The title of my book; Demecser is the gem of Rétköz, I wrote for Hungarians, I wrote in Hungarian.
Since 1975, I have been collecting memories of the everyday life of the people in Rétköz. In speaking of the world of Rétköz folk beliefs we must first of all think of the age-old sense of unity it assumes between the supernatural on the one hand, and nature and man on the other. Without this, much would remain obscure for us in the system of folk beliefs. The Rétközi peasantry carry from the past not only certain motifs and remnants of memory but also many fundamental ideas from their archaic religious beliefs and their world view in general, all of which lies hidden in their world of beliefs. Sometimes I wonder about it myself confronted with the existence of various primitive and peasant beliefs, superstitious customs, and naive religious behaviour, have posed the How could otherwise capable hunters, fishermen, stockmen, and peasants, who can find their way in the midst of the dangers and cares of practical life, believe in these misconceptions so obviously false to us? Needless to say, what these mean is to me... If we consider, out of context, only the fact that the Rétközi peasantry believed in the evil eye (rontás), in the taking of cow’s milk, in the shaman (táltos), in incubi (lidérc), and in many other things, this can appear really nonsensical to us. The isolated communities on the farms ethnic groups of the Rétközi peasantry could not develop together with either of the with villages. The situation of the peasant class, their being tied to the land, and the nature of peasant agricultural work prevented them equally from joining. Peasants were also influenced from the direction of the ruling classes, although these influences did not affect precisely the fundamental traits and characteristics of their thinking and culture but rather, for example, changed their customs, certain of their tales, and melodies. The peasantry’s opinion about the final affairs of the world, about life and death and their own place in the world, has continued in the same tracks through centuries. Essentially, peasant culture and what we have called their world view were strongly self-sufficient, having to answer questions without an intermediary, just as the peasant on his little property had to be simultaneously the house building architect and the expert who knows about animal husbandry, farming, weather, singing, and many other things. Peasant life was involuntarily universalist, involuntarily all encompassing. Therefore, as we have said, the peasant largely had to find for himself the hopefully correct answers to his own final questions. This is why a different world view evolves from his beliefs, a view that in many cases resembles that ancient shamanistic perception from which it originates historically. In this perception, too, the supernatural powers, nature, and man are in the closest relationship, the ties are not to be severed. Besides, it is evident from these beliefs that the supernatural world and our earthly world have not yet clearly been separated from each other, that they interpenetrate, so that miracles can happen at any time. A piece of iron, a hatchet, can be at once a useful agricultural tool and a magical aid that prevents damage by the storm, prevents hail. Naturally, this connection, this interpretation is more easily recognizable and perceptible in the cults of the archaic tribal cultures and in the world of ancient beliefs than in peasant cultures. We are not to think that superstition and belief were just some kind of a subsidiary factor in the rétközi of old; it was one of the main factors and directors in their life; complicated customs and prohibitions followed them through life, from birth to death, and they had to cling to them. Magic and beliefs were woven into the activities even of economic life. Fertility and guidance magic, as well as beliefs connected with domestic stock and their products, milk and eggs, all show that every area of the peasants’ life was interwoven with these beliefs. According to the peasant view, superstitions in economic processes had just as important a role as the strictly economic working processes. Sowing beliefs are closely attached to sowing, and, by the terms of their faith, they could confidently attribute a good harvest to the carefully carried out ceremonies of fertility magic. Nothing proves better how much rétközi peasant life was affected by this world of beliefs than the fact that for centuries it could live its own life among both Catholic and Protestant peasants. We know well that the peasantry throughout Europe was characterized by a peculiar mixture of peasant religiosity and intertwining of Christianity with the older world of beliefs. Christian customs and devotional exercises were mixed with pagan traditions, ancient memories, and later developed peasant superstitions. In the course of the centuries, peasant religiousness has grown into a really intricate system consisting of parts that contradict each other, certain beliefs have taken on a newer shape, have changed roles, have been transformed through the centuries. Often we cannot even decide for sure about some belief whether it is a pagan tradition, or has developed in Christian times. At any rate, beyond these historical strata, the decisive finding is the verification that for various historical, social, and cultural reasons the intellectual make-up and world view of the rétközi peasantry remained such that superstitious forms of behaviour could, as in a revival, reawaken in it, that the beliefs had their beaten, almost preconditioned tracks, in which superstition could always appear, in a new situation, as the tool and interpretive theory for a solution. Ignorance, low education is the cradle of beliefs. As we have said the world of beliefs influenced the religious picture of the world as well as the social life, economic activities, and everyday customs of the rétközi mans. It also enmeshed one of the most significant areas of Rétköz peasant creation, the folk tales. One of the richest, most complex areas of peasant creative talent could not have developed if the peasantry had not thought in terms of its system of beliefs. The spirit of wonder and of magic penetrates the atmosphere of folk epics; their credibility and the interest in transmitting them can occur only in a society cherishing a picture of the world that is not determined solely by rationalism and everyday reality but also by this luxuriant growth of a network of beliefs. In such a society, in such a cultural form, the fairystory was, through long centuries, a good and credible entertainer of the peasantry. The present fate and transformation of the folk tales can also verify this: with the destruction of the world of beliefs, tales that were full of miracles are the earliest to die, to wither away, whereas the anecdote and the local epic can maintain themselves longer, apparently because there is much in common in these forms of literature with the perceptible world. The world of peasant beliefs encompassed every area of life. First among the figures of the world of beliefs of the rétközi peasantry, we will mention the táltos, as one in whom the features of the pre-Conquest shamanistic faith can be found most prominently. Of táltos call people endowed with supernatural powers. Today, the characteristics and equipment of the táltos can be analyzed mostly from the legends of belief that still live in the memory of old people living primarily in the Rétköz. The táltos is well-meaning rather than evil. He does not gain his knowledge by his own will, but receives it, from God. Even his grandfather was a taltos. A child was carefully examined at birth to see if he had any teeth or perhaps a sixth finger on one of his hands. One abnormal development already foretold that with time the child would become a táltos. Horn and drum, "táltos fa" and fire the equipment of the táltos, the sieve, on the side of which they fasten rattles and bells. At one time the táltos used this for curing sicknesses, for divining, and for conjuring up abundance. The visible intarsia decoration on the táltosfa with the Tree of Life, the sun and the moon. Among the activities of the táltos we must especially emphasize ecstasy, which the Hungarian language calls rejtezés (hiding) and évülés (ecstasy), thet is belongs to shamanistic rites. These archaic beliefs in ancient religious traditions. The táltos, the learned one, can create contact with supernatural beings and with the spirits of the dead ancestors only in the state of ecstasy. The boszorkány or bába, the figure of the garabonciás was strongly mixed during the centuries with that of the táltos. His figure appears to be more revengeful and dangerous than that of the táltos and undoubtedly, in the world of beliefs of the Hungarian peasantry, he represents European black magic.
Uncle Karcsi said; “I could also tell a lot about women getting around at night, jumping in the form of cats and going among themselves like many gallants, ravers, dancers, drunkards, lechers, who with a half foot push little children into the sea, who cause damage and much mischief, and among whom many were burned. . They also have a queen, and on her word the devil does horrible things.”
As a precaution, the farmers kept watch with a pitchfork so that no cat could sneak into the barn. Witches are also believed to take on the shape of a goose, duck, hen, brooding hen, and chicken, as well as the shape of a dog and horse. Interestingly the cow does not appear among these domestic animals, only its horn, imagined as an attribution, the witch herself maintaining her human body. The fox and the rabbit are most frequently encountered as figures into which witches change from among wild animals. Such a person could be, as was considered especially in the Great Plain, a Cunning Shepherd (tudós pásztor), who could defend not only his own stock and his interests with supernatural power, but also tried to help others.
Faith in the power of death seeing women (léleklátó asszony) and healers (füvesember) lives on almost to this day. Their activity is manifold. Thus there were some who could make contact with and transmit messages to the spirits of people who had died in the near or distant past. People came from far away to consult certain highly reputed seers (látóasszony), especially during wartime, when they wanted to find out something about their dead or missing relatives. There were among them some who achieved cures with prayers and incantations, while others practised the art of divination. The characters listed above are all persons who belonged to some community, or at least appeared there from time to time. What differentiated them from average, everyday people was only that in one or another area of life they commanded supernatural power and used it for good or evil purposes, for the benefit or the ruin of themselves or of others. However, there exist also some truly supernatural figures in the world of Rétközi beliefs, although their number is significantly smaller. The origin of the Rétközi lidérc (Ignis Fatuus incubus) In some places lidérc means a lover who appears in human or animal form and destroys a man or woman, often by tormenting him or her to death. Finally we also meet with its meaning as will-o’-the-wisp, usually wandering, like a dead spirit who for some reason cannot come to rest, over the area where at one time he had lived. It is traditionally held that the soul of the dead man leaves his body but still wanders about the house and watches to see if the burial takes place in an orderly fashion. Afterwards the soul stands in the cemetery gate until it is relieved by another one, at which time the soul is finally freed. But according to folk belief, this does not happen in the case of every soul, because there are some who cannot rest, and return from time to time. The reason may be that the person had not bidden goodbye to his relatives or had some other affairs on earth to be disposed of. And he who was miserly in his life, who had cheated or stolen and in general caused losses for others, or he whose requested things had not been put in his coffin, was also believed to come back. A soul cannot rest if its small children are ill-treated or if the heirs cannot agree on the division of property. At such times it returns, turns everything upside down, and knocks pictures and plates off the wall. The relatives would try to find out the reason for its return, but if they failed, they dug the body up, turned it over, and nailed it with a long nail to the bottom of the coffin. The ghost is a soul who for some reason is condemned to wander eternally or until it is in some way freed from its fate. A ghost could appear in many forms. Most frequently, it haunted people in the shape of a horse, calf, piglet, rabbit, dog, cat, or goose. In most cases these ghosts are of good will and do no harm; at the most, the ghost follows those who get in its way and appears in the shape of a familiar man or woman asking for a ride on a cart; but the cart can then go no further, because it cannot carry the great weight, while the horses, sensing the ghost, run wild. A ghost might appear in a familiar shape leading his victim into a swamp or river to meet his death. Many more less frequent figures, or figures not occurring in a larger area, could be mentioned among the characters of the world of beliefs of the Hungarian peasantry, as dwarfs, giants, fairies, elves, goblin, water sprites, house spirits, and others, all of which are fairly frequent among.
According to folk belief, the rainbow is a sign that God will not destroy the world again by flood. They hold that where it reaches the ground is the end of the world, and if somebody points at it with a finger, they immediately make him bite it, so as not to cause calamity. People also predict the crop from it; if there is much yellow in the first rainbow of the spring, then there will be much corn, if the green stripe is wide, then the wheat harvest will be good, and much red promises a rich yield of wine. Peasants predict wind a day in advance. If the sun goes down in a red cloud, there will be much wind the next day. They hold this to be true in case of sunrise also. The whirlwind was held to be the most dangerous among the winds, because a táltos, garabonciás or witch could travel in them from one place to another. Therefore a sickle, clods of earth, or other things were thrown into whirlwinds, but they had to be very careful that the one inside the whirlwind should not take revenge on them. Sometimes, they would grab a sieve, because by looking through it, the witch inside could be seen.
I heard many, many stories like this from the old people, which I recorded in my book for posterity.
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