Original scientific paper
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF CULTURAL CONTINUITY IN MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE ADRIATIC REGION (Racana - rachna - rakno)
Đurđica Petrović
; Beograd
Abstract
Starting from the definition of cultural continuity relating to archaeological investigations, the authoress tries to determine, mostly on the basis of written sources (archival documents, linguistic and ethnographic notes) whether it is possible that en element of the material culture – in a time span of about two thousand years – can comply with the conditions for classification into that category of cultural phenomena. This has been done in connexion with a simple woolen fabric, of rectangular form, which was primarily used as bed-cover or a plaid, at three time levels: the Antiquity (1st - 4th century A. D. – racana), the Middle Ages (10th - 15th century A. D. – rachna, racno, rachanella), and the New Age (17th - 20th century A. D. – rakno, raknić), the antique racana having served as cultural model.
The analysis of data at hand has shown that two basic conditions have been fulfilled for the formal determination of actual cultural continuity, they being the following: a region defined both geographically and mostly culturally, and a continuity of existence disconnected in time but connected in epochs. In the essential determination of continuity, however, the peculiarity of written sources has brought to light a divergence from the antique model in the late middle ages, in the new age, and almost in the recent time.
According to written sources, the antique model of racana was most completely preserved in the Middle Ages when some of the antique variables became a component part of its constants, while the late mediaeval variables became a component part of its constants in the new age. Within that framework, the most resistant to innovations was the structure of racana: its name, material, colour, and – generally – its form. The mediaeval variable may be considered as a direct continuation of antique traditions, up to the rise of the rakno now in use. The were some changes, however, depending on the use, function, and social symbol, and, through those innovations, which were most frequent in the late Middle Ages and in the New Age, one could discern the ways of preservation of the racana as an antique cultural phenomenon in the prevalent Southern Slavic culture, as well as the way and time of its disappearance from that culture.
The changes in uses, functions, and social symbols have generally occurred in these relations. Use: coverlet>shroud, coverlet>table ' cloth; plaid, cloak>shawl. Function: practical protective>cult. Social symbols: higher social categories (men, women) >medium social categories (men, women) > lower social categories (men, women) > lower social categories outside the urban settlements (women, mourning, women, older vidows).
In the succession of these changes, the racana retaned its original use and function as a coverlet only where it did not inferfere with the prevailing socio-economic system, culture, customs and needs of people living under that system. In other, less isolated, or conservative, midst it was ana anachronism, and its existence there went in two directions, leading to the same goal.
The racana (rakno) and raknić, first of all, have combined into one both in use and function, but their names have remained. They have, in fact, as table-cloths, as cloths for benches, as plaids-shawls, have become a women’s possession, assuming a characteristic of their social status, or have obtained some unimportant role in the household, e. g. as a rag.
When other kinds of bed blankets took the place of racana and when rakno, raknić, disappeared as women apparel, owing to garments that needed no upper additions, women used plaids in winter, while rakno and raknić have become ritual objects (Christmas Eve, funeral ritual). This signifies that antique, mediaeval, and for some time modern cultural heritage has been destroyed, and thus eliminated from the inventory of material culture in the Adriatic region.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
159538
URI
Publication date:
23.12.1980.
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