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  IMAGINE AND THINK THE NEXT WORLD :
(texte français: cliquez ici)   An hymn that makes us think

 

During the burial ceremony in the cemetery the priest, once he has finished his office, lets the girls and women of the family devote themselves to lamentations and sobs. Then, a chor of old women, the Albs, starts the last song : O! earth, be light for him!
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WHAT IS CALLED VAMPIRE
IMAGINE AND THINK THE NEXT WORLD
1 Art of lament
2 An hymn that makes us think
3 The dead person at funeral table
4

Figuration of the next world

At burial tle chor of Albs sings the hymn to the Earth.
 

O! Earth, Earth
O! you, now,
Be a parent for him
And you, earth dust,
Be a small sister for him, be light for him!
Young wandering, please stand up,
...

(For the whole text, see J.C., Mémoire des Carpathes, pp. 350-351).
The officiating women have started the hymn in front of the grave at the very moment when the priest finishes his office and throws the first spadeful of earth, and the gravediggers begin to fill in the grave (v. 1-6). They give to this act of burying a not very christian meaning, and call to the earth, like in the preceding hymns they have called to the Albs, the Sun, the Death, the Fir, not considered as elements, beings or states of the nature, but, in the Empedocles way, as beings of the next world able to act and therefore to be defined by their function. The chor of old women enjoins the Earth to fulfill its own function for the deceased, that of a hospitable mother (...). After this injunction to the mother Earth, the three chorists make a pause in order to coordinate the song with the action of the young people who cut down the fir in the forest, carried it and are now planting it at the head of the grave. At the very moment when they raise it and hold it upright in its force and beauty, they enjoin the deceased to stand up. Thus, they consecrate with words the metaphoric function of fir (...). But, above all, they stand apart from the lamenting women of the family who depict the dead by his social position compared with them, as father or mother, husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister, a position unchanged in death. As for the officiants of the "Albs" cult, they now designate the deceased, man or women by a surprising expression of "young wandering". 
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    J.C.: Mémoire des Carpathes, La Roumanie millénaire, un regard intérieur, Paris, Plon, Terre Humaine, 2000, pp.35O-354
   
 
 
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