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Dreaming of Fecundity in Rural Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2005

ALBERT DOJA
ALBERT DOJA
Affiliation:
College of Humanities, University of Limerick, Ireland and Department of Anthropology, University College London.
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Abstract

In Albanian village society, the main characteristic of the social status of women, and their only function that meets social approval, is their aptitude for procreation and motherhood. And the Albanian child is first and foremost a son, who will succeed his father, inherit from him, guarantee the everlastingness of his lineage and honour his ancestors. If the daughter is a future wife and a potential mother, polyvalent images make the boy child the symbol of radical transformation, renewal and regeneration. The beliefs, rites, practices, the multiple symbolic forms and collective representations surrounding birth and socialisation, in addition to their magic, divinatory or propitiatory roles, are also used to confer a symbolic value of recognition on the processes of construction and socialisation of the individual who has just been born.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , October 2005 , pp. 209 - 233
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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