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HelevornArt — The Calusari: Page 3
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Published: 2016-05-29 15:58:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 580; Favourites: 8; Downloads: 0
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Description
~ The Calusari: Page 3 ~I swear on the spirits of my ancestors, on my home and cattle...
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The Calusari - in Romanian folklore, they were the members of a secret society who practiced a ritual dance of shamanic nature, used in healing rites. This tradition stems from Dacian folklore, most probably a rite of fertility and protection performed at the beginning of summer. Because of the heavy pagan elements of the tradition, their rituals were eventually banned during the Middle Ages, but the dance is still preserved today. Performed only by men and with acrobatic moves, it is the most spectacular Romanian traditional dance.
Codrin and the Vataf, in the graveyard behind the wooden church.
The cover: Calusarii
Previous page: Page 2
Next page: Page 4
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Media: graphite pencils on paper, textures and hue added in PS
The outfits are inspired from what the Calusari outfit looks like today (the colours of the Romanian flag were, of course, missing in that time); the tassels (often with bells) at their shoes, shawls and skirts have the role of scaring demons away.
I'm planning to share a folk-ish Romanian song with each page submitted, so here's another fine tune:
Bucovina - Straja
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Comments: 12
Whoops, I missed this D: Ah, so we see Codrin in more detail here, but still only from the side. Great work on the outfits~
I love the mysticism here and the blend of pagan and Christian elements. I noticed that's a recurring theme in your works--not only here, but of course, in Sons of Disobedience! This cultural syncretism really reflects the changing times and many other social issues.
The ribbons on the modern Calusari outfit are so colourful. Just by looking at the black and white drawing, I just assumed they were reddish or maybe blue.
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You're right, that's why in Sons of Disobedience I chose a "foreigner" as a main character and I set the story in the time of the conversion to Christianity. I love to think about the underlying pagan elements in Christianity and in the superstitions that co-exist with it.
Ah yes, the modern outfits are very colourful and they vary according to the region in the country, but I chose the one that also had the black shawl. Thank you so much for the comment!
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As an primarily Orthodox nation, the pagan rites must've blended in with the Orthodox rites in Romanian church service, indeed. Do you think differing branches of Christianity affected how much a country blended in paganism with Christianity? For example, the Christianity in sons of Disobedience wasn't Orthodoxy (this was before the Protestant revolution so it was still "Catholicism", right?).
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Actually that's a great point! You're right, there must be some differences between them, but I'm not sure one was affected more than the other, only in a different way. At this point when this story takes place, the Great Schism had taken place so the Calusari were Orthodox and had been Christian for almost 1000 years already at this point (while in Sons of Disobedience the christians could be labelled as Catholics indeed, but they were more new to the faith). At that moment so soon after the Schism, I don't think the two branches were too different; one thing though is that the Romanian Orthodox were more isolated than the Western world (and didn't have a standardized writing system), so this helped preserve the pagan-rooted superstitions longer, even if they were rather rigorous Christians otherwise (and they still are more traditional and superstitious to this day 
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Ah, that was interesting, that they were more isolated so they had some differences and how that impacted the pagan-rooted ideas!
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Thank you! I paid more attention to outfits in this project indeed, so I'm glad they caught your attention 
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I love how you did the blending and combining of traditions. The way you portray it in the story is that they are no longer two co-existing elements but in a sense a combination that cannot be easily, and neatly separated. That's very cool and more authentic I think...In the illustration I like how very young the lad looks compared to the seasoned elder.
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What an awesome observation! I think not many people would have noticed this! It's so cool that you mentioned this aspect, because it's exactly what I tried to do in this story, construct a syncretic tradition that makes sense in that time and place but isn't actually documented due to the lack of sources. When you think about it, the Calusari themselves are not conscious of this fact, not having the notion of history of religions as we have today, I think they just take it for granted. The church eventually banned this practice, so they eventually realized what a big mess of Christian and pagan elements it was
Thank you SO much for the comment!
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This all comes together so nicely. The illustrations, the script and the book pages. Great!
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Great to know, many thanks for checking it out!
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