Norma és büntetés. A hegybekiáltás népszokása a mezőségi Feketelakon
Norm and Punishment. The Cry from the Hill in Lacu from Câmpia Transilvaniei

Summary/Abstract: The study aims at the symbolic analysis of spring customs in the Transylvanian Plain (Cluj county). Shouting from the hill is a custom known to both Romanians and Hungarians in this area, who carry out this custom on April 24, Saint George’s Day. In Lacu commune, the boys gather and shout from the two hills opposite the village all the evils related to the love life of the girls in the village. The other villagers listen to these cries with great interest all evening. The custom has the symbolic purpose of removing mistakes and collective purification of sins, because only this way can the new year begin, April 24 marking the beginning of the agricultural season. The work is based on the studies related to the archetypal structures of Vilmos Tánczos, but it also brings references from the folklore studies of Romanian ethnographers, such as Romulus Vulcănescu, Gabriel Manolescu or Ion Ghinoiu, who have studied the custom of shouting across the village among Romanians. From these comparisons emerge those similarities and differences, which appear in the structure of Hungarian and Romanian customs. Sacred time, night, chaos, order, collective purification, sin are the basic terms of this work.

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