Agrarian Rituals in the old Romanian village

Maria PRISACARIU and Iuliana Mioara DINU MIEADR GROUP 81051 University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest, Romania59 Mărăști Blvd, District 1, 011464, Bucharest, Romania

Keywords: rural regions, folklore, touristic attractions, local culture, unique traits

INTRODUCTION The Romanian Civilization is an authentic rural civilization. Romanian village is the matrix of nation birth, the warehouse of our values and the creator of the Romanian Culture. The world of Romanian Village is a mythical, spiritual world with a lot of ancestral customs, traditions and rituals. But, knowing that agriculture is the essence of the Romanian village, we understand why a lot of these traditions are about agriculture.

 

CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Coordinating teacher: Mihai Daniel Frumușelu

(bibliography) REFERENCES

Here are some of the most wide spread agrarian traditions:

 Drăgaica is a traditional holiday which is celebrated yearly from 12 to 24th of June, with agrarian rituals that send to the Ceres fecundity goddess.It's a celebration dedicated to the start of the harvesting, a moment of joy and celebration for the grains’ riches. The Dragaicas or Sanziene

(Midsummer) are a kind of vestals reminding the rituals of agrarian protection and fecundity of Ceres goddess. Girls wearing traditional Romanian suits, their heads covered with Dragaica flower tiaras, girdled with belt of the same flowers round their waists, march cheerful and playful to the field with the richest crops. From there, holding ears of wheat in their hands, they return to the village where the real festivity began. 

The Sânziene (Midsummer) holiday of June 24 on the very day of celebrating Saint John The Baptist’s Birth, the man who had the mission to announce to the world Messiah’s coming, is connected to the cult of harvest, vegetation and fecundity. On Dragaica or Sanziene day, starts the harvesting of the plants which end their biological cycle: sanziana or drăgaica, chicory, sweet clover, 'Saint John's' grass, rye and wheat.

STUDENTS’ SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUMUSAMV MIEADR 2015

The Paparuda („Rain Caller”) is an old ritual celebrated by the peasants in Spring on a date that varies from place to place. This tradition survived to the present day in a lot of Romanian villages.Paparuda, this old magical dance invoking the rain is performed by children and young people who knit coronets and then dance, going from house to house.The hostess throws water and milk after them and give them a coin or wheat, corn, flour or bean.„Separating the barren sheep”, also called „Gathering the sheep) is an old tradition, spread in all the villages of Maramureş. At the beginning of May, the sheep are grouped into herds and then sent to sheepholds in the mountains during the summer. There, the milking sheep are separated from the non- milking ones. Then, the milk is measured in order to establish the quantity of dairy products to be given to every sheep owner. That’s why the tradition is sometimes called „Milking of the Measure” or „Measuring of the Milk”.

„Udătoriul” is an old agrarian ritual, which celebrate the most hardworking man of the village. The selection is strict: he, together with other hardworking peasants, is observed for a long time by a jury of old men before being elected.

The countryside is the heart and soul of Romania where the villager created an unique and different culture. That s why a famous Romanian writer and philosopher, Lucian Blaga said that „Eternity was born in the village”

http://www.romanianmonasteries.org/http://romaniatourism.com/http://www.uncover-romania.com/http://www.agriculturaromaneasca.ro/