Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 31-33. (Győr, 1994)

Ág Tibor: Betlehemes játékok Csallóközben

Nativity Plays in Csallóköz The Danube entering the Carpathian Basin at Dévény divides a large plain territory into two parts. Csallóköz is the largest river island in Europe which is situated in the South-West of the present Slovakia and bordered by the Greater Danube from the South and the Lesser Danube from the North. 90 % of the inhabitants of Csallóköz are Hungarian despite the resettlement and deportation to Bohemia after the World War II. Most of the people living here are mainly Roman Catholic but there are a number of Presbyterians and some Evangelicals (the latter in an insignificant minority). The folklore of the territory became interesting to scholars at the beginning of this century. The research of its folk music began only in the fifties except for Béla Bartók's and László Lajtha's collections in Nagymegyer and Nemesócsa, respectively. This text mainly deals with the nativity plays living in the memories of the elder generations only, with special respect to folk music. This custom was alive in several settlements between the two World Wars, but after the death of the tradition the melodies of the nativity plays survived as songs sung under the windows at Christmas. Despite the fact that Csallóköz does not rate among the traditionpreserving territories, lit maintained its importance from the folk music point of view. Researching the folk music here demands more ellort than to do the same in the traditionally preserved Hungarian villages around Nyitra. The new Hungarian folk song style dominates the folk music in Csallóköz. The old style dominates in bagpipe songs. Amond the melodies connected with the customs in the calendar the most colourful and richest ones are those sung on the Christmas-related holidays. During my research work I managed to set down nativity plays or their short executions or their fragments in 19 settlements in Csallóköz. The number of the players ranges between 3 and 5. My "informants", that is the people I talked, with, claimed that there had been pastorals too, played by school children in certain villages at the end of the last century and at the beginning of this one. In Kesztölce, an 87 years old peasant named Vince Katona sang a melody from a pastoral called Nativity Gate-Keeper (Help me, my God....). The melodies of the Nativity Plays present several musical styles and probably come from different ages. Most of the melodies are in the major key. Their tonal system is mainly hexachord but octave and plangal melodies can be found, too. Similarly to the Nativity melodies of other regions, they have a looser structure than the folk songs. Close verses 383