A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1966-1967 (Debrecen, 1968)

Újváry Zoltán: Lakodalmi játékok Konyáron

Zoltán Ujváry Wedding Plays in Konyár Konyár is a village of about four thousands inhabitants in county Hajdú-Bihar, thirty kilometres off Debrecen. Its dwellers deal exclusively with agriculture and animal husbandry. For years I have continued ethnographical researches in the village. I had opportunity to observe in detail the wedding customs. Of the wedding traditions especially remarkable are the various plays. These folk plays do not belong closely to the ceremony of the wedding, they are not parts absolutely necessary to it, notwithstanding that at a certain moment of the wedding they often play an important role. Numerous variants of the folk plays and scenes occur in the weddings in Konyár. Some parts of the plays are performed by the bridesmen and the young fellows taking part at the wedding, the other parts are acted by the persons not invited to there, who usually appear with masks. In the play exclusively men and young fellows take part, they play the female parts as well. In this communication we describe fourteen plays. The scene most favoured by them is the parody of the burial. A young man is laid on a bench and covered with a sheet. He is carried into the room. A lad, dressed up as a woman, represents the wife of the dead, others play the dead's children. The most important role is that of the young man who plays the priest. He stands at the head of the dead. He takes a baking pan in his hands and "reads" the text of the sermon from that (picture 1). The text has many lewd phrases and double-entendres. It appears also in the fact that he substitutes the penis of the lad, who plays the dead, with a corn-ear and at times moves it. The wife of the dead says: "I am sorry only for it!" Similarly, the horse interpretation belongs to the scenes frequently performed. Four young fellows take part in the play: the owner of the horse, the young men forming the horse and the merchant. In the 2-3. pictures can be seen, how they form the horse. The head of the horse is formed by an earthenware pot. The owner of the horse enters into a bargain with the trader. The merchant promises too little money for the horse. The owner of the horse gets angry, he does not sell the horse cheaply, rather le "beats it to death", that is, he breaks the earthenware pot to pieces with his club (4. picture). To the animal masks belong the ram and sheep masks (5. picture). The young fellow, taking part in the play, puts a sheepskin on his head and with a leader, who usually grimes his face, he enters the house in which the wedding is celebrated. The animal keeps frightening and butts repeatedly the women. Usually he dances with his companion. They took pleasure in the animal's clumsy movement. The imitation of the crafts belongs to the character scenes. For example the scene with the knife-grinder, in which a youth descends on his all fours, another "pushes in" the room and a third man "edges" a knife below the stomach of the young man impersonating the grinder, meanwhile there is noticeably a reference to the "sharpening" of the lad's penis. The imitation of the barber's craft can often be seen. A young man dressed up as a barber, shaves the other with a wooden knife, whom he had "soaped" with a lime brush, as a shaving brush. They extremely enjoy the scene with the fishmonger. In a barrel a youth is seated who has not known the play. They cover the opening of the barrel with a sheet, that the young fellow could not jump out. The merchant sells the fish. The persons present say, that the fish smells, because there is no water on it, and it dies without it, therefore he has to pour water on it. A great laughter accompanies the lad who got in a sad plight and now he comes, drenched to the skin, out of the barrel. To a mediaeval tradition goes back the scene of the drunken man with his wife. A young man sits down to the table and he imitates a drunkard. Another young man, dressed up as a woman, enters the room, calls his husband home, scolded him, because he is always sitting in the inn, he is always drunk, there is no money at home, the children are crying etc. At the end of the scene the man and the woman drink together. 493