Fraternity-Testvériség, 2008 (86. évfolyam, 1-3. szám)
2008-07-01 / 3. szám
FEATURE Other disguises are also worn during the village carnivals. Some are made from stockings, rags, or paper. Comic funerals and mock weddings are also performed during the carnival season, and some of the more popular characters are a robber, gypsy woman, bride, old man, or woman with a baby. The most striking ceremony is the mock wedding in Transdanubia, where the “newlyweds” are carried through the village on a log. Sometimes, special parades are held only for women and girls. The Palots (a North Hungarian ethnic group) in the Karancs Mountain region used to hold a “girls’ Sunday.” After dinner on Sunday, the girls traveled around the village carrying sticks and singing greetings. Their songs were religious and made requests for donations. Dancing followed in the evening. As recently as 1968, the women of Ma- traalmas paraded around the village in fancy dresses and threw icicles at the men. At an allfemale ball in the evening, men were forbidden to attend. Most of the festivities at the carnivals, however, are connected to marriage. At some ceremonies, it is customary to ridicule the girls HUNGARIAN MASK who are still unmarried. In Szat- mar, for example, on Shrove Tuesday, the boys clanged pieces of tin together below the windows of single girls and shouted: If you have a grown-up daughter, Pack her off to the fields. On my last visit to Hungary, I started to collect the grotesque wooden buso masks and appreciate the intricate carving, horns and wool used to decorate them. Recently, I’ve been able to find miniatures of them that are worn as pendants. As opposed to our Mardi Gras celebrations and Halloween masks, the buso creations offer an insight into Hungarian carnival traditions, and no doubt the intricately carved buso masks that hang in our home might some day become collector’s items. FRATERNITY - TESTVÉRISÉG 23
