1. Ceremonies
2. Magic procedures

CEREMONIES

Ceremonies

Costumes and ceremonies have been changing. Ceremonies and people's customs underwent transformations. Nowadays, thanks to folk bands, many of them have survived.

During Christmas people still sing Christmas carols. Carols singer stopped around a farmer’s house and they were singing carols. The farmer welcomed them and they received payment.

On Easter Monday, very popular is pouring water over each other.

On  Christmas Eve, before midnight Mass houses are visited by “wiliorze” who sang carols.

It is customary to paint windows of the house  with lime in which a marriageable girl lives.

On New Year’s Eve young boys play tricks. They very often exchanged gates with neighbors.

May masses take place in roadside shrines or by a cross. The faithful decorate them with flowers and ribbons. They sing songs and recite a litany to Bless Virgin Mary.

People believed that roadside shrines and crosses neutralized an evil. So, they built them everywhere.  Near roadside shrines people buried the dead, suicides and not christened children.

 Some interesting stories are connected with roadside shrines in Naramice. Soldier who had escaped death during France-Russian war built one of them. He wanted to thank God for saving his life. In Naramice, there are built crosses on a mass grave in which were buried bubonic plague victims, battlefields and soldiers’ graves dead during the war. It is said; that country dwellers built the roadside shrine and the cross close to the border, to stopped the bubonic plague.

Family celebrations were very important for the local community. They celebrated christenings, weddings, and funerals. Each of them took place in a suitable term, a place, and an order.

Christening

People try to pander pregnant woman’s whims if they didn’t do that. mice would destroy their clothes or food.

If the pregnant woman had a sweet tooth she would give birth to a daughter. But, if she preferred heavily spiced dishes she probably would give birth to a son.

Wedding

Recess, matchmaking, examination, engagement preceded the wedding. The main aim of it was to figure out if a bachelor had a chance to get marriage to a chosen girl. Very often, the matchmakers were buying a goose on the pretext of the examination.

 
The maidenhood had a special meaning. During the wedding the maidenhood was put up for auction and best men tried to reduce the price of the maidenhood.

Blessing was an important part of the wedding. Newlyweds apologized to parents for the troubles they had caused and  asked parents for their blessing.
 

Midnight was the time for “oczepiny”. During that ceremony bridesmaids were dancing in a circle around a bride. When the band stopped playing, the best

 Man formed a circle and asked for taking the bride’s maidenhood off.

Friends of newlyweds who weren’t invited for the wedding party had made a straw rope and stretched it. The groom must offer them vodka if he wanted to come back to his wife.

Funeral

When someone was frail and sickly, people used to say  that person “ has one foot in the grave”. The mirror was covered and the clock was stopped at the corpse’s hour death. A cat, food, water, and some furniture were taken out of the room. The corpse stayed at home for three days and two nights. During that time, singers were singing songs and prayed. They helped oneself to vodka, bread, and cured meats. Men carried the corpse until the first cross. At the front of a funeral procession the cross was carried. Singers, musicians, and people with flowers went at the end of the funeral procession.

Bread making

Tradition of bread making was handed down from generation to generation. The bread was baked from rye flour. Sometimes women used wheat flour, too. Cake was produced in kneading-trough Prepared leaven was added to him earlier. It was leavened with the help of leaven.

 People used quern for grinding or they grinded grain in the mill. Bread dough had been sour with leaven. Next, the bread dough was shaped and put in trugs( kobiałki) to an oven. When the bread was baked, women put it on the bench-covered linen. Housewife had unfriendly attitude towards newcomers who entered a house or who were talking to loudly, at that time.

Palm Sunday

A lot of people prepare and bless palms that were nailed under the window or put in other places. According to local people believes, palm protects their houses against storms and give inhabitants health and happiness. Sometimes, animals eat catkins. It will protect them from illnesses.  Farmers still make small crosses from blessed palms. On Easter, they stick in them on the ends of rye fields and pour holy water over them.

A lot of people prepare and bless palms that are nailed under the window or put in other places. According to local people believe, palm protects their houses against  storms and give inhabitants health and happiness. Sometimes, animals eat catkins. It will protect them from illnesses.  Farmers still make small crosses from blessed palms. On Easter, they stick in them on the ends of rye fields and pour holy water over them.

“Święconka”

On Easter people prepared “święconka” – blessed food eaten for Easter Sunday breakfast. They blessed bread, eggs, cured meat, and a cake. For decorating eggs, women used onion peels, ryes, beetroots, and oak bark. A priest blessed the food at the better off farmers.

Corpus Christi

People build and decorate altars, which are blessed by the priest during a Corpus Christi procession. Small girls, fire brigade, a brass band, and the faithful are taking part in this ceremony

Plaiting of wreaths from herbals

The wreaths in octave of Corpus - Christi Day the woman's plaited from herbs. They carried it to church on devotion then. The herbs were used in tense of disease.

Harvest festival

At the end of the harvest, there was organized a harvest festival. Women plaited wreaths. Next, the priest blessed them in the church.

“Pierzawki”

Sometimes a housewife invited some women for striping feathers. That meeting lasted all the evening. So, it was the time for dancing and kidding, too. 
 

Summer picnic

MAGIC PROCEDURES

In former days people came down with serious illnesses, but because they were poor and they didn’t go to the doctor. People drank an herbal tea. They prayed to God and lifted spells. If it didn’t help they met with “zamawiacz” . He cast a spell over people to cure an illness. He prayed, incensed, and gave herbals, too. “Zamawiacze” lived in every village.

-People believed that the cabbage would grow as high as a  stake  that they left in the field

-People believed that a stork in their village will protect them  from hailstorm and lightening.

- Burdock and sagebrush scared off witches and demons. On the eve of  St John people plugged these herbals into windows .

- An egg was treated as a medicine. People believed that the egg rolled in the body gave them a new strength and made him younger.

-People put blown painted eggs under a fruit tree. They believed that it will protect them from vermin

- This who first saw inbound stork, he was lucky assure

- Doing harm to a swallow  foretold disease and ailment

- Dead was pocketed money to have it post mortem

- You mustn’t cross under ladder because this foretells disaster.

- In Christmas Eve a chain was tied around a table leg’s so that nobody from the family went away

 There are some banners concerning  pregnant women.

-She couldn’t peep through a slit because her child would have a squint.

-She couldn’t look at the dead because her child would become blue.