Mándoki László: Busójárás Mohácson. (A Janus Pannonius Múzeum Füzetei 4. Pécs, 1963)

enriched by many new elements owing to their coexistence with Hungarians. There exists a fourth theory, a compromise suggested by Földes. who - after having analysed and compared the various Busó masks claims that the wooden Busó masks betray affinity to wooden masks used among the mixed population of the Alps, a phenomenon that had Ibeen ponited out by Ernyey already. Földes holds that the custom itself originated in the Balkan Penisula, while the masks are of Alpine (German) origin. We regard the last two theories as being nearest to the truth. Recent literature contains numerous South Slav analogies of the Busóprocession, while publications of South Slav masks show that Busó masks are not necessarily of German origin but may have come from the Balkans. It is demonstrated that the Busó-procession, treated as a local phenomenon of Mohács by Ernyey, used to be, in earlier times, general or at least more widely distributed among the Slav inhbitants of the county Baranya (as had been pointed out by Unyi and Csalog also). An attempt is made to describe the traditional Busó-procession, a mummery rich in elements of fertility-magic, which occupied the last three days of the carnival. The „Busós", clad in fur-coats turned insideout and white linen trousers cushioned with straw, wearing wooden masks and carrying bells in their belt, a rattle and a wooden mace in the hand, formed groups and - led by a bugler - perambulated the town, the quarter inhabited by the Shokatz in particular. They entered the houses in order to perform fertility rites, and assembled then in the centre of the quarter, on the Kóló Square (the word Kola means a South Slav dance), where they danced around and jumped over the flames of bonfire. As regards other Busó activities, reference is only made to ritually tinged tests of strength and wrestling in which Csalog and Földes discover traces of ancient initiation rites. It is a long time since the Busó-procession began to take up carnival elements: this process of mixture becomes steadily more pronounced with the result that the ancient background of the custom, i. e. the fertility magic and the celebration of spring, is slowly fading into complete oblivion. The author presents an outline of the changes, and follows