Ostatnie dni karnawału w regionie opoczyńskim

Abstract

The subject of the present paper is to present the customs, rites and beliefs connected with the period of the closing carnival. In the folk culture of our country, the end of the carnival is the time of so-called zapusty (rejoicings), while in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church it is the feast of the Lord’s Offering, which is kept on 2 February. The present article was prepared on the basis of stationary filed studies carried out the author in the Opoczno region as well as on the basis of the literature referring to that question. The final days of the carnival are the time of parties, sle4dging cavalcades and reasting. In folk tradition a special abundance of customs and rites was to be observend on Shrove Tuesday (auction of girls, initiation of newly wed women into the group of older ones, a dance for the harvest of flax and hemp, the walks of the disguised people). These customs were still practised in the post-war period. Today they have dissppeared almost completely. In the present reality they have lost their primary functions (agrarian, matrimonial and material ones). A lack of rational justification of the customs practised, the changing socio-economic situation of the village dwellers and the fact that those customs started to function beyond the ritual year of the Church caused the disappearance of those picturesque shows. In the discussed period a special role in the customs, rites and beliefs is assigned to the Candlemas candle biessed on the feast of the Lord’s Offering. Being included into the Church liturgy it caused that certain customs associated with it are cultivated up till now. Nowadays when the faithful come back from Church they burn down the signs of crosses on the doorframes. The candle kept its apotropeic function, as a protection against the storms and the hail. Another customs which has been maintained is one of giving the candle to the dying person - if this person dies at home. These functions are associated with a prayer to God. In the presented period one can observe the function of an ecclesistical element seen in the keeping up the material and spiritual values of the past period.