Maundy Thursday traditions in southern Romania

The Thursday before the Holy Easter, known as the Maundy Thursday or Joimari, is the day when according to the popular traditions, the graves open and the spirits of the dead return home. Also on the Joimari, in the villages of the southern county of Olt, dried strains of danewort are lit in the households to chase away the Joimarite, some evil women who call in the morning for the lazy housewives in order to punish them.

Fire lit on Maundy Thursday
Photo credit: (c) Nicolae BADEA / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

According to ethnographer Claudia Balas with the Olt County Museum, on the Joimari the women go to the cemeteries, clean the tombs, light fires and share cups filled with water, food and flowers.

"There is a belief that the spirits of the dead will stay at home until the Great Sunday (the Pentecost) when they drudgingly return to their graves. In some villages such as Valcele, Bucinisu the dead are mourned and fires are lit where the dead come to warm themselves, according to the tradition," says Claudia Balas.

In some villages placed nearby the Olt River there is a custom that on the very morning of the Joimari, before sunrise, groups of girls go to the banks of the Olt to choose places they would mark with willow branches and flowers, next to which they would fix lit candels. Each girl then fills a bucket with water from the Olt River, makes a cross and says: "Let this be to ... (the name of the respective family's dead)," then overthrow the water at the bottom of the willow branch. One bucket is spilled for each dead. In order to practice this custom, only virgin girls are chosen, so the water they spill to be received by the dead, says the ethnographer.

In the southern part of the Olt County, there is a belief that the lazy...