Martor No. 21 / Year 2016

Ioana-Ruxandra Fruntelată
Associate Professor, PhD., Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, Romania.
E-mail: ioana.fruntelata at litere dot unibuc dot ro

Elena Dudău
MA student, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest, Romania.
E-mail: elenadudau_dudauelena at yahoo dot com

Cristian Mușa
Researcher at “C. Brăiloiu” Institute of Ethnography and Folklore, Romanian Academy, Bucharest and a PhD student at the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, Romania.
E-mail: cristian.musa at yahoo dot com

Pages: 87-100.

Keywords: haylife, haylore, home ethnology, local identity, community, hay culture, Starchiojd.

Abstract:
Starchiojd village lies on Teleajen plateau, in a hilly area of the eastern sub-Carpathians, Romania, at the crossroads upon the border of historical provinces Wallachia and Transylvania. Animal (cattle and sheep) husbandry is still an active and dominant occupation for villagers in Starchiojd, therefore so is haymaking. During our ethnological field research in 2013 and 2014 we collected different types of information on local hay culture, that were found in both written private documents and oral accounts, which we stored in the form of photographs, recordings or field notes. Our paper relies mainly on audio recordings that suggest that hay culture imprints a certain organization of space, time and social relations at present, which could be coined “haylife”. We also show that talking with informants about hay activates certain memories of the past village life, including “haylore”, i.e. knowledge, beliefs and superstitions associated to hay.

How to cite this article: Fruntelată, Ioana-Ruxandra, Cristian Mușa and Elena Dudău. “Haylife and Haylore in Starchiojd (Prahova county, Romania): from Present to Past.” Martor 21: 87-100.

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