies. The ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’ – first published in English translation in 1927 and continuously in print ever since – has been hailed in Europe and North America as setting out a ‘science of death’ of universal validity, applicable across all cultures. But it contains no information on such practical elements of a funeral as, for example, how to dispose of the body, mourning and commemoration. Perhaps as a consequence of the perceived universality of the Tibetan Buddhist philosophy of death and dying, the issue of how funerals are performed in the context of ‘ordinary’ Tibetan life has been somewhat obscured in Western scholarship.

In my own field of religious studies, the prevailing mode of studying any kind of Tibetan Buddhist ritual focuses more on translating instruction manuals than on observing what Tibetan Buddhists do ‘on the ground’. I have found that there is little field data on which to base an examination of funeral rites. The existing field studies appear to have been done almost without exception by anthropologists, in a relatively short period between the early 1970s and the late 1980s. These studies are extremely valuable, but still leave me with more than a few unanswered questions. For example, although it has been noted in some communities that commemorations of the dead are held at the Tibetan New Year, the possible significance of this timing remains unexplored, as does that of the prohibition reported in some studies on disposing of bodies at certain times of the year. Tibetans were traditionally largely nomadic and pastoral, which argues that the turning of the seasons and the breeding cycles of their herds must have played an important part in regulating their activities. Yet this aspect of Tibetan life remains largely unexplored. Although there is considerable activity in Western scholarly circles to preserve and disseminate the knowledge of the monasteries and the religious professionals, and the Tibetan government-in-exile promotes the preservation of at least some cultural skills, there does not appear to be any similar effort (such as an ‘oral history’ project) directed towards preserving the knowledge and folkways of the common people.

My paper explores the lack of information on the cultural context for the study of funeral rituals as a life-cycle ritual of the Tibetan laity, and seeks to elaborate some initial directions for study.

22        Dr Joseph F. GRIMA

The Development of the Holy Week Processions at Qormi, Malta –

a Case Study

My presentation will be based on the following points:

1          The problem of dating the Good Friday procession.  The date when the procession was well-established is known but not the date of the very first procession.  Comparisons with other processions to arrive at how it actually commenced.

2          Same problem with the Easter Sunday procession.  Probable date based on oral tradition and the texture of the statue.

3          Description of what still remains from the 18^th Century procession.

4          Type of procession throughout the 18^th and 19^th Centuries, votive and without pageantry; weekly processions in Lent.

5          Development and changes in the iconography of the statues in the 19^th Century.

6          Philharmonic bands’ participation in Good Friday and Easter Sunday processions.

7          Organizers of the processions.

8          The first half of the 20^th Century: an additional statue and the beginnings of pageantry; what has remained of the votive past.

9          The second half of the 20^th century:  additions and changes to the statuary groups; the procession becomes more pageant-like and gives lead to other localities to follow suit in both spheres; but it retains its processional status.

10        Easter procession developments: blessing of figolli, the hallelujah run, and the participation of two philharmonic bands.

23        Dr Terry Gunnell

Families and Festivals in Iceland –

the Inside and the Out

In a recent survey (as yet unpublished) of Icelandic festivals in the twentieth century, I found myself concluding that these festivals were essentially celebrations of different kinds of family identity. Indeed, for the Icelanders, the concept of “family” is an essential feature of national identity, but it extends far beyond the immediate family to the extended family past and present, and (since everyone in Iceland is “related” in one way or other) to the school class, the workplace and the family as a whole. In general the year festivals thus range from the large outside “national” family celebrations of the summer to the intimate, closed door, essentially indoor festivals of Christmas. The next question is whether this pattern of indoor/closed family/household/female environment/winter  vs. outdoor/national family/fields/male environment/summer has older roots in Scandinavia as a whole.

This is what I intend to examine in my paper, with a brief overview of the dynamics of customs from Iceland, Shetland, the Faroes and Norway.

24        Evy Johanne Håland

The Ritual Year as a Woman’s Life –

the Festivals of the Agricultural Cycle, Life-Cycle Passages

of Mother Goddesses and Fertility-Cult

In Greek culture, ancient and modern, the religious festival is an important means of communication, an offering or a gift, most often dedicated to a deceased guardian of society, alone or together with a god (dess), for instance to the modern Panagia (the Virgin Mary) or to the ancient goddesses, Demeter or Athena. In the festivals, we find fertility- and death-cult as well as healing.

The analysis of the fertility-cult demonstrates how fertility is connected to the deceased and the powers in the subterranean world where life begins, according to the cyclical symbolism, which is central in Greek culture. The deceased mediator also receives an ox- or lamb-offering, in order to provide for the fertility of society through the communication with stronger powers, first and foremost, Mother Earth. Her importance parallels woman’s, the latter being the central performer of the cults, which are important in the festivals, because they are connected to the female sphere. Greeks conceive Earth as a woman’s body and the agricultural year as a woman’s life. Earth is also seen as the female sex organ.

The fertility-cult is connected with important life-cycle passages, since the festivals follow a ritual calendar where celebrations are performed in connection with important phases during the agricultural cycle, and the agricultural year is represented in terms of the life of a Mother Goddess. All the religious festivals are connected with an important passage in the cycle of nature and a passage in the life-cycle of a divine person. In ancient Greece it was particularly manifested through the Homeric Hymn dedicated to the Corn Mother, Demeter. Today, the liturgical year is established through Panagia’s biography.

The cyclical perspective is central in connection with the festivals of the agricultural year. After harvest and the threshing of the grain, the modern festival dedicated to the Dormition of the Panagia marks a turning point towards autumn, by the end of the dog days, by the end of August, when the transitional period towards the “productive part” of the year is about to begin again. The ancient Panathenaia dedicated to the birthday of Athena, the goddess of the olive tree, was celebrated in August, in the first month (i.e. Hekatombaion) of the official year, while the modern official ecclesiastical year starts again in the beginning of September when Panagia’s Birthday is celebrated. The other festivals deal with other important passages, as the sowing when Panagia’s Presentation in the Temple is celebrated, marking the beginning of the winter-period as the Thesmophoria did in ancient Greece. Now, the “female”, wet and fertile period in the agricultural year’s cycle replaces the male period, because woman is looked upon as the productive partner in a relationship in the Mediterranean area. The mid-winter-festivals are celebrated around solstice and the first sprouting of the grains. The end of winter or the birth of spring is celebrated around the spring equinox. The official ideological rituals are adapted to the agricultural calendar.

The paper will compare some important ancient festivals and modern parallels related to the actual Mother Goddesses celebrated at important passages during the ritual year.

25        Ritwa HERJULFSDOTTER ANDERSSON

The Snake in Spring Rituals in Sweden

In Swedish folk tradition the snake, especially the adder (huggorm- Vipera berus) has played an important role in different rituals. In   early1900 several of these rituals were performed in spring time.

The “Mars-snake” or “spring-snake” was well known to the peasant populations of Sweden. It figured in a folk biology, was named, classified, and ascribed specific qualities. The name the snake was given did depend on the time and the place for the meeting. An adder caught and killed in spring time could be used in ethno-medicine. Ideas about the adder possessing magical properties constituted relevant and meaningful knowledge for the peasant population of pre-industrial Sweden. This knowledge shaped folk attitudes to the species.

The presentation will focus on the role of the snake in spring rituals, including killing the first snake you meet at spring time, talking to the snake, and collecting snake-skins for ethno-medical use.

26        Marlene HUGOSON

Easter Trees and Easter Parades in Sweden –

Examples of new phenomena based on older traditions

Last Easter a birch tree decorated with coluorful feathers was erected in the centre of one of Uppsala’s market places, much in the same way as a large Christmas tree decorated with lights usually occupy the same spot during the winter months. When investigating this further I learned that there had also been an Easter parade where children, dressed up as Easter witches, walked in procession from the square in Uppsala’s city center to the market place. On arrival the children had decorated the Easter tree, with the help of a few adults, before it had been erected by the local authorities.

Intrigued I looked into these phenomena and found that they were not isolated incidents, but rather that there had been Easter trees erected in several cities in Sweden during the last few years and that Easter parades were just as common and had a history that was only a few years longer than the Easter trees.

The Easter trees and Easter parades are interesting because they represent new phenomena with connections to, and similarities with, older traditions such as the Christmas tree, the Maypole, processions and mumming (besides the obvious connection to the gathering and decoration of Easter twigs). They can be interpretad as both renewing older traditions in a time of great cultural change and as institutionalization as a children’s Easter celebration has been transformed from creative play for a specific age group into an activity organized and planned on a larger scale by adults.

27        Giovanna IACOVAZZI

Paraliturgical Music in Malta –

an Ethnomusicological Perspective

The music of Malta occupies a central role in the everyday life of the Maltese people, notably during the numerous festivals dedicated to the patron saints of each village, particularly in the summer season and in certain moments “strong” on the liturgical calendar. It’s on this occasion that the different bands, the fanfares, play a crucial role. They are not only called upon to accompany the procession but have to stay also during the total duration of the festivities.

If the music played by the brass bands is at the core of my presentation, the strong relation which links the music to the festival opens the field to an inter-disciplinary study. This study sheds light on a number of other elements, for example, the relation between music and rituals in Maltese culture and society. For these reasons I have chosen the ethnographic perspective, followed by the musicological and the ethnomusicological perspectives. My ethnography focuses on the festival of Santa Maria Mater Gratiae in Żabbar. Certain questions have been asked on the music played: who plays this music? What does it consist of? What is the repertoire? What is the relationship between the music played and the written music?

Finally, within my ethnomusicological perspective I attempt to explore the relationship between music and ritual drawing on elements from my fieldwork studies. Which music is used in the ritual? Which place does music have in the context of the Żabbar festival in particular, and in Maltese culture and society in general? Is there a relationship between music and the festival?

It is my contention that the place and the role of the music in this particular context today can be analysed within François Picard’s fundamental notion of “musiques paraliturgiques” (La musique chinoise, Paris, 1991): “ces musiques qui ne sont pas constitutives du rituel, mais peuvent s’y insérer : chants des hymnes, processions, parfois parallèlement dans le temps même du rituel, souvent hors de l’espace sacré”.

28        Rev. Lukman Alabi Ibrahim

The Yoruba Artist / Material Culture as a Case Study –

Blacksmithing and Dyeing

Blacksmiths produce hoes, axes, adzes, machetes (known locally as cutlasses), knives, swords, traps, shackles, chain, bells and gongs, the specialized knives and scrapers of the calabash carvers, the iron tools of leather workers and their hammers, tongs, pincers, pokers, chisels and knives for dressing wooden tool handles. In addition they fashion iron necklaces worn by some worshippers.

Some blacksmiths also engage in brass working, producing rings, bracelets, small knives, swords and sword handles. The process of smithing involves keeping the fire red-hot by pumping bellows through a stick in each hand at great speeds, making a thump-thump sound. The smith’s assistant keeps up with this rhythm while his master makes bracelets and other metals.

Ogun is the god of iron and warfare. He is believed to bathe in blood, so all accidents that involve loss blood are attributed to him. Ogun is honoured and propitiated by most people whose occupation involves the use of iron implements. Smiths, blacksmiths in particular, warriors, hunters, barbers, carvers of wood and calabashes and motor drivers, give due respect to Ogun.

The Yorubas are the finest practitioners of pattern dyeing, which they call adire. There are several techniques, but all are based on the same principle of preservation of certain areas of the cloth from the dye, so that the pattern is seen in white or in lighter blue on the dark blue background. The preservation may be effected be tying up part of the cloth with raffia, string on to the thread small stone or seeds into it, or by the resist method in which cassava starch is painted on to the cloths, either free hand or through stencils (originally made of leather rather than zinc, but nowadays made of tin). The main centres of adire dyeing are found at Abeokuta and Ibadan, but it is practised almost universally by the Yorubas wherever they are found in West Africa, especially in Sierra Leone and Senegal.

29        Eleyowo Odunayo Jacob

Eyo Annual Ritual Masquerade

Eyo ritual is specially observed by the Lagos natives. It is important to mention that this is also performed when an important wealthy native of Lagos dies. It is also believed that the ritual was brought over from Ijebu Ibefun in Ogun State. A white garment as lion (aropale) with white agbada is used and the face is covered with white cloth (iboju) with ahat to match.

The Eko people have adopted the ritual and modernized it to the present from palm front (opanbata). The opanbata is also used to deal with anybody who goes against the law of the ritual, such as when using an umbrella, smoking or wearing slippers. Chewing of a chewing stick while a masked person? Masquerade? is either walking alone or as a group in procession is also an offence. The following, categorized as the father of all other masquerades, are the five important sets of eyo masquerade listed according to seniority: 1. Eyo Adimu; 2. Eyo laba; 3. Eyo oniko; 4. Eyo ologede; 5. Eyo Agere.

The leaders of these masquerades perform rituals a week before the festival. They set in procession round Lagos State [Eko] daily for five days, offering prayers and announcing to the people that the Eyo festival will be performed.

Two other important things to mention during the ritual festival are: the erection of Agodo with mat where all Eyo masquerades will dance throughout the festival, moving round Lagos State to offer prayer and get a blessing by the Obas; an erection of another big garden where the dead persons’ images are laid for every Eyo masquerade to give their last respects and offer prayers. This place is known as Imoku. Following the procession according to the compound of the chieftain they belong to, all the masquerades dance round the city offering prayers for the people of Lagos State, the entire nation and the whole world.

Also important is the participation of all the Lagos natives and lovers of this festival from all parts of world to watch or take part in the festival. For record purposes it is necessary to recite one of the prayers usually offered by Eyo masquerades.

30        Dr Fournier Laurent Sebastien

Agrarian festivals and the ritual year in Mediterranean France –  Preserving Traditions or Building Heritage?

This communication will present the results of anthropological researches carried on since 10 years in Provence, in the Mediterranean part of France, and dealing with the "revitalization" of traditional rituals (Boissevain 1992) and the cultural valorization of popular festivals in a contemporary context. The aim will be to understand how the conceptions of the ritual year and of some festive agrarian rituals have been transformed in peasant societies who are more and more opened to outside observers.

Two case studies will be presented:

1. Saint-Eloi festivals. Testified since the 18th century, these festivals linked with the ritual cycle of corn-harvest are today presenting themselves as an authentic evidence of local traditional culture. Structured by the blessing and the procession of richly harnessed draught horses, these festivals have a circle-based symbolism and deeply influence the way their organizers conceive the notion of time. The principal stake of the annual reproduction of the ritual, according to the organizers, is the preservation of popular religion and the loyalty to the traditional peasant cyclic ritual year.

2. Festivals devoted to olive products. Invented in the 1970s, these festivals are concerned with products that were very little valorized in the traditional ritual year. They use agricultural products in order to impulse a new local dynamic, which is commercial, touristic, and dealing with local identity. The stake is then, more than the preservation of a traditional feature, to use seasonal agricultural resources in order to build a valorized cultural heritage for tourists and newcomers.

On the basis of these two case studies, this communication will explore different ways of understanding and using the notion of "ritual year" through annual festivals devoted to agricultural products. For doing so, we will found our analysis on a report of collective researches conducted since 15 years in more than 20 European countries by the members of the French-speaking Eurethno network (F.E.R., European federation of scientific networks, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France – presidents: Pr Jocelyne Bonnet, University Montpellier III, France, and Pr Kinscö Verebélyi, University Eötvös Lörand, Budapest, Hungary). This network has already organized 18 international workshops and seminars concerning the conceptions of time, calendar customs, seasonal festivals and rituals in Europe.

31        Dr Aado LINTROP

Liminal Periods in the Udmurt Ritual Year

Udmurts are Finno-Ugric people of Permean language group (Uralo-Altaic Family > Uralic languages > Finno-Ugric branch > Permean group). Their number in 2002 was 636935. Most of them are living in Udmurt Republic of the Russian Federation; small groups are settled in Tatarian Republic, Bashkortostan, and Kirov Region.

There are two main liminal periods in the Udmurt folk calendar – the period after winter solstice is called vozhodyr (time of the vozho), and the period after summer solstice invozho dyr (time of the heavenly vozho). Vozho was the original Permean word for liminal and sacred. In the modern Udmurt language vozho does not directly mean ‘holy’ – this particular meaning becomes evident in connection with yuletide. The vozhos are the demonic spirits – supernatural visitors of winter liminal period.

Women in the village of Kuzebayevo (Southern Udmurtia) have told the author that during the summer invozho-period it was forbidden to work with wool or hemp and it was also forbidden to mow and pick flowers. In Kuzebayevo this period ended on St Peter’s Day (July 12^th). The invozho-period was often associated with the blooming of catchfly or Maiden Pink.

The winter vozho-time was the main story-telling and riddle time for the Udmurts. Even as late as in June 2002 three informants, living in the Udmurtskiy-Karaul and Deby villages in the Krasnogorskoye region (Northern Udmurtia), claimed that the words for ‘riddle’ in local dialect are vozho kyl (language/word/story of the vozho) or vozho mad (speech/word/story of the vozho).

For the Udmurts, vozhodyr is the period for mumming. The Udmurt Christmas mummers almost seem to have split personalities: the fact that they wore clothes inside out, had faces smeared with soot, men were wearing women’s clothes and women were wearing men’s clothes, indicate that they were visitors from the otherworld (where, according to the universal belief, things are the reverse to this world). The fact that they were believed to bring luck in herding relates them to the souls of ancestors, who were universally considered the primary bringers of herding luck in many cultures. And, last but not least, the mummers were addressed to as the vozho, which were undoubtedly related to dead ancestors.

32        Dr Emily LYLE

The Question of the Ritual Year and the Answers to it

As we begin our researches together in the working group on “The Ritual Year” under the aegis of SIEF it seems more than ever necessary that we should address the basic question concerning the nature and identity of the ritual year.  There are wonderful possibilities for looking at the rich detail of customary activities engaged in in a wide variety of cultures within Europe, and relating them to general principles of folklore and ethnology, but we shall be missing the unique opportunity offered by the existence of our working group if we do not put our micro-studies in the framework of a general understanding of the ritual year.  This may appear obvious but it seems to me very likely that consensus is lacking at present and this would be fully understandable since scholars have been working on quite different materials from a variety of perspectives.   We now have a forum and a forum is a place for debate.  Sometimes scholars, perhaps out of politeness, fail to engage with each others’ views and talk past each other, as it were.  And sometimes (and I have found this particularly true in relation to past studies of the ritual year) scholars express themselves with a belligerence that produces more heat than light.  There is too much important work to be done for us to take either of these roads.  Real debate is much more stimulating than the alternatives since it challenges each participant to review his or her starting position and to be prepared to clarify and, if necessary, modify it. 

What is the ritual year?  Throughout Europe over many centuries there has been a layer of Christian liturgy and this is, of course, worthy of study in its own right, but it is clearly parasitic on what preceded it and the preceding free-standing ritual year is of special interest and is particularly elusive when we try to pin it down.  This is why, in my title, I speak of answers to the question rather than one answer.   I look forward to debate, expecting that some scholars will wish to emphasise the agricultural year, or the pastoral year, or the astronomical year, or some other formulation.  My own approach emphasises analogical thinking and takes the human life cycle as a key to the understanding of the patterning of the year.  Other supplementary questions that can be asked are whether it is actually possible to locate an underlying coherence at all and, if so, what historical and geographical contexts would embrace it most fully.   

33        Dr Neill Martin

The Hogmanay Boys of the Hebrides: a Dark Tradition

This paper will examine contemporary performances by the Gillean Calluinne, the ‘Hogmanay boys’ of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. This New Year’s Eve visiting custom is routinely said to be dead or in terminal decline, but recent evidence indicates that young men are not only still going out round the doors at New Year, but making and learning new verses, ith older men acting as mentors. The paper will be based on planned fieldwork on the islands of North Uist, South Uist and Barra.

The ritual involves a night-time visit by the boys, who visit every house in the locality carrying dried cow-hides and chanting special rhymes. The skin used is the loose flap from the animal’s neck. Early accounts describe how the skins are beaten with sticks, and the walls of the houses sometimes struck with clubs. Some observers describe a boy wearing an entire bull’s hide, complete with horns and hooves. On gaining entry to the home, the skin is singed in the hearth and presented in turn to each member of the family, who is required to smell it for good luck. Threats could be made against ungenerous householders. It remains to be seen how many of these features are present in the contemporary version of the ritual.

The verses chanted are often obscure, and will receive close attention, as will any evidence of tension between religious orthodoxy and this rather dark ritual practice.

34        Prof. Mariya MAYERCHYK

Structure of Rites of the Family Cycle –

the Calendric Rites Cycle in Slavic Tradition

Albert Bayburin and Griroriy Levinton, famous Russian ethnologists who specialize in questions of family rituals, reach the conclusion that funeral and birth rites de passage are frame rituals, consisting only of two transitive phases. One of three phases is absent in frame rituals: the eliminative phase is absent in birth rites and the integrative one in funeral rites. At first sight this seems to be correct, but only if one investigates family rites independently from the Ritual Year Cycle.

This Cycle consists of acts which provide integrative meanings for ancestors. In different rites one asks ancestors (souls) to eat, bathe, to warm up, and wear a new dress. These same acts (especially eating, bathing, dressing, etc.) are usually considered as integrative in wedding rituals.

Such cases and complementary interaction between the two different ritual cycles will be explored in my paper.

35        Prof.  SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Nancy McEntire Cassell

International Considerations of the April Fool

In North America, Europe, Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia, the first day in April is an unofficial holiday that is marked by pranks and lies. It is a time when untruths are expected.

At a time of the year’s cycle when the weather can play tricks of heat one day and snow the next, April Fools’ Day inspires even the most rational person to play a prank on a spouse, a relative, or a co-worker, all the while keeping a watchful eye on those who might have their own pranks in mind. Will the sugar bowl contain salt? Will the victim of a prank think that he or she is getting a call from the police, or is getting fired?

This paper examines traditional disorderly behaviours from a variety of cultures, noting how they correspond to life cycle events and male/female relations. For example, in a society dedicated to the institution of marriage, a spouse may be fooled into suspecting infidelity. Within the household, traditional patterns of social discourse can be disrupted. For one day of the year, April Fools’ pranksters enjoy temporary societal acceptance of behaviour that could otherwise be regarded as intolerable. By removing its participants from normal life, April Fools’ Day serves to confirm – or to question – what normal life really is.

36        Dr Lina MIDHOLM

The Ritual Year through a Folklore Archive

The Folklore archive in Göteborg is mainly built on material based on oral traditions. The collecting of folklore started in 1919 with so called chronicles, and managers of the folklore archives among other folklore enthusiasts went out in the countryside to ask the people about their beliefs, superstitions and customs.

Chronicles dealing with the Ritual Year, but also the Calendar, are very common among the folklore collection at the archive in Göteborg. For example, some of the first collected chronicles from 1919 are essays on the topic “Lucia in my District” and “St Canute's Day in my District”.

This paper will present how the Ritual Year is represented in, and reshaped through, a folklore archive. It deals with the way society has had a major influence on the selection of our cultural heritage and collecting the memories from the past.

37        Dr George MIFSUD-CHIRCOP

Ritual and Drama in Malta’s Past Carnival

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse a ritual drama practice in Malta. Since mediaeval times carnival has always been accompanied by parades, masquerades, pageants, and other forms of revelry recalling pre-Christian pagan rites, particularly fertility rites. In Malta Carnival had been celebrated since at least the 15^th century, coinciding with Europe’s carnivals which reached their peak during the 14^th and 15^th centuries. From mid-eighteenth century down to 1798 when Malta was under the rule of the Knights of the Order of St John, revelry was part of daily life much as it was in other European countries.

A particular manuscript also evinces the popularity of a rustic folk drama, known as “Il-Qarċilla’’ [il’ar't∫illa] with the lower classes. It aims at more than entertainment. It is a sociological play, presented expressly with instrumental aims: it has effective connection and deals with the daily lives of the actors and audience. The context accounts for the community’s right to eliminate temporarily all differences and hierarchical barriers among individuals, abolishing taboos that prevail in real life and creating a particular type of communication. It expresses its concerns about and attitudes to life in a way that escapes censorship. The repetitive use of symbolic inversion, deviations from and transgression of normal patterns of behaviour, double meaning, crude, blunt vulgarity, overturning of sexual taboos and references to the lower bodily stratum, symbolic equivalence between carnival devices, and meta-dramatic pointed barbs as direct offence to the audience with various boisterous sexual connotations and rounds of insults – these are all examples of Maltese  communities observing, chastising, and laughing at themselves.  

38        Prof. Katya MIHAILOVA

Contemporary Political Carnival Processions on Palm Sunday

in Bulgaria

The fall of the communist totalitarian regime and the beginning of socio- political changes in Bulgaria after 1989 are connected with the development of some new (or not very popular in the not so distant past) folklore forms. Traditional folklore forms (e.g., folk song, joke, and especially some calendar feasts) started to be used simultaneously with the new content. All these phenomena form the complicated syncretic complex of the so-called political folklore which developed in the post-communist countries of Eastern Europe during the transition period from the totalitarian to democratic society.

            During the various changes of the socio-political system in Bulgaria, street events and carnival processions organized by various political or social organizations and movements obtained special popularity in the 1990s. They emphasize symbolic content. These processions are usually organized on big calendar feasts. Traditional folklore feasts with new content are connected mainly with spring holidays before Easter. A typical example is the carnival procession “The Flowers for Democracy” which was organized for the first time on Palm Sunday 1990 by the Green Party and the so-called Ekoglasnost movement. Carnival traditions and customs are not typical of Bulgarian folk culture. However, in this particular case carnival, as a new form, fulfils also new functions characteristic of contemporary political folklore as a whole.

In the paper I analyze the carnival procession “The Flowers for Democracy” from its time and space aspects. From the point of view of time the realization of the procession is consistent with the calendric and social time of the Bulgarian folk tradition and customs which had taken place in this time and were connected with the transition from winter to spring and with the socialization of an individual into the society as a whole, or the changes of the society in general. I also examine the functional characteristics of contemporary carnival, with special emphasis on the particular methods and ritual practice through which the concrete functions of the carnival procession are achieved: contrast, rejection and provocation of official political authority, mocking and deheroization of political leaders from the old totalitarian times, violating the norms, stereotypes, symbols and values of the old political power, and the desacralization of the prophetic ideas of yesterday.

39      Dr Tatiana Minniiakhmetova

The Role of Symbols’ Reflexivity in Calendar Rites –

an example of Trans-Kama Udmurts

The trans-Kama Udmurts, an ethnic group, live in the mid-west of the Ural mountains on the left bank of the Kama River in Russia. Till nowadays they are heathens. Their religion is an oral tradition subdivided according to tribal and territorial characteristics.

In this paper I discuss the concept of reflexivity of symbols in calendar rituals, mainly according to the culture of its exponents. Continuity in sensible prognostication seems stable and potentially favourable in the desired direction.

The Ritual calendar aims also to maintain and keep continuity. This can be accomplished in different ways. One of them is the ritual symbols. However, the most effective connection is displayed in the reflexivity of these symbols, represented in verbal expressions, actions or behaviour of people, and real objects. All of these symbols are aimed at survival.

Certainly, symbols have different meanings. But here I want to show how people reflex in these symbols, so that symbols concentrate and reflex people’s wishes too. People’s behaviour cannot provoke unlucky reactions; however, such acts can cause a number of negative consequences for the individual in particular as well as for the society in general. People expect response behaviour oriented to their expectations, but not recompensation or punishment.

The concept and representation of reflexivity is constantly presented in the consciousness of the people. It regulates their actions and behaviour. People are guided by general knowledge. The purpose of life helps to model not only ritual life but also everyday life.  Reflexivity brings to light a pragmatic aspect of thinking. In every case there are a sender and an addressee connected by special communicative intention. Therefore, symbolism is very strongly organized not only on the semantic level but also on the pragmatic, demonstrating sequence and consistency.

40        Dr Giovanni Orlando Muraca

Scourging Rituals in Southern Italy

In the various cultural areas that form the south of Italy's southern highly differentiated regions, many festive contexts of popular Catholicism have resisted the wear and tear of time. Particular interests mask the scourging rituals which take place during the Good Friday processions, or as in the case of the "battenti" of Guardia Sanframondi, in the processional context of the Ascension of Our Lady in August.

Two of these rituals take place annually in Calabria, precisely in Nocera Terinere, a small village on a hill, in the province of Catanzaro and in Verbicaro in the province of Casenza. The third, as has already been mentioned, is held in August, once every seven years, or on exceptional occasions in Guardia Sanframondi, in the inland country parish.

The three ritual moments are marked by explanatory modalities very different to each other, although they are linked by similar reasons which reveal themselves in the processes of identification with the Passion of Christ and the 'Redemption'.

Although in these last decades the rites have undergone inevitable processes of transformation, they recall in the mind of the observer archaic symbology linked to blood – from early human sacrifices to mystery pre-Christian rites, to reach the penitential exercise of the "battenti" or scougers which developed in the Christian Middle Ages.

My contributin focuses both on the ethnographic aspects with the use of slides taken in the last five years and also specific historical-anthropological aspects, with major emphasis on the rituals of  Verbicaro which had been so far least researched. 

41        Joseph Muscat

Art as Ritual –

Seven Canadian Artists of Maltese Origin

There are as many Maltese people living off the island of Malta, scattered across the planet, as there are living on it. Wherever they choose to settle and establish their roots, the people of this small Mediterranean island come predisposed to a sense of history and ritual that goes as far back as 4000-6000 BC.

The people of Malta come by this sense of history honestly, having endured a long line of foreign occupations. Throughout all this foreign domination however, there has been one constant: an ongoing preoccupation with ceremony and ritual, as witnessed by the numerous Neolithic temples and churches found all over the island. Whether it be the early sacrificial worship of the Megalithic settlers or the much later Christian observances, the Maltese people are to this day deeply committed to a full and rich tradition of ceremony and belief.

In this first-ever Maltese-Canadian art exhibition, the work of the seven featured artists addresses this spiritual quest in the context of their newly adopted environment, in spite of their physical and temporal distance from their place of origin. Our intention is to show how, among this particular group of artists, the creative process is not just an occupation but a vocation, and the resulting product strongly iconographic.  Even though the work of these artists is diverse in content and execution, there is a strong common bond that unites them. In this exhibition, works were specifically chosen to celebrate art-making as a deep-rooted, culturally and historically founded form of ritual.

In this context, the term “iconography” refers to the idea of an icon as an image to which veneration is offered. Most of the works by these seven artists have some connection to this sense of ceremony embedded in the Maltese culture.  The figurative drawings of John Henry Borg represent the human figure as a mystical essence embodying a presence of a Higher Entity. The physical and anatomical precision of Borg’s figures is a tribute to that Being “in whose image” we were created.  Joseph Calleja’s mixed-media works of “Wrapped Trees and Goddesses” are symbolic parodies of the ancient rituals of fertility worship.  Calleja draws parallels between the dormant wrapped trees of our Canadian winter and the fertile Venus of the ancient world.

The glass sculptures of Alfred Engerer are architectural reminiscences of those early sacrificial altars found in Neolithic temples and their later Christian equivalents. Like the temple builders of the Copper Age, Engerer combines glass with stone in sculptural configurations like the masons of Prehistoric times. Francis Muscat fashions figurative sculptures in glass, stone, silk thread, and electronic parts, which inspire a kind of statuary devotion.  He too has an affinity for these building materials, which resonate when light comes into contact with them.

Joseph Muscat builds his mixed-media constructions from tree trunks, steel and stone, portraying historical artefacts of invocation and libation. His vibrant paintings and collages depict the popular motifs of these ancient civilizations.  The terracotta sculptures of Paul Portelli are steeped in mythology and history. They are miniature reminders of the prevalence of religious statues, which are found on every street corner in Malta and are carried on the streets of every town and village on special occasions to this day.  Anna Calleja characterizes the comforts of home and all its “domestic rituals,” with relief castings of packaging material that finds its way into the home. Her rich charcoal drawings of alleyways and tree trunks provide a backdrop for the stability and reverence of family life.

The dynamic work of these seven professional Maltese-Canadian artists confirms this deep sense of history and ritual that the people of this Mediterranean island carry with them wherever they go throughout their lives.

42        Dr Annika NORDSTRÖM

Annual Festivities and Christmas 2004 –

Tendencies in New Research Material

Documents concerning annual festivities belong to the oldest and most demanded material in our Folklore Archives. My colleague Lina Midholm will, as will be seen in her paper, discuss how festive customs appear in the old collections. In this paper, I would like to focus on archives and work concerning rituals of our time. Previously there have been small opportunities to research the variations and multiplicity of today. But in May 2004 a project group was started concerning the Ritual Year within the Swedish Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research (SOFI). Together with other folklore archives and institutes, we have decided to cooperate in the field, beginning with our first common topic, Christmas 2004.

The archives and institutions involved are the three folklore departments within SOFI – in Uppsala, Umeå and Gothenburg, Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, Folklivsarkivet in Lund, Mångkulturellt centrum in Fittja (The Multicultural Centre), Göteborg City Museum and the Department of Ethnology, Göteborg University.

43        Olusoji Olaoye Emmanuel

YORUBA RELIGION BELIEF/WORSHIP –

Esu, Ibeji, Sango, Ifa Divination, and Ogun

Esu (also known as Elegba or Elegbara) is regarded as the divine messenger, facilitator and trickster who mediates between gods and humans who honour and treat him well, but wreaks havoc on those who anger him.

Esu is represented by carved wood staffs usually paired as male and female, with long phallic shapes, its hallmark. Some of the staffs are carved playing flutes, indicative of the Esu messenger role. The staffs are often laden with beads and long strands of cowries as a sign of the wealth and power which can showered on those who acknowledge his power. Since Esu is crucial to people’s positive relationships with the gods, individuals have personal Esu, who assists in interpretations and actions in specific situations. As Esu devotees these individuals dance with their Esu to honour him and passers-by also invoke his blessings in return for gifts of money.

Ibeji. The Yoruba statuettes representing deceased twins are well known and exhibit distinguishing features of Yoruba sculpture. These are commissioned by the mother of twins who have died to ensure that they return to her again. If only one dies, only one figure is made to make sure that the surviving twin does not also die.

Sango is the god of thunder and lightning. His thunderbolts (edunara) are prehistoric stone cults which farmers sometimes find while hoeing their fields. They are taken to Sango priests who keep them at his shrines as the symbol through which Sango is fed.

Sango fights with troublemakers and those who use bad medicine to harm others, as well as with his worshippers who offend him in other ways. One must not carry fire or smoke in front of a person who is possessed by Sango. His favourite foods include rams, bitter kola nuts, yam porridge, bean soup, and okro soup. His worshippers wear a string of alternating small red and opaque white beads as their insignia.

A member of the cult group who is possessed at Sango's festival is known as his “mount” (Elegun). He is the only cult member who actually dances with the carved wooden wands (Osa Sango) which every initiatee receives for his personal shrine. The wood from which Osa Sango is commonly produced is aayan. The tree, according to tradition, is the one on which Sango hanged himself. Wooden Ose are the types commonly displayed in Sango shrines. The metal type, however, is usually carried about by Sango priests in social gatherings and other public appearances as symbolic ornaments. It appears to be a prestige emblem of the owner's religious belief.

Ifa divination is said to have been founded by the deity called Orunmila, because of his great wisdom. He taught his disciples the secrets of divination. The Ifa priests are called Babalawo.

The Babalawo's objects of divination include the sixteen sacred palm nuts known as Ikin. These are the most important instruments of Ifa divination. Another object is the decorated lidded bowl in which these sacred nuts are kept. The bowl is called Agere Ifa. In the course of divination, the nuts are thrown onto a sacred powder as Iyereosu. This powder is usually spread on a carved wooden tray called Opon Ifa. The sacred nuts Ikin are used on rare and important occasions only.

Instead the Babalawo use another divination object called Opele Ifa, for most the day-to-day divination involving their numerous clients. At the outset of divination sessions they use a carved wooden or ivory wand (Iroke Ifa), for invoking Ifa by striking its conical end at the centre of the tray, where Orita, the metaphorical crossroads of life and the afterlife, have been marked in the wood dust.

All the important rites of passages such as naming ceremonies, proclamation of kings and burial ceremonies have to be sanctioned and authenticated by Ifa, the voice of diviners and the wisdom of the ancestors. Ifa then is the means through which Yoruba culture informs and regenerates itself and preserves all that is considered good and memorable in society.

Ogun is the god of iron and warfare. He is believed to bathe in blood, so all accidents that involve loss of blood are attributed to him. Iron implements, if not handled carefully, can easily wound people and lead to loss of blood. Hence, Ogun is honoured and propitiated by most people whose occupation involves the use of iron implements. Smiths, particularly, blacksmiths, warriors, hunters, barbers, carvers of woods and calabashes and even taxi drivers give due respects to Ogun who is said to protect the votaries from accidents as well as make their activities profitable.

44        Dr Anthony Pace

The Emergence of Maltese Ritual Funerary Monuments

(4000 and 2500BC)[1]

Foremost in importance among the repertoire of Malta’s prehistoric antiquities are a series of cemeteries.  These cemeteries are characterised by subterranean chambers, thus marking a clear distinction with above ground architecture of the same period.  At least three classes of buildings are known from Maltese prehistory: domestic, cemeteries and large architectural complexes that are often referred to as temples.  These three types of buildings are not exclusive of others that may have once dotted the archipelago’s landscape.  Maltese prehistoric monuments have come to represent much of current knowledge of what is often referred to as the temple period (4000 – 2500 BC).  The paper will be focusing on this period in particular. 

Culturally, these three classes of structures served as the main recipients of symbolic meanings of the type that are often associated with architecture.  The contextual and symbolic language embedded in these structures would have originally formed a complex system.  Structures, man-made or natural, inevitably come to define coded environments.  Often, coded environments were intentionally created in order for natural or man-made spaces to assume a particular distinctiveness.  Architectural design and style were to play a critical role in defining coded environments, and their symbolic function.  Although much of the material culture of the ‘temple period’ is distinctly coherent in its use of shared aesthetics and iconography, architectural and structured spaces were designed with more specific objectives that mirrored socio-economic factors, ideology, belief systems and cultural realities.  These objectives were more attuned to serve ritual and community belief systems. 

This paper explores some of the ways in which architectural design, style, location and function were used to define one particular coded environment, the burial ground.

As a structural phenomenon, Maltese prehistoric burial places exhibit many hallmarks of a distinct cultural phenomenon.   Cemeteries followed a particular evolutionary pattern, which can also be traced through a number of known stages.  In certain aspects, the material culture of Maltese prehistoric cemeteries adopted various design elements of temple architecture.  One would expect these similarities to reflect other underlying links that once tied cemeteries, domestic structures and temples together in a broader cultural phenomenon.  But the monumentality of death represented a distinct concern.  Its function was focused not only on the formal disposal of the dead.  Indeed, the subterranean elaboration of architectural idioms derived from buildings that had already been constructed in several locations across the archipelago, may have provided an iconographic reading of the afterlife.  In many instances throughout antiquity, the mirroring of life as a reflection of the afterlife is commonly represented in such mundane aspects as grave goods or votive offerings and monumentality, apart from rituals and other non-material cultural phenomena which are now difficult to retrieve.  In real terms, the monumentality of death, as well as the range of votive offerings used during funerary rites are believed to have been a reflection, even if an imperfect one, of the status of the deceased.

Our primary concern here will be with the monumental in order to explore the idea that prehistoric burial monuments may have come to reflect shared beliefs in collectivity, in spite of the distinctive status that may have been attributed to deceased members of the community.

45        Ann Pettersson and Anna Ulfstrand

Genuine Swedish Christmas Food as Lasagna –

Eleven Ways of Spending Christmas in Contemporary Sweden

The Multicultural Centre, situated at the outskirts of Stockholm, is a forum for research and for exchanging knowledge and experiences on migration as well as social and cultural diversity. For several years the Centre has been involved in a study called Holidays and Feasts: Folklore, Migration and Heritage. The main question is what happens to traditions and customs when they are transplanted to new cultural circumstances by migration. Another question is how migrants deal with domestic complexes of traditions.

We decided that one way of mirroring this would be to ask a number of persons to put together a visual story on the way they celebrate Christmas by taking photos with a single-use camera that was handed out by us. Interviews were conducted with the participants, discussing their own photographs. We decided to call this part of our study 24: December to stress the fact that Christmas is a holiday celebrated for both religious and non-religious reasons. The point is that this is a holiday everybody in Sweden is affected by, whether one wants it or not. The group of participants (eleven persons) includes persons with Christian, Muslim, and Hindi background. The youngest is fourteen and the oldest forty-four years old. The majority are women.

In this paper will we focus on two aspects. First, it is interesting to notice that several participants used their pictures to stress aspects of the celebration they thought important instead of documenting the holiday chronologically. One of the women had taken a close-up of a bucket with laundry as a symbol of not taking notice of the fact that it was Christmas. She preferred talking about how hard it is for a Muslim to protect his children from being forced to take part in Christian rituals in kindergarten and school. A young woman brought up in a Persian family had taken a picture of her mother sleeping on the couch at Christmas Eve. She told us that her family had started celebrating Christmas right from the very moment they reached Sweden as political refugees, but she always felt that her parents did so because they thought it would make their daughters feel part of Swedish society. Even though Christmas is a worldwide celebrated holiday, in this context it is regarded as a Swedish holiday.

This leads to the second aspect that was made clear to us via interviews. For most of the younger participants that were brought up in families that lately celebrated Christmas as part of their tradition, it was important to keep the celebration clean from influences of “non-Swedish” elements like food dishes associated with the native country. An example of this is a young Kurdish woman that labels lasagna a typical Swedish Christmas dish, mainly because it symbolizes a new tradition when eaten on Christmas Eve. This can be understood as a way of using tradition within the family to negotiate relationships with the new country, the native culture and the culture of the majority.

46        Prof. Leander Petzoldt

Rituals of Magic

In rituals magic or religious courses of actions are manifest and are standardized and sanctioned by religion. They are frequently “extremely monotonous and boring, strictly limited in their possibilities of action” (Malinowski 1956/1983) because only their precise exertion guarantees their success. The tendency towards automatization and mechanization, inherent in rituals, often mingles the border between cultic rites (of high religion) and magic rituals.

Closely connected with the instrumental character of magic is the belief in the automaticity of the effects of magic ritual. It is the belief of the magician in the supernatural results of his means, a quality shared by his clients, and the denial of the necessity to address a superior, helping assistance that brings him in direct opposition to the subservient and respectful-devotional behaviour of the “religious” person. The attitude, the person exerting the magic adopts in relation to the powers he uses, has been viewed as one of the fundamental characteristics of magic and helped to identify its position in relation to religion. This attitude of the magic person can be explained by the idea of the forced effects of magic ritual that forces superior powers to submit. The will to urge “divinity” stands in clear opposition to the religious supplications of the “religious” person.

47        Prof. Ferenc POZSONY

Changes in the Meaning of  a Pilgrimage in Romania

Transylvania situated in the NW of Romania is a multi-ethnic and multicultural region. In the eastern part live about one million Hungarians who are called Székely / Secui / Sekler.

The confessional centre of Seklerland (Székelyföld) is Csíksomlyó / Sumuleu Ciuc. Every year there is a Roman Catholic pilgrimage on Whitsun and more than half a million people take part.

In my communication I want to present the confessional, national and political meanings of this ritual during the communist period and after 1989.

48        Dr Jonathan ROPER

Christmas Mumming in Labrador

In some “outports” in south-eastern coastal Labrador, Canada, such as Mary’s Harbour and Lodge Bay, mumming takes place during the Christmas season. The mumming (seasonal house-visiting after dark and in disguise) is of the kind that used to be more widespread in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, but has declined in recent decades. Mumming, or jannying to use the more usual local term, occurs throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas, with the exception of Sundays and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Fieldwork conducted in Mary’s Harbour during the Christmas season of 2003/4 enabled me to witness, participate in, and document on video the local tradition. My talk is intended to present the current tradition, concentrating upon the ‘etiquette of mumming,’ i.e., the reciprocal obligations of mummers and their hosts, and on the strategies used by the mummers, such features as “mummertalk” (ingressive speech), disguise by means of clothing, the adoption of physical movements atypical of the mummer in everyday life, etc., used by the mummers (or janneys) to prolong the period before they are finally identified.  I also intend to raise the question of the future of this tradition.

49        Prof. Jan RYCHLIK

Parallels between the Life Cycle and the Ritual Year Cycle

among the Czechs and Slovaks

In the conditions of patriarchal closeness of a village folklore acted as a regulator of the life of the community. It showed to every individual his/her place in the community according to the age, marital status and social affiliation. It also fixed the rules which everybody had to obey under the sanction of social ostracism (e.g., under the threat of the expulsion from the social life of the community). The rituals of the life cycle made the system of the values stable. It served to mark the transfer from one life period or one social status to another.

On the other hand the Ritual Year Cycle was connected mainly with the agricultural production (e.g., the vegetative changes in the nature during the year). The rituals served mainly to safeguard the next harvest. Both cycles were interconnected because the life of a peasant in the conditions of patriarchal closeness was deeply connected with nature. It was necessary to have children to secure human reproduction and working power for the agricultural process. Simultaneously it was also necessary to produce enough food and other items to “keep the family going.” In fact, a peasant in the system of patriarchal closeness did not know the meaning of ‘rest’ or ‘free time’ in social sense.

These principles are generally valid. Among the Czechs, however, the system of patriarchal closeness was destroyed already in the 19^th Century. Czech peasants were gradually transformed to modern farmers. Because illiteracy practically disappeared and the country was urbanised, farmers abandoned at the end of the 19^th century most of the customs of ritual year cycle. The life ritual cycle remained in force much longer. In Slovakia, where this development was much slower, the process of destruction of the traditional rural society lasted till the 1950s. (There were, however, big regional differences both in the Czech lands and Slovakia.) In the fifties due to the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia (established after the coup of 25^th February, 1948) agriculture was almost totally collectivised. Farmers were transformed into paid employees of large collective or state farms. They in fact did not much differ from factory workers in towns. This fact destroyed the rest of the year rituals because there was now no place for them. If something remained it obtained the form of empty attraction without any real content. The rituals of the life cycle remained to some extent but lost their original significance. After the fall of the communist regime in 1989 and the gradual restitution of private farming the situation did not change. Today most farmers are entrepreneurs in agriculture rather than peasants and so there is very little space for classical rituals.

50        Ya’acov Sarig

Crossing, Parallel and Overlapping Life Cycles –

Human and Demonic

The cycle of life is one of the distinguished expressions of human attempts to obtain order and harmony in the course of his life by attaching them to ritual activities with traditional components, performed on specific dates. Conducting one’s life according to this order establishes the notion that by doing so, one can both safeguard physical security and guarantee peace of mind. One is then protected from the occurrence of unexpected events.

Moments in the human life cycle, such as birth, marriage and death, are perilous stages of passage, and are therefore especially apt to vulnerability. Evil spirits are impatiently waiting for unguarded moments in order to seize or harm the human beings. Bearing in mind that man was – and is – in constant danger, special attention was allotted to the preservation of the good terms with the demons that will enable the endurance of benevolent relations between the two worlds.

It is, in essence, the nature of the tension between humans and demons in folk beliefs the world over. This apprehension will be demonstrated through folktales of the Yemenite Jews, which were collected in Israel and are preserved in the Israeli Archive of Folktales. The stories present varied ritual activities in the Jewish-Yemenite life cycle.

The fact that the Jews of Yemen are aware of the existence of a parallel demonic life system, which in many traits is analogous to the human life cycle, manifests their acknowledgement of the underlying interdependence and interrelation between the two worlds.

51        Dr Irina Sedakova

The Ritual Year as Reflected in Proverbs –

General Notes

Calendric customs are presented in folk aphorisms through the name of a holiday, terms of ritual objects, food and participants, or by a simple allusion to a certain festive activity occurring in course of the year. Particularly well known are proverbs and sayings which have a clear, non-metaphoric meaning. These show the correlation between a  Church calendric date (denoted mostly by the name of a saint) and the weather (Russian “Daria (01.04.) – dirty ice holes”), or  provide agricultural advice (Russian “Give flax to St. Helen and cucumbers to St. Constantine” (21.05)), or concern pastoral practice, etc. Almost every day in the ritual year is reflected in such a proverb whose usage depends directly on the corresponding date.

Following an examination of the aforesaid, I will then concentrate on the analysis of another group of proverbs which have a metaphorical meaning and can be used in the context of a whole range of situations that are not directly connected to a specific holiday date. Such sayings can be applied on various occasions that are not necessarily chronologically related to the date mentioned.   A number of proverbs concern calendric rituals that are major celebrations.  References to Christmas or Easter in the sayings have nothing to do with the actual customs or religious meaning of the holidays, but denote only a great feast. Allusions to a specific calendric custom may also construct a semiotic situation with the semantics of a deadline or a temporal border. Some proverbs do illustrate the ritual content of the holiday but emphasize the idea of ritual behavior, usage of right/wrong ritual objects, etc., modeling the situation of the proper/improper way of acting (Russian “An egg for Easter is very precious”, Bulgarian “Carols aren’t sung after Christmas”).

Each European culture has developed its own ways of seeing the ritual year through metaphorical proverbs, idioms and sayings. Although the set of holidays chosen by each folk paremiological tradition may be different, the major principles of mentioning a rite in a proverb have universal value and correspond to the structural and semiotic rules of the folklore genre. 

The paper aims at exploring these ideas in the framework of proverbs containing allusions to the Slavic Orthodox Ritual Year.

52        Prof. Michèle Simonsen

Midsummer Celebration in Denmark

Sankt Hans aften (“Saint John’s Eve”), celebrated on 23^rd June, is the second most popular festivity in Denmark, next after Christmas, its winter counterpart, with which it has both common and contrasting features. Saint John’s Eve is both a private festivity (a party for relatives and friends, often with a bonfire) and a public festivity transmitted on television (a communal bonfire is organised by the municipality on a beach or in a public garden, with official speeches, musical entertainment and communal singing). Like Christmas, Saint John’s Eve is the syncretic result of old pagan rituals (celebration of the summer solstice), of Christian teaching (the birth of  John the Baptist) and of peasant concerns with the agricultural year cycle. And like Christmas, Saint John’s Eve is commonly –  and wrongly – assumed by most to be an ancient, unbroken, monolithic tradition.

My paper will first attempt to deconstruct this delusion by looking at the history and geographical variation of Saint John’s Eve’s constitutive elements, e.g. the burning of a “witch” puppet on the bonfire, its most prominent element nowadays, first arose among student circles around 1900. In earlier times, the bonfire itself did not always take place at midsummer, but often on Valpurgis Night (the eve of 1^st May). Conversely, the main element of the Saint John’s Eve celebration in former times has now totally disappeared: the nightly visit to some sacred sources and fountains credited with healing waters. The ritual decoration of cows and their procession through the villages have also disappeared, in spite of some sporadic attempts at revival. On the other hand, the many elements of magic and witchcraft associated with Midsummer night in earlier times has been taken up again by Danish Neo-Pagans, especially the  Aser-og Vanertrosamfund (believers in the old Nordic gods).

My paper will also explore the articulation of life-cycle ritual with calendar ritual in the midsummer festivity. In the 19^th century the lighting of Midsummer bonfire was closely connected with the youth guild  and its concern with bringing nubile boys and girls together. Nowadays, the date of Saint John’s Eve, a few days after the summer solstice, coincides with the end of the Danish school year. In families with a nineteen-year old, the midsummer party held for  relatives and friends also celebrates his/her success at the GCE (end of High School Examination) and therefore his/her coming of age, before  leaving home for student life or a sabbatical year of back-packer travelling.

53        Mats Sjölin

Carnival in Hammarkullen

Hammarkullen is one of those suburb areas that was built in the 1970s to house the working immigrants that were recruited for the shipyard industry and the Volvo car manufacturing plant, among other industries, in Göteborg on the west coast of Sweden.

In 2005 carnival in Hammarkullen will be celebrating its 30^th anniversary. It is held over three days at the end of May and the participating groups come mainly from countries in South America although groups from other parts of the world are welcome.

Initially in the eyes of the local government, Hammarkullen suffered from the young inhabitants’ numerous harassing and acts meant to attract attention. According to newspaper headlines, Hammarkullen was a dangerous place to live in. To deal with the situation different projects were started and one of them was a spring festival.

Many of the refugees, escaping military dictatorship from Latin America, found a new home in Hammarkullen. The newly arrived people from Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina almost immediately started societies and solidarity groups to support the opposition in their home countries. At first after observing the spring festival inspired by Swedish traditions, the Latin American societies wanted to participate with their own traditional processions. In their different home countries they had their own carnival traditions.

What is special about carnival in Hammarkullen is that many of the different Latin American carnival traditions can be seen at one place, which makes it special even in the context of the carnivals in South America. There are special dances and masks from Oruro in Bolivia. The urban carnival tradition from Rio with its special themes of Brazilian history is expressed through clothes, music and dances. The Candombe drum tradition of Uruguay and special dances from Chile are part of the same procession.

Carnival is visited by about 60,000 people every year and is the major event of the year in Hammarkullen. The participating groups spend most of their spare time between September and May preparing for carnival.

In spite of the many differences in performance, carnival expresses the Latin American identity and roots. The history of Latin America since Columbus’ arrival, is the history of African slave trade and the suppression of native Americans in the new continent. This lived experience has been transformed into today’s Latin American society and is even expressed in Hammarkullen. In the suburb of Hammarkullen one can take a bird’s eye view of a global cultural heritage.

54        Prof. David STANLEY

The Ritual Year and the Cycle of Work

in the Life of the American Cowboy

The American cowboy, often cited as either a living icon of American culture or as a “dying breed,” in actuality still exists and arranges his or her life according to old patterns that were well established by the Mexican vaquero by the mid-nineteenth century. The rhythms of the work year are dictated less by economics than by natural phenomena: the breeding cycles of cattle and horses, the four seasons, spring and summer rains, the harvesting of hay. The yearly cycle rotates through the birth of calves, spring roundup (gathering, weaning, branding, castrating, dehorning, and inoculating), breeding and testing cows, starting colts and training horses, moving cattle from spring to summer to autumn grazing, fall roundup, shipping cattle to market, and winter feeding – and then the cycle begins again. This cycle is paralleled by social events with ritualistic dimensions, including community dinners, rodeos, county and state fairs, music and poetry festivals, and the celebration of major holidays, including Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Parallels between work events and celebrations will be explored, along with the dynamic tension between the individual and communitas, the animal and human, ranch and town, and movement and stasis within the landscape, using perspectives drawn from the work of Victor Turner, Mary Douglas, and others.

55        Dr Helga STEIN

“Der Putzetanz” / The Barber’s Dance –

a Traditional Custom of the Bachelors in the Village of Hotteln (Germany)

Video 1990 (VHS/PAL) 14’18’’

In the region between Braunschweig, Hannover and Hildesheim you will find so called “Bachelors’ Companies,” groups of young bachelors (from 18 up to marriageable age).

One of these groups exists in the small village of Hotteln, situated between Hannover and Hildesheim. Their members strictly keep the traditional custom of the barber’s dance, a pantomime of death and revival, presented on the Saturday preceding Passion Week.

This weekend starts with a masquerade across the village from 13.00 to 17.00 to collect goods such as eggs, sausages, spirits and of course money. Afterwards the eggs will be consumed during feasting in the local village hall. At 20.00 the annual ball will take place including the traditional barber’s dance at 22.00. At midnight the girl for whom the highest bid had been made at an auction in November/December of the previous year will get to know her favourite bidder, while the music plays a special waltz for the maid of honour.

The barber’s dance tells the story of a poor artisan, who is killed by the razor of a travelling barber. The doctor himself and the barber’s assistant will revive him while the policemen are in search of the barber. He is arrested in the ball-room, presented to the amused judge and condemned to return every year in order that young girls get married and young wives become grandmothers.

Before World War II this dance was known all over the German-speaking countries. Even in the North of the former German Democratic Republic (in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) this traditional custom was used sometimes by the cultural institutions up to the end of the eighties. Only in Hotteln is this tradition kept and guarded in the Bachelors’ Company. The music itself dates from an 1858 operetta by L. Hertel, called “Flick and Flock.”

In Lower Saxony it was a well-known rite de passage for a boy to become a servant as well as for a fiancé to get shaved on his wedding day. You may realize the connexion between the barber’s dance of today and the former customs of Bachelors’ Companies and weddings. At the end of the year or the beginning of Shrovetide a very secret girls’ auction is held in several villages. The highest auctioned girls for whom the highest bid has been made will know the result and will be honoured by flowers, invitations, etc. This custom relates to the so-called May bride, a kind of arranged wedding order in the villages. Today it is only performed for the people’s amusement.

The mentioned egg-eating is traditionally held by the bachelors and takes place once a year on different dates in springtime (celebration of May Day, Whitsuntide or Shrovetide). In the East of Hildesheim bachelors go for masquerades while in the West members of other associations, for instance the riffle association, collect the goods. This procession is often joined by a person disguised as a bear who has to dance with the housewife.

Producer: Karl Joseph (Hannover)

Scientific assistance: Helga Stein

Produced in 1990. Sponsored by Filmförderung des Landes Niedersachsen.

Lit. H. Stein. Der Putzetanz. Die Jungesellenschaft in Hotteln und ihr Fastnachtsvergnügen. In: “Tanz und Musik in Überlieferung und Gegenwart” (Hrsg. M. Bröcker), Bamberg 1992, pp. 209-25; id.  Putzetanz – Barbiertanz – Schleifertanz. Oder was sich unter www.jghotteln.de verbirgt. In: Hildesheimer Heimatkalender, Hildesheim 2004, pp. 155 -62.

56        Prof. Kincső VEREBÉLYI and Prof. Vilmos VOIGT

Systems of Approaches to Hungarian Calendar Customs

The days of the calendar in Europe absorb beliefs, customs and festivals. Their  system has been influenced by climate, environment, forms of production, religion, etc. In spite of the generally accepted four-season-calendar, the agricultural rites in Europe also show a two- or a three-season system. Agricultural feasts celebrate sowing, harvest and winter rest, without much activity on the field. The historical reforms in European time reckoning made a further re-distribution of holidays (e.g., the shift of the New Year beginning, two ecclesiastic calendars in the Church in the East and West, etc.).

In Hungary the initiative feasts start from the end of November until Easter. But at the same time closing feasts occur from September until Lent. All that complex distribution of feasts makes a very hard task to describe their “symbolic” interpretations. In general the heortology of Hungarian calendar customs belong to the common European tradition, their social framework is similar too – but their time budget shows a certain elasticity. In one word: their structure is a European one, their meaning is regional, and their variations reflect the local circumstances. According to that trichotomy, there are three major schools in studying Hungarian calendar customs. The paper will present the major results.

ĠMC

23.1.05

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