Caloian
CALOIAN is a Romanian rain ceremony , which in some ways the Bulgarian paparuda - and the Serbian Dodola similar -Ritual. They are mainly found in Wallachia in southern Romania . The origin of this ritual is presumably to be set before Christianization, although it is linked to the period of the Orthodox Easter festival.
The ritual is performed at the beginning of spring as a fertility ritual or at another time in the event of severe drought or heavy rainfall. To do this, young girls make some clay dolls that represent mostly male figures. Depending on the purpose of the ritual, they are called "father of the sun" or "mother of rain". The doll is dressed, placed on a wooden board or in a coffin made of tree bark and decorated with flowers in the manner of the traditional funeral ceremony.
A train with children then leads through the fields, around watercourses and wells, to the burial place of Caloian. After three days the Caloian is dug up again, brought back to the village and prayers continue until it is finally released on a raft on a river or lake, or thrown into a well.
At the end of this ceremony, the young girls who organized the ceremony bake a special cake called ghismán or ghizman (presumably from Gethsemane , since the ritual was associated with Easter), which was shared with the rest of the children.
See also
- German , rain magic as a false burial of a phallic figure in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia