Some “colindatori” wear masks and costumes that represent demons and animals important to these rural societies.
The fusion of Christian traditions and pagan references mark the celebration of Christmas in some rural areas of Romania, in which the so-called “Colinde”, musical compositions of medieval origin which also serve to bring society together.
“On December 24, after dark, they go house to house to sing, sit at the table, eat, drink and join the hosts until they have visited all the houses in the town”, Folklore specialist Laura Jiga Iliescu tells EFE.
A powerful symbology
In those rounds to bless the neighbors, some “Colindatori” wear masks and clothing that represent demons and important animals for these rural societies, like the goat or the bear.
Demons have an ambiguous role. On the one hand they embody evil, but the noise of the bells and metal beads that they shake when dancing also serve to scare away evil spirits, according to popular belief.
Social cohesion
In the Jiu Valley area, in western Romania, young single people from the villages go out on the road carrying long canes adorned with multicolored ribbons with which they congratulate the holidays to all the farmhouses of the term.
“The whole community participates; going through all the villages scattered around the mountain they claim the territory and their belonging to the community ”, The scholar explains about traditions that go back at least to the Middle Ages.
A little further south, in the Oltenia region, the “colindatori” are children whom families welcome with bonfires that recall the purifying power of fire, an element linked to the winter solstice.
In Transylvania, the “colindatori” recite different verses depending on the house they visit. There are “colinde” for young marriageable people, for children, for the elderly, for families who have had someone killed and for shepherds, fishermen or even priests.
Even if money has become the most common offering to the “colindatori”, the offering of food and drink remains a central part of this ritual.
“The message is that we can all come to be, after death, at the table where the Lord was with the holy apostles”, says Iliescu Jiga, alluding to an idea that appears explicitly in some “bordering”.
Theater performances
In some cases, music and song are joined by brief theatrical performances in the streets. One more time, the sainetes mix biblical content with stories and characters from the society that represents them.
The protagonists are animals such as the goat -represented by a wooden skeleton that includes two wooden jaws that collide rhythmically-, but also figures such as the priest or the doctor, who are the object of criticism and irony.
As ethnographer Marcel Lutic has written, “Goats dance, consume their vital energy, die and are reborn, a symbol of ritual regeneration and the continuity of life.”
The protagonist of one of these shows is Marian Barbós, a 15-year-old teenager from Ilva Mare, a group of villages with idyllic mountainous landscapes in northern Romania where the so-called “Theater of the goat”.
Barbós is one of dozens of young people from all over Romania who traveled to Bucharest on December 12 to participate in a “colinde” festival. “I have been doing this since I was a child,” he told Efe during a break.
“As every year, on Christmas Eve we will go out into town again,” added Barbós, wearing an astrakhan cap and traditional clothing. (I)
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