Original scientific paper
Following the characteristic procedures of blessing in wedding customs of the Danube Bunjevci in the surroundings of Budapest
Milana Černelić
; Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The starting point of this work is in the specific procedure of the blessing giving at the wedding - hitting the bride and bridegroom at the back with a ritual cake; the custom has been confirmed with the findings in the archive materials and in the field research among the Danube Bunjevci (an ethnic group of Croatians) in the surroundings of Budapest.
Following the trace leading from the northern Bunjevci settlements in the Danube area in Hungary, the author has established the existence of two variants of the same basic procedure with the ritual cake at the wedding in the large expanse of the Adriatic (Istria, Dalmatia, particularly south areas). The wedding ceremony proceedings are characteristical for the whole expanse from the Pelješac peninsula to the Boka Kotorska (Bay of Cataro). Apart from the fact, the variants have been evidenced in isolated and distant areas: in Gorjani near Đakovo in eastern Slavonia, in Bač and Vajska in Bačka region (province of Voivodina) and in Vlachs enclaves on the northeast areas of Serbia.
The characteristic expanse spread of the occurrence (with other earlier found cultural elements of the similar expanse findings) are leading the author to put the question: why has the specific ceremony of blessing giving limited to these areas and how was it possible that cultural touches were occurring between such distant areas.
The analysis of the wedding blessing with a ritual cake is one of the answers to the question. It points to the fact that the Bunjevci group which had settled in the surroundings of Budapest might have inherited the custom of blessing with the ritual cake from the Dalmatian past, most likely from the southern parts of the region, as one of their possible homeland expanse. At the same time it means that the cultural heritage of the Croat ethnic group Bunjevci is not unique; they might have migrated to the North from the different regions of their possible homeland, and in several migration waves.
Keywords
blessing with a cake; Bunjevci of the Danube region; Dalmatia
Hrčak ID:
75649
URI
Publication date:
5.4.1994.
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