HODAIȚA LARGE ART

Part of The Calendar Art collection of 14 paintings depicting 14 of the most important celebrations of the pastoral Romanian year, all created in chronological order (but not necessarily previewed in this manner here). The inspiration came from the rich culture, traditions and mythology of one of the most authentic Romanian area, Mărginimea Sibiului. After thoroughly studying the landmarks of the celebratory year of the locals, rich in traditions, songs and dances, it’s clear that we’re looking at 3 main cultural layers- the base one, an ancestral religion that’s left only residual information for us, a middle layer of the solar cult (inherited by the cult of Mithra) and the last and most present in today’s collective conscience, the Christian layer (their initiators made a clear effort, at Christianity’s beginnings to change the subject of the “pagan”’s celebrations- instead of celebrating the winter Solstice we celebrate the birth of Jesus, instead of celebrating an old Thracian god of thunder and rain, on the exact day, we celebrate Saint Elijah).

THE STORY

The inhabitants of Săliște prepare for this custom in advance. They start collecting wood almost a week before this ancestral celebration. “Usually, we take dry wood, wood from forestry operations. We like it. We climb the hills, and on Sundays we light them,” say the young people from Săliște. Hodaița was born a long time ago, due to the lack of calendars, thus announcing the entry into the Easter Lent. On this occasion, all that was bad were burned and the people who misbehaved in the last year were announced loudly during this process. In fact, these shouts were meant to connect dialogues between the groups of  youngsters (“juni”) on each hill which had lit “hodaiţe”.