Ethnologica Dalmatica, Vol. 26 , 2019.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
Luck-Bringing Guests in the Croatian Cultural Heritage and the European Context
Marko Dragić
orcid.org/0000-0001-5362-6814
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu, Poljička cesta 35, 21000 Split
Sažetak
Customs and rituals related to the first guest in Advent and Christmas time are of an archetypical origin. In the early morning of the St. Barbara and St. Lucy feast days and in the morning of the Christmas Eve, Christmas and, somewhere, on the St. Stephen’s day and New Year, the first guests come to homes of their relatives, friends, godfathers, neighbours. Belief that the first guest brings luck by performing specific rituals which express the wish that the host’s upcoming may be happy and fruitful is of an ancient origin. Therefore, the first guest is called the luck-bringing guest. In Croatian traditional heritage, these guests are called polaženik, polaznik, položajnik, poležaj. The polaznik custom is present among the Slavic nations in which there are around thirty names for the luck-bringing (first) guest.
Certain divinations are performed around the luck-bringing guest. So, Croats believed that it was desirable that the first guest on the St. Barbara feast day be a woman because that meant that the household would have more chickens and if a man came first it was believed that there would be more roosters. On the St. Lucy feast day, Croats from Bačka wished the first guest to be a man. In the morning of the Christmas Eve, for example in Otok near Vinkovci, the first guest is the son-in-law. In Požega region and many others in Croatia, children were the first guest and it was preferable for a man to be the first guest. However, in Kiseljak in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a woman was preferred as the first guest. It is exceptionally important that on the Christmas morning the first guest is a healthy, blush and strong boy or a young man. The same is desirable on the New Year. In numerous places customs and rituals of the first guest have vanished or have been modified and in some places they have been revitalized. The custom of the luck-bringing guest is also spread in other European nations. The paper cites examples from Slovenia, Serbia, Poland, Great Britain, Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Wales.
Ključne riječi
customs; rituals; processions; beliefs; cultural heritage
Hrčak ID:
223308
URI
Datum izdavanja:
24.7.2019.
Posjeta: 1.509 *