LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

Romanians in Bulgaria. History and Ethnography 331
there were two children close and we went. then after this democracy, the
teacher went carol singing with two children and then nobody went. now
there is nobody. last year we did not do knot-shaped breads because there
was nobody” 12 .
or, as the next excerpt of interview, answer at the question about the
“release of the water” (meaning the end of the carrying the buckets of water
by a girl, following a death, when lit candles float on the river) shows, the
custom is not perform anymore because there were no more girls in the
village. “Before, the girls carried water. there are no girls here. [Before]
A notched stick was done, the water was carried on yoke, with two little
buckets and when she went she tallied every house where she carried the
buckets, I was at this house, she tallied, at that house… She carried from
house to house. She [went] once [in every house]” 13 .
Studying the customs and the beliefs in this area the spiritual, cultural
and linguistic unity with the romanian area from the north of the Danube
as well as with that of timoc from Serbia is discovered. A special note
is given by the using of the old romanian language, full of archaisms.
the romanians from timoc do not use politeness formulas. Also there are
neologisms from Bulgarian language as well as words from turk language.
Both the customs from the family cycle and those from the calendar
one have a direct correspondence with those from oltenia and timoc areas.
they are observed when reading the field data. they will be obvious on the
ethnographic maps.
the field researches bring the necessary additions to the ethno-folkloric
areas from the historical regions of romania and are useful for comparative
analyses. It is important the fact that these communities outside the national
space, with no institutional education in the romanian language preserved
many archaic elements, both in customs and in language. the transversal
influences between the romanian ethnographic areas and the ethnographic
sub-areas from timoc and the Valley of the Danube could be traced: the
areas inhabited by ţăreni and ungureni (in Serbia) and those of the câmpeni,
văleni and pădureni from Bulgaria, as well as those along the Danube (from
lom till Şiştov).
For example, today it is not known the spreading area of the funeral
custom named hora de pomană (the ring dance given as alms). on the
second day of easter or 40 days after the death of a youth, his family
12 th interview done by ionuţ semuc, on 2009, November 25 , with a woman born on
1950, in Drujba village, Bulgaria.
13 th interview done by Emil ţîrcomnicu on 2009, November, 26 , with a woman born
on 1938, in Graţcov colibi village, Bulgaria.