Junii invites us, even today, to a unique and spectacular custom
“Aruncarea-n țol”, one of the rituals of the Junes from the Bright Week period, originally an old ritual of confirmation and initiation into the company of virgins, will take place today, from 5 p.m., in Piaţa Unirii (Prundului) in Şchei .
The Young Juni will enter the Square singing the Troparion of the Resurrection at the Cross of Captain Ilie Birt, and after that they will play the Juni Choir and perform the ancient ritual of throwing the mace. After the last june on the list has thrown the mace, the vicar and the armed men will offer the men in the audience the opportunity to throw the mace in front of the Saint Nicholas Church. First they throw in the men on the June committees, then the Junes in the audience, then any of the men present who want to try, for a small donation. After all the men who wanted to participate in this test have thrown the mace, the Juni bring the tol in which, one by one, all the Young Juni will be thrown into the sky.
Rev. Prof. Dr. Dr. Vasile Oltean – the former director of the Museum of the First Romanian School in Şcheii Braşovului, where he also organized a Museum of Junilor, and a renowned specialist of the phenomenon – reminds us of the initial meanings of the custom: “Usually, on Thursday in the afternoon, the Junes would gather for the vátaf, then they would go to Sub Tâmpa, where they would party with pies, so that in the evening they would party at the little weapon, or at the vátaf. After the party, as fun, each june was “thrown into the thol”: several june, no more than ten, held the ends of a candle (“thol”) and each june was thrown up three times to an impressive height, so that , sometimes – if they threw him inside a fence – “hit him against the beam”. Al. Surdu finds similarities between this june game and northern Indo-European ritual practices, being considered a typical initiation ritual. It is known that the june who is not given a tol on Thursday, because he refuses, was afraid or simply absent, was given a tol as a punishment the next day, in Piaţa Prundului“. Today, throwing in the tol is only done on Good Friday, so a day later, in Prundului Square, with no punitive value, and even the June ones are particularly delighted by the crowd that usually gathers to admire them.
What further strengthens the character of the initiation game is the remark of the folklorist Ion Muşlea, who believes that at the beginning only nine entrants among the Juni were thrown into the cairg (“tol”). That is why, on the first day (i.e. Thursday) the ritual was restricted, intimate, only between Junes, without public participation. Muşlea also finds this practice among the Calusharis of Transylvania, but also in Muntenia and Bulgaria. The examples can continue with Lisa, (Tara Oltului), Sâmbăta de Sus and Ucea de Sus (Făgăraş), at Netotu, Josenii Bârgăului (Năsăud).
“The same happened in all ancient peoples, where the initiation game was the condition for the young man to enter the fighting organization and had a warlike connotation, full of hardness and drama, to which the young man submitted stoically, and otherwise he suffered the consequences, which were often associated with death. It is certain that at its origins the custom assumed the possibility of traveling to the other world, a privilege enjoyed by those initiated into the mysteries of life and death. By performing this sacred ritual, the Junes thus marked a potency acquired after passing through a period of initiation“, a Prof. Oltean concluded.
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