Location: Roztoky (near Prague), Czech Republic Date: Saturday before Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of Christian Lent period Description: Shrovetide in Roztoky consists primarily of the procession of masks that starts in the city and continues to find its peak on local hill called Holý vrch. This hummock servesContinue Reading
THE FEAST OF THE BEAR – A NEW RITUAL IN A TRADITIONAL CONTEXT Olga Cieslarová, Martin Pehal THE WILD MAN, THE GRIFFIN AND THE LION “Diryff-dyff-dyff” resounds from a distance. We are standing with the children on the bank of the Rhine River in Basel. We hear the loud boomsContinue Reading
Location: Kingdom of Swaziland, South Africa Date: late August/early September Description: This type of celebration (called by the Swazis) gathers all the maidens of the land to show their virtue, talent and beauty as well as pay tribute and show their allegiance to their rulers. It is a festival typicalContinue Reading
Location: KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa Date: late August/early September Description: This type of celebration (called Umkhosi woMhlanga in the Zulu language) gathers all the maidens of the land to show their virtue, talent and beauty as well as pay tribute and show their allegiance to their rulers. ItContinue Reading
Location: Mexico (most prominently, to lesser extent in Guatemala, Bolivia, El Salvador, Peru) Date: around 1st of November Description: The Festival of the Dead (in general) is based on the assumption that bad things can happen if the living fail to give the dead what is their due – inContinue Reading
THE GREATEST OUTDOOR SHOW ON EARTH Location: Calgary, Canada Date: June Description: The story of the first Calgary Stampede goes back over 100 years and tells how the celebration of typical cattlemen life in the wild west was established. The first Stampede was focused mainly on the competition in rodeoContinue Reading
THE FEAST OF THE BEAR – A NEW RITUAL IN A TRADITIONAL CONTEXT Olga Cieslarová, Martin Pehal The article presents a new ritual, the “Bärentag” (Feast of the Bear), founded 21 years ago in Basel. It came about in the context of the medieval, but still very popular,Continue Reading
Name of Event: “Vynášení Morany” [Disposing of Morana] (Morana/Mařena/Mařana = female personification of Winter) Location: Prague Date: fifth Sunday of the Lent Period (also designated as “Deathly Sunday”), typically the end of March Description: Disposing of Morana is a revival of a Slavic folk-tradition of discarding the personification of WinterContinue Reading
Date: 12th of January Location: Basel, Switzerland Description: A new ritual, the “Bärentag” (Feast of the Bear) was founded in 1998 in Basel (Switzerland). This happened in the context of the medieval, but still nowadays very popular feast of “Vogel Gryff” (grifin). In contrast to the traditional feast characterized byContinue Reading
