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Fundata, the highest village in Romania, was largely left alone, thanks to its hilly topography. Pine trees bristled above the shepherds' huts on the lush green slopes beyond the village. Nestling in the bosom of the Carpathian foothills, it is where, each summer, the villagers hire a mountain on which to graze their sheep communally, and a team of local shepherds is engaged to look after the flock.
Fundata's Nedeia of the Mountains, on the last Sunday of August, is the traditional gathering for the highlanders of the Brasov, Arges and Dâmbovita regions.It's a traditional folklore fair originally held for shepherds to meet their future wives.
The Romanian pastoral festival and fair from Fundata is the feast of the shepherds from the mountain area and it was initially a meeting which celebrated the solar god. This feast called at the beginning the pastoral festival and fair or Saint Eli's day was related to the most important occupation of the inhabitants of both mountainsides of the Carpathians -grazing - and it took place on Saint Eli's mountain in the middle of the pastoral summer.
The initial connotations were different than the actual ones. Its meanings from the 19 th century were rendered by those who wrote about this custom. Then, its purpose was that of selling specific products and of introducing youth to each other for future weddings. The pastoral specific has been preserved in the shepherds' habit of giving beautifully notched distaffs, and in the songs and the traditional dances.
Since 1965 this custom is called "The Romanian pastoral festival and fair" and it became an opportunity of entertainment. A folk performance and a fair where craftsmen sell their hand-made objects complete the celebration. |