Agria 43. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2007)

Paládi-Kovács Attila: A kiszehajtá szokásának földrajzi elterjedtsége

SINKOVICSNÉ KALINA Julianna 1957 Rákoskeresztúr. Budapest. SCHRAMM Ferenc 1972 Turai népszokások. Szentendre. TÁTRAI Zsuzsanna-KARÁCSONY MOLNÁR Erika 1997 Jeles napok, ünnepi szokások. Budapest. TOLNAI Vilmos 1899 Nagyfalusi (hontmegyei) babonák. Ethnographia X. 395-397. ÚMTSz 1992 Új Magyar Tájszótár 3. (Főszerk.: LŐRINCZY Éva). Budapest. VANKÓNÉ DUDÁS Juli 1976 Falum Galgamácsa. Studia Comitatensia 4. Szentendre. Attila Paládi-Kovács Distribution of the Calendar Custom: „kiszehajtás" in Upper Hungary The Hungarian kisze refers to a kind of straw dummy made of either rag or straw, intended to symbolise both winter and a period of fasting. Those who participated in the custom of throwing the straw dummy (Hung.: kiszehajtás) were the adolescent girls, who had made the dummies. It was they who also dressed the dummies in clothes they had borrowed from young women before carrying them around the village attached to a pole. During the procession the girls would sing short ritual songs, while either burning or throwing parts of the dummy divested of its clothing into the streams and rivers lying beyond the bounds of the village. By doing this they took the kisze, which symbolised both winter and fasting, and made their supplications for meat, ham and the arrival of the spring. The ceremony took place on the afternoon of Palm Sunday (one week before Easter Sunday). It is important to know that the fermented bran which formed the basic ingredient for the meals eaten during Lent was also called kisze in most northern Hungarian communities. In the Hungarian villages in the historical county of Nyitra the arrival of the spring was celebrated on the same day, albeit accompanied by the carrying of decorated branches and the singing of songs by the girls of the village. Researchers first noted the existence of straw dummy throwing in some parts of Upper Hungary (Nyitra and Hont Counties) during the 1840s, and in 1909 Zoltán Kodály published songs connected with the tradition. Since then numerous researchers have studied the custom, its rituals and superstitions. Now, however, 27