Horváth Attila – Solymos Ede szerk.: Cumania 5. Ethnographia (Bács-Kiskun Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei, Kecskemét, 1978)

Novák L.: A Duna Tisza köze temetőinek néprajza

ried into the cemetery of the Catholics but they could be laid to rest in the cemetery of the Turkish inhabitants if such existed. The turban, the grave marker of the Turks exerted an influence also on the decoration of the wooden headposts of the Hungarians. Such headposts can be found in the cemeteries of Abony, Cegléd, Nagykőrös and Kecskemét. The old style headpostshave an archaic stratum too, the group of the anthropomorphic headposts whose form points to an even more ancient heritage. Among the reld gious ideas of e thnic groups living on a less developie evel of social-economic relations, totemism plays an essential role. There are areas where the dead are prepared and carried around by their tribestellows on their wanderings, and such bodies are surrounded by great respect (e. g. in Australia), in other places the bodies aren't put into graves but onto a scaffolding, and the human corpse in decay symbolizes the man (Oceania). Again other people bury the body into a grave putting a carved memorial column onto it in form of a human figure thus as a human statue signing that a human body is decaying below it (a frequent ghenomenon in the culture of nature peoples in the Far East, and of the nomadic pastoral tribes). These all are identical with the substance of Man that he wants to form the world after his face. He not only gives names to his tools after his own figure or body parts but sometimes he forms them to a human shape. This is particularly valid for the case of the headpost for it is the symbol of the human body and the human life respectively, thus the formal manifestation of the survival of the soul. Also in the cultural heritage of Hungarians such an archaic element, a cultic custom corresponding to the earlier economicsocial relations, occurs in the case of the anthropomorphic headposts. The Hungarian people lived under changed economic-social relations in the Carpathian Basin, their culture was basically determined by the Christianity. In course of the Reformation in the 16th century, however, when the use of cross as grave marker ended among the Protestants, the archaic decorative motive, the anthropomorphic figure appeared again in the form of the new grave markers symbolizing the human life and the immortality of-he soul. The fact that protestant Christianity employed the anthropomorphic headpost is a clear evidence that it is not a continuous pagan heritage. In the continuous settlements which survived the end of the 16th and the whole 17th century, a period full of uncertainty and wars, one can reckon with the survival of headposts (fejfák) and knobbed posts (gombosfák). Strong presbyterian communities preserved this tradition even in the time of CounterReformation partly influencing also the form of the new-style headposts (in Dunapataj, Kunszentmiklós, Tass, and Dömsöd). The development of the newstyle headposts can be put to the second half of the 18th century, and to their diffusion the decree on religious tolerance gave an impulse. The flourishing of this headpost culture, however, began in the middle of the 19th century. The main characteristic of the new-style headposts is that they consist of an assemblage of different motives. On each headpost, star, tulip, knobbed and ringed decorations alternatively line up. At the determination of the new-style headposts, the motives play a role. The most frequently applied decorative element is the tulip. It appears first in the decorative folk practice in the 17th—18th century. It became wide-spread under the influence of the Turkish decorative art in Hungary. It appears only sporadically in the 17th century but it s occurrence is far more common in the 18th century (in folk embroidery and carving). Referring to the headpost, the tulip is the symbol of like just like the star, the other decorative motive. All decorative motives belong to the circle of the life symbol. In their line, the snake motive is one of the most representative signs. It can be found on a headpost of Fülöpszállás. While the tulip and the star, although, as flower and star ancient symbols, are new motive types, the snake is an archaic heritage of the folk tradition. The meaning of the anthropomorphic headposts and the knobbed posts is of general validity in the semiotics symbolizing Man and human life. The motive system of the new style headposts similarly belongs to the circle of life symbols — it is true that it incompletely carries the social conventions in a more abstract way manifesting itself in a flower, star, etc. sign system. The memory hasn't preserved each motive, either their names or their social meaning aren't known now. If the headpost carvers of our time make a headpost, they will make use of the repertoire of the traditional decorative elements 299