Căutare Avansată

Caută în Domenii

Căutare Detaliată

Gestica legată de facerea pâinii

  • Subiect: Bread is the basic, traditional food staple in most cultures. Besides this fact, bread is considered to be man's essential spiritual food. For this reason, all gestures - understood as attitudes - used in its preparation, storing and use have a sacred meaning. The study presents part of the gestures and customs in Romanian traditional society for making "the daily bread". The woman is the one who is involved in bread-making activities, and her work is guided by various popular beliefs, such as: "one cannot make bread on Easter day for fear of bringing locusts", "a woman shouldn't place a sieve on her head because she will get boils or her hair will fall off". Sieving the flour is considered a magical act that brings prosperity and fertility if done under proper conditions. The objects used in bread making are prepared the day before and made from consecrated material. Water, yeast and flour have to be treated according to fixed customs and they are reminders of biblical teachings. The oven is a symbol of the mother's womb, and therefore it is common to "sacrifice" to it or give it a gift of wood or straw. If a child in the family is sick, folk medicine says a shovel must be placed inside the oven. Cutting the bread, however, is a masculine endeavour. Bread leftovers are to be treated respectfully. Should bread he dropped by mistake, it should never be removed because it was "claimed" by the souls of the dead. In modern society, the spiritual significance of bread has been mostly lost, but it remains strong in the rural areas where forgetting ancient rites is tantamount to losing one's identity.
  • Limba de redactare: română, engleză
  • Secţiunea: Etnoreligie
  • Vezi publicația: Tibiscum
  • Editura: Muzeul Judeţean de Etnografie şi al Regimentului de Graniţă Caransebeş
  • Loc publicare: Caransebeş
  • Anul publicaţiei: 2003
  • Referinţă bibliografică pentru nr. revistă: XI; anul 2003; subtitlu: Studii şi Comunicări de Etnografie-Istorie; seria Etnografie-Istorie
  • Paginaţia: 103-108
  • Navigare în nr. revistă:  |<  <  12 / 40   >  >|