Vâlva Băii – Link from Folklore to Societal Structure of the Mining Community in Apuseni Mountains, Romania
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper explores the figure of Vâlva Băii, a female spirit from Romanian mining folklore, as a tool for social regulation and moral codification within the isolated communities of the Apuseni Mountains. Drawing on anthropological theories of folklore, mining cultures, and visual anthropology, the study positions the legend as a governing system in a microsociety historically shaped by extractive labor and social marginality. Further, it reflects on how documentary cinema may act as an ethnographic method to visualize and archive these immaterial systems of belief. Through an analysis of field research and cinematic representation, this study articulates how Vâlva Băii serves not only as myth, but as mechanism—at once regulating, punishing, and preserving the moral order of mining life.
Source: Doctoral Horizons
Author: Lucian Țigănuș
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4414609764