engleski

In Search of a Woman (and her Lost Role) at the Entrance to the Town

On the basis of numerous examples found during the author's own fieldwork in the Mediterranean part of Croatia (Istria, Primorje, Krk, Velebit), this contribution tends to prove that a woman - here incorporated into the stone female figures known as babas which vary from the amorphous rocks to the stone figures with emphasized female attributes - can be considered as a genius loci, genius of the town. Babas bring happines and overall prosperity to the individuals and to the town so they have to be donated fruit and wheat and kissed when seen for the first time. In such a context the author presents arguments to support her thesis that the statue of Eve on the old town hall in Ljubljana is a christianised form of baba that has to be kissed too. The features of archaic culture, suppressed and sublimated, live on through symbolical undertones of the mythological and legendary heritage in a kind of syncretistic reality of female cults and legends from the time when a woman was in the centre of life/life of the town.

town; mythological heritage; genius loci; female cults

nije evidentirano