Christmas visitors

The Belsugari are regular visitors on Christmas Night (which is 24th December here) or the following morning. Starting in the night and continuing until around mid-day, this ad-hoc troupe of masqued dancers and musicians makes its way through the village, performing at any house where they are admitted. Belsugari are common throughout rural Romania, and are a remaining vestige of ancient tradition that quite possibly go back to the Dacians who lived here in pre-Roman times.

The all-male troupe includes a leader, musicians, men with blackened faces and tattered yet gaudy costumes representing male and female gypsies, men disguised as peasant women, men with goat masks, and a man wearing furs representing a bear. It is a peculiar, energetic, raucous spectacle that embraces and legitimises - albeit temporarily - travel across social group, gender and species.

The leader and musicians enter a house when invited, followed at intervals by the "gypsies", the "bear", and the "goats". Each have their own dance, that of the "goats" being especially vigorous and involving much stamping of feet and banging of sticks on the floor. The "bear" enters on all fours and scuffles around before dancing with the "gypsies". There are places where these rituals are more developed, with additional characters. In more elaborate troupes women sometimes appear too, one being dressed as a bride (apparently this is not a cross-dressing roll) and accompanied by a young man.

After performing, the belsugari are refreshed with cakes, coffee and plum brandy, and given a payment too. For these young men, it has been a long but rewarding night. Very likely, the Belsugari will appear for New Year too, in this traditional rural place where old ties to the soil and the forest, concerns about exotic invaders, wild animals, and fertility, remain alive only just beneath the surface.

Comments

[sarah]

that's pretty special, certainly beats watching the Queen's (utterly farcical) speech whilst various elderly relatives snore themselves into turkey-stuffed oblivion. Think we can get the boys doing a demonstration of the goat dance since I missed the original? haha.

Sarah x

[Transylvanianhorseman]

Vasile does a great goat dance. Well, you know what horns the little rascal has.

Somehow I can't imagine groups of masqued dancers cavorting around English towns. They'd get asbo-ed within minutes. Plus, can you imagine the politically correct whining about people dressing up as gypsies? And most English young men would be drunk and in the gutter (or a police cell) before the evening was over.

[Deborah]

Social traditions which personnify and vivivy the fears and concerns of contention with the forces of nature, mortality and one's human enemies are such a healthy reminder of reality, and so much more cathartic and alive than watching theatre on TV or whatever takes its place in modern cities.
You are fortunate to be living in a place where this reality is not obfuscated under layers of numbing and deceptive "civilization."

[BarnGoddess]

thank you for sharing this special tradition from your culture. I appreciated the photos and your interesting explanation.

[Transylvanianhorseman]

Life here certainly is very real. Little is cloaked by so-called "civilisation". I like it very much here (even if a regular pay cheque would be welcome sometimes!)

[Tadhg]

Hi Julian,
You may be surprised to learn that a very similar custom is alive and well all over Ireland on the 26th Dec- they are called the "Wren Boys" and indulge in the exact same behaviour.A large troupe of them even operates in an inner city suburb of Dublin (Sandymount).I know this because my brother organises it, and he will confirm it when he recovers.