Research report by the Jagiellonian University, Poland - cult rural

26This specific mortifying the flash was a preparation, even a sacrifice, necessary to properlyexperience and perform the ritual of transition from winter torpor to spring revival of life.One of the oldest Lent customs practiced in Podhale until the 1960’s was chodzenie ześmierztecką. Starting on White Sunday called Śmiertna, which was the fourth Sunday of Lent,little girls usually from the rural poor started walking around the village with an effigy whichrepresented the death attached to a pole. In the beginning it was a straw effigy, later a dollmade of pieces cloth, and in the interwar period and after the second world war a factorymadedoll covered with a white shawl. The girls participating in the procession stopped underthe houses windows and touching the glass with śmierzteczka moved it rhythmically up anddown singing a song:Sła śmierztecka z miastaPon Jezus do miastaDziewcenta jom niesomO jojecka prosom.Next they entered a room a got eggs from the host and hostess. The whole processionended in a specific execution of śmierztecka which the girls drowned by throwing it into amountain stream. This action of killing, in which we can find echoes of pagan ritual ofdestroying winter, brings association with a popular in the whole Poland custom of drowningmarzanna. Thus, we may presume that the Podhale śmierztecka was a later transformed byChristian tradition sisterly form of marzanna. Similarly, as an effect of transformation of anarchaic monster into a figure of Christian origin, we may interpret a custom of burning Judas,the apostle who betrayed Jesus, popular in some villages. The youth made a big doll of strawrepresenting Judas, which was first lit and then carried in a solemn procession to a river anddrowned.Holy Week preceding Resolution Day was begun by Palm Sunday which was alsocalled Kwietna (Flowery), in the liturgical calendar commemorated Jesus’ solemn arrival atJerusalem. For this occasion the inhabitants of Podhale villages prepared palms forconsecrating. They were made of willow twigs covered in catkins which were tied with flax.Consecrated in church they got healing and magic properties. A whip was twisted of flax forshepherds, and they believed that the animals penned with it would not lose their way duringpasturage and nie dostana uroku. Single twigs with catkins were thrust on fields and inorchards as well in the farm under the roof. During the first pasturage the cattle was beatenwith them. Farmers used to put catkins together with a piece of bread or oats cake calledmoskol under a ridge during the first plough. Catkins separated from twigs were thrown to