Horváth Attila – Solymos Ede szerk.: Cumania 2. Ethnographia (Bács-Kiskun Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei, Kecskemét, 1974)

J. Vorák: Kolompár Kálmánné kiskunhalasi cigányasszony kézimunkái

fortune with a siftewo por. The tints of an opened pair of tícissors are stuck into the side of a sifter. Two persons gently get hold of the two holes of the scissors with their forefingers and thumbs. Slowly they lift them up so that the sifter hangs in the air on the scissor points. Then they ask: ,,Tell us sifter, whether . . .?" — It is done always with scissors. (MK) — If one is afraid he is going to have bad dreams, he should put a pair of scissors under his pillow. (LFV) c) Mrs. Kálmán Kolompár drew a pair of scissors in the cloth termed by her as a „baptismal" one for the single reason, as she told us, that the girl can cut her dresses t erewith. (?) Tree (Only a gipsy belief.) László Jakab, gipsy blacksmith of about 65 years of age, three weeks preceding his death, already sick: Gipsies do not break off trees. Each tree is a life, human life. (He does not say that a tree is like life !) — Mrs. László Jakab : I break a tree : I break my dead father, or my child, or my own life. Gipsies only pick up fallen twigs and fell only dry trees. „In the speechless"

(„szótalanba") (Belief only among Kiskunhalas Hungarians) Mária Kiss: On Good Friday one should comb one's hair under the willow „in the speechless". — Mrs. Lajos Váczi: [fone is about to do something or expects something, he must not tell it to others, because he might muff the change and miss his luck. * Mrs. Kolompár named the figures on her cloths herself. As shown above, the denominations given by her to the drawings to be understood as symbols of a rather complex nature can be connected with beliefs prevailing in a diversity of Hungarian areas, with Hungarian and gipsy beliefs of Kiskunhalas. I could not single out and list up all Hungarian and Kiskunhalas gipsy beliefs referring to each figure. To do that I had no opportunity. My object could be only to demonstrate the ways of magic and charm practised by Mrs. Kolompár. The figures, the simple and complex symbols of the cloths I strove to examine in the conception of Sándor Dömötör and Zsigmond Szendrey. Sándor Dömötör's statement about the meaning of symbols: „Consequently not only words have a meaning but everything what one perceives or can render perceptible. A word, an analogy, an object, a picture or drawing can represent thus not only an object, a situation, a person or an occasion: covered by the concept there may be also another perception called to the mind by the first one which can be considered primary. However, one cannot or dare not or does not want to render this one perceptible in any other way than by substituting a known concept, picture, image or object for the unknown perception." — It is similarly Sándor Dömötör, who states about the function of symbols in the primitive mind: „The symbol used to be reality itself in primitive thought: it was life, life-giving force which realized in the phenomena before the eyes of the perceiver. Covered by the symbol there was the content alive in the community. Perceptions and connections were complete since they were not analysed, nor separated into parts in the consciousness of either the communicant or the perceiver. — These symbols were keys to groups of ideas and with their collective character they blocked the way to seeking abstract reality. ... — Not all symbols have a mystic content and a magic significance among the nature peoples. There are also quite simple pictures and imageries by which thought and sensation can be made perceptible."'' Let us add to Sándor Dömötör's statement: it is not only thought and sensation that are rendered perceptible, also desires are expressed in this way. Zsigmond Szendrey points to the latter when stating: „The objects used at actions are similarly of a symbolic significance. Eggs and apples are primeval fertility symbols, the maypole is an ancient emotive sign and also the kerchief given as a present should „tell" something to the young man."

70 — In this way it was that Mrs. Kálmán Kolompár stitched her own good wishes: „luck" in the cloths. On them she equally embroidered the figures of which the magic power could ensure the acquisition and realization of the desirable, of the good things and could secure against the undesirable ones. Comparing the data supplied by our Kiskunhalas gipsy informants about Mrs. Kolompár's horned bird with what she told about it herself, we can take it for sure that the horned bird is a bat. However, a bat drawn in a cloth does not only mean an animal, it also expresses the wish which Mrs. Kolompár intended to change into reality by visualizing the bat and the beliefs connected with that animal. With the same intention the small green tree-frog, the red ribbon, the young man lifting up a can were stitched in the cloths. In one or another sense Mrs. Kolompár meant good by them, and she did not only wish good to someone but strove to promote the realization of that wish in her own way. At every one of her communications she declared of each of her three cloths: „111 luck there is none in it, not one bit!" Our evaluation would have been much easier and much more satisfactory if Mrs. Kolompár had given unambiguous information about these „pieces of luck" herself. Still, excepting one or two slips, she was unwilling to do so. Starting from the intention with which she made them, there are figures wich can be read with absolute certainty: I drew a house — I wish you a house with a garden; I drew a red ribbon in the boy's and the girl's hair — it will protect them against an evil eye, will not let the evil get at the child; I drew a horned bird — the horned bird means luck, it will bring you money, much money. She gave the solutions to all these herself, plainly and unambiguously. Still about most of her figures she failed to ,i9 Sándor DÖMÖTÖR: The symbol as an ethnographical concept — Ethn. 55:59—

69. 70 The primeval elements of Hungarian popular customs — Ethn. 51:359. 204