Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Adina Hulubaș este cercetător ştiinţific la Institutul de Filologie
Română „A. Philippide” al Academiei Române – Filiala Iaşi. Doctor
în filologie din anul 2008 cu lucrarea Trasee iniţiatice în folclorul
literar românesc. Structuri stilistice. Volumul Obiceiuri de naştere din
Moldova: tipologie şi corpus de texte, distins cu premiul „Bogdan
Petriceicu Hasdeu” al Academiei Române pentru anul 2012, a fost
continuat cu lucrarea Credinţe despre naştere în contextul urban din
Moldova. Memoria tradiţională.
Ioana Repciuc este cercetător științific la Institutul de Filologie
Română „A. Philippide” al Academiei Române – Filiala Iași. Doctor
în filologie din anul 2011 al Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”
din Iași. A editat (în colaborare) Flores Philologiae. Omagiu profeso‐
rului Eugen Munteanu, la împlinirea vârstei de 60 de ani. A publicat
două cărți de etnologie și socio‐antropologie, precum și numeroase
articole de specialitate.
Referenți științifici:
Cercetător științific principal gradul I dr. Cristina‐Michaela Florescu
Profesor universitar dr. Nicu Gavriluță
Redactor: Mariana Codruţ
Tehnoredactare: Luminița Răducanu
Coperta: Manuela Oboroceanu
ISBN: 978‐606‐714‐317‐1
© 2016, Editura Universităţii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”
700109 – Iaşi, str. Pinului, nr. 1A, tel./fax: (0232) 314947
http:// www.editura.uaic.ro e‐mail: editura@uaic.ro
Adina Hulubaș și Ioana Repciuc
(editori)
Riturile de trecere în actualitate
The Rites of Passage Time after Time
Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Iaşi
2016
Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României
Riturile de trecere în actualitate = The Rites of Passage Time after Time
/ ed.: Adina Hulubaş, Ioana Repciuc. ‐ Iaşi:
Editura Universităţii „Al. I. Cuza”, 2016
Conţine bibliografie
ISBN 978‐606‐714‐317‐1
I. Hulubaş, Adina (ed.)
II. Repciuc, Ioana (ed.)
392
393
CUPRINS
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................ 7
CUVÂNT ÎNAINTE ȘI MULȚUMIRI ........................................................................ 23
I.
RITES OF PASSAGE OVER TIME
ARNOLD VAN GENNEP: FRAGMENTE ALE UNEI VIEȚI TRĂITE
LIMINAL
Bjørn Thomassen .................................................................................................... 43
RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN CONTEXT INTERNAȚIONAL
Ioana Repciuc ........................................................................................................... 79
TRECEREA TIMPULUI PESTE RITURILE DE TRECERE. O ANALIZĂ
SOCIOANTROPOLOGICĂ
Cristina Gavriluță ................................................................................................... 93
RIT ȘI RITUAL. O PERSPECTIVĂ ANTROPOLOGICĂ
Adina Șandru ......................................................................................................... 112
II.
RITES OF PASSAGE IN LIFE
RITES OF PASSAGE IN THE FOLKLORE ARCHIVE OF MOLDOVA
AND BUCOVINA
Adina Hulubaș ...................................................................................................... 143
GIFT BESTOWAL IN THE RITES TRACED TO THE LIFE CYCLE WITH
THE BULGARIANS: GENERAL FINDINGS AND FORMULATIONS
Galin Georgiev ...................................................................................................... 163
TRANSITION RITES IN BULGARIAN WEDDINGS: MID 20th ‐EARLY 21st
CENTURIES
Milena Marinova ................................................................................................... 192
IMAGINARUL SIMBOLIC AL RITUALURILOR DE TRECERE SPECIFICE
NUNȚII ÎN ZONA OLTENIEI
Gabriela Boangiu .................................................................................................. 203
5
EXPERIENȚA LIMINALĂ A CĂSĂTORIEI INTERETNICE ÎN CULTURILE
ETNOGRAFICE CONTEMPORANE DIN ROMÂNIA
Marin Constantin .................................................................................................. 215
SĂRBĂTORI, OBICEIURI, CREDINȚE LA ROMÂNII DIN OSNIĆ,
MUNICIPALITATEA BOLJEVAĆ (SERBIA)
Emil Țîrcomnicu .................................................................................................... 237
RITES OF PASSAGE: CHILDBIRTH, MARRIAGE, DEATH IN TRADITIONAL
CYPRIOT SOCIETY
Kalliopi Protopapa ................................................................................................ 266
FROM BIRTH TO BAPTISM. AN EXAMINATION OF RITE OF PASSAGE
PHENOMENON AT GYIMESKÖZÉPLOK
Eszter Csonka‐Takács ........................................................................................... 287
III.
RITES OF PASSAGE BEYOND FRAMES
SIR GAWAIN AND THE RITUAL PROCESS
J.S. Mackley ............................................................................................................ 333
THRESHOLD GUARDIANS
Brian Hoggard ........................................................................................................ 350
MUSLIM PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA: PERSONAL APPEARANCE
AND GENDER IN MEDIEVAL ISLAM
Hadas Hirsch .......................................................................................................... 363
MASKS AND THE WORLD BEYOND
Valeria Fol .............................................................................................................. 376
CONTRIBUTORS ....................................................................................................... 391
6
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
primitive societies determined Van Gennep’s place as the father of
French ethnography and folkloristics, and also gained him a prominent
place in other nations’ folklore research methodology.
In Romania, Les rites was early on read and quoted by the first
amateur folklorists, due to the persistent interest to francophone culture
shown by interwar Romanian intelligentsia. Even the Romanian folclor
coming from the English folklore established in the last decades of the 19th
century, still competed at that time with tradiții populare more popular
due to the French traditions populaires. In their monographies on folk
customs and traditions written at the turn of the century, Romanian
authors were heavily quoting from the few French journals of folklore
circulating at that time and the important volumes on ancient cultures
and mythologies of French authors.
But even before Romanian intellectuals’ familiarity with French
epistemology, Simeon Florea Marian, an early folklorist and member of
the Romanian Academy wrote the first important work on the Romanian
life‐cycle customs that basically displayed the same structure as the first
two volumes of Arnold van Gennep’s extensive Manuel de folklore français
contemporain (1937‐58) meaningfully entitled “From the Cradle to the
Grave” (originally in French “Du berceau à la tombe”), for which van
Gennep transferred the concept of rites of passage from anthropology of
exotic societies to modern ones. Years earlier than van Gennep did, in his
“trilogy of life” published in 1890 (wedding) and 1892 (birth and burial),
Simeon Florea Marian describes family ceremonies as shaping the
individual life from practices preparing a favorable childbirth to rites of
incorporation meant to successfully pass over the soul to the afterlife.
As Adina Hulubaș and Cristina Gavriluță point out in their
chapters here, the mentioned trilogy displayed a similar structure with
the one used by van Gennep twenty years after, i.e. traditional acts and
beliefs associated with the three sequences universally known today as
preliminary, liminary and postliminary stages: the separation from the
previous social state, followed by transition and incorporation. Hulubaș
emphasizes also the lasting impact of Simeon Florea Marian’s
monographs on both research methods and argumentative constructions
designed by following Romanian ethnologists. She demonstrates how
Marian’s and van Gennep’s tripartite structure influenced the research
8
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Librairie Emile Larose. The small volume is a presentation of the
Romanian holiday cycle followed by a selective bibliography on
Romanian folklore, which proves that its main role was to act as an
introduction to a field obviously ignored by French scholars. This is
actually the first idea expressed by Arnold van Gennep in the foreward:
“Reading the nice monograph of Mr. Michel Vulpescu would provide, I
think, a revelation not just to the average public, but also for specialized
folklorists” (Vulpesco 1927: I). The French ethnologist puts this disregard
on linguistic restrictions, and realizes that this would be also the reason
for neglecting Romanian data in the greatest comparative works of
western anthropology of that time: that of Frazer, Westermarck and his
own Les Rites de passage. He acknowledges indirectly therefore that, if
available, information on Romanian ways of celebrating the passage of
time would have enriched his systematic treatment of rituals.
Van Gennep’s friendship with the Romanian folklorist and the
discovered interest on Romanian folklore would allegedly carry him to
trying to gain for himself a chair of ethnology in Romania, a position
which, we know today from the scholar’s biography, was forever
interdicted to him in France. The intricate reasons of this unfortunate
development are clearly explained by Bjørn Thomassen in the text we
have translated here. A number of 21 letters archived by the Central
University Library in Iași that van Gennep wrote mainly to Mihail
Vulpescu, but also to Ovid Densusianu (professor of philology at the
University of Bucharest and the first to give a lecture on folk literature
here in 1909, and to establish a methodology for its study in Romania)
are proves to this interest that lasted at least until 1931 – the date of the
last available letter written to Densusianu. There are also references of
his correspondence to other important Romanian folklorists of that time,
such as Artur Gorovei and Alexandru Tzigara‐Samurcaș. He also sent
reports and written projects to Romanian ministers and senators and
even, by intermediaries, to Queen Marie of Romania, an important
patron of arts and literature whose word could have been decisive for
van Gennep’s academic pursuit.
Gheorghiță Geană, a Romanian sociologist, was the one who
discovered and spoke about van Gennep’s projects with Romanian
ethnology, and also published some of these letters in 1983 and 1995
10
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
respectively (Geană 1995). Lucia Berdan continues this action in the
Romanian translation of Les rites through an introduction to the letters
published here. They exhibit the well constructed arguments on which
van Gennep was supporting his academic pursuit: he was planning to
organize in Bucharest the second international congress of ethnography
and ethnology, to give courses to both students and general public
(implementing a model he knew well from the Institut d’Ethnologie in
Paris), and helping Romania be elevated as a prestigious international
centre for comparative ethnography in particular and for high culture
generally. He explains to his Romanian correspondents that he would
work hard for achieving his purposes, that he would come to Romania
with his family and his extended library, and he would not try to push
back the local scholars, but work aside them. “My destiny is in your
hands, and I wait without needless impatience” was writing van Gennep
to Vulpescu on the 7th of June, 1927 (van Gennep 1996: 189). Unfor‐
tunately, historical and administrative circumstances did not allow for
van Gennep’s academic destiny and that of Romanian ethnology to be
positively linked to one another.
Despite this failure, the intersection of Romanian social sciences
with van Gennep’s breakthrough work was not destined to end. The new
Bucharest School of Sociology arising in the 1920s reasserted the close
ties of Romanian social scientists with the Parisian intellectual
movement. Ștefania Cristescu was among the young promising members
of the school who went to specialize in Paris in the first half of the thirties
in order to obtain a diploma from Institut d’Ethnologie where she also had
the chance of engaging in thorough conversation with well‐established
scholars such as Marcel Mauss and Paul Rivet. Between 1932 and 1934,
the time period she spent in Paris, Cristescu who was interested in
folklore studies from a sociological perspective, finds herself at odds
with the mainstream French ethnography of exotic societies. In her diary
and correspondence of the time, the Romanian young scholar clearly
notices the lack of direct relevance of studying primitive cultures with
respect to the stringent interests and topics of the Romanian ethnology
and sociology. Giving too much importance to ethnography of the
primitives as the Durkheimian did mean neglecting the dynamic reality
of Romanian social life (Golopenția 2016: 326‐327).
11
RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
We do not know if, given her familiarity with top French
academics who were among the ones banishing Arnold van Gennep
from their circles, Cristescu met the author of Les rites de passage while in
Paris. We do know though that she had explicitly agreed with his way of
understanding social and anthropological research as a biological science
of the present, as opposed to the historically oriented French folkloristics
preceding van Gennep’s involvement in the discipline.
In 1938, Cristescu publishes an extensive review of Paul Saintyves,
Manuel de folklore (1936), in which praises the book’s minute historical
and mythological reconstructions, but in the same time she takes the side
of van Gennep, unfairly criticized by the author. Saintyves had the
impression that van Gennep was excessively emphasising the present, as
for him turning away to the old features of the phenomenon under
research represented the right focus. On the opposite, says Cristescu
well‐acquainted with van Gennep’s work, Le Folklore (1924), van Gennep
never denied the relevance of taking into account the historicity of
folklore facts, but just offered a larger role to the biological method, as he
calls it. “Differently from Saintyves, we are on van Gennep’s side. The
hard work of reconstituting of historical series is a library work which
could still be postponed, while the cultural life of nowadays runs fast
and so you are about to loose the opportunity to catch it in one if its most
interesting moments” says Cristescu at the end of her review (Cristescu
1938: 583).
Though often accused of being a science of past ages or an archive
discipline, the mainstream Romanian ethnology proved further on that it
stayed faithful to van Gennep’side. But we do not intend to overshadow
either the importance of applying van Gennep’s schema to past cultural
phenomena and how they may be connected to the present time. If we
rightly follow the example of the author of Les rites de passage, we should
be ready to overcome distances in time and space. His capacity of
applying a schema based on primitive societies to modern French
countryside rituals is enough of a proof to strengthen our belief in the
possibility of cross‐cultural and cross‐ages dialogue. It is also why we
tried to demonstrate that one particular powerful schema has also the
capacity of encouraging a meeting on the academic arena or, in our case,
in‐between the covers of a book, of different epistemologies, scholarly
12
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
traditions, and cultures. These would be putting in practice on an
academic level van Gennep’s main idea on the universalist aims of
ethnology: “It therefore remains the case that ethnography, folklore, and
popular traditions are no longer ethnic or political in kind, but designate
the study of the mores and customs of all peoples, ancient and modern,
and of all forms of civilization” (van Gennep 2001: 220).
We also understand the pressing dilemma that contemporary
eastern European ethnologists are facing – that between serving domestic
ethnology and answering to local research opportunities, or widely
opening their methodologies to western inputs. Much better positioned
in terms of prestige, the western social sciences could not be overlooked
by east European ethnologists. And they were not from very early on, as
the many examples of applying van Gennep’s schema in folklore
research undertaken by Romanian and foreign specialists in this volume
show, even though we are aware that many of our western or eastern
colleagues would characterize van Gennep’s work as outdated. Offering
an up‐to‐date image on the numerous researchers and fields that were
and are yet inspired by van Gennep’s pattern, Ioana Repciuc’s paper in
this book will also try to counteract the voices ready to cast away the
French anthropologist’s meaningfulness over contemporary human and
social sciences.
We have consequently invited authors of very different academic
and ethnic idioms to celebrate with us the enduring relevance of van
Gennep’schema in today’s scholarship. The outcome is therefore a
collection of diverse approaches, fragments of ongoing research. With
the exception of the first section, entitled Rites of passage over time
containing texts that explicitly review the state of art in van Gennep’s
scholarly legacy, we encouraged our authors to present examples of their
work, and not to precisely address the rites of passage as object of
intellectual interest. Thus, their connection with van Gennep was not a
forced one; they did not accommodate the rites of passage concept into
their work as a result of our request. Their relationship with the French
anthropologist’s pattern was a natural development proving its
popularity around the intellectual arena.
Our authors read Les rites de passage in different languages, they
conduct their research in different languages and range from folklore
13
RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
studies to sociology, and from literature to archeology. They represent
scholarly traditions of Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, England, Hungary,
Israel, and Romania. This diversity, we believe, answers to van Gennep’s
implicit project of reuniting the broad social life under the same
meaningful and flexible structure aiming at understanding ourselves
through understanding the others. We also hope our volume touches
upon his mission of crossing over national boundaries and other types of
inherent limitations through the flexibility of his theory, and that he
personally exemplified so well due to his linguistic skills in all European
languages.
The volume is structured in three sections intended to cast light on
van Gennep’s theory from different angles. The first section, entitled
Rites of passage over time, focuses on how van Gennep’s theory shaped the
field of social sciences, and the authors gathered here approach the
French author’s legacy from historical and summative perspectives. The
section Rites of passage in life concentrates on the most important
application of his theory, endorsed especially by ethnologists, i.e. the rites
of passage as life events. The last part of the volume, Rites of passage
beyond frames, tends to prove his structure’s ability to surpass disciplinary
boundaries.
The most authorized voice of this book belongs to Bjørn
Thomassen, a Danish anthropologist and social scientist, who dedicated
numerous years of study to van Gennep’s theory. The article Arnold van
Gennep: Fragments of a Life‐Work at the Threshold is, in fact, the first chapter
of a book published in 2014 by Thomassen. Its title, Liminality and the
Modern. Living through the In‐Between suggests both the topicality of van
Gennep’s schema and the key concept that stands the test of time and
epistemology. Thomassen’s belief that the limen represents one of the
strongest, most influential anthropological concepts guides his sustained
research that encompasses both his personal work and a co‐edited
volume. Breaking Boundaries. Varieties of Liminality was published in 2015
and gathers contributions to this theme from various authors approaching
politics, sociology, old history and recent through van Gennep’s lens. It
becomes more than obvious that the tripartite system assures fruitful
results to almost any discipline of the social sciences field.
14
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The metaphor of “a life‐work at the threshold” defines the
paradoxical destiny of Arnold van Gennep who was not only deprived
from a well deserved notoriety and academic recognition, but was also
subject of misconceptions. Thomassen argues that such an error needs to
be rectified by drawing an extensive background for the concept of
liminality: van Gennep’s battle with the Durkheimian method of
approach, the context of his work and views on the anthropological field
of study, his thinking as a whole provide the necessary information to
fully acknowledge the conceptual relevance of the rites of passage in
general.
Bjørn Thomassen sets the general frame for liminality by discussing
the literature dedicated to van Gennep’s vast activity and the life events
that changed his destiny. The “inner illumination” that led to The Rites of
Passage book, according to van Gennep’s confession, was the result of a
straining effort to synthesize an enormous amount of data to some
‘biological’ patterns. As Thomassen explains, the theoretical system
envisioned by van Gennep refers mostly to the dynamics of life itself and
it is this coordinate that allows it to be applied efficiently. The article
Arnold van Gennep: Fragments of a Life‐Work at the Threshold opens a door
wide to van Gennep’s life and work, while details provided by Ketty van
Gennep, the anthropologist’s daughter, shed a bright light on the past.
Ioana Repciuc also presents in her text the different readings that
van Gennep’s main theory received in the international academia since
the time of its publication till nowadays.
Cristina Gavriluță investigates the effect of time on rituals and their
social acknowledging. Her article is three folded, in a structure that allows
the demonstration to start with clearing conceptual aspects of rites, in
order to reach modern variations of practices as well as their reinvention.
The passing of time over the rites of passage. A socio‐anthropological analysis
deals with a permanent binomy: social and spiritual implications of rites.
As a means of community involvment, the ritual bonds individuals and
gives them a deeper acknowledgement of life.
The author seems to place modern man into an oposition with the
traditional practitioner, but this is in fact intented to highlight their
common behavioural patterns. Gavriluță traces the present form of
preliminary rites into specialized counselling for the persons about to get
15
RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
16
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
banning rites or giving them a new setting (such as moving ceremonials
to restaurants) did not manage to change the wedding rite dramatically.
Examples reveal many common beliefs and practices from the Balkan
area, while the article also uses Romanian and Serbian etymology to
support its perspective.
The next author stays in the same thematic and geographic zone to
investigate symbolic imagery. Gabriela Boangiu discusses weddings
from Oltenia, a region situated north from Bulgaria. The article offers
close ethnographic descriptions of the ceremony, with details provided
both by cited resources and fieldwork. Symbols that appear in ritual texts
such as wedding orations are explained through actual ethnographic
practices in constant reference to the tripartite system.
A fourth study on wedding rites is signed by Marin Constantin,
who investigates inter‐ethnic marriages. Liminality is here discussed as a
social status, since endogamy rules are infringed and the couple remains
”between and betwixt” communities. On the other hand, the author
stresses the fact that interethnic marriage is a celebration of
multiculturalism, since the new family embraces both traditional ways of
life. Examples from the Balkans are numerous.
Not only ethic coordinates bring the couples on the social
threshold, but also religious confessions. Marin Constantin presents
several data on marriage between Catholic and Orthodox believers and
their community reception. Such critical moments are investigated
through the concept of the stranger who is integrated into the group.
Mixed families do not form social sub‐unities, according to the author,
but are subjects to a constant aggregation into a community or another.
The next article deals once more with a country from the Balkans.
Emil Țîrcomnicu writes about documented beliefs and customs from
Osnić, a village from the North‐Eastern side of Serbia. The abundancy of
traditional information from this side of Europe is not by chance. As
countries who started urbanization late, and in forceful conditions, all
Soviet‐bloc nations benefitted from a lingering traditional civilization.
Orthodox priests showed tolerance against old practices and we can
notice even today customs and superstitions pertaining to a rather magic
type of thinking.
18
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
19
RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
All three stages of the rite are indentified and documented thoroughly,
the conclusion adding the idea of a chivalric caste incorporation.
Arnold van Gennep mentions construction practices amidst the
rites of passage and insists on material forms of entries, by grouping
them in a chapter on territorial passages. Brian Hoggard’s study explores
this concrete liminality expressed by apotropaic objects concealed under
thresholds. Dried cats and horse skulls have been uncovered throughout
Britain, but also in other European countries. These Threshold Guardians
are immured sometimes, but their function of warding off evil remains.
The author presents numerous examples of such discoveries next to
witch‐bottles, worn‐out shoes, broken blades etc. in a bibliographic
context.
Some subjects recorded by Hoggard declared that cats are used as
foundation sacrifices for the house to become alive and thus to spare the
lives of its future inhabitants. The exact explanation was provided with
extended evidence by Mircea Eliade; moreover, Romanians are still
convinced to this day that animal sacrifices are made to avoid tragic
deaths. Another example of traditional demenour is revealed by
builders’ reluctance to move dried cats from the houses they help
reconstruct. Otherwise, any unwanted circumstances would be judged as
a consequence of this ritual infridgment.
Geographical references are widened through Hadas Hirsch’s
article on Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca. After a variety of ethnographic
data from the Balkans, Britain, and Nordic countries, the rites of passage
are confronted with a different cultural space, with similar results.Being
a spiritual quest, the pilgrimage imposes a separation period from the
quotidian existence, a liminal crisis, to lead in the end to an aggregation
mainly into a higher state of mind. The author details the physical
condition for those to pursue this inner and outer journey. The ceremony
requests specific head and face covers, hair, hygene, clothing, and shoes,
which are details that reveal the neophyte condition of the pilgrim.
Valeria Fol investigates golden masks found in ancient graves and
assimilates this theme to initiation and death rites. The neophyte is
represented by the deceased and he needs proper guidance to reach the
world beyond. The golden masks belong to the Mycenae culture and still
escape clear meanings for specialists. Fol connects them with Orphic
20
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
mystery rituals and autochthonous beliefs popular in the Mediterranean
region on that ancient age. Golden masks are thus “theatrical properties”
intended to transcend the worlds during the final rite of passage from a
life time.
All these fruitful investigations seem to confirm the words of
Nicolae Constatinescu, twenty years after he signed the Preface to the
Romanian translation of The Rites of Passage. “What remains as a
permanent gain in ethnological theory is the concept of the rites of
passage itself. Even though it underwent revisions, redefining, rethinking
from the continuous regenerating process of anthropological disciplines,
the concept remained fundamentally unchanged, being free either of
contestation or reformulation, without needing any broadening or
refinement” (Gennep: 9). Furthermore, it is in the year 2016 that Bjørn
Thomassen reached a similar conclusion: ”In many ways, van Gennep is
our contemporary. A reappraisal of his work may therefore assist
contemporary Tardean‐inspired theorists to rethink social science
epistemology” (190). The present book may contribute to this necessary
acknowledgement of van Gennep’s thinking.
Finally, it is our pleasure to thank a number of people and
institutions without whom this endeavor would not have seen
completion. For the support and help that we have received while
projecting, preparing and publishing this book, we would like to
particularly express our gratitude to the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza”
University Publishing House represented in this long effort by
editor‐in‐chief Dana Lungu and adjunct director Lucian Leonte, as well
as to the entire editorial team. Our thanks also go to Mrs. Cristina Irimia
who has devotedly helped with proof‐reading the English texts. We
particularly thank Bjørn Thomassen and Ashgate Publishing for allowing
us to translate and republish here a chapter from his remarkable book.
Nevertheless, we express our appreciation to all our authors, who
generously answered to our call and thus enriched with their diverse
insights our own perspective on the field demonstrating that van
Gennep’s destiny in the academic history is in good hands and minds.
The Editors
21
RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
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CUVÂNT ÎNAINTE ȘI MULȚUMIRI
Intenția acestui volum este de a propune o cale prin care cercetările
etnologice românești să se apropie de cadrul teoretic și metodologic mai
larg al științelor sociale și antropologice. În ciuda faptului că este o
disciplină recunoscută pentru atenția specializată acordată etnicității și
reprezentărilor cultural populare, în ipostaza sa de antropologie utilă în
construirea ideii de națiune, studiul folclorului din secolul al XX‐lea nu
s‐a limitat la adunarea de documente etnografice masive și la
contemplarea lor dintr‐o perspectivă istorică ori naționalistă. Adeseori, în
existența sa ce însumează acum două sute de ani, etnologia (sau
focloristica, în spațiul academic anglofon) a fost asociată cu antropologia
societăților exotice și cu investigarea socială a vieții actuale, ca urmare a
demersului de căutare a noi metode și tipare teoretice potrivite. În plus
față de rolul stimulator al acestor importuri epistemologice asupra
investigațiilor folclorice, perspectiva trans‐culturală aduce și beneficiul
comparației, încurajând dezbateri creative despre similitudini și deose‐
biri. Avem convingerea că există o cale mai bună înafara indiferenței
reciproce și a granițelor conceptuale închise.
Publicat în anul 1909 în limba sa nativă, franceza, volumul Les rites
de passage a lui Arnold van Gennep nu a primit recunoașterea academică
binemeritată și imediată, în principal din cauza opiniilor autorului
despre științele sociale majore la acea vreme, reprezentate atunci de
școala durkheimiană. Recenzia scurtă și foarte critică a lui Marcel Mauss
în anul 1910 părea să identifice scăderile științifice ale cărții, provocate de
lipsa unei rigori teoretice și punerea în circulație a unor lucruri prea
evidente. Abia în 1942 au fost redescoperite Les rites de passage de către
psihanalistul Géza Róheim, care va considera că au un cadru teoretic util.
Abia deceniile ce au urmat au adus dezbateri amănunțite pornite de Max
Gluckman, Nicole Belmont, Pierre Bourdieu și în special Victor Turner
despre adecvarea și temeinicia tiparului identificat de van Gennep.
Aplicarea acestei teorii în cercetarea folclorică, pentru care schema
a oferit un mod integrator de a structura informația empirică despre
obiceiurile contemporane franceze, a constituit un progres important.
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RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
Această punere în practică inovatoare a teoriei bazate inițial pe exemple
din societățile primitive i‐a conferit lui van Gennep titlul de părinte al
etnografiei și folcloristicii franceze și i‐a atras, de asemenea, un statut
privilegiat în metodologia investigațiilor folclorice din alte țări.
În România, Les rites au fost citite la scurt timp după apariție și
citate de către primii focloriști amatori, datorită interesului major pentru
cultura francofonă ce caracteriza elita intelectuală din România
interbelică. Chiar și termenul folclor cu etimologie engleză, compus spre
sfârșitul secolului al XIX‐lea din folk și lore, încă mai era concurat în acel
moment de tradiții populare, a cărui frecvență era mai ridicată din pricina
franțuzescului traditions populaires. Autorii români de monografii ale
unor obiceiuri și tradiții populare de la finele secolului citau masiv din
puținele reviste franțuzești de foclor care circulau la acel moment și din
lucrările importante de mitologie și cultură veche ale autorilor francezi.
Dar chiar mai devreme de această familiarizare a intelectualilor
români cu epistemologia franceză, Simeon Florea Marian, un folclorist
pionier și membru al Academiei Române, a redactat cea dintâi lucrare
esențială despre obiceiurile familiale în care a folosit aceeași structură ca
primele două volume ale lui Arnold van Gennep din lucrarea masivă
Manual de folclor francez contemporan (1937‐58), intitulate sugestiv „Din
leagăn în mormânt” (în franceză “Du berceau à la tombe”). Pentru
realizarea acestora, van Gennep a transferat conceptul de rituri de trecere
din antropologia societăților exotice la cele moderne. Cu câțiva ani
înainte de van Gennep, în a sa „Trilogie a vieții” publicată în 1890
(nunta) și 1892 (nașterea și înmormântarea), Simeon Florea Marian
descrie ceremoniile familiale ca acte de marcare a vieții individuale, de la
practicile care pregăteau o naștere favorabilă, la riturile de agregare cu
rolul de a asigura trecerea fără obstacole a sufletului către viața de apoi.
Așa cum Adina Hulubaș și Cristina Gavriluță subliniază în
capitolele lor, menționata trilogie folosește o structură similară cu cea
construită de van Gennep douăzeci de ani mai târziu, și anume acte
tradiționale și credințele asociate cu ajutorul celor trei secvențe cunoscute
universal astăzi ca rituri preliminare, liminare și postliminare: separarea
de precedenta stare socială, urmată de tranziție și agregare. Hulubaș
accentuează de asemenea impactul de lungă durată al monografiilor lui
Simeon Florea Marian asupra metodelor de cercetare și a construcțiilor
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CUVÂNT ÎNAINTE ȘI MULȚUMIRI
coutumes roumaines périodique, publicată în acel an de Librairie Emile
Larose. Micul volum este o prezentare a ciclului românesc al sărbătorilor,
urmat de o bibliografie selectivă a folclorului românesc, ceea ce
dovedește că menirea sa de bază era să reprezinte un fel de introducere
în domeniul evident necunoscut de cercetătorii francezi. Aceasta este de
altfel și prima idee exprimată de Arnold van Gennep în prefață: „Citirea
interesantei monografii a domnului Michel Vulpesco ar oferi, cred, o
revelație nu doar pentru publicul obișnuit, ci și pentru specialiști”
(Vulpescu 1927: I). Etnologul francez pune această necunoaștere pe
seama restricției lingvistice și crede că același ar fi motivul pentru care
informațiile românești lipsesc din marile opere comparative din antropo‐
logia occidentală ale acelei epoci: a lui Frazer, Westermarck și chiar
propria sa lucrare, Riturile de trecere. Admite indirect deci că, dacă ar fi
fost cunoscute, datele românești despre sărbătorirea trecerilor rituale ar fi
îmbogățit cu siguranță monografia sa.
Prietenia lui van Gennep cu folcloristul român și noul său interes
pentru folclorul românesc au stat probabil la originea încercării sale de a
obține o catedră de etnologie în România, un post despre care știm astăzi
din biografia sa că îi era interzis pentru totdeauna în Franța. Rațiunile
complicate ale acestei interdicții sunt explicate clar de Bjørn Thomassen
în textul pe care‐l traducem în acest volum. Un număr de 21 de scrisori
păstrate în arhiva Bibliotecii Centrale Universitare din Iași pe care van
Gennep le‐a trimis în majoritate lui Mihail Vulpescu, dar și lui Ovid
Densusianu demonstrează acest plan al său care a rămas activ cel puțin
până în 1931, de când datează cea mai târzie scrisoare din acest fond,
adresată lui Densusianu. Corespondența respectivă conține de asemenea
referințe la discuții cu Artur Gorovei și Alexandru Tzigara‐Samurcaș.
S‐au păstrat și rapoartele și proiectele sale adresate altor oficialități
române, ajungând chiar până la Regină, notorie susținătoare a artelor și
literaturii care ar fi putut să influențeze decisiv pătrunderea lui van
Gennep în viața academică românească.
Sociologul Gheorghiță Geană a vorbit cel dintâi despre proiectele
românești ale lui van Gennep și a publicat câteva dintre aceste scrisori în
1983 și 1995 (Geană 1995). Lucia Berdan continuă activitatea respectivă în
volumul românesc al Riturilor de trecere printr‐o postfață care introduce
scrisorile publicate în acesta. Documentele semnate de van Gennep arată
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bine susținutele argumente pe care își baza interesul pentru postul aca‐
demic: plănuia să organizeze la București al doilea congres internațional
de etnografie și etnologie, să țină cursuri atât studenților, cât și publi‐
cului larg (implementând un model pe care‐l cunoștea bine de la Institut
d’Ethnologie din Paris), să ajute România să devină un prestigios centru
internațional în etnografia comparativă în special și de înaltă cultură în
general. Le explică destinatarilor săi români cum va lucra din greu să‐și
atingă aceste scopuri, că ar fi venit cu întreaga familie în țară, aducân‐
du‐și colecția sa voluminoasă de cărți; asigură că nu va încerca să‐i pună
în umbră pe cercetătorii locali, ci că va colabora cu ei. „Destinul meu e în
mâinile voastre și aștept fără inutilă nerăbdare”, îi scria lui Vulpescu pe 7
iunie 1927 (van Gennep 1996: 189). Din nefericire, anumite circumstanțe
istorice și administrative nu au permis ca destinul academic al lui van
Gennep să fie legat în mod pozitiv de cel al etnologiei românești.
În ciuda acestui eșec, intersecția științelor sociale românești cu
opera inovatoare a lui van Gennep nu s‐a încheiat aici. Noua Școală
Sociologică de la București a reînnodat legăturile importante ale cerce‐
tătorilor români cu mișcarea intelectuală pariziană. Ștefania Cristescu s‐a
numărat printre membrii promițători ai Școlii care s‐au specializat la
Paris la începutul anilor ʼ30 pentru a obține o diplomă de la Institut
d’Ethnologie, acolo unde a avut șansa de a întâlni cercetători importanți ca
Marcel Mauss și Paul Rivet. Între 1932 și 1934, perioada cât a studiat în
Paris, Cristescu a fost interesată de studiile folclorice dintr‐o perspectivă
sociologică, dar nu‐și găsește prea multe afinități cu mainstream‐ul etno‐
grafiei franceze, dominată în acel moment de studierea societăților
exotice. În jurnalul și corespondența sa redactate atunci, tânăra cercetă‐
toare observă lipsa de relevanță directă a rezultatelor studiului culturilor
primitive pentru interesele stringente ale cercetării sociale și etnologice
din România. A da prea multă importanță etnografierii primitivilor, așa
cum procedau durkheimienii, ar fi însemnat neglijarea realității dinamice
caracteristice vieții sociale românești (Golopenția 2016: 326‐327).
Nu știm dacă, având în vedere familiarizarea sa cu importanți
universitari francezi din domeniu, unii dintre aceștia fiind cei care‐l
îndepărtaseră tacit pe Arnold van Gennep din cercurile lor, Cristescu a
avut ocazia să‐l întâlnească și pe autorul Riturilor de trecere pe când se
afla la Paris. Dar știm că a fost în mod explicit de partea metodei acesteia
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RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
folclorul și tradițiile populare nu mai au o latură etnică sau politică, ci
presupun studiul obiceiurilor și credințelor tuturor popoarelor, primitive
și moderne, și al tuturor formelor de civilizație” (van Gennep 2001: 220).
Luăm în considerare și dilema pe care etnologii răsăriteni o au
astăzi, cea între a alege să te limitezi la etnologia autohtonă și la a
răspunde necesităților locale de cercetare, sau să îmbrățișezi metodo‐
logiile occidentale. Mult mai bine poziționate din punctul de vedere al
prestigiului lor, științele sociale occidentale nu ar putea fi ignorate de
etnologii est‐europeni. Dar de foarte devreme ele nici nu au fost, așa cum
arată numeroasele exemple ale aplicării schemei lui van Gennep în
cercetarea folclorică realizată de specialiștii români și străini în acest
volum, deși suntem conștiente și de faptul că mulți dintre colegii noștri
români și străini caracterizează opera lui van Gennep drept revolută.
Oferind o imagine adusă la zi a numeroșilor cercetători și discipline care
au fost și sunt încă inspirați de structura lui van Gennep, lucrarea Ioanei
Repciuc din această carte va încerca de asemenea să ofere o perspectivă
alternativă vocilor care sunt gata să elimine semnificațiile operei antropo‐
logului francez din științele socio‐umane contemporane.
Am invitat prin urmare autori reprezentând diferite limbaje etnice
și academice să sărbătorească împreună cu noi relevanța neîncheiată a
schemei van‐gennepiene în lumea academică actuală. Rezultatul este
deci un ansamblu de abordări diverse, fragmente din cercetări aflate în
curs. Cu excepția primei secțiuni a volumului, intitulată Rituri de trecere
peste timp, care analizează restrospectiv stadiul actual al moștenirii
van‐gennepiene, i‐am încurajat pe autorii noștri să ne ofere exemple din
activitatea lor, și nu să prezinte riturile de trecere drept subiect al intere‐
sului lor intelectul clar direcționat. Astfel, legătura lor cu van Gennep nu
a fost una forțată, ei nu au introdus intenționat conceptul riturilor de
trecere în lucrările lor ca urmare a propunerii noastre. Legătura lor cu
structura propusă de antropologul francez a fost o desfășurare naturală,
demonstrându‐i popularitatea în spațiul academic.
Autorii articolelor din volum au citit Les rites de passage în diferite
limbi, iar domeniile în care se integrează variază de la folclor la socio‐
logie, de la literatură la arheologie. Ei reprezintă tradiții academice din
Anglia, Bulgaria, Cipru, Danemarca, Israel, România și Ungaria. Consi‐
derăm că această diversitate corespunde proiectului implicit al lui van
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RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
Gennep de a cuprinde viața socială vastă în aceeași structură flexibilă și
semnificativă, cu scopul de a ne înțelege mai bine pe noi înșine prin
cunoașterea celorlalți. Ne exprimăm speranța că volumul de față contri‐
buie la misiunea marelui autor de de a surmonta prin deschiderea și
flexibilitatea schemei sale granițe naționale și alte feluri de limitări ine‐
rente. Van Gennep însuși a fost întruparea acestui deziderat prin capa‐
citatea sa lingvistică excepțională de a cunoaște toate limbile europene.
Volumul colectiv este structurat în trei secțiuni care intenționează
să ilumineze perspectiva teoretică a lui Arnold van Gennep din unghiuri
diferite. Prima secțiune, intitulată Rituri de trecere în timp, se oprește
asupra modului în care teoria lui van Gennep a modelat câmpul știin‐
țelor sociale, iar autorii reuniți aici abordează moștenirea științifică a
autorului dintr‐o perspectivă istorică și rezumativă. Secțiunea Rituri de
trecere în viață se concentrează asupra celei mai importante aplicații a
teoriei sale, susținută mai ales de etnologi, și anume riturile de trecere ca
evenimente din ciclul vieții. Ultima parte a volumului, Rituri de trecere
dincolo de scheme conceptuale, încearcă să dovedească abilitatea structurii
sale de a transgresa granițe disciplinare.
Cea mai convingătoare voce din acest volum este a lui Bjørn
Thomassen, un antropolog și sociolog danez ce a dedicat ani buni de
studiu teoriei lui van Gennep. Articolul Arnold van Gennep: fragmente ale
unei vieți trăite liminal este de fapt primul capitol al unei cărți publicate în
anul 2014 de către Thomassen. Titlui acesteia, Liminalitatea și modernul.
Viața trăită prin statutul de „între”, sugerează atât actualitatea schemei lui
van Gennep, cât și conceptul‐cheie care a rezistat în timp și a trecut testul
epistemologiei. Convingerea lui Thomassen că pragul, limen‐ul, consti‐
tuie unul dintre cele mai puternice și mai influente concepte antropolo‐
gice i‐au ghidat nueroasele sale investigații între care se numără lucrări
personale sau co‐editate. Lucrarea Depășirea Limitelor. Diverse forme ale
liminalității a fost publicată în anul 2015 și conține contribuții din dome‐
niul științelor politice, din sociologie, istorie veche și contemporană ce
folosesc perspectiva teoretică a lui Arnold van Gennep. Este evident deja
faptul că sistemul tripartit al riturilor asigură rezultate importante în
aproape orice disciplină din domeniul științelor sociale.
Metafora vieții „trăite liminal”, sau „în prag”, dacă ar fi să dăm o
traducere literală, definește de fapt destinul paradoxal al lui Arnold van
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Gennep, care nu numai că a fost privat de o binemeritată faimă și
recunoaștere academică, dar a și căzut victimă unor neînțelegeri.
Thomassen demonstrează că o astfel de eroare trebuie îndreptată prin
zugrăvirea unui context ilustrativ pentru conceptul de liminalitate: bătălia
lui van Gennep cu metoda de investigație durkheimiană, ansamblul ope‐
relor sale și concepția generală asupra domeniului de studiu antropo‐
logic, sistemul său general de gândire oferă informațiile necesare pentru
a conștientiza relevanța conceptuală a riturilor de trecere.
Bjørn Thomassen conturează cadrul amplu al liminalității prin
investigarea bibliografiei dedicate activității prolifice a lui van Gennep și
prin prezentarea evenimentelor existențiale ce i‐au marcat destinul.
„Iluminarea interioară”, revelația care a condus la scrierea cărții Riturile
de trecere, după cum a recunoscut van Gennep, a fost rezultatul unui efort
uriaș de a sintetiza date culturale extrem de numeroase și de a le găsi
tipare culturale comune, „biologice”. Așa cum arată Thomassen, sistemul
teoretic conceput de van Gennep se referă în principal la dinamica vieții
înseși și tocmai această caracteristică îi asigură aplicabilitatea eficientă.
Articolul Arnold van Gennep: fragmente ale unei vieți trăite liminal deschide
larg drumul către înțelegerea vieții și operei lui Arnold van Gennep și
datorită informațiilor inedite furnizate de către fiica antropologului
francez, Ketty van Gennep.
Ioana Repciuc prezintă de asemenea în textul său diverse lecturi ale
teoriei fundamentale van‐gennepiene în lumea academică internațională,
de la momentul publicării acesteia și până astăzi.
Cristina Gavriluță urmărește efectul timpului asupra ritualurilor în
sine și asupra conștientizării lor în mediul social. Articolul se constituie
din trei părți; demonstrația pornește de la lămurirea conceptuală a aspec‐
telor privitoare la rituri pentru a ajunge la variantele moderne ale practi‐
cilor ceremoniale, precum și la diversele forme de reinventare a riturilor.
Trecerea timpului peste riturile de trecere. O analiză socioantropologică ope‐
rează constant cu o dihotomie: implicațiile sociale și spirituale ale ritu‐
rilor. Fiind un mijloc de implicare în viața comunității, ritualul creează
legături între persoane și le oferă acestora o trăire mai profundă a vieții.
Autoarea pare să așeze omul modern în opoziție cu membrii
comunităților tradiționale, dar acest artificiu este menit să evidențieze
mai limpede tiparele lor comportamentale comune. Cristina Gavriluță
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RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
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CUVÂNT ÎNAINTE ȘI MULȚUMIRI
Nu doar coordonatele etnice așază cuplurile într‐un punct critic, ci
și confesiunile lor religioase. Marin Constantin discută o serie de infor‐
mații despre căsătoriile oficiate între ortodocși și catolici și modul în care
acestea sunt privite de către comunitățile din care fac parte cei doi însu‐
răței. Conceptul străinului care trebuie primit în comunitate se dovedește
util la nivelul demonstrației științifice. Famiile interetnice nu ajung să
devină subgrupuri ale comunității, ci fac obiectul unei integrări continue
în ambele grupuri din care provin, potrivit semnatarului acestui articol.
Încă o altă țară din Balcani este invocată în următorul studiu. Emil
Țîrcomnicu a condus o anchetă de teren în nord‐estul Serbiei și prezintă
documente etno‐culturale înregistrate în satul Osnić. Bogăția datelor
tradiționale din această parte a europei nu este întâmplătoare. Fiind niște
țări care au început procesul de urbanizare târziu, sub presiune adminis‐
trativă, toate națiunile care au făcut cândva parte din blocul sovietic
beneficiază de persistența civilizației rurale. Preoții ortodocși au arătat
clemență în fața practicilor precreștine și, în consecință, este lesne de
observat și astăzi dominanta rituală ori superstițioasă a manifestărilor ce
țin mai degrabă de un tip de gândire magică, decât urban‐pragmatică.
Emil Țîrcomnicu aduce dovezi înregistrate de la un subiect bine
informat, pe tema riturilor de trecere performate în satul Osnić. Această
așezare este interesantă în mod special datorită faptului că adăpostește
aromâni sosiți din sudul țării, români din Timocul bulgăresc și din
România, de asemenea. Transcrierea interviurilor este structurată în
conformitate cu schema lui van Gennep și pun în circulație informații
noi, relevante, dintr‐o zonă mai puțin accesibilă. Glosarul de la finele
articolului ajută cititorul să înțeleagă arhaismele, fonetismele și regiona‐
lismele, ceea ce înlesnește pătrunderea în universul local.
Toate cele trei rituri mari de trecere (naștere, nuntă, înmormântare)
sunt prezentate și în articolul semnat de Kalliopi Protopapa. Date etno‐
grafice din Cipru confirmă o dată în plus acuratețea schemei lui van
Gennep. Funcția principală a riturilor pare a fi protecția, din moment ce
neofiții sunt țintele preferate ale intențiilor rele. O multitudine conside‐
rabilă de superstiții, ritualuri și credințe populare prezentate de autoare
indică faptul că trecerea de la un statut ontologic la altul implică riscul
unor interferențe de natură supranaturală și malefică. Obiectele
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RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
apotropaice, gesturile îndătinate și darurile rituale fac parte din arsenalul
de apărare pe parcursul riturilor de trecere.
Eszter Csonka‐Takács investighează o comunitate mică de vorbitori
de limbă maghiară din Ghimeș‐Făget, Bacău. Articolul De la naștere la
botez urmărește sistemul de credințe ce are în centru nou‐născutul și
mama. Articolul alocă un statut important acestui rit de trecere pe care îl
așază într‐un context social amplu, ordonat de norme și prescripții.
Cea de‐a a treia secțiune a volumului este deschisă de un roman
cavaleresc medieval din secolul al XIV‐lea. Jon Mackely analizează textul
Sir Gawain și Cavalerul verde prin prisma sistemului tripartit al riturilor,
ceea ce face evident faptul că ne aflăm în etapa antrenată să elimine
încadrările formale ale schemei lui van Gennep. Investigația de față este
fructuoasă, pentru că textul vechi sugerează inițierea protagonistului,
nepot al Regelui Arthur.
Vârsta lui, provocarea de a ucide monstrul ce întrupează iarna în
perioada solstițială, încercările în sine, pustiul ca spațiu liminal sunt toate
mărci evidente ale procesului de tranziție către etapa vieții adulte. Toate
cele trei etape ale ritului de trecere sunt prezente și susținute la nivelul
demonstrației științifice, concluzia autorului adăugând și ideea de
inițiere în casta cavalerească.
Arnold van Gennep menționează riturile zidirii printre cele ale
trecerii și insistă asupra formelor materiale de mijlocire a pătrunderii,
grupându‐le într‐un capitol distinct. Studiul lui Brian Hoggard explo‐
rează această liminalitate concretă prin intermediul obiectelor apotro‐
paice îngropate sub parg. Pisici mumificate și cranii de cai au fost desco‐
perite pretutindeni în clădirile vechi din Marea Britanie, dar și în alte țări
europene. Acești Gardieni ai pragului sunt uneori zidiți în pereți, dar rolul
lor de a alunga răul este același. Autorul prezintă numeroase exemple de
asemenea sacrificii rituale, alături de sticle cu obiecte vrăjitorești, lame de
cuțit rupte etc. și le plasează într‐un context bibliografic relevant.
Câțiva subiecți înregistrați de Hoggard au declarat că pisicile
îngropate sunt sacrificii de construcție menite să dea viață clădirii ce se
ridică, pentru ca aceasta să nu curme existențele celor ce se mută în ea.
Explicația este identică celei susținute de Mircea Eliade cu dovezi cople‐
șitoare ca întindere geografică; mai mult decât atât, românii cred și în
prezent că sacrificiile animaliere pentru construcții au rolul de a evita
36
CUVÂNT ÎNAINTE ȘI MULȚUMIRI
morțile tragice ale locuitorilor. Un exemplu în plus de comportament
tradițional în arealul britanic este reticența constructorilor de a îndepărta
pisicile mumificate din casele pe care le renovează. În caz contrar, orice
eveniment ulterior nedorit este interpretat în cheie magică, drept
pedeapsă a unei încălcări grave a legii, întocmai cum am putut observa și
în România.
Harta trasată de lucrările din acest volum se extinde prin lucrarea
lui Hadas Hirsch despre Pelerinajul musulman la Mecca. După diversitatea
datelor etnografice din Balcani, Marea Britanie și țările nordice, riturile
de trecere sunt acum transpuse într‐un spațiu diferit la nivel cultural și
nu numai, dar rezultatele rămân aceleași. Fiind un test de natură spiri‐
tuală, pelerinajul impune o perioadă de detașare în raport cu existența
cotidiană, apoi aduce starea acută a schimbării propriu‐zise, pentru a
conduce în final la o reintegrare cu o stare de spirit superioară. Autorul
prezintă în detaliu condițiile de natură fizică pentru cei care doresc să
urmeze această călătorie interioară și exterioară. Ceremonialul presu‐
pune acoperirea capului într‐o manieră specifică și descoperirea feței, în
cazul femeilor, o anumită condiție a părului și a igienei generale, haine și
încălțăminte standardizate, toate fiind de fapt indicatori ai condiției de
neofit pe care o capătă un pelerin.
Valeria Fol analizează măști de aur descoperite în morminte
străvechi și le integrează temei inițiatice și a riturilor funebre. Cel plecat
dintre pământeni este de fapt neofitul și are nevoie de o îndrumare
atentă pentru a ajunge pe tărâmul de dincolo. Măștile de aur aparțin
culturii miceniene și nu au putut fi pe deplin descifrate de către specia‐
liști până în prezent. Valeria Fol le apropie de ritualurile misterelor orfice
și de credințele locale din acea perioadă, atestate în regiunea meditera‐
neană. Prin urmare, măștile de aur sunt privite ca o „recuzită” rituală
menite să călătorească între lumi în cursul celui din urmă rit de trecere
din existența umană.
Toate aceste investigații convingătoare vin parcă să confirme
cuvintele lui Nicolae Constantinescu, la două decenii după ce a semnat
prefața la prima traducere a Riturilor de trecere în limba română: „Ceea ce
rămâne ca un bun definitiv câștigat în teoria etnologică modernă este
însuși conceptul de «rituri de trecere» care, chiar supus «revizuirilor»,
«redefinirilor», «regândirilor» pe care disciplinele antropologice le
37
RITURILE DE TRECERE ÎN ACTUALITATE / THE RITES OF PASSAGE TIME AFTER TIME
Bibliografie
Cristescu 1983: Ștefania Cristescu, recenzie la Paul Saintyves, Manuel de folklore,
Paris, Librairie E. Nourry, 1936, în „Sociologie românească”, an 3, nr.
10‐12, oct.‐dec.: 579‐584.
Geană 1995: Gheorghiță Geană, Proiectele românești ale lui Arnold Van Gennep, în
„Studii și comunicări de etnologie”, Sibiu, vol. IX: 111‐122.
38
CUVÂNT ÎNAINTE ȘI MULȚUMIRI
Golopenția 2016: Sanda Golopenția, Romanian Sociologists in Paris in the 1930s, în
Sanda Golopenția, Arhipelagul gustian. Contribuții la istoria Școlii Sociologice
de la București, București, Editura Enciclopedică: 306‐338.
Thomassen 2016: Bjørn Thomassen, The Hidden Battle that Shapped the History of
Sociology: Arnold van Gennep contra Émile Durkheim, în „Journal of Classical
Sociology”, 16(2): 173‐195.
Van Gennep 1996: Arnold van Gennep, Riturile de trecere, traducere în limba
română de Lucia Berdan și Nora Vasilescu, prefață de Nicolae
Constantinescu, postfață de Lucia Berdan, Iași, Polirom.
Van Gennep 2001: Arnold van Gennep, Manuel de folklore français contemporain.
Cérémonies périodiques cycliques, Paris, Picard.
Vulpesco 1927: Michel Vulpesco, Les coutumes roumaines périodiques. Etudes
descriptives et comparées précédés d’une Préface par Arnold van Gennep
et suivies d’une Bibliographie générale de Folklore roumain, Paris, Librairie
Émile Larose.
39
RITES OF PASSAGE IN THE FOLKLORE ARCHIVE
OF MOLDOVA AND BUCOVINA
Adina Hulubaș
Arnold van Gennep’s theory on the tripartite structure of human
manifestations was available only in French language to Romanian
specialists until twenty years ago. Nevertheless, its influence can be
traced back through many decades, since folklorists had been familiar
with Les Rites de Passage long before its translation.
The fact that Simeon Florea Marian, a folklorist and a member of
the Romanian Academy from the end of the 19th century, published his
work on so‐called ‘family customs’ according to the same structural
principles, almost twenty years before van Gennep’s book, had a decisive
effect both on research methods and on argumentative constructions
used by Romanian ethnologists and anthropologists. Marian envisioned
the same chronology of socio‐cultural evolution and presented
traditional acts and beliefs associated with three sequences universally
known today as preliminary, liminary and postliminary stages: the
separation from the previous social state, the transition and the
reincorporation as a superior being. The book on wedding customs was
even divided in three sections that can easily be supplanted with van
Gennep’s terms: Before the Wedding, The Wedding or The Feast and After the
Wedding (Marian 1995 [1890]).
The two great minds thinking alike were governed by the common
conviction that traditional culture sits at the core of analysis, as a source
of structural resistance. While as Marian used the internal order of rites
inside an ensemble of standardized manifestations to organize his books
on childbirth, wedding and funeral customs, Arnold van Gennep
founded a theoretical system to encompass life changes through three
developmental stages and just as many subordinate categories. He
“inferred these units from the structure of ceremonies themselves”
(Thomassen 2013: 197). This was a consequence of the scientific
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ADINA HULUBAȘ
perspective he had on the field, which proves itself to be contemporary
once again: “the modern folklorist, declared van Gennep, was interested
in the living fact, directly observed: ‘C’est, si l’on veut, de la biologie
sociologique, comme… l’ethnographie’. It is the use of objects by living
beings, customs actually executed sous nos yeux; it is the search for the
complex context, especially psychological, of these customs that occupies
the folklorist” (apud Senn 1974: 237).
The most recent efforts undertaken by UNESCO for the
safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage through the regulations of a
Convention issued in 2003 stress the importance of a “living heritage”,
characterized by organic evolution. Local cultural elements are to receive
recognition and gain prestige without any attempt of “freezing” their
development1. A century before this world wide actions, van Gennep
assessed the socio‐cultural importance of the community and followed
its dynamics, both on material and immaterial grounds, to reveal the
meaning beyond rituals. “Van Gennep was searching for a new science
that could allow us to return to life. Van Gennep’s own approach was
extremely methodical and down to earth, and yet, based on his intuitive
skills, it was always linked to a larger picture, in full awareness of the
complexity and ‘relatedness’ of the discussed material” (Thomassen
2016: 189).
Although there have been immediate positive reactions after the
publishing of Les Rites de Passage (see Starr 1910), the book has been
highly disregarded till Victor Turner’s acknowledged it in his work
(1967, 1969). Van Gennep was even criticized by Mauss for a forceful
analysis that artificially imposed a law to societal manifestations (apud
Thomassen 2016: 183). But more than a century passed to prove the
viability of the theory, and also its universal applicability. This
convincing vision on social reactions to life events was built on the
capacity to synthesize an enormous amount of cultural data, thus gaining
access to patterns from the collective unconsciousness (Jung).
Various social sciences are now making use of the rites of passage
theory with successful results. This lead Bjørn Thomassen to the
conclusion that today we are witnessing a revival of the “liminality”
1 http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/faq‐00021
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RITES OF PASSAGE IN THE FOLKLORE ARCHIVE OF MOLDAVIA AND BUCOVINA
concept (2014: 3). The individual gradually accesses a social network that
needs to accept him even in modern, highly industrialized communities;
hence passage rites can be traced in all human forms of organization.
While this aspect was used by some authors to diagnose “invented
traditions” (Hobsbawn and Ranger 2000), others saw it as a powerful
human aspiration to belonging (Weil 2003). The few following examples
of social sciences application of the tripartite form will offer a suggestion
of the broad theoretic coverage permitted by van Gennep’s contribution.
The rites of passage became a model for outdoor education in
Northern America, where adventure trips are set up to transform
adolescents into responsible adults. The pattern of tribal challenges for
neophytes is used as a scenario for pedagogical purposes. “Coming‐of‐age
rites are group activities designed to build character, foster productive
adult behavior, and forge friendships and alliances among initiates who
undergo the rites together” (Bell 2003: 42). Other approaches to
“revolutionize” education are suggested by Victor Turner’s pedagogic
uses of liminality, as a theatrical tool to convey better knowledge (Bigger
2015)2.
Immigration studies are also enriched with such a perspective, as it
is the case of Irish‐born children from African Mothers (Shandy 2008).
Van Gennep’s theory adds an in‐depth analysis of social phenomenon,
which cannot be fully acknowledged through statistics and economic
data. Healthcare organizations made a ritual of incorporation out of meal
breaks with the intention to boost patients’ moral powers (Thomson and
Hassenkamp, 2008), while nursing students are expected to be better
understood by their professors thanks to the rites of passage concept
(Watts 2013: 313). The investigation of any human activity can virtually
benefit from van Gennep’s theory, the last example in this respect being
cross disciplinary research on austerity (O’Loughlin, Szmigin et alii 2016).
On the other hand, cultural anthropologists extended the tripartite
system into an all‐inclusive argumentation of community events, even
for traditional societies where the need to create new traditions in order
to connect individuals is not as severe as we may notice in industrialized
countries. Graduation parties (Coatu 2008: 104) or tracking down the
2 https://eprints.worc.ac.uk/834/
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ADINA HULUBAȘ
way to the residential garbage containers (Panea 2008: 83) were
discussed in terms of ritual becoming. Such extensive adhibitions speak
more of the attractiveness of the theory and less about its relevance for
the object of the research.
In the preface to the Romanian translation of van Gennep’s book
from 1909, Nicolae Constantinescu considers that modern ethnology
gained once and for all a withstanding concept (van Gennep 1996: 9).
Twenty years later, Bjørn Thomassen agrees to this perspective, but he
prefers to invoke the heart of the tripartite system, as a synecdoche of the
theory: ”Ceremony confirms, but ritual transforms, as Turner liked to
say. And this transformative potential is found in the key concept that
van Gennep gifted to the social sciences, namely ‘liminality’ ” (2016: 188).
The following parts of the article will discuss the method and the
results of research performed for almost half a century in The Folklore
Archive of Moldova and Bucovina, from Iași. Arnold van Gennep can be
found on and between the lines, starting from the questionnaire used to
collect cultural data and continuing with the structure of published
books and interpretations given to folk knowledge and ceremonies.
Wedding, childbirth customs and funeral rites have been analyzed over
the past decades by folklorists from the Romanian Academy, Iași
Subsidiary as the most frequently found rites of passage. This synthetic
presentation of their work will add to the debate on the topicality of the
tripartite schema for human life changes.
The wedding – ”rites of permanent incorporation”
The seventh chapter of The Rites of Passage deals with betrothal and
marriage and considers this existential shift to be “more complicated”
(van Gennep 2004: 117) than the previous discussed ones (pregnancy,
childbirth, childhood and initiation), as a result of the long succession of
separation and preliminary incorporation rites, followed by threshold
ceremonies and again by aggregation to the new social state. Perhaps this
motivated the Romanian folklorist Simeon Florea Marian to publish
wedding customs as a first volume from his “trilogy of life” in 1890. Even
though it was as early as the end of the 19th century and the episte‐
mological grounds of cultural anthropology were far from being set,
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RITES OF PASSAGE IN THE FOLKLORE ARCHIVE OF MOLDAVIA AND BUCOVINA
Marian used the ceremonial sequences in their organic range to establish
a monographic presentation of this rite in Romania.
Eighty years later The Folklore Archive of Moldova and Bucovina
was founded in Iași by Professor Ion H. Ciubotaru. In order to collect
representative data from eight Romanian districts, he needed a proper
fieldwork tool that would guide interviews and help subjects reminisce
traditional information. Hence he wrote a questionnaire of 1175 inquiries.
Its nine chapters focus on all traditional aspects of life: superstitions, folk
medicine, the rites of passage, holidays and magic beliefs, literary folklore,
child lore, traditional clothing, folk architecture and occupations. Simeon
Florea Marian’s books were part of the bibliographical support for the
investigations and they also suggested what exactly should be asked
while in villages. Even more so, van Gennep’s ritual triad structured the
gradation of questions. Separation rites were the first to be brought to the
informant’s mind, then the limen, and the talk would naturally end up
mentioning ceremonial ways of reintegration to the community. 2000
exemplars of the questionnaire were mailed to villages and help from
priests, teachers and librarians was asked in order to have all the
questions answered as accurately as possible.
Almost 700 responses came back in the following year, so Ion H.
Ciubotaru was able to create a relevant image of the traditional culture
from the North‐Eastern part of Romania. Direct fieldwork followed in a
network of 800 villages, using the same General Folkloric and Ethnographic
Questionnaire as the main tool of investigation. The Folklore Archive of
Moldova and Bucovina gathers now more than 300,000 documents
consisting in audio, video and written fieldwork information. The rites of
passage were among the first to be analyzed and presented typologically,
given their importance in social life everywhere.
The questionnaire contains 85 queries on wedding customs that
trace the sinuous road to the spouse hypostasis. As van Gennep noted,
standardized gestures become “rites of permanent incorporation” (2004:
117), in a sequential ceremony. Wooing, betrothal and the wedding
gradually take the young to adults’ class, with full social right in the
community. Silvia Ciubotaru, as one of the folklorists that collected data
on fieldwork, investigated the archived wedding customs in two books
published in 2000 and 2009.
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ADINA HULUBAȘ
The first, entitled The Wedding in Moldova3 was defended as a PhD
thesis and includes a texts corpus of ritual songs and shouts. Chapter
one, dedicated to the nuptial structure, begins with a van Gennepian
subtitle: Preliminary, luminary and postliminary rites (2000: 35). The
folklorist identifies the threshold rite (the undressing of the bridal veil
and the binding of the wife’s headscarf) and then she uses the image of
concentric circles rippling around the individual that suffered a dramatic
social change. The echo of this metaphor obviously comes from van
Gennep’s “‘magic circles’ pivot shifting as a person moves from one
place in society to another” (2004: 13). Also, the idea of diminishing the
trauma associated with social changes by ceremonial strategies appears
on Silvia Ciubotaru’s pages.
Preliminary rites are discussed in terms of contagious magic or
magic imitation, divinations and rituals that provoke match‐making by
means of charms, and also in terms of specific social contexts. Ritual
prescriptions for maidens and lads bear resemblance with community
laws from tribes around the world: age decides strict social classes, girls
are considered nubile when they turn 14, while as boys are allowed to
court them after the age of 17, specific dressing elements mark their
availability for marriage and activities associated with the future family
life are requested from them (girls learn to sow, weave and tailor, boys
have to build houses etc.). The first dance in the community (hora)
follows a specific scenario that reveals the role of a master initiator
(vătaful) which implies the state of a neophyte for the young. Ritual gifts
publically announce marital intentions from each of the couple and
betrothal follows after a wooing performed by skillful protagonists.
This exciting anticipation of marital union is viewed as a time for
waiting and subsequent coming of age, in the second book on wedding
customs signed by Silvia Ciubotaru, while wedding customs are
considered to have “the longest preliminary phase, with the most
durable effects from all rites of passage” (2009: 66). This observation is
sustained with the early teachings of children through games that mimic
3 The article reffers constantly to the Romanian Moldavia. Nevertheless, the space now
divided between this country and The Republic of Moldova has a common historical
and cultural past.
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weddings and mock laziness in preparing the trousseau. This archaic
pedagogy is naturally continued with teenagers’ dances when choosing a
certain partner is publically acknowledged as marriage proposal.
The Wedding in Moldova makes periodical use of terms that let van
Gennep’s schema be seen underneath the ethnological demonstration.
The groom that has to win his wife from her fellow villagers, if she comes
from a different rural settlement that his native place, is categorized as a
“separation rite” (Ciubotaru 2000: 50), the wedding attendants passing
under a hypostasis of the Roman velatio nuptialis (nuptial arch) suggest
an incorporation moment (Ciubotaru 2000: 53) and postliminary rites,
such as the first visit to the bride’s parents after the wedding or the
service in church for the newly‐weds, two weeks after their union, are
presented as an “integration to the ordinary everyday life and to the new
social status” (Ciubotaru 2000: 58). Nevertheless, van Gennep is not
mentioned directly, a fact that proves that his “theory was virtually
absorbed by the ethnologic thinking”, as Nicolae Constantinescu
observed in the preface to the Romanian translation of Les Rites de Passage
(1996: 5). The impact of his tripartite system was so profound that
concepts were assimilated as basic investigation elements.
The second book published by Silvia Ciubotaru was the first result
of a scientific project founded by The Romanian Academy. Its main
objective was to create a typology of the rites of passage (wedding,
childbirth customs, funerals) and to investigate them in a unitary manner
more than a century after Simeon Florea Marian’s work. This time, van
Gennep’s influence was not only explicit but also decisive for the
structure of rites classes.
Wedding Customs from Moldova. Typology and Texts Corpus opens
with a scientific analysis of several ritual aspects that receive an exhaus‐
tive investigation. One subtitle is The Tripartite Rhythm and the Strategies of
Passing. Any of the conclusions drawn under it proves itself useful for
the understanding of all rites of passage since “the ternary structure is
acknowledged as the foundation of Indo‐European societal order”
(Ciubotaru, 2009: 69). Hence, van Gennep’s theory is placed in relation‐
ship with the historic becoming of mankind, indicating an archetypal
function of the triad.
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ADINA HULUBAȘ
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RITES OF PASSAGE IN THE FOLKLORE ARCHIVE OF MOLDAVIA AND BUCOVINA
Childbirth customs – “a great many rites”
The second book to discuss and publish data from The Folklore Archive
of Moldova and Bucovina on the rites of passage theme was released in
2012. Childbirth Customs from Moldova. Typology and Texts Corpus draws
itself from van Gennep’s structure right from the start by referring to the
context of childbirth rites with the expression of a “concentric universe of
beliefs” (Hulubaș: 20). Since the individual experiencing the social
change is considered an energetic nucleus for the community, the “magic
circles” (van Gennep 2004: 13) are produced around him, gradually
circumscribing the entire community, and this phenomenon is mostly
visible with the woman who begins a 40 days long confinement, after her
labour.
Fieldwork that provided ethnographic information for this rite of
passage was conducted between 1969 and 2011 by numerous researchers,
including the author. The main investigation tool was the section for
childbirth customs from The General Folkloric and Ethnographic Questionnaire
containing 87 inquiries on the matter. Hence, the book is similar with the
previous one that analyzed wedding customs, as a result of the method
used to obtain cultural data and also of the tripartite structure of the
typology.
The classification of rites starts with the preliminary phase, where
the author includes actions that magically assure fertility, conceiving,
and pregnancy. The dominant intention is to protect the woman and her
unborn child of misfortunate effects and to ease pain when labour starts.
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ADINA HULUBAȘ
A large body of field evidence hence arguments van Gennep’s opinion
on this existential passage (2004: 41). Sympathetic and contagious magic
threats suggest a high receptivity of the foetus to anything that comes in
contact with his mother. Violent or deformed people, animals, altered
food, objects may create a replica in the new‐born, and therefore the
pregnant woman tries to manipulate influences by concentrating on
beautiful sights and positive contacts. Her constant avoidance of
anything that can prejudice the future induces a separation from the
community, an obvious characteristic of preliminary rites.
The limen begins with the figure of the midwife whose impressive
influence in traditional world was further discussed by the author in a
book on urbanites’ childbirth beliefs (Hulubaș 2014). Therapeutic and
magical techniques that ease the labour, the first bath given to the new
born, the ritual meal for the goddesses of destiny (Rom. Ursitoarele),
visitors and their offerings for mother and her child, magical protection
for the two of them are presented extensively. The typology is not an
inventory of acts and convictions, but rather an accessible thematic
dictionary that follows van Gennep’s schema into folk life details.
Whenever expressive explanations are provided by rural informants they
become the main part of the article, in the same manner as in the
typology of wedding customs. Hence, the perspective belongs more to an
insider of the rite and the reader gains creditable knowledge. However,
the authorial voice guides the demonstration and draws attention to
eventual false interpretations of facts, usually caused by the influence of
Christian dogma.
Baptism marks the beginning of postliminary rites according to the
typology of childbirth customs from Moldova. The image of the Godparents
and their ritual gestures performed during and after Christianization are
believed to decide the future of the infant and almost 40 pages of
geographical and thematic references explain why. This traditional
institution of becoming related through baptism (încumetrire) is active
today both in Romanian villages and towns. Since children grow up to
resemble their Godparents according to folk beliefs, only lucrative,
smart, good‐hearted person will be asked to baptize a child.
Nevertheless, when the child falls sick after baptism, stops growing up
or he cries a lot, parents believe that the Godmother “had a bad hand”
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RITES OF PASSAGE IN THE FOLKLORE ARCHIVE OF MOLDAVIA AND BUCOVINA
(Hulubaș 2012: 240) and a folk version of the baptism is recreated to
reverse the unwanted consequences. Even birth is magically repeated in
these circumstances, as the typology notes. Children are being symbolically
sold through a window (the house thus becomes the metaphor of the
womb), passed through the dress worn by his mother during her
delivery or through holes in the ground, thorny bushes etc.
This material image of the birth canal makes the idea of a passage
more vivid. Thomassen’s etymological perspective on the words
experience and passage reveal an even deeper input of van Gennep’s
concept. The first literally means “to go through something” (2014: 5),
while the latter comes from the Latin word patio and it can be translated
“to suffer, to undergo” (Thomassen 2014: 13). Van Gennep dedicated the
second chapter of his book to “territorial passage” and thus he connected
tangible and intangible elements of folk knowledge.
Childbirth customs abound in superstitions related to threshold, as
it happens in other parts of the world too (see Van Hollen 2003, Franklin
2005, Haney 1999). Romanian wives know that sitting in the doorway
during pregnancy causes a long and painful labour since the foetus will
replicate his mother’s static attitude. Moreover, he could be born with
cleft lip if somebody hits the doorstep with a hatchet after his mother’s
sitting on the threshold (Hulubaș 2012: 87). The negative connotation
from the preliminary phase of childbirth rites changes during transition
per se. The midwife used to advice the women in labour to kick the
doorstep asking for help in a quick delivery. The baby’s placenta and
dried navel were placed in holes from the threshold as a reverent
acknowledging of the residing deities. When infants bore birth marks,
their mother could reverse the effect by combing their hair on the
threshold during Sunday church services.
Numerous fieldwork data on this material passage can be found in
Childbirth Customs from Moldova, both as a subject of scientific analysis,
where comparisons broaden the geographical horizon of magic human
perception, and as an entry for the typology. Other ritual landmarks
include the hearth or the fence. Their impact on this rite of passage is
ambivalent and the community always educates future mothers on their
magic powers.
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ADINA HULUBAȘ
Van Gennep’s theory on the rites of passage proved useful once
more in the attempt to structure and explain such an elusive segment of
the family life. Informants would not share information easily with
outsiders and an improper method of investigation might mislead
conclusions. The book managed to throw light on childbirth rites and
they indeed appear impregnated with “sympathetic or contagious, direct
or indirect, dynamistic or animistic” magic, as van Gennep noted (2004:
41). The same topicality was found while comparing Simeon Florea
Marian’s book on childbirth customs published in 1892 with present
practices.
This persistency of the ritual schema from small ceremonial
gestures to folk significance indicates stability both ways. On the one
hand van Gennep’s tripartite system stood the test of time and all its
changes: social, economical and political. A rite such as the sleeves of the
midwive (“mânecile moaşei”), encountered at Moldavians, Ukrainians,
Bulgarians and Russians, shows exactly how postliminary actions are
perceived today. The women that were attended at birth by traditional
midwives had to make a ritual gift eight days after their labour. Since the
physiological process implied an impure contamination, they offered
two meters of house‐woven cloth to the midwives, to replace their
stained sleeves. They poured water on their hands and gave them soap,
too, in order to restore the initial condition.
Although women were banned to give birth at home with
untrained attendants 70 years ago in Romania, this custom remains
active to this day, being performed on daily basis in hospitals and clinics.
The social impact is still important and infringements are immediately
expected to cause misfortunate events, as our informants declared. The
changes imposed on people did not corrupt the traditional practice to a
significant level, and today the midwife became a mandatory ceremonial
presence that performs gestures from the traditional birth attendant
repertoire (Hulubaş 2011).
On the other hand, the slow evolution of rituals throughout the
centuries certifies an important cultural phenomenon that manages to
put pressure on modern people too, as presented in the book on
childbirth beliefs performed in towns from Moldova (Hulubaș 2014). The
Folklore Archive of Moldova and Bucovina holds documents that link
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the present day to past centuries, this fact being mostly obvious through
rites of passage which are capable of giving a feeling of accomplishment
to the individual and his community, and also of hope or comfort in
times of sorrow.
Funeral rites “to incorporate the deceased into the world of the dead”
The last book to make use of the tremendous data on passage rites from
the archive was signed by Ion H. Ciubotaru in 2014. However, Funeral
Rites from Moldova in a National Context was not the first one published by
the author on this theme, but it classified rites associated with death in
premiere. In 1986, the founder of The Folklore Archive from Iași wrote
The Folklore of Rituals Associated with Family Life (The Great Passage) as the
seventh volume from a series of books that published the gathered
ethnographic data. 13 years later, Ion H. Ciubotaru uses again the
metaphor of a passage for the title of a book on funeral rites, this time
with an explanatory follow‐up: Ethnologic Landmarks of the Funerary
Ceremonial in Moldova. His scientific interest in this rite of passage spaned
over three decades and results were consequently important.
Funeral Rites from Moldova in a National Context (2014) categorizes
the information collected with the help of the questionnaire, as previous
books on rites of passage from Moldova did. Death customs are pursued
along 102 questions from this investigation tool. Even though they are
manier than the queries on wedding and childbirth rituals, the researcher
holding a questionnaire on fieldwork never restrains himself to asking
printed questions only. Interviews tend to become semi‐directive and it
is the subjects who mostly construct the discussion. Supplementary
inquiries appear spontaneously and the interviewer discretely helps the
subject “give birth” to traditional information.
This method provided the necessary data for typologies that
decoded rituals in the subjects’ own words. All three rites of passage
reveal themselves in a unitary image, although they were researched by
three different authors. In these books, each section of a rite and all
subsequent convictions are presented in their ceremonial context and
order, with specific indication of the villages where the information was
found. The typology is preceded by a scientific study that decodes ritual
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customs and in the literary corpus, while the anthropological studies
convey them all. An enormous international bibliography supports
Ciubotaru’s contributions. For example, the road between worlds, the path to
the right, following the sun and the waters and the one way route are
archetypes analyzed in the first part of the book, but meanings receive
more consistency in ethnographic data on how the dead is prepared for
burial and taken to the cemetery. The same patterns appear in the
literary texts from the anthology and the author even created a motif
index of funerary symbols from lamentations to help the reader identify
them quicker. The poetic dimension of death representations adds a
sublimated dimension to a deep and complex experience of life.
Such is the case of texts that mourn the passing of an unmarried
young person. Although there is a long tradition of aesthetic
interpretations made to a Romanian ballad where death is portrayed as
an empress (crăiasă) that becomes the bride for the entire world, Ion H.
Ciubotaru uses ethnographic documents and international information
to prove that the metaphor is speaking about actual practices performed
centuries ago by Greeks, Eastern Slavs, Bantu Africans and Tatars: a
bride was offered to the dead in order to assure his peace. The conclusion
that “funerary poetry doubles the rite” (2014: 65) convinces the reader
that folklore should be perceived in a more specific manner, with
instruments that make use of mankind’s history.
Unexpected information is also offered on the subject of alms given
by the living for themselves, on the mourning chromatic choices,
funerary bestiary or foretelling and preparing the decease. Controversies
are discussed and clarified with powerful arguments that balance almost
all existing information on funerary rituals. This impressive scholar
demonstration, backed up by ethnographic facts that suggest a serene
attitude towards passing away manages to “tame death” in a different
mode. The reader gradually understands that the solitude of dying has
received an essential antidote: culture. Ion H. Ciubotaru’s book is filled
with mythical characters and magic gestures that intend to secure the
great ontological transition. If death cannot be defeated, at least it can be
explained without terror.
It is hard to say how the typologies of death, wedding and childbirth
practices in Moldova would have looked without van Gennep’s schema.
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The tripartite system was so deeply embedded in the work of researchers
from The Folklore Archive of Moldova and Bucovina that it became the
starting point of all their scientific papers albeit decades passed and
ethnological demonstrations improved their methods and perspective.
Elements of cultural anthropology, sociology, mythology, the history of
religions, archaeology and fine arts were also encompassed in the
process of analyzing archived data, but none of the present methods or
concepts from social sciences managed to become as efficient as the
tripartite structure of rites thanks to its simplicity and accuracy.
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