ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES SOCIALES ET POLITIQUES DE LA REPUBLIQUE SOCIALISTE DE ROUMANIE REVUE ROUMAINE DES SCIENCES SOCIALES SERIE DE PHILOSOPHIE ET LOGIQUE | TIRAGE A PART | TOME 26 Janvier — Mars Ne 1, 1982 EDITURA ACADEMIE] REPUBLICII SOCIALISTE ROMANIAFORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF THE ROMANIAN SPIRITUAL KINSHIP By GHEORGHITA GEANA THE DOMAIN AND THE TERMS Improperly also called “fictive”, spiritual kinship exhibits all the ivttributes of a real phenomenon, to some extent complementary. to the natural kinship. The connection between them, to tell the truth, is not an immanent, necessary one, because their origins are absolutely dif ferent : the latter has an onti¢ substratum of a biological order, while the former is a strictly social institution (or institutional complex). In its few forms — socio-economic brotherhood, cross/blood brotherhood, godparenthood, ete. —, spiritual kinship has a clear conventional back ground. While natural kinship may be approached as a “biological net ‘work’ }, spiritual kinship, in spite of its role in genetic selection (by the stipulation of marriage prohibition), remains, from a eausal point of view, an exclusively socio-cultural phenomenon. If so, how ean we draw together the two kinds of ip? Firstly, as we shall see further on, by some of their functions, common to both of them, such as indirect marital selection and making of social alliances ; secondly, by their juridical status (spiritual kinship, as against the natural one, is not acknowledged in the official law, but is tolerated by virtue of the consuetudinary practice). In metaphorical terms, they are like two trees grown next to one another from different seeds, but having interpenetrating crowns. Which are the forms of spiritual kinship in Romanian folk culture? Let us begin with socio-economic brotherhood. As historians and sociologists * pointed out, the Romanians have lived for a long time in obsti” (in English, approximately: “village communities”). These forms of communal economic life, based on the collective land tenure, were organized on kinship principles, the criterion of admittance in com- munity with full economic rights being the descent from an ancestor- founder of the village. Of course, a synchronic analysis would have proved that not all individuals in a village were linked together by kinship ti nevertheless, the owners of economic rights in an “obste” considered them” 2 Paul Bohtannan, Social Anthropology, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963, 2 P. P. Panaitescu, Obslea tardneascd tn Tara Romdneased $i Moldova, Bucuresti, Ea. Academici ; Henri H. Stahl, Les anciennes communautés villageoises roumaines, Bucarest- 1969. REV. SUM. SCI. SOCIALES — PHILOSOPHIE ET LOGIQUE, 28, 1, P. 72-64, BUCAREST, 196280 GHEORGHITA GEANA Fy selves as brothers. For example, in the mountain village of Sirnea (Bran area), where I discovered twelve years ago a pastoral “obste” — perhaps the only survivance of such kind in Romania — , the people who shared the membership in “obste” called themselves “frati de munte” (approx. “mountain brothers”) %. It is an aspect in which natural kinship, being blurred out in the course of time, gave place to social kinship. A similar formula was used by the outlaws: “frati de codru” (literally : “forest brothers”). Another form of spiritual kinship is the baptismal siblinghood. Tho principal rule of this form lays down that two babies who are baptized in the same water become spiritual siblings, a potential marriage taboo being set up between them, By its purely theoretical rules, the baptis- mal siblinghood is now a passive form of spiritual kinship. In the past, very important and widespread were children’s allian- ces, by sex : “infirti{it” (brotherhood) in the case of boys’ritual, “ins riitit”” (sisterhood) when actors were the girls. I have mentioned Englis terms, but they miss the nuances; there are different terms in Roman! Janguage for natural vs. alliance brothers and for natural vs. alliance sisters, as follows : Natural Alliance Brothers frati firtati Sisters surori surate Ritual alliances were concluded on great festivals, usually on Easter and Ancestors’Day. They took place in childhood, but the relations then constituted had a lastingness expressed by oath: “Are you my brother/ sister up to death 2”, one of the children had to ask. “I am your brother/ sister up to death !”, the answer eame. Such rituals generated play groups, which were to become later on entertainment and work groups. A parti- cular case — perhaps even the elementary reduction — of this type of alliance, was the so-called “frifie de erace” (literally : cross brotherhood, in fact ritual blood brotherhood). It is best exemplified in folk tales, where Charming Prince fights successively with Tree Twister and Stone Crusher, comes off triumphant, but forgives them and alf the three become cross brothers, setting out to fight Evil. ‘The most active and actual part in the domain of spiritual kinship is the institution of godparenthood (in Romanian : “nésie’”). In international anthropological bibliography it often appears under the denomination of “compadrazgo”. The latter term was taken over from Spanish vocabulary, as a consequence of the attention first paid by anthropologists to this institutional complex in Spain, Mexico, Latin America, wherefrom the studies were extended to Italy and Balkan Peninsula‘. Unfortunately, 8 Gheorghifa Geant, Mediul sociat si cultural in salul Sirnea, in Studli si cereetiri de antropologie, no. 1, tome 7 (1970), p. 137 ~ 145. 4 George M. Foster, Cofradfa and Compadrazgo in Spain and Spanis! western Journal of Anthropology, vol. 9, n0. 1, 1953, p. 1 — 28; Dr, S.N. Personal Relations, in Man, no. 96, July, 1956, p. 90 — 95; Gallatin Anderson, A Suro Malian Godparenthood, in Krocher Anthropological Society Papers, no. 15, Fall, 1956; Julian Pitt-Rivers, Rifwal Kinship in Spain, in Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, ‘March, 1958, p. 424 — 431 Hammel, Alternative Social Structures and Ritual Relations in the Batians, Englewood Cilifs, N. J. : Prentice-Fiall, 1968.3 FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF THE ROMANIAN SPIRITUAL KINSHIP at oth foreign and native research workers have investigated this topics in the Romanian area only “en passant”, i. ¢. accidentally. “Compadrazgo” derives from “compadre”, designating together with “comadre” the co-parents, a child’s second row or couple of parents. ‘The terms have a Latin origin : “compater” and “commater”, with some extensions in other neo-Latin languages : “compére” and “commére” in French, “compare” and ‘“commare” in Ttalian. Tn Romanian, “nas” (fem. “nasi”) — with its correlative “fin”) (fem. “fini”) — has another etymological root. Im classical descriptions, the godparenthood relationship implies three centres of interaction : (a) a child who is to be initiated, that. is to be subjected to the act of baptism ; (b) child’s parents; and (¢) a pair or a group of sponsors of the initiation act, which in Christian doctrine is equivalent to right birth, the spiritual one. However, in Romanian folk culture, it is not principally to baptism but to wedding that the godparent- hood appears to be linked. Baptizing is an obligation derived (tacitly and certainly) from the wedding sponsorship for the child’s parents. If the godparenthood chain may begin by a convention, this conventional aspect occurs more frequently in the wedding. In this ritual, the sponsors are called “nuni” (pl.). “Nun” means the person holding up the wedding wreath (“cununa”, from Latin “corona, -ae”). By diminutivation (so characteristic of Romanian language), from “mun” one could reach “nunag”, then “niinas”, and finally ‘nag’. Tn its turn, the term for godchild, “fin’”” (fan. “4in&”, pl. “fmi”) derived from the Latin “ilianus”. Let us insist in the rest of this paper upon the godparenthood, as the principal form of spiritual kinship. FUNCTIONS OF THE GODPARENTHOOD In the ceremony of both baptism and wedding — rites of passage accompanying birth and marriage —, the godparents play the role of initiates. Which is the origin of this function? It goes perhaps as far back as the pre-Christian period. There are few but convincing data supporting this hypothesis. Among Inca people, Garcilaso de la Vega reports, a child was weaned at the age of two, when also the ceremony of haireutting took place. It was the child’s godparent who cut the first tuft. The other rela- tives attending the ritual brought the action to an end. The Great Priest of the Sun officiated as godparent when the subject in the ritual was the Royal Prince >. According to Edward P. Dozier, when the children of Hano (‘Tewa) reach the age of nine, they are subjected to initiation. A ceremonial father or a ceremonial mother, different. from the natural parents, assists each of the children, by sex, during the ritual ®, Convergent. data are provided by J. -H. Kohl with reference to Ojibwa Indians, by M.-C. Stevenson —to Zuni, and by R. Parkinson — to the natives 5 Garcilaso dela Vega, Regestile cronici ale incasilor, Bucuresti, Bditura Univers, p. 116. © See Alan Beals (with George and Louise Spindler), Cullure in Process, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967, p. 150 — 151, 6 ~e, 20m2 ae a GHBORGHITA GEANA . - 4 of Melanesian archipelagos Bismarck arid Salomon % Van Gennep him- self had the idea of “a study of the special kinship generated by godparent hood («parrainage ») in the framework of initiation rites, with both semi civilized and Christian people” *& And what else could be the tutors who supervised neophy tes in the Mysteries of Eleusis but a kind of godparents " Tt seems therefore that Christianity only moved the moment of initiation ‘from puberty to the first. months after birth. ‘The initiation role bestows upon godparents an active and effective authority. Thus, it is godparents’ right, and even their duty, to resolve the possible conflicts in the family of their godchildren, by putting on iis best behaviour that partner who had troubled familial equilibrium. Hence the Romanian saying “si-a gisit nagul” (literally: “he found his godparent”, meaning “he found his master”). ‘AL the beginning of Christianity, the natural parents themselves could. assume the godparents’ role in baptismal ceremony. In Europe, the Council of Munich (813) prohibited this superposition of roles. The ration between parenthood and godparenthood entailed, indirectly, a new function of the latter, namely : the function of eatending the exogamic group ®, by prohibiting the marriage between partners situated in the godparent’s circle, on the one hand, and in the godchild’s circle, on the -other hand. We saw a similar rule acting in baptismal siblinghood. This time the sphere of extension is much larger. The marriage prohibition ‘between spiritual relatives was introduced by the Byzantine emperor ustinian, in the sixth century". In the Romanian Principalities, the Byzantine legislation was officially adopted in the fifteenth century. The present observanee, even implicit, of the above rule may be an echo of that legislation, but it is likely, too, that the latter legalized an older native custom. The quasi-incest taboo protected from consanguinity the human wroups formerly living in small and isolated rural settlements. We would but partially master the functions of the godparenthood. if we ignored the economic interests which animate it. In the past, a com- mon economic interest drew together by this institution individuals from different social strata. For instance, in villages of the Plain of Braila, a wealthy godparent used the work-force of his poor godchildren, who, in their turn, appealed to their godparent when ever they needed tools, horse cart, or seeds, the obligation of help being mutual. As soon as con- cluded, the relation godparent-godchild was reinforced by visits of courtesy (usually from godchildren to godparents). On great, festivals (Easter, Christina), a visit meant a reciprocal gift exchange, so that the godpa- renthood institution operated as a rhythmical mechanism of redistribution of the goods among the members of a community. This mechanism is working in present days, too, the more so as the spectacular and symbolic 7 See Arnold Van Gennep, Les riles de passage, Paris, Librairie eritique Es 1900, p. 110 — 112, 118. the second footnote (my italics) ade, Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses, 1, Paris, Payot, 1976, p. 307 — 208, 30 Sidney W. Mintz and Erle BR. Wolf, An Analysis of Rilual C arazgo ), in Eugene A. Hammel and William’ S. Simmons (eds.), Man Little, Brown and Co., 1970, p. 468. 2 [bidem. Parenthood (Compa- Makes Sense, Boston,5 FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF THE ROMANIAN SPIRITUAL KINSHIP 83 elements in the rites of passage are diminishing, and the economic part is inereasing in substance and importance. Thus, the wedding has lately become a way of demonstrating the economic power of the bridegroom's parents well as of the bride’s ones. Their social prestige depends on the number of guests who assemble around them as participants (with gifts in money and goods) in the nuptial ceremony. A third great factional group is added to the previous ones: it is the godparent’s group. Godpa- rent’s prestige is economic and moral at the same time. Té affects direct! the godchildren, i.e. the just constituted family. That is why, when new marriage is announced in a village, people ask themselves immediate- ly: “Who is the godparent?”. ‘This example points out once more the capacity of spiritual kinship, generally speaking, to create social alliances. TWO MODELS OF THE ROMANIAN GODPARENTHOOD From my own empirical data, collected in several zones of the eoun- try, I feel entitled to propose two models of the Romanian godparenthood. Subsequent field investigations are likely to deepen and even to diversify them. ‘The first is the model of inherited godparenthood. It is widespread and involves a twofold duty from the part of godparents : (1) to baptize the offspring of. their wedding godchildren ; and (2) to be sponsors at the wedding of at least one (usually a male representative) of their bap- tismal godehildren (from the precedent rule). The first obligation is not so difficult to fulfil; the second, however, is called in question after a long period of time, when the baptismal godparents are too aged to take upon themselves also the role of wedding godparents. They may dispense with the second duty without any trouble, but a godchild must beg leave from his baptismal godparents if he wants to choose somebody else wedding godparents. Very frequently, the aged godparents hand over the initiation authority, with all its social consequences, to one of their own natural children. There is already a terminological extension independent of such transference of prerogatives. This extension may be detected both vertically and horizontally. But the reproduction of the relationship along several generations gives rise to two parallel lineages : godparents’ Tineage and godchildren’s lineage. Generally, horizontal extension em- braces the nearest collateral relatives : brothers and sisters. But because a fixed rule does not operate, a frontier between the two lineages is very Jabile and is determined only by their mutual real (not potential) beha- viour. ‘The second is the model of loaned godparenthood. The area of its spreading is much narrower — I have found it until now only in Nasiud county, on the valley of Somesu Mare. In this model, godparenthood is not inherited as such, but as a duty to acquit in the same form by the next generation. Explicitly, if a couple, M—N, provides the wedding spon- sorship for another couple, P—Q, then one of the direct descendants of the couple P—Q has the duty to officiate, at the proper time, as wedding sponsor for one of the direct descendants of couple M_N. “It’s like a loan”, the natives themselves say. We have to mention that, under thiseo GHEORGHITA GEANA 6 model, it is only at the wedding ceremony that the godparents play an important role, while at"the baptism a sort of midwife — “moasi de co- yarei” — is the principal sponsor, Here is an additional prcof that, with Romanians, godparenthood is more strongly linked to wedding than to baptism. AS a matter of fact, it is precisely with the nuptial ceremony that the godparenthood is associated on the whole territory of the country, while with the baptismal and funerary rituals it interweaves only in ‘Wallachia and Moldavia. INSTEAD OF CONCLUSIONS But is godparenthood anywhere associated with the funerary ritu- al? No reference to this fact is made in cross-cultural written sources But the phenomenon does exist. In Moldavia, at the funeral repast, a fruit tree — usually a plum tree — is cut and adorned with ritual bread, fruits, sweets, # bottle of wine, a towel, a bag, and even light clothes (a kerchief or a fur cap, a shirt, etc.). We recognize here, in its behavioral aspect, the symbolic motif, so frequent in Romanian and universal folk- lore, of the life tree. During the ritual repast, the tree is tied to the prin- cipal table. By the end, it is unbound and carried home on shoulders by the godparent of the commemorated dead. In Vrancea, the tree is dislo- cated by keeping its roots, and finally, after denudation, it is replanted by the godparent in his own garden. ‘As any conclusion would have been partial for the moment, 1 pre- ferred to end my paper with the above example, which proves how deeply ¢an the Romanian data enrich the image of spiritual kinship, a phenome- nal complex widespread in the world.