A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve: Studia Ethnographica 5. (Szeged, 2005)

Grynaeus Tamás: Makó és környéke hagyományos orvoslása I.

Traditional healing in Makó and surroundings by TAMÁS GRYNAEUS Present study discusses traditional healing in Makó (in South-East Hungary, in the area of Csongrád, previously Csanád County) and in eight neighboring villages at the end of the 19

th century and in the 20

lh century. The study uses several authors' collections, mainly manuscripts from the given time period as source. The area was chosen due to our knowledge on the history of settlements. After the Turkish occupation intensive and mutual migration took place between the resettled villages and later on the city of Makó. Consequently present day population may be considered as almost homogeneous. In the first part of the study after introducing the family and bynames referring to illnesses as well as to mental and physical frame, we present the prohibitions (taboos) aiming at prevention. These are connected to time periods (periods of the day, days, holidays), or to the state of the body (menstruation, pregnancy, infancy and childhood), respectively to types of food eaten (novelty), or serve the magic prevention of bread and milk. They prohibit marriage between close relatives, as well as sanction the loss of virginity before marriage, and regulate the wearing of certain traditional pieces of clothes with preventive aims. The traditions of giving and choosing names, as well as protection against witches and other destructive powers are also listed here. These are the witches (with a euphemistic name "the bad"), who may act also in the shapes of dogs, cats, frogs, horses and pigs. This was an accepted belief still at the end of the 20

th century. The chapter entitled "From Birth to Death" discusses the questions and matters of the period before marriage (burning, temptation, bewitching apart, spell on fertility), and those of gynecology and obstetric. Several magic traditions are connected to pregnancy and childbearing influencing the gender and character of the child, as well as protective prohibitions. Until approximately the 1930s so called peasantmidwives operating with or without certification were present at deliveries. The midwives together with the elder female members of the family ensured the respect of traditions and customs. After delivery the mother was laid in a special bed named after "Boldogasszony" (a pagan goddess in Hungarian tradition later identified with the Blessed Virgin). In this bed the mother and the infant were protected by several procedures and prohibitions. Several traditional beliefs and customs are connected to the first bathing and the navel, as well as to the clothes of the infant. The nameless "pagan" infant before baptizing is especially endangered, thus the infant should be protected against the so-called "exchange" until baptizing. Relating to the period of breast-feeding and weaning, and that of teaching a child to speak and walk, as well as to the typical children's and infants' diseases (colic, insomnia, diarrhea, hairy child, mastitis neonatorum) a great deal of magical procedures and incantations are preserved. The diagnosis and traditional beliefs related to the evil eye and scare (placing coal into water, bathing with the traditional sayings) is the most common and the richest. At the end of the chapter we list the traditions connected to the feeding of the infant, as well as present how children are educated to play. 230