43rd National Táncház Festival & Fair • 5–7 April 2024
Issue:
Starting page: 3
Serie:
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My meetings with a Moldavian soulseer – excerpts from a book about Hungarian Csángó Moldavian woman, Jánó Ferenc Ilona. For 37 years, starting in 1969 Kóka Rozália visited her informant Jánó Ferenc Ilona documenting her visions and important events in her life. In 2006 Rozália’s collection work was published in a book by L’Harmattan in Budapest. „A seer of the dead (soulseer) is a man or woman who according to Hungarian folk belief has supernatural powers and can contact the dead, bring news from them, or can sometimes help with healing…” Rozália first heard about the seer in the Moldavian village of Lészped/Lespezi from other ethnographic informants from Moldavia. When she travelled to Lészped to visit Jánó Ferenc Ilona the first time, the seer met her with the following words, „I’ve been expecting you…my guardian angel told me you were coming. And that you come with good intentions. I can tell you secrets, you will use my words for good cause.” Kóka Rozália’s new column.