Pünkösd

Pünkösd - Pentecost
While Punkosd is a Catholic holiday, the day when the Holy Spirit was supposed to have descended on the Virgin Mary and the other apostles, there are a lot of other traditions for this day as well.  It is also a Jewish holiday, Shauvot, the day when the Torah was given, and the feast of the new bread, when the spirit of God was symbolized by fire and rushes of wind, which symbolized God's presence and mercy.  This was the last day of the Easter Season.  It was one of the three major holidays of the Jewish people. 

In Western Christinity, Pentecost is fifty days after Easter, so the earliest it can be is May 10 and the latest is June 13. In Catholic churches they bless holy water on this day, and often do Confirmations.  May is sometimes called the month of Pentecost.


In Hungarian culture there are many traditions tied with Pentecost, which reach back to times before Christianity.  A lot of them can be traced back to the roman floralia festivals, which were festive holidays welcoming spring, when they honored the goddess Flora, who was the deity of plants and flowers, and feritility.  In her Greek form, she was named Khloris - or the greening, the budding.  In the Onycan tradition, these days are celebrated on Flower Day - Beltane, or May Day.
In Hungarian-speaking regions, a great deal of people used to celebrate the first of May by standing "May Trees" in their communities.  Often they tore them down on Pentecost.  The May Tree and green branches were the symbols of renewing spring, and often signs of courting young love, and counted as a romantic gesture.  If a young man liked a girl, he would gather a group of his friends or even some of her relatives together and together, in the middle of the night or at dawn, they would fasten tall, slender trees to the gate posts outside the girl's house.  This would then be decorated with colorful ribbons, foods, and drinks.  Often the whole community would have a tree in common as well, and the day they cut it down they would hold a festival and dance.

There would also be Pentecost Kings.  They would hold festivals of skill and strength - throwing things into hoops, carrying logs, etc. - which would decide who was to be the may king.  Whenever there was a Pentecost party or festival in town, they would have him be the honored guest, and he could eat or drink for free for either the week or sometimes even for a whole year.  Often lads would have to prove themselves as may kings before they were allowed to court girls or drink with the other men in the drinking houses, or kocsmas.
Other traditions included lacing green branches, flowers (especially pentecost roses, jasmine, or bodza) so that lightning wouldn't hit their house that year.  In some villages only houses with marriagable daughters decorated their houses with branches.

Eredetileg 4 nagyobb lány (később több) körbevisz a faluban egy ötödiket. Ő a legkisebb, a legszebb. Énekelnek, és jókívánságokat ismételgetnek. Megálltak az udvarokon, majd a pünkösdi királyné feje fölé kendőt feszítettek ki, vagy letakarták őt fátyollal. Énekeltek, közben körbejárták a királynét, a végén pedig felemelték, s termékenységvarázsló mondókákat mondtak. Az énekek és a mondókák végén ajándékot kaptak. A Dunántúlon jellemző termékenységvarázslással összekötött szokás később adománygyűjtéssel párosult.

Pünkösdölés [szerkesztés]

Ekkor pünkösdi király és királyné párost a kíséretével jelenítettek meg, de volt, ahol lakodalmi menetet menyasszonnyal és vőlegénnyel. Ez a szokás hasonló a pünkösdi királynéjáráshoz, de ez elsősorban adománygyűjtésre szolgált. A gyerekek, vagy fiatalok csapata énekelve, táncolva végigjárta a falut, s adományt gyűjtött.

Törökbasázás, borzakirály, rabjárás [szerkesztés]
In some communities in Western Hungary, boys would elect one boy to stuff his pants full of straw and hit him with sticks.  He represented a Turkish lord, and at each house where he got beaten out by his companions, the people living there would get coins and eggs in return.  (torokbasazas)
Prison-walkers (rabjarok) would tie their legs together and go to the girls in the village with the request to help the poor prisoners of war.  They would also get presents in return.
During borzajárás people would accompany a boy around the village who would get a cloak made of bodza.  They would get presents as well.


 2012. május 27.