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Traditions and customs are still part of daily life
in Maramures. On Sunday and celebrations the elder
population is dressed in their traditional costumes.
Important moments of life such as birth, marriage and
death are often kept in the traditional way or
traditional elements remained during these events.
New houses are modern houses, but in front of this new
house people still build their wooden gate, loaded with
all kind of symbols. Symbols as the sun (birth,
fertility) the rope (seen as a belt to keep family or
community together), grapes or wine leaves (fertility,
prosperity) teeth of the wolf (courage) are used in
sculptures, on houses, gates or church. There
are still a lot of customs part of daily life. Some of these customs should improve health and
prosperity, others are to keep demons wild animals and
misfortune away.
Sanziene
24 June
Differs
a bit from the Apuseni Mountains. At the night before
young people move in the mountains and make big fires.
(This to keep the negative ghosts away) Some make a
fire in the yard, put candles. They also make a crown
from the sanziene flower, but here the girls wear the
crown on their head in the church. The priest is using
basil with sanziene flowers to bless the people.
Marriage:
The
whole villages celebrates and a marriage in Maramures
is very noisy and extremely colorful.
The
road from the house of the girl to the church is swept
clean.
There
are 2 groups of people that go to the church (the
family and friends of the groom and those of the
bride). The groom has a rod, a kind of scepter, it is
a branch strongly decorated and colored. This symbol
shows or proves his fertility. The girl with her group
comes along another road to the church and drinks at
every gate with the people. They meet in front of the
church. All symbols used are from now on in pairs,
never a simple symbol. After the celebration in the
church is the meal with are all kind of dances and at
the end of the wedding (the next morning) people give
the presents. There is a 'staroste' that collects the
presents (often money) and often makes bad jokes or
laughs at the people, (if they didn't give enough) but
during the wedding this is accepted.
Winter
celebrations:
Most
of the celebrations and rites take place during
winter. There are around New year and in spring all
kind of fertility rites, dances, dances with masks and
most of them are very old and have pagan roots. We
could offer a special program around these winter
celebrations.
Tree
with pots and pans:
You
might see a tree decorated with pots and pans in the
front yard of a house in a village. This means that
there is a girl available for marriage in that house.
Wood
sculpturing:
People
in Maramures are masters in building and sculpturing
wood. They still build new wooden churches and all
connections are made without using any nails. You
could visit, see or even learn how to make this
connections or learn to sculpture.
You
can watch a short movie about Maramures:
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What can we offer:
We can offer you a guided trip during these
festivals. We can bring you around in the
region, let you participate or let you attend
these celebrations or rites. They could be
combined with a hiking trip or other trip or a
stay at our holiday houses. |
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