Caloian

''Caloian'' (also ''Calian(i)'', ''Caloiță'', ''Scaloian'', ''Gherman'', or ''Iene'') was a rainmaking and fertility rite in Romania, similar in some ways to ''Dodola''. Its namesake is a clay effigy, whose sculpting, funeral, exhumation, and eventual destruction are centerpieces of the display. The source of this ritual, as is the case with those of many other local popular beliefs and practices, precedes the introduction of Christianity, although it came in time to be associated with Orthodox Easter or with the Feast of the Ascension. In some variants it was performed on a precisely calculated day two to three weeks after Easter, though local communities could also revive it at other times of the year, specifically during drought. The figurine was generally made from clay and most often by girls, though sometimes also by boys or married women; the ceremony itself would draw in the whole village community as spectators, and, in isolated cases, also had active participation from the Romanian Orthodox clergy. The mimicry of Christian funerals was widespread, but absent from the more established forms of the ritual.

Before dying out in the 1990s, the ''Caloian'' tradition had possibly survived for millennia, and may have originated with Dacian strands of Paleo-Balkan mythology. It evoked memories of human sacrifice for the appeasement of rain deities, with parallel near-sacrifices of girls being still attested in rural Romania during the first half of the 20th century. The ''Caloian'' litany, which exists in various arrangements as a sample of primitive Romanian literature, usually refers to the figure being sent off to the skies to unlock rain, and buried so that it may be reborn. The figurine's mother is hinted at in such poems, and in some cases played by one of the girls attending the funeral procession.

''Caloian'' events were largely confined to Muntenia, Oltenia and Northern Dobruja (the southern part of Romania), though they have been well attested in specific parts of Western Moldavia. Similar practices, assigning usually female characteristics and names to the clay figurine, are spread throughout other parts of the Romanian-speaking areal. They form a continuum of traditions with both ''Dodola'' and '' Germenchuk'', which are staples of Bulgarian folklore. Intermingling with the latter is attested in ''Caloian''s primary spread along the Danube, but also in its supposed etymology, which reveals either a Slavonic term for "dirt" or a folkloric nod to Ioannitsa (Ioniță) Kaloyan. The ritual has also been adopted and adapted by ethno-cultural minorities, including the Gagauz and the Csángós.

Ritual

Spring variant

''Caloian'' had a spring version, which often occurred on the "third Tuesday after Easter", and concluded on the following Thursday. Folklorists Ion H. Ciubotaru an Silvia Ciubotaru write that having fixed days for ''Caloian'' during Easter was "wholly exceptional" in a Moldavian context; they also indicate one other variant in which ''Caloian'' coincided with the first Thursday after Easter. As noted by ethnologist Anca Ceaușescu, this variant was specifically a fertility rite, which was mostly tied to spring and renewal, rather than to the celebration of Easter itself. She records instances where ''Caloian'' was performed on the sixth week after Easter, on Thomas Sunday, or "always around May 8". Children up to the age of 12 were preferred for performing the ritual, owing to their "ritual purity", and in some cases only selected to fit into an odd number. Performers are most often described as young girls, and sometimes boys, though folklorist Teodor Burada, who speaks from a Western Moldavian perspective, also records the occasional involvement of married women. According to Ciubotaru and Ciubotaru, a situation idealized in the more traditional forms of the ''Caloian'' was that in which the people involved were girls around the age of nine, or adolescent virgins, who were either sisters or first cousins. Men remained strictly prohibited for most of ''Caloian''s history.

Depending on the communities involved, the ''Caloian'' was regarded as an infant, a grown child, or an adult. His effigy was put together from fresh yellow clay, and sometimes also mud, old rags, or wax. The latter two variants are described by the Ciubotarius as modern improvisations. In most versions, the end result would reach in length, though some stood as tall as "a seven-year-old child." As Burada notes, the ''Caloian'' makers made sure to present it in a mortuary pose, with hands crossed on the chest; sometimes, a secondary figure, the "female" ''Caloiță'', would be added. Also according to Burada, the clay would be adorned with basil and the red-colored shells of Easter eggs, then placed inside a small coffin. The Easter egg variant remained well attested in the local culture of Niculițel, though other accounts refer to the ''Caloian'' being dressed in flowers and made to hold up a candle; a cross was placed near its head. Moldavian variants make ample and "homeopathic" use of plants which grow on or near bodies of water—reeds, but also burdock, dwarf elder, butterbur

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