Kunt Ernő szerk.: Kép-hagyomány – Nép-hagyomány (Miskolc, 1990)

I. RÉSZTANULMÁNYOK - Hoppál Mihály: Az amerikai magyar kivándorlók családi fényképeiről

rite. At such events every generation of the family and relatives try to gather (photo 9). While I have not seen any photos of a funeral photographed between the two world wars, since the fifties the event was captured on photos showing the group of the relatives standing around the coffin. The members of the family represent the symbols of the family's continuity next to the catafalque. A different type of the photos show people eating, which has a symbolical community creating function, a communion and it confirms the awareness of belonging to the community (Hoppal 1981). It is not an accident that the photographer of the family prefered to take photos of the great family gatherings for instance a birthday party of the wedding table, or of the people arrived from America eating with their relatives (photo 10). It is interesting to note that among the photos taken on a pig-killing I could not find any picture showing people eating together, but the dead animal can be seen on three photos. Seeing the photos an ethnologist arriving from another planet would say that the offering of the animal sacrifice is the most important part of this rite; in this case sacrifice is preferred to the communion. Pig-killing is viewed by other ethnics of South Bend as special Hungarian „populär customs", as „hurka" and hot peppered sausages are special dishes of Hungarian dinners (Hoppal 1987). It is not accidental what kind of themes are found on the photos because the choice of the topic is the most important activity of photographing (c. p. Musello 1984:57). Therefore it is understandable that I could not find any photo about „Thanksgiving" or processions (the later is very important for the Italians - Bianco-Angiuli 1980. photos 126-129) but I could find many photos of pig-killing and Christmas. The Hungarians, especially the last group of the emigrants view Christmas as the most important family event so the whole family can be found on the photos. In the background the brilliant pine-tree, the symbol of the gift-giving can be seen. It means a festive rite returning every year in the family's life. The Cristmas with its songs and traditional meals and the gestures of giving gifts is a part of the folklore of the family. By photographing the event, the myth of the family becomes part of an idealized family history (Musello 1980:39). Social Meaning of Family Photographs „It is evident that photographs neither exist nor are they percieved only in and for themselves. A photographic document is shaped through its interrelatedness with other parts of the cultural system" (Kolodny 1975:54). Photographs are cultural mediators between the reality appearing as objectivised reproduction and the person looking at the pictures. Photos, as a sort of cultural mediators fill the role of mediating means, their function is similar to the social role of sign, which mediate between a piece of the reality represented by them and the person who wants to understand the signs. When taking the family photographs we transform the signs of the moments into those of the memory. By cutting a piece from the mobile and living reality the photos stiffen the reality and close it into the frames of the picture. This is what was called „the photographic dismemberment of reality. . ." (Sontag 1978:172). Just by choosing the topics and fixing them we create a photo which characterizes the photorapher. Therefore the photographs are claimed not only to accept and describe a world but also to create and change it (see later its logical preconditions in details - Horányi 1982:402). The photographs as signs are very special from a semiotic point of view though they reflect the piece of reality - which they represent - very faithfully and objectively, the framing (the choice of the framing) makes them very subjective. („All objectivity is subject-specific. . . all reality is subjectively constructed" - Baer 1984:2). According to the Peircean theory of semiotics photograph as a sign belongs to the class of the iconic signs which means that the sign resembles it object for which it stands