Ujváry Zoltán: Kultusz, színjáték, hiedelem (Miskolc, 2007)

Játék és maszk. Dramatikus népszokások IV.

and newer versions which had no real - or only sort of approximative - basis of and connections with the one-time, ancient start. The most ancient and the most widespread customs of the entire Hungarian-speaking area consist of imitating funeral play customs parodying the actual ones. This type can be found with numerous other European nations, and there is a great similarity between the traditional material of each nation. In the course of their development many similar motives and ancient cultural rites could have come into contact. The way the genre has developed itself must have had an intense correlation with the medieval „Deathdance-Literature" and with contemporary anti-church movements. The genre's deep roots as well as its particular moments preserve the heritage of both the classical and the popular tradition. „Deathmask plays" are also closely related to the problems of deathdances of different sorts. A distinction must be made, however, between the two categories. Death-imitating dance cannot be characterized as a special, differentiable sort of dance — it is not even a dance. It is the collection of dances appropriate for a funeral. Dance, as such, may find a place in certain versions of funeral parodies. It is especially wedding scenes that may be accompanied by dances. Contrastively, deathdances originate from the Medieval Tradition so often manifested by a series of literary and fine arts' productions. It is the latter whose elements appear so frequentiy in folk plays depicting Death, especially in its masked form. The specialized literature of ethnology leaves no doubt about the connection between Death-Mask plays and the cult of the Dead, themselves. Death-cult, as such, definitely belongs to the series of Agrarian Cult: thus all the dramatic customs related to Death naturally belong to the remnants of Vegetation Cult. In the dramatic playing, customary scenes that are connected to erotic and phallic demonstrations usually abound. These presentations are either verbal (obscene prose or poetic texts), or else they directly imitate the coitus and represent the phallos in its various forms. These motives can be traced back to ancient Fertility Rites, whose European origins go as far back as the Antique Civilization. Hungarian examples of this kind naturally correspond with the original ethnic material. We may safely say that the function of „phallism", here, can also undoubtedly be traced back to onetime cults and rituals. The „phallos" of Death-Mask Plays - in its recent, last stadium — shows the phenomenon when the „object" of the Cult is only formal; it has actived the requisites of comedy. It is in the culture of Classical Antiquity where we can find the parallels to and the precedents of the plays where a living person, animal or object is found guilty and, therefore, gets killed. Plays representing a trial, charging somebody and, finally, having him executed have been extremely popular both in the Carpathian Basin and throughout Europe. From pure imitation to more play-like elements, many contaminated versions are known. When investigating this play-type, it would be most natural to make use of simple „mimesis". This approach, however, might produce a manifold possibility of functional simplification, just as it might hide the original backgrounds of the ancient ritual. The comparison with the antique traditions undoubtedly refers to the cultic nature of the custom. The various animal-masks are widely known among all nations of the Earth. As it has been proved by previous researches, the theriomorphic mask had appeared much earlier than any other masks, and they had also preserved their priority. It may be supposed that ever since the Paleolithicum the animal-mask has not been a mere means of representing, but that it has also served some magic purposes, having become a medium of transcendentalization. While accounting for European animal-masks, researchers often used to regard the appearance of the particular animal in the customs of the particular nation as a primary viewpoint. However, this kind of interpretation — similarly to those that overexaggerate the role of geographical milieux — oversimplifies this very complex system of phenomena by emphasising one single, causative origin. The European animal-masks are far more complex and raise - by way of their function - far more questions than the same ones appearing with the socalled „natural peoples" [tribes]. The functions located at the latter cannot simply be corresponded with European parallels. Hungarian - and thus European - dramatic customs present four main teriomorphic masks (the horse, the goat, the hear and the stork) which provoke basic research into the custom of wearing masks, at all, and they mean far more than simple imitation of the said animals. It is the Horse that is the most popular and most frequent teriomorphic animal-mask in the Hungarian folk playing tradition. In one way or another, it appears all around the Hungarian-speaking areas. The various manifestations of the Horse-Cult of Hungarian and neighboring peoples affected the general theories concerning the Horse Mask to a great extent. The theory about horse-mask plays can also be attributed to this. This view says that they do not root from the Hungarian past but are adoptions of other peoples' similar traditions. Some researchers, who had insisted on the priority of the „horse cult" in their own country and traditions, also contributed to this theory. The numerous varieties of horse-mask plays serve as a proof of a rich tradition having spread all around the Hungarian-speaking territories. Plays imitating horses were so widespread and common in the Hungarian tradition that