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 Caloians 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.Burada, pp. 80, 82. See also Ceaușescu, p. 307 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.Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, p. 116 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".Ceaușescu, p. 307 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.Ceaușescu, p. 308 Performers are most often described as young girls, and sometimes boys,Ceaușescu, p. 308; Pop, p. 123 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 Caloians history.Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, p. 117
Depending on the communities involved, the Caloian was regarded as an infant, a grown child, or an adult.Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, pp. 116–117 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.Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, p. 116. See also Ceaușescu, pp. 308, 309; Răchișan & Morariu, p. 1012 In most versions, the end result would reach in length, though some stood as tall as "a seven-year-old child."Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, p. 116. See also Pop, p. 123 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.Burada, p. 80. See also Ceaușescu, p. 309; Pologea, p. 1683; Răchișan & Morariu, p. 1012 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.Pop, pp. 123, 124 Moldavian variants make ample and "homeopathic" use of plants which grow on or near bodies of water—reeds, but also burdock, dwarf elder, butterbur, and fleaworts. Folklorist Ion I. Drăgoescu reported a form of the ritual as seen in Potlogi, where the Caloian (known here exclusively as Caloiță) is made from dough, and its coffin carved out of a pumpkin shell.Ion I. Drăgoescu, "Cotribuții etnologice la studiul culturii și civilizației dacice", in Muzeul Național, Vol. V, 1981, p. 125
The group would then proceed to bury the Caloian "outside the village, either out in the shrubland, or in some secluded area of the woods, or alongside a body of water, if such are located within proximity of the village." In some documented cases, the burial spot was specifically chosen as the line separating two villages or at crossroads, which were also "mythical places, spaces allowing for the communication between two worlds".Ceaușescu, p. 309 The choice of such locations "enhances the magic in the act of burial".Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, p. 119 In the oldest variants, Christian symbolism is scarcely present in the funeral ceremony, and the procession is limited to girls wearing leaves of dwarf elder for clothes.Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, pp. 117–118 During the ceremony as witnessed by Burada, a girl would act and dress as the officiating priest, while another one would hold up the ceremonial flag (prapur), comprising a tall stick and a white handkerchief. The cortege would include mourners, who perform a mock-litany. The Romanian Academy's treatise on Romanian literature (Istoria literaturii romîne, 1964) describes this as sung to "its own tune, a syllabic one, almost recitative in its rhythm."Rosetti et al., p. 31 The spring variant, as recorded in Burada, reads:
Some informants and some variants of the rhyme are specific about the burial being done to ensure regeneration. They address the Caloian with reassurances such as "we put you into the ground so that you'll turn green".Ceaușescu, p. 310 Other forms include more classical litanies, mourning the Caloians "little girly body" (trupușor de cuconiță). In such variants, girl mourners rubbed onion slices over their eyes, to produce genuine tears.Bucin, p. 81
In Burada's account, the Caloian was left buried for the following Wednesday, with the group returning on Thursday for the exhumation. The recovered figurine was either broken up into small pieces that were taken back to the village and thrown into wells, or left intact in its coffin and set down on a river to be carried downstream.Burada, p. 82 In one of the fixed-date Moldavian variants, the figurine was always dug out on the Feast of the Ascension. Another variant of the ritual, attested in Fântâna Doamnei, had it buried in a field of green wheat and exhumed at Saint George's Festival (April 23), which, according to folklorist Mihai Pop, underscores Caloians function as an agrarian fertility rite.Pop, p. 125 The Caloians departure or destruction was followed by a large and joyous feast, attended by all the villagers and known as pomana Caloianului ("alms of the Caloian"). As noted by Burada, this final part of the ceremony lasted into Friday morning, and specifically involved Lăutari performers; in some parts of the country, working the field on Caloian Tuesday afternoon was virtually a taboo.Burada, p. 82. See also Ceaușescu, pp. 307, 311 A folk dance, the Caloian hora, was sometimes performed by those attending the feast.Ceaușescu, p. 311
Drought ritual The Caloian was also revived in rainmaking rituals that could take place later in the year, specifically "on days that follow several dry weeks, when it's sultry and the earth gets scorched by drought"; ethnologist Mihaela Bucin argues that, even as a spring ritual, the Caloian was implicitly associated with rainmaking.Bucin, p. 79 Progressively, the celebration was reduced in scope to a rain ritual, by confusion with other festivals, and sometimes to stop heavy rainfall as well.Ceaușescu, pp. 307–308 Ethnographer Ion Ghinoiu also proposes that the exhumation and destruction portion of some rituals may have originated with people angered by the continuation of drought: "Perhaps at an earlier stage the Caloian was only exhumed on the third day only if no rain had followed its burial [...]. These two rites were then contracted as one, and the latter became a mere sequence of the former." Contrarily, the Ciubotarus propose that breaking up the effigy was done to prevent excessive rain, and also that it represented an attenuated human sacrifice. They refer to first-hand accounts from the early 20th century which described adolescent girls, dressed up in funeral attire, being hurled into Moldavian rivers by other youth, and barely surviving the experience.Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, pp. 119–121 A transition between the human version and the Caloian is attested in Lișna, where young villagers created human-sized dolls, or zâne, which they pretended were real girls that have to be kidnapped and buried in order to end droughts.Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, p. 121
One informant suggested in 1949 that Caloian (known to her as Iene) was only ever performed in times of drought, usually on weekends, and with no day of rest in-between (though "sometimes, preparation are made throughout the week ahead"). In this version, the body was either directly buried near a well or allowed to float downstream on a river, with the coffin as a raft that also held up lit candles. If the latter, any other children encountered along the route were sprayed with water.Pop, pp. 123–124 This feature was reversed in other villages, where the procession itself could expect to be sprayed with water by onlookers.Ciubotaru & Ciubotaru, p. 118 A variant attested in Călmățui had the figurine buried in grains of wheat or barley, whereas in Tudor Vladimirescu the ceremony closely followed regular church burials, including funeral services provided by a Romanian Orthodox priest, and a dedicated grave in the village cemetery.Pop, pp. 124–125 The custom in mixed Csángó–Romanian communities such as Oituz, which was under Catholic influence, is that the figurine be buried near a wayside cross.
With or without the burial, the rainmaking ritual closely mimicked attested practices for Easter-time (including alms which attracted the village in its entirety),Pop, p. 124 with the song performed being a notable exception. It has several "relatively unitary" variants, including one cited by Burada: