Space and Time within the Romanian Mentality
Space and Time within the Romanian Mentality

Summary/Abstract: What the human possesses as an older thing reaches eternity and becomes anew thing every day in a traditional village. Any of the objects within the house-hold had its own sense and place. The countryman takes care of respecting what he has around him in his house-hold: the magic eye of the house, good and bad places, and the time bill that guides him every day in every works. The house magic eye, namely the glass eye on the roof attentively watches the running works inside the house hold. Time is divided in a common time for works and the festal time, so to say, the sacred time. The countryman’s house was projected as a durable building and it couldn’t be built anywhere, anyhow. All the building rituals were kept in, beginning with burying some protective objects inside the house ground and finishing with a shrub or a cross setting on the roof at the end of the process. The three passing places in a house-hold (gate, threshold and door) were always well marked. The gate separates and binds symbolically two worlds, the threshold delimits the human’s passing from a secular space to a sacred one, and the door was taken for a protective instrument given its closing and opening system. Hence, any of the countryman’s daily work has a magic component and must be submitted to the old customs.

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