Tenure, she wrote

I've been following Tenure, she wrote, a lovely blog written by a fellow female academic about her own struggles with the current system's dead-ends and downfalls. This is the type of reading many people from my circle seem to be into lately and I guess it is a bit questionable how much of this reading is actually good for us and how much of it is just another type of self-poisoning, like listening to emotionally masochistic songs about break-up when the person you were stalking got away. Our plight seems to be a bit more sophisticated than that, but it's not, really: the academic dream was the stalked and we were the delusion-ed stalkers hoping it will still come out alright in spite of contrary evidence, it seems.
Of course, certain nuances need to be added, still: that unlike real stalking cases, the object of our desire actually did use and encourage us in the delusion (I know, this is probably what most stalkers would say), and the fact that not all of us were left on the outside. Some of us, after quite a lot of struggle, did make it into some kind of tenured position, though it's still pretty much a lottery.

Returning to what I wanted to share about Tenure, she wrote, I was particularly touched by this post of hers, in which she talks about a problem so common for some of us within academia, but so gender-specific that most academia-criticizing lit doesn't cover it. I've been in similar situations more times than I can keep count of, and I'm not the only one. The line between open aggression and hints to your gut is more blurred, finer and softer than it is in the streets, let's say, but this doesn't make the environment (much) safer, it just makes the harassers more shrouded and shroud-able in the cloak of "you got it all wrong".

On the ineluctable inner reverence

"At bottom, despite the differences in epochs and objectives, the representation of power has remained under the spell of monarchy. In political thought and analysis we still have not cut off the head of the king." (Jean L. Cohen, 1994)

Perhaps this observation, which I tend to agree with, has less to do with monarchy than it has to do with humanity's inner tendency towards hierarchical structures. That would actually be a no-brainer for anyone that knows the least bit of political theory; but the story goes, I think, deeper than this. Monarchy and hierarchy are not solely about power, as the quote above seems to suggest, but they're about a sense of the sacred as well. If you regard sacredness as yet another dimension of power which people needed to invent in order to justify and legitimize that power's existence in the first place, then this observation doesn't add much to the initial point made by Cohen, but if you tend to see the sacred more as something parallel, implied by power but also different from it - as I do - then the point changes. 
The fact that, as the author put it, the representation of power has still remained under the spell of the monarchy means not only that we tend to see power as centralized and hegemonic, but also that we tend to ascribe a certain ineluctable aura to it. The spell of the monarchy is a charming choice of words here, for pinpointing at the enchantment associated usually with magic (and the aura of the sacred I was referring to).
We don't just need to refer to a (political) power above us, we also want to idealize it. We don't just want to be part of a hierarchical structure, we want to have some trace of reverence for it. Monarchy may be well dead in many parts of the old and new world, but humanity still crowns its kings and queens in nearly all aspects of collective life.

A bit of professional pride

“We [anthropologists] have been the first to insist on a number of things: that the world does not divide into the pious and the superstitious; that there are sculptures in jungles and paintings in deserts; that political order is possible without centralized power and principled justice without codified rules; that the norms of reason were not fixed in Greece, the evolution of morality not consummated in England. Most important, we were the first to insist that we see the lives of others through lenses of our own grinding and that they look back on ours through ones of their own.” (Clifford Geertz)

I would only add one thing to that: I dislike it when cultural relativism (initiated by anthropology) is pushed into moral relativism. I will not argue for the "dangers" or poor content of this "postmodern chaos" or anything like that, I will merely say that I, as an almost conservative-oriented anthropologist, simply dislike it.

When being able to read and write was uncool

“The Greek aristocracy at first disdained the technology of alphabetic writing and remained devoted instead to the recitative tradition through which it acquired oral fluency with Homer and the few other “inspired” poets whom it sprinkled into daily conversation. Writing and reading may have been regarded as distasteful for any variety of reasons: because they were tasks and skills antithetical to the askêsis of military life that the typical aristocrat knew; because, in the face of a dramaturgical intensity of an established pedagogy that intimately linked theater, communality and religious devotion, the mechanics of writing and reading could only seem pale and impoverished; because the alphabet may have had its initial Greek invention among Greek merchants or the inscribers of pottery, whom the aristocrat could only disdain. The Greeks themselves – at least in the surviving archive – have remarkably little to say on the subject. Whatever the case may be, literacy in ancient Greece came to be the competency of precisely that stratum which had initially resisted it together with those who came to be their rivals in wealth. It never approached universality, even among the free-born male population.” (James D. Faubion, An anthropology of ethics, Cambridge University Press, 2011, p 63)

And here we ("we" as in contemporary Westerners) are trying to push literacy down the world's throat as the miracle cure for social unrest, poverty, violence and so on, and, even more interestingly, as the miracle push towards "development" and "progress". At least in the humanities, it would have been reasonable to expect a certain atheism by now in relation to the oh-so-worshiped  notion of progress. It's so nineteenth century... 

Of course, it is true that in the world of today, meaning in the social context that we create and maintain, not being equipped with literacy skills is a major drawback; the point was not to deny that. But we shouldn't forget that the context we choose to maintain at a certain point is highly volatile and the truths and "facts" we take for granted (like the intricate link between literacy and development in society or mental capability in the individual) can so easily change.

***

But apart from this theoretical point I wanted to make, I can totally imagine myself back then, with the confident and somewhat distinguished attitude that a classy female smoker can arbor today in the grand hollywoodian setting, rolling my eyes at a certain someone who can read and write and looking condescendingly to him for being so vulgar... "No, you can't buy me a Ouzo [actually they didn't have that back then, so replace "Ouzo" with whatever else they drank in those days]... Girls like me don't even talk to boys like you...". Funny thought. Especially considering the contemporary Western (if not already globalized) sapiosexuality.

Geopolitics (new collaboration)

From now on, besides the book reviews for constiinte.ro, you can also find some other writings of mine on this portal, in the format of one-two page news and reviews of geopolitics (as well in Romanian, so I wouldn't recommend it for my non-Romanian friends).

That's it for now.

Always the other and otherness

I (we) tend to talk a lot about "the other" and "otherness" and tend to use this theme as a go-to when explaining anthropological matters. I've wondered a couple of times whether the same things on which a study or another focuses could be perfectly explained (and emphasizing the same causal explanation) not using the whole other narrative. But then the thought just passed slipped my mind, as the reading or writing I was engaged into was most probably required for an objective very "in the now".

Reading Marc Augé - who is a brilliant theoretician of postmodernity and redefined spatiality, by the way, so if you like works like Bauman and post-structuralists like Foucault you should really see some of his writings as well - I came across this interesting passage:

"Snow" and on how we read

Going through my lecture notes on Orhan Pamuk's "Snow", I feel the urge to remark upon two things.

1. My notes (the quotations) tend to target things that "judge" the Islamic culture overwhelmingly, or that at least emphasize the difference. I really think that Islam and the Arab world, generally speaking, are the world's ultimate alterity in the present time. I made few notes on things that struck me as "poetic" and many notes on things that struck me as "unfair" and the whole phenomenology associated with it.
And of course, my question is, first and foremost, this: How much would my lecture notes differ from what they are now if I was from another culture, or differently educated etc? How much does my tendency to be biased by feminist themes and a certain eurocentrism impact what I chose to retain from this book, in terms of "quotable" bits? Is this bias only slight or stronger than I like to think? And finally, did this bias "ruin" this book for me? (I must note that the reading was quite enjoyable in spite of what one could understand from this post and these inquires).

2. I tend to think, not only because of this book but the thing is more visible using this one, that literature cannot be as apolitical as it partially succeeded to be before. Because, in a complete contradiction with the diminished political involvement of present times (political skepticism and the large number of people not showing up to vote, a general cynicism regarding the whole political class etc) the world is more politicized than ever. Maybe it's because of the overrated term of globalization, maybe not. What I'm pretty certain about is the fact that the two go together and are faces of the same coin: the more political the whole society gets (and politics pervade literature and all domains of the thought actually), the more disgusted people become with concrete politics, not being able to ignore their failure any more. So the world is becoming more and less political at the same time.
And incidents like being quick to label things as "discriminative" etc (aka to politicize them), things that before would have been anywhere between common and outrageous, but not necessary political, is just another tendency to confirm that. A heightened awareness is everywhere. And we're a bit injected with hysteria (see the violent political debates from recently) because of it. Nothing is apolitical anymore. And in some regards, this flux of enriched awareness is welcome. But I can't help wondering if it isn't also: first of all, an obstacle to "true"-er feeling and abandoning yourself to it; and second of all dangerous in terms of society itself becoming ultimately unable to settle anything about how things should be run.

About "Miriam" (Completely offtopic)

Not about books or anthropology, just about my name.
I long knew its quite complex and various meanings in different cultures, which I'll not detail here now for lack of space and patience and point; but I was surprised to see The Urban Dictionary's explanations of what "a miriam" is.

So, here goes my least scholarly post on this blog (well, maybe if you consider The Urban Dictionary as part of a larger frame of clashing discourses in a funny way exposed by a blurry elite of a postmodern system of meanings... it could pass as appropriate, were there not still the un-randomness of picking precisely the entry on "miriam" out of it all):

Next paragraphs will completely quote The Urban Dictionary mentioned above.

-----------------------------------------

On the history of modern cemeteries

"I want to reverse the causal arrow: changing burial practices, themselves imbricated in larger cultural developments, produce, or at least invite new meanings of death. "Concepts of death" might be regarded less as the coalescence of attitudes and beliefs and more as practices which take on meaning as strands in a larger web of cultural transformation. Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution are not among the causes of cemeteries, if anything the converse is true: cemeteries produce a cultural world fit for the new economic order.
Cemeteries, in this account, are to death what Lombard Street was to Bills of Exchange or the stock market to equities: no mere venue but a sign that the underlying cultural assumptions of capitalism had taken root, that what might have seemed outrageous in an earlier age - the ready circulation of commercial paper or limited liability companies or freehold in grave sites, divorced from the Church - could be taken as part of the landscape of everyday life". (T. W. Laqueur, Cemeteries, Religion and the Culture of Capitalism, in Capitalism in Context: Essays on Economic Development and Cultural Change in honor of R. M. Hartwell,  edited by John A. James and Mark Thomas, University of Chicago Press, 1994, p 139-140).

On how we consume information (I)

"I would argue that this semi-structured organisation through a network of quests and always available self-selected activities within set boundaries matches the way we read and experience the world today. These days we do things in fragments: we surf, channel flip and multitask. We write and read emails and blog posts rather than novels, we listen to 4-6 minute songs rather than symphonies, and we listen to the news in 30 second sound bites. We devour these fragments, flicking through hundreds each day, and we return to many, spending a few minutes at a time on one topic or blog or news story, maybe, but returning to it again and again. This fragmentation doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re more superficial. We return to things again and again, and the cumulation of fragmentary experience may be as deep or deeper as a single but lengthier exposure to something." (Jill Walker in "Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media", Cambridge, 2007).

We return again and again... to the same net pages, blogs, bits, topics, favorite fragments of this spinning, dizzying, alive multi-verse of a world. Which kind of makes it home. And family. New faces of alienation? Or is it the contrary, a tendency to soothe and tame the cold machine-created virtual wilderness? Aren't we all that insane man talking to a rock and pretending it's a lively pet?

Notes on the youthly rebellion(s)

One of the my most recent enjoyable lectures was The Poetry Lesson by Andrei Codrescu. A writer and a Romanian now living and developing his skills abroad, just like me (but I wouldn't take the comparison further than that), he actually teaches Poetry to university students and he recalls it in a most funny and dreamy fashion in the book. Which of course, makes one think about Dead Poet's Society. :)

I will not speak more on the whole matter here because I will do it elsewhere, but I would like to share a certain remark from the text for purposes to be revealed later:

What statues and culture have in common and abstract economy and politics have not

Marshall Sahlins, in "Culture and Practical Reason", Chicago University Press, 1976.

“Shortly before the events of May 1968, I had the opportunity to witness an informal debate between an American member of the Russell Tribunal – passing through Paris from Copenhagen, where he had learned of the structuralist vogue from French colleagues – and a Parisian anthropologist. After a long period of question and discussion, the American summed up his views in this way: “I have a friend”, he said, “who is doing a sociological study of the equestrian statues in Central Park. It’s a kind of structuralism. He finds a direct relation between the cultural status of the rider and the number of legs the horse has off the ground. One leg poised has a different historical and political connotation from a horse rearing on hind legs or another cast in flying gallop. Of course the size of the statue also makes a difference. The trouble is”, he concluded, “people don’t ride horses anymore. The things in a society that are obsolete, out of contention, those you can structure. But the real economic and political issues are undecided, and the decision will depend on real forces and resources.”
The Parisian anthropologist thought about that a moment. “It is true,” he finally said, “that people don’t ride horses anymore. But they still build statues.”
Something more was implied than that the past was not dead – because, as has been said of the American South, it is not even past. It was also intended that economics and politics have modalities other than the “real” competition for power. [..] The competition does not evolve absolutely, on an eternal and formal rationality of maximization; it develops according to a system of cultural relationships, including complex notions of authority and submission, hierarchy and legitimization. And among other means, it is by a literal concretization of this code into statues that history is made to act within the present, at once directly and through its dialectical reappropriation and revaluation.” (p 19-20)

A wonderful story-style assertion on why anthropology, discourse analysis and cultural theory may exist, must exist and do exist.

Cetatea Neamţului

Nu ştiu dacă v-a plăcut sau nu "Sobieski şi românii" când aţi studiat-o în şcoală, însă în mod cert lui George Coşbuc nu i-a plăcut prea mult. Sau, cel puţin, aşa lasă de înţeles o poezie-parodie pe care a scris-o despre celebra poveste a leşilor şi plăieşilor.
Poezia lui Coşbuc nu face parte, desigur, din categoria umorului care degradează conţinutul originar al întâmplării care parodiază, nu este menit să ofenseze nicio sensibilitate regională sau naţională. Este doar amuzantă (deşi Coşbuc nu şi-a dat mâna la parodii prea des, precum, bunăoară, Topârceanu). Mie îmi plăcea să o citesc când eram mică şi, amintidu-mi recent de ea, am căutat-o de-a lungul şi de-a latul internetului doar pentru a constata că nu se găseşte nicăieri. Ceea ce trebuie, desigur, remediat :).

The Golden Pot (Ulciorul de aur)

I've long looked for an e-book of my favorite fairytale since I was a child. I've talked about it before, here. I found several, but none of the translations was to my liking. The physical format of the book was also long gone from every shop I searched in. Eventually I ordered one from far far away, but in the meanwhile finally found an online English version of The Golden Pot which didn't hack away the story's feeling. I enjoy it quite a bit more than the paperback one I came to own.

To keep this short, here is the link where you can find this good and free rendition of a wonderful story. I recommend it heartily:
http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0355.pdf

On movies, sacred time and marriage

Reading some film interpretation theory, I came across "Pursuits of happiness: the Hollywood comedy of remarriage" by Stanley Cavell. It tells the tales of Hollywood's typical romantic comedy where the estranged couple is reborn from its ashes. Focusing on seven such films made between 1934 and 1949, this work is still quite actual.

Common sense samples from Romanian fairytales

The English version of the previous post:

Ioan Pop-Reteganul, Crăiasa Zânelor, poveşti ardeleneşti, Bucharest, Minerva Publishing House, 1970.

Ioan Pop-Reteganul is one of Romania's most notable folklorists. He gathered the stories in this book from the Occidental Carpathians for over three decades.

"The Lord of the Heavens is much more merciful than earthly lords" (Line belonging to the Fairy of the Waters, p 8)

About a beautiful girl: "Anyone would not have hungered anymore, and he wouldn't even remember hunger forevermore, just looking at her." (p 18)

"But so is the Romanian: he endures as much as he can; it is better for him to suffer than to lose his temper, for heaven have mercy on the one that makes the Romanian get angry." (p 37)

"man is only half man until he weds" (p 41)

"Fate has nevertheless fated otherwise." (p 66)

About a dead man: "her man, may he be forgiven and stay where he evening-ed" (p 70)

"Man of nothing is the one who dares spoil the ways of the country." (p 78)

"I notice than even a thief going stealing says God help." (p 81)

"Remember my son, said the old man, you'll walk and walk until you'll reach the longing field, and there you shall be struck by longing for mother, sister, brothers, friends and acquaintances; for if you will not play this fiddle, you will be forced to tun back for longing." (p 85)

The hero to the princess thanking him for delivering her from distress: "If I had not rescued you I would have perished myself, not being able to ever forget you." (p 106)

"And then, as you well know, as many countries as many kings, so it was from the old times, every country had its king and every village its priest and things went smoothly; today, of course, cannot be like that any more, for the world became evil and people became poor; one king needs more than one country and one priest more than one village and still they can't be seen content." (p 119)

"And with enemies the fight was to the death, for emperors fight not as sheepherders, to have a lil' fight or two and then sit together; no, they fight like bucks, head to head till one can't move anymore, his army to be more precise, for the emperors just sit and watch and then they make peace and are good friends." (p 120)

"No living man, may he even be a Lord, should set himself against fate." (p 147)

"I'm not a man to believe lies, especially about beautiful girls I want to hear no badmouthing, for even if I hear it I believe it not." (p 148)

"... lies will not get you far, you may reach dinner or lunch with them, but both very rarely." (p 153)

"... for I'm not since snails, I'm since tales." (p 206)

The thinnest horse in the group (the wonder-steed undercover): "Master, set a huge fire, to let gather a big pile of embers so I can soothe my hunger, and then you shall see what kind of a horse you chose." (p 235)

The finish of a story: "And he went and became king in his father in law's place, and he rules with wisdom and with justice; now he is no more, he died altogether with justice, may God rest them both!" (p 237)

"But none of them could come, one said hee and one said nay and the other so forth, you know how man is when he sets about not helping: he lies so much that the sun holds still and the moon hides behind a cloud for shame. He lies so much that you stand and listen and almost believe, nay, you even do believe him until you remember he's human." (p 238).

Mostre de bun simţ din basmele ţării

Ioan Pop-Reteganul – Crăiasa Zânelor, poveşti ardeleneşti, Bucureşti, Editura Minerva, 1970.

Ioan Pop-Reteganul, unul din cei mai de seamă folclorişti români, a cules timp de peste 30 de ani de peste Carpaţi poveştile cuprinse aici.

„Domnul cerului este mult mai milostiv decât domnii pământeşti” (replică a Zânei Apelor, p 8).

Despre o fată frumoasă „Orişicine n-ar mai fi flămânzit, ba nu şi-ar fi adus aminte de foame nicicând, uitându-se la ea.” (p 18).

„Aşa e însă românul; el sufere până poate; mai bine sufere el, decât să-şi piarză chibzuiala, căci vai atunci de cela care face pe român să-şi iasă din sărite.” (p 27)

„omul e numai jumătate de om până nu se însoară” (p 41)

„Ursita însă a ursit almintrelea.” (p 66)

Despre un om mort: „că bărbatu-său, fie iertat şi mâie pe unde a înserat” (p 70)

„Om de nimica e cine cutează a strica obiceiurile ţărei” (p 78)

„bag seama că şi hoţul când merge la furat zice Doamne ajută” (p 81)

„Ţine minte fătul meu, zise moşneagul, vei tot merge până-i ajunge la câmpul cu dorul, acolo te va lovi dor de maică, soră, fraţi, prieteni şi cunoscuţi; încât de nu vei cânta cu cetera aceasta, vei fi silit să te întorci înapoi de dor.” (p 85)

Voinicul către fata de împărat ce îi mulţumea că o scăpase din primejsie: „De nu te scăpam nici eu nu mai trăiam; neputând să te uit în veci.” (p 106)

„Apoi, precum bine ştiţi d-voastră, câte ţări atâţia împăraţi, aşa era din bătrâni, toată ţara-şi avea împăratul şi tot satul popa şi mergeau lucrurile strună de oable: astăzi, fireşte, nu mai poate fi aşa, că lumea s-a viclenit şi oamenii s-au sărăcit; la un împărat îi trebuiesc mai multe ţări şi la un popă mai multe sate, şi tot nu-i mai vede omul sătui.” (p 119).

„Şi cu duşmanii trebuia să ţină luptă pe moarte şi pe viaţă, că doară împăraţii nu se luptă iac-aşa ca ciobanii, să-şi dea o trântă, două ş-apoi iar să se ogoaie; nu, ei se bat ca ţapii, tot în capete, până unul nu se mai poate mişca, adecă oştile lor, că împăraţii stau şi se uită, chibzuiesc, atunci apoi se împacă şi se fac prieteni buni.” (p 120)

„Împotriva ursitoarelor să nu se pună om pământean, fie chiar şi boier” (p 147)

„Eu nu-s omul care să cred minciuni, cu deosebire despre fete frumoase, nu voi să aud pic de hulă, că şi de-o aud, nu o cred.” (p 148)

„cu minciuna nu mergi departe, ori cinezi, ori prânzeşti cu ea, dar amândouă rar le faci” (p 153)

„că eu nu-s de când fereştile, ci eu îs de când poveştile” (p 206)

Calul cel mai slab din herghelie (murg năzdrăvan undercover): „Stăpâne, fă un foc mare, ca să se adune jar mult, să mă satur odată, apoi să vezi ce cal ţi-ai ales.” (p 235)

Deznodământul: „S-a şi dus, şi a rămas împărat în locul lui socru-său, şi a stăpânit cu dreptate şi cu înţelepciune; acum însă nu mai trăieşte, a murit de o dată cu dreptatea; Dumnezeu să-i ierte pe amândoi!” (p 237)

„Dar nici unul nu putea veni; unul zicea că-i teacă, altul că-i pungă, al treilea că pe dincolo, ştiţi d-voastră, cum e omul când îşi pune în cap să nu ajute: minte de stă soarele în loc iar luna se bagă după nor de ruşine. Că aşa-ţi minte de stai a-l crede, ba-l şi crezi până-ţi aduci aminte că-i om.” (p 238).

Le temps de cathedrales

From up to bottom, some photos I took of the cathedrals in Strasbourg, Worms, Koln.

"We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

I believe that that certain feeling of calm awe awakened in the viewer's mind can only be achieved by old religious buildings. The new ones stand no comparison. Just as if membership to the medieval European construction times of old would serve as a guarantee to that stir in the chest, or as a birth certificate to spiritual nobility.

This is my bow to the cathedrals of those times, as the opera show Notre Dame de Paris would say it, "le temps de cathedrales". As ending, a small quote of that song in the show:

"Il est venu le temps des cathédrales
Le monde est entré
Dans un nouveau millénaire
L'homme a voulu monter vers les étoiles
Ecrire son histoire
Dans le verre ou dans la pierre".

Redefinirea spaţiilor

Michel Foucault, Theatrum philosophicum, Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă, Cluj-Napoca, 2001:
“Am putea spune, pentu a retrasa foarte grosier această istorie a spaţiului, că în Evul Mediu el era un ansamblu ierarhizat de locuri: locuri sacre şi locuri profane, locuri protejate şi locuri, dimpotrivă, deschise şi lipsite de apărare, locuri urbane şi locuri rurale (aceasta în ceea ce priveşte viaţa reală a oamenilor); pentru teoria cosmologică, existau locurile supraceleste opuse locului celest; iar la rândul său, locul celest se opunea locului terestru; existau locurile în care lucrurile se aflau aşezate pentru că fuseseră deplasate cu violenţă şi, apoi, locurile în care lucrurile îşi aflau amplasarea şi repausul fireşti. Toată această ierarhie, opoziţie, intersectare de locuri constituia ceea ce, foarte grosier, am putea numi spaţiul medieval: un spaţiu de localizare.
Acest spaţiu al localizării s-a deschis o dată cu Galilei, căci adevăratul scandal al operei lui Galilei nu îl constituie atât faptul de a fi descoperit, de a fi redescoperit, mai curând, că Pământul se învârte în jurul Soarelui, cât acela de a fi constituit un spaţiu infinit şi infinit deschis; astfel încât locul Evului Mediu se găsea întrucâtva dizolvat, locul unui lucru nu mai era decât un punct în mişcarea sa, aşa cum repausul unui lucru nu mai era decât mişcarea sa infinit încetinită. Altfel spus, o dată cu Galilei, începând din secolul al XVII-lea, întinderea ia locul localizării.
În zilele noastre, amplasarea se substituie întinderii care ea însăşi se subtituise localizării.” (pag 251-252).


Altă dată despre alte spaţii şi imaginarul lor.

Măsura secularizării

Dacă e să căutăm indicatori simpli - pentru orice fapt social - un exemplu bun ar fi discursul cerşetorilor peste timp. Pentru a da o idee măsurabilă despre secularizare, bunăoară.

Conform lui Petru Maior, în copilăria lui (a doua jumătate a secolului XVIII) se cerea milă pe străzi cu expresia "să-ţi fie plătite vămile". În relaţie, bineînţeles, cu arhicunoscutul ritual de aruncare a monezilor pentru luntraş şi vameşii celuilalt tărâm, singurul rit funerar care poate fi performat de bărbaţi. (Ştefan Dorondel, Moartea şi apa: ritualuri funerare, simbolism acvatic şi structura lumii de dincolo în imaginarul ţărănesc, Ed Paideia, Bucureşti, 2004, p 119).

Ce vremuri!