Will they still be dancing? (1982)

the most conspicuous features of this loose integration is that Wallachians have
not taken part in the pervasive processes of urbanization in Serbia and
Yugoslavia after the Second World War and have until recently resisted the
school education of their children. Due to this the Wallachians of Serbia are
today the definitely most "rural" and one ofthe most "traditional" population
groups in Yugoslavia.
The appearance ofmagical and mystical aspects is an important element of
present day Wallachian cultural tradition. Here elements of the mythology of
early Balkan tribes are blended with elements brought by later Slav and
Romanian settlers. These cultural "sediments" express themselves as a unique
"religious-magical complex" among the Wallachians of northeastern Serbia
(Marjanovic 1981, Zecevic 1974).
The early Balkan historical roots still occupy a prominent role and can be
seen in ancestor cults and the belief in vampires as well as in fertility rites
honouring the first fruits of spring. These are not just ritual relics. They have
important functions in the cultural and social life of the rural communities.
The persistence of pre-Christian forms of "superstition" among the
Wallachians of northeastern Serbia can be regarded as connected to the
historical experience of constant political unrest coupled with an ever present
threat of collapse of a feeble social organisation. In border areas, often
devastated by war, villages, kin groups, and even families were scattered and
torn apart by constant migrations. The smallest unit, the family, became the
most important bastion of social solidarity. Its importance was constantly
emphasized in rebuilt villages and settlements. Village communities built their
common identity on smaller cores of individual families and not around larger
corporate unilineal kin-groups as was common among the Serbs. Ceremonies,
beliefs and ritual practices reinforced the cohesion ofthe individual family and
its relationships to neighbours and bilateral kin, while the patrilineage as a
corporate group was a dominant focus for social mythology and ritual practice
among the Serbs.
The Village and the Family
The fundamental social units of the traditional village community of the
Krajina-Wallachians are loosely connected nuclei of three- to four-generational
families. In today's Krajina we find no married collaterals in these
extended families. The cohabitation of collaterals is characteristic for the type
of South Slav extended family, known as the "zadruga", remnants ofwhich are
still to be found today in most parts of Serbia. The zadruga and its principle of
solidarity and cohabitation of (male) collaterals is tied to a strong partriarchal
tradition of kinship and marriage, and the zadruga can be seen as forming the
minimal segment of a ramified patrilineal kinship system (based on the oppositon
of lineages, clans etc.). In Figure 1 we have drawn a sketch of the
zadruga family model and the present day Wallachian family model.
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