Romania New Year's Bear Ritual

While people across the globe gear up for New Year's Eve, the people of Romania have a very specific custom for doing so.

In a rural tradition, people wearing brightly colored costumes or animal furs travel to different houses dancing to ward off evil. According to the AP, the tradition is becoming urban as the economic downturn pushes the performers into the city to dance for money.

Check out the festivities in the town of Comanesti, Romania. Is this any crazier than your average New Year's Eve?

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Children wearing bear furs are seen during New Year ritual dances attended by hundreds in Comanesti, northern Romania.

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Children wearing bear furs are seen during New Year ritual dances attended by hundreds in Comanesti, northern Romania.

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Comments

[sort84]

05:15 PM on 01/03/2011

My neighbors beat on pot and pans...I have no idea why, but my entire street has done it ever New Year since I've lived here.

Not everything has to be weird....

It would be weird if at the stroke of midnight every New Years' Eve they,I dunno, peed on each other.

[KIVPossum]

09:50 AM on 01/03/2011

We're still beating Romania on this one? Few villagers in a small, remote village hold on to an old custom. So. I believe there are still some pagans in Scandanavia that still have annual animal sacrifices. Everything doesn't have to be WalMart, McDonalds, and 90210.

[GOGu]

03:07 AM on 01/03/2011

I am from Romania and i didn't know about this tradition. The pictures are from some unknown village and this newspaper implies that this thing is practiced all over Romania when in fact most people have no idea about it. Why do newspapers always exagerate so much ?

[southingtonian]

01:00 AM on 01/03/2011

shades of 'Clan of the Cave Bear'!

[BushBites]

12:57 AM on 01/03/2011

savages.

[DacianGod]

04:00 AM on 01/03/2011

http://bit.ly/xUBVC

Indeed.

[adnana]

04:36 AM on 01/03/2011

really?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odKBE22yaPA

[alexa is]

04:33 PM on 01/02/2011

1.Bears aren't killed every year in order to obtain the costumes.I guarantee you that much more bears have been killed in Romania by many foreign businessmen just for the fun of having them shot. 2.traditions are hard to preserve in towns so the performers come to towns to keep the tradition alive and not to earn money as you say.I sincerely doubt that after such a show they have their pockets full of money. Besides, I like to assist to such shows and I never have to pay for that.3. I consider these traditions much better than a stupid night of halloween, when your kids are tought to believe in all sorts of spirits and spells (which, by the way, is a sick thing to do to the mind and soul of a kid).4. come to Romania, spend Christmas and New Year's Eve here, find out all there is to know about our traditions, and only after that you will have the right to comment upon them. Stop presenting us as a nation with barbarian traditions and people. May I remind you that Romanians too have won Nobel prizes, that we have good professors,musicians and scientists?I am proud to be a Romanian and I consider myself lucky to be born in such a beautiful country with so many brilliant people.Visit it,get to know its people and then write stupid articles about us. Ask Prince Charles about Romania.He owns a house here.

[jagoneely]

01:30 AM on 01/03/2011

I'm not sure you have a grip on American Halloween. I assure you I haven't taught my kid to believe in one spell or spirit. Besides, why defend one tradition while attacking another? Can one really be more stupid to another who doesn't understand it? Your point regarding foreign businessmen hunters as well as a misrepresentation of Romania's sophistication is probably very true. Hopefully the Romanian government keeps track of your bears so you don't lose them as we lost our grizzlies here in California.

[Ann Roberts]

05:43 PM on 01/03/2011

I'm surprised Sarah Pee isn't all over this - She could even bring her own outfit! Maybe she hasn't heard about this yet, but it would be great publicity for her even tho she shuns the media. Also, too, she needs international exposure if she runs for president. I wonder if the Romanians have thought about inviting her?

[TazMiami]

02:00 PM on 01/04/2011

Her costume was on the floor of her office.

[ElCojonuAgain]

03:13 PM on 01/02/2011

......... then they all march together up tp Vlad's ( the Impaler - Count you-know-who ) place to show their solidarity with their most famous son.

[Jim bob]

10:44 AM on 01/02/2011

Let me tell you about a bizarre ritual I've noticed: there is a huge north american city where a million people gather in the street to watch a giant ornamental glitter-ball drop into the street at an exact time, and they do this every year. It has no known purpose whatsoever, but is usually accompanied by the consumption of mind-altering substances. The day after, most of these people spend hours hunched around a box that emits glowing colors and contains the shapes of other humans engaged in a game that involves the carrying of a small ball made traditionally out of animal hides, from one end of a field to another, in ritually defined rules of motion, and then whichever group of these homonids manages to do this the most times in a set amount of time will dance in a wild free form dance while the other group looks as if their dog has died. This ritual is also accompanied by the ingestion of mind-altering substances by the audience. While these activities are taking place, the rest of the group of people it affects are generally "driving" in their machines which carry them from place to place, and most of them have also been imbibing mind-altering substances. There is much violence associated with all this. This culture seems to be the dominant culture on the planet, and it is prone to reporting on and highlighting other rituals, and calling them "bizarre".

[jstreet]

06:53 PM on 01/02/2011

Hilarious. And fanned. As they say in some "bizarre" circles, Happy New Year!

[adnana]

08:54 AM on 01/02/2011

here's an idea: maybe we should change our barbaric Romanian ways a bit and replace the bear skins with some trophies taken from the executives of Bechtel, McDo, Procter & Gamble and other American corporations that have been skinning Romania alive since 1989...

[Jim bob]

10:46 AM on 01/02/2011

When do we start??

[adnana]

11:07 AM on 01/02/2011

Jim bob, once we are finished with our local corrupted politicians, judges and other state officials, we'll definitely let you know :)

[Tulka2]

10:43 PM on 01/01/2011

That's a lot of dead bears.

[necula]

03:37 PM on 01/01/2011

@carnegie In response to the parallel you make with “Native American culture”, that "has a long history of showing respect for the animals they use and kill for survival.” Where did you ever see a ritual using the symbol of an animal that is not respected? Where from your deduction that Romanians using bear's mask do not respect the respective animal? Would it be possible to use if if not respected? To use the mask of a animal despised? Where from the conviction that the killing of a bear by Romanians is horrific and the same thing by Native Americans is a work of art? Have you witnessed that bears are systematically tortured in Romania? There is no exploitation of the bears in Romania; some of them must be killed as they tend to become too numerous. Romania has one of the largest populations of bears: not because they are systemically exterminated is there a such large bear population.
Do you realize how messed up your reasoning is?
You are totally stereotyping; drop this hypocritical formula introducing the faulty thing by “pardon me but”.
Concerning the article about your children, if you say that you could have written it, why didn't you? So pretentious the remark.
I do not lecture you “as to what articles "you" "should" be reading; I just noticed that you are not concerned by a topic that belongs to your own civilization, it is your own product, but by others' that you do not understand.

[necula]

02:44 PM on 01/01/2011

@Val Coman: well noticed. No more bears in their own country as all have been killed and now, all of the sudden, full of care for others' bears ... Sublime hypocrisy, perfect just for giving lessons where failed miserably.
No qualification, nothing whatsoever (already second hand power), in debt up until the neck, a foot in the grave, and still keeping giving lessons to the rest of the planet ... well, well, well ... They can't stop doing it, heh?
Let others alone, "We don't need no education" ... Not from you in any case.
Hey, ectoendomezo, did you click the link How America Messed Up Its Kids? Nothing to say? No comments, no grocking, no nothing?
Of course not.

[Val Coman]

01:53 PM on 01/01/2011

"Many Native American tribes both respected and feared the brown bear, even thinking of it as a god.[71] One tale tells of how the black bear was a creation of the Great Spirit, while the grizzly was created by the Evil Spirit.[72]"

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_bear [In culture]

"While the brown bear's range has shrunk, and it has faced local extinctions, it remains listed as a least concern species by the IUCN, with a total population of approximately 200,000. Its principal range countries are Russia, the United States (mostly in Alaska), Canada, the Carpathian region (especially Romania, but also Ukraine, Slovakia, etc.), the Balkans, Sweden and Finland, where it is the national animal. The brown bear is the most widely distributed of all bears."

Same source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_bear

Check the map:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ursus_arctos_range_map.svg

There is not even a single dot line in the whole USA except Alaska and a small area in the north west.

Who killed the most of the native americans? who killed the brown bears ? Who killed the ancient culture of native americans? Coming now with such cheap and chessy accusations that by continuing ancient tradition here in romania we are killing in fact the bears is incredibly stupid...sorry..

[necula]

01:52 PM on 01/01/2011

@ectoendomezo: Nobody cares of your ironic "Grocking"! Instead you seem to care too much of others' rites. Native Americans have similar customs, most of living cultures in Asia, Africa and Europe still have, you don't and you never had; this is why they are so not understandable for you.
Nobody kills bears just for fun in Romania as you would like to make believe, or just to dance with their furs on them - read other comments bellow. From time to time some of the bears must be killed as their number increases too much. Nobody kills little bears. Did you see little bears in those images? Show me little bears! What are you talking about?! Totally out of the track.
And who's talking of Bad Karma! Don't bother about Romanians' Karma, care about yours: just click on the title on the right column: "How America Messed Up Its Kids" ... C'mon, don't keep ignoring it! You see, you are right away a click from repairing a little bit of your own huge common Bad Karma ... Click on it, do yourself a good instead of just grocking. Sure after that you'll be less concerned with Romania's rites. If still not, then there's definitely something wrong with your grocking, pretentious, self-sufficient "understanding". Difficult to accept your propensity to criticize anything you don't know. Look on youtube's answers of your fellows when asked about the world. Beyond ridiculous. Pathetic.

[Constantin Malcau]

01:30 PM on 01/01/2011

Ancient Traditions, three words and a few images and all out off context. Conclusion Romanians are wild savages that dress in bear skins.
Well instead of having only commercial "traditions" or hypocritical like Thanksgiving (you kill millions of Indians and then you still have the guts to celebrate a meal of peace with them), I prefer the the ones I have and are a thousand ways better.