Antall József szerk.: Népi gyógyítás Magyarországon / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 11-12. (Budapest, 1979)

TANULMÁNYOK - Hoppáy Mihály: „Anya és gyermek" a magyar folklórban — A hiedelemvilág etnoszemiotikai megközelítése (angol nyelven)

-94 Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 11- 12 (1979) implies the manner of treatment (e. g. fumigation or dropping lowing embers into water), and the time at which the cure must be carried out (e. g.midnight or sunrise); and the specific individual who carries out the action at specific places and with specified tools. Thus in a belief system well circumscribed classes can be built from component elements prescribed by tradition. Classes of this sort are preferred times of day (sunrise, sunset, midnight), magical numbers (3, 7,9), supernatural beings, celestial bodies, auspicious days of the year, actions, impliments with magical power and so on. If these are arranged and the relations between them described, one can reconstruct the "syntactic rules" of the system. We selected texts which I collected in the Northeastern part of Hungary to show the relationship of elements to each other and how these comprise a "'well-formed belief-sentence". The first example describes the curing of a small child who was struck ill by the evil eye: " We prepared so called »coal-water«, water in which several pieces of ember are placed and I gathered herbs. I found the herbs in a field. When the child was struck by the evil-eye (beaten by the evil-eye), I cooked them. Before sunrise I drew water from three wells, then still before sunrise I cooked it, and before sunrise I bathed the child once. The second time I bathed him at twelve o'clock, the third time when the sun was at rest, just the horizon. And it really worked." (Where must one empty the water?

—asked the collector. "/ emptied the water at the edge of the ditch. We empty it where people don't walk." (For more data about evil-eye in Appendix No. 72-92). More than twenty women in a village described the practice of bathing three times. Compared to existing data from other villages, we consider it as a general peasant behavioral pattern — a constant in the sytax of elements. Stated more precisely, a program lived in the knowledge of the community with respect to what means must one employ, almost on the level of ritualization so that they correctly generate in the sense of grammar the above mentioned curing procedure. Let us take a look at another example: "They didn't empty the bathwater of the little one into the road where they walked. It was also forbidden to empty water during the early part of the evening. This is what my fathers mothers said: 'My daughter, if you empty out water in the evening, only empty it where it falls down in drops off the thatch-roof

.' Or if you want to empty it in the yard, say that ' whoever stands there, go away, because I am emptying water.' The deceased sometimes return. Whoever empties the water after sun down empties it on the deceased because they often return". (See Appendix No. 14—18). A direct reference was made in the text as to its social usage (as the inner meaning or semantics of beliefs) which previously in the village communities prescribed the time and place of emptying water. And no matter how extreme this simple example may appear, this kind and other similar data are quite abundant in Hungary (see Appendix no 32—38). It is clear from the above that not only in the rites of passages, but also in everyday life. One sign (unit) implies the presence of another within a language or sign system. The belief system may be viewed as a storehouse of the rules of everyday behavior. The more traditional the social stratum, the deeper its conceptual and behavioral rules are rooted. Consequently a belief block may remain unchanged for years, de-