Macedonian ritual dance heritage - Epiphany

The empirical base of this research is mostly unknown, as far as I know it is not documented, only in social media posts.[1]

The oro[2] connected to the Epiphany-St John (19-20 January) was registered in the Kopachija territory at Kichevo region (Kichevsko) of Western Macedonia. Lavchani village can be found here up in the mountain, 10 km distance from Kichevo.[3] The larger area where this village belongs to, is Brsjak ethnic region. Here the custom of Saint John's brotherhood is a living tradition.[4]

Epiphany feast in Macedonia

Speaking about Epiphany as a water feast, first I would like to cite a very nice sentence about the water from Tertullian's On the Baptism ("De Baptismo"):

If I go on to tell of all or most of the things I could relate concerning the significance of this element, the greatness of its power or its favour, with all the devices, all the functions, all the equipment it supplies the world with, I fear I should seem to have composed a panegyric on water in preference to the doctrine of baptism [...].[5]

The main activity of the Epiphany in Macedonia is throwing the cross into natural or artificial waters. Beside this in the western Macedonian tradition the custom of Saint John's brotherhood appears as a part of the festivity. In these villages the activity of the feast can take more days, even weeks. The Saint John's brotherhood is an archaic custom, which is based on sub-communities of the village, which are formed by the parts of the village (maalo) or by cousinhood. At the head of the community stays the Saint John's brother, the kum, who keeps the community's cross for one year. This is one cross (krst). This role and the cross is given to another member of the community, each year, on the feast of Epiphany. The person is generally chosen according to age. The ceremonial giving of the role and a cross is the most solemn activity of the feast. For every village is a specific the number of the kums, the number of the sub-communities, namely the number of the crosses.[6]

Saint John's brotherhood is an archaic custom, in which the Saint John's kum has a ritual role in the community.[7] This custom can have different elements in different villages. In Lavchani there are 21 kums.[8] The celebrity of the cross hand over happens on Saint John's day, on 20 January, in the church of Lavchani. It is followed by the special custom of Lavchani, the ritual bathing of the new kums in the spring of the village. This bathing is connected to dancing.[9]

As it was mentioned above the feast of the Epiphany is a water feast. The Egyptian predecessor of the Twelfth day/Epiphany, the feast of time's rebirth had a strong connection with the water too. In the Hungarian medieval liturgy of Christmas period we read that 'Jesus opened the springs of the Paradise, so the people can bath in it.' We can see the joyfulness of the contact with water on the faces of the new kums. The main characteristic of the whole feast, the searching body contacts with water, which has a health giving role in this period.[10]

Regarding water, the feast has two symbolic meanings. The first is the Christianity, baptism and the cross: the name of the sub-community is cross, the cross is given with the brotherhood, among the Epiphany songs we hear about the baptism of a pagan god, the feast succeeds the twelve un-baptized days. The baptism as a culmination appears most significantly in the oro of Saint John's brothers.

The other meaning of the feast is the chaos-creation: unlike the twelfth un-baptized day, which is a very dangerous period in the folk-belief, and connected to many prohibitions with water, the period of the Epiphany has a strong protective character.

In some villages there is a night before the day of Epiphany when the cross is put down in the church, and the new kum has not taken it yet. For this night the sub-community makes a straw cross as a protection, as the real cross is tied. This night is out of time for the cross, this is a time of the chaos, unlike the next day, when the sacred time period begins with the inauguration of the new kum. This shows the meaning of the creation, this feast shows the creation archetype of the water.[11]

Symbolic content of the feast and the dance form

Let us speak about the two main meanings of the feast, the baptism and the creation. The custom connects the ritual of baptising with dance. In Macedonian folk religion dance and movement are connected to the phenomena of the creation while the lack of motion is connected to death. The baptism in our case is connected with oro, so with the meaning of the creation. In this ritual dance the two characteristic meanings of the feast belong together.[12]

The round dances are generally connected to the space inside, the dance intends to cause effect, in many cases it has an impact on the centre of the circle. However, in the oro of Saint John's brothers it is not present. Instead of that the water affects the oro, so here we see the self-giving of the oro (It could be a form for example around the spring to affect the spring). So here this oro form shows a difference to the oro with magical meaning.[13]

In this oro appears a ritual element of the winter feasts: the ritual equality.[14] How does it appear in the dance? By the changing of the oro-leaders. After the first circle, which goes in front of the spring, the next circles goes in to the water, and every new kum leads a circle. So every new kum becomes oro leader for one circle. in the dance connected to the custom.[15]

If we analyze the oro on the base of Olga Szentpál's and Lujza Ratkó's method we find the next characteristics:

The rhythmical characteristics are: monotonic rhythm-slow homogenic rhythm. The main plastic[16] characteristic inside the space of the oro is that there is nothing, and it does not want to cause effect in the second case. Dynamical characteristics are: forte and mezzopiano.

Regarding the musical parts there can be seen two of them, the one is the dancing line and the other is a baptising part. By the analyze of content, the meaning of the oro, we can tell, that in the baptizing part the hierophany is realized, which is the timelessness of creation.[17]

The characteristics, mainly plastic, show specific meaning: the causing effect has faded away, instead of that appears the self-giving. As the old Egyptian water feast, the rebirth of time is integrated into the Christian Epiphany feast, this oro-custom integrates an archaic custom, the Saint John's brotherhood and an archaic oro form into Christian meaning.[18]

The author of the article: Bólya, Anna Mária, dance researcher. The article is a part of the issue of ICTM.

References

Bartha Elek.

2006. Vallási terek szellemi öröksége [Spiritual heritage of sacral spaces]. Online: <https://mek.oszk.hu/05100/05164/05164.pdf> (accessed 2011 February 2).

2013. "A víz a szakrális folkórban" [The water in the sacral folklore]. Magyar Tudomány 174 (11):1333-1340.

Bólya, Anna Mária.

2015. Tánc a macedón szakrális hagyományban [Dance in the Macedonian sacral tradition] (doctoral dissertation). Debrecen, Hungary: University of Debrecen.

2016. "Vízünnep a macedón vízkereszti hagyományban" [Water feast in the Macedonian Epiphany tradition]. Éva Bihari Nagy; Máté Kavecsánszki; Róbert Keményfi; Melinda Marinka (editors). Diptichon: Tanulmányok Bartha Elek tiszteletére:200-210. Debrecen, Hungary: Debreceni Egyetem Néprajzi Tanszék.

2013. "Ludo mlado brazda pravi: različnite pojavi na vodičarskata pesna vo makedonskoto folklorno tvoreštvo" [Young Boy Furrows: Different Appearances of the Epiphany Song in the Macedonian Folklore Tradition]. Fedoszov-Zoltán-Janurik (editor). Water in Slavonic Phraseology and Paremiology:161-168. Budapest: Tinta Kiadó.

2014. "Patuvanjeto na Dionis" [Travel of Dionysos]. Ars akademika 1(1):90-101.

Chichyerov, Vladimir Ivanovich.

1957. Zimniy pyeriod roosskogo zyemlyedyel'chyeskogo kalyendarya XVI-XIX vyekov [Winter period of the 16th - 19th century Russian agricultural calendar]. Moscow: Izdatelstvo akademii nauk SSSR.

Evans, Ernest.

1964. Tertullian's Homily on Baptism. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Felföldi László.

1987. "Rituális táncok a magyar néphagyományban." Ethnographia 98(3):207-226.

Janković, Danica.

1938. "Praznične narodne igre u Poreču u Južnoj Srbii" [Folk dances of feasts in Poreche, south Serbia]. Glasnik etnografskog muzeja 13:24-29. Belgrade: Serbia.

1940. "Narodne igre u Kičevu i okolini" [Folk dances of Kichevo and surroundings]. Glasnik etnografskog muzeja 40:95-112. Belgrade: Serbia.

Kitevski, Marko.

1996. "Makedonski praznični običai" [Macedonian festive customs]. Krum Tomovski (editor). Etnologija na makedontsite:224-246. Skopje: Makedonska akademija na naukite i umetnostite.

Mladenovič, Olivera

1973. Kolo u Južnih Slovena [Kolo of the South-Slavs]. Belgrade: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti.

Palikruševa, Galaba.

1975. "Kumstvoto i pobratimstvoto na Sveti Jovan" [Brotherhood of Saint John]. Makedonski folklor 8(16): 63-68.

Petreska, Vesna

2005. Sistem na srodstvo kaj makedoncite [System of relationship at the Macedonians]. Skopje: Institut za folklor "Marko Tsepenkov".

Pócs Éva.

1965. "A karácsonyi vacsora és a karácsonyi asztal hiedelemköre" [Beliefs of the Christmas table and dinner]. Néprajzi Közlemények 10(3-4): 1-323.2002. "Más világok: másvilágok. Az idegenek az újkori hiedelemrendszerekben" [Other worlds. aliens in the belief systems of the modern history]. Magyar néphit Közép- és Kelet-Európa határán:50-63. Budapest: L'Harmattan.

Ratkó Lujza.

1997. A nagyböjti játék- és tánchagyomány. A magyar nyelvterület nagyböjti játék- és táncanyagának értelmezése [Folk play and dance tradition of the Lent. An analysis of the folk play and dance material of the Hungarian folk territory] (candidate dissertation). Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia.

2002. "A néptánc tartalmi elemzése" [The analysis of the dance content]. A Nyíregyházi Jósa András Múzeum Évkönyve 44:257-265.

2007. " "Azért jöttem ide karikázni..." A nagyböjti karikázó tartalmi elemzése" ["I came to do the circle dance because..." An analysis of the Hungarian Lenten circle dance]. Gábor Barna; Eszter Csonka-Takács (editors). Tánchagyomány: átadás és átvétel. Tanulmányok Felföldi László köszöntésére:43-52. Szeged, Hungary: Néprajzi és Kulturális Antropológiai Tanszék.

2010. "A néptánckutatás hagyományos és új útjai a XXI században" [Traditional and modern paths of the Ethnochoreology in the 21th Century]. László Felföldi; Anita Müller (editors). Hagyomány és korszerűség a néptánckutatásban. Pesovár Ernő emlékezete:23-26. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia.

Risteski, Ljupčo.

2005. Kategorii prostor i vreme vo narodnata kultura na Makedoncite [Space and time in the folk culture of the Macedonians]. Skopje: Matica makedonska.

Sachs, Curt.

1963. World history of the dance. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Szentpál Olga.

1961. "A magyar néptánc formai elemzése" [Formal Analysis of the Hungarian Folk dance]. Ethnographia 72(1): 3-55.

[1] The text is a part of an article published in the issue of ICTM Study Group on Music and Dance in Southeastern Europe.

[2] Chain dance form of Macedonia.

[3] This is the region "Kopachija".

[4] I would like to say special thanks to Rodna Velichkovska, the researcher of the Folklore Institute Marko Cepenkov, as well as to the informators who, with the leading of Cane Gjorgjioski and Mladen Vancoski helped my field work. Special thanks to them!

[5] Evans 1964:43

[6] Petreska 2005:121; Velićkovska 2008:32; Palikrusheva 1975:64; Kitevski, 1996:227; Bartha 2013: 1333-1340.

[7] Petreska 2005:121; Palikrusheva 1975:64.

[8] In 2013.

[9] Bólya 2015:148-152.

[10] Bólya 2015:148-152; Bólya 2016:202-210.

[11] Bólya 2015:153-155; Bolya 2016:202-210; Bolya 2013:161-165.

[12] Risteski 2005:78; Bólya 2015:154-155.

[13] Bólya 2015:211-213; Sachs 1963:144; Mladenović 1973:117; D. Janković 1938:25; D. Janković 1940:96, 102; Ratkó 2002:257-265.

[14] In the Macedonian folklore the phenomenon of the ritual equality appears in connection with the meals, at Christmas (Badnik) and on the Epiphany. [Pócs 1965:154-156; Bólya 2015:235].

[15] Bartha 2006:9; Pócs 1965:154-156; Bólya 2015:235.

[16] Spatial characteristics. See [Szentpál 1961].

[17] Szentpál 1961; Ratkó 1997; Ratkó 2002; Ratkó 2007; Ratkó 2010.

[18] Bólya 2016:239-241.