Naslov
Rituals of Passage in the Landscape: Death Resting Sites, Village Boundaries, Stone Babas

Autori
Hrobat Virloget, Katja ; Katić, Mario

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
Movements, Narratives and Landscapes

Mjesto i datum
Zadar, Hrvatska, 05.06.2015. - 07.06.2015

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Nije recenziran

Ključne riječi
Death Resting Sites; Boundaries; Stone Babas

Sažetak
The boundary has been thought to present the principal category of human thought by which man understands and organizes space. According to van Gennep’s theory a part of the traditional concept of boundaries are the rituals of passage. They regulate the passages between different social positions in human life, different time limits, and also territories. The paper will present some of the liminal places in the landscape which are connected to some transitive rituals when moving through them. The folklore and ritual activities delineate village boundaries as borders between the world of the living and the dead. They were often marked by ritual activities (from the establishment on) and in the past also by boundary deities. The juncture between the funeral routes and village borders were marked by ritual places named Mrtva počivala / dead resting siteswhich can be compared to similar ritual places as Mirila in the western Balkans and Cross-tree and Karsikko tradition in the Baltic region. A kind of initiation rites upon first entrance to a specific area can be recognised in the grotesque children’s folklore about the Babas (Hags). The parents were instilling fear in their children, namely, that they would have to kiss the stone, snooty Baba by passing for the first time by. It was used as a powerful element of social control of children’s movements in the landscape. Some rituals around Babas can be interpreted as territorial rites de passage, linked to a specific point in the landscape or to entering the territories of the “other”. But at the same time, they are linked also to rituals of passage between different social positions in man’s life: it was only when a child grew up that he was allowed to pass for the first time by the Baba out of his home place.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Etnologija i antropologija

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