by Oana Cristina Verdier
You are a soul in the 17th century, somewhere in the Romanian Lands. The warm July sun gently caresses your face, and you find yourself in the midst of an endless golden-yellow wheat field. Harvest time is near, and your heart is full, for you will keep some for the holidays and the rest for the tithe. The spirit of the wheat has been kind this year as well!
From the Neolithic to the present day, wheat has been humankind’s staple food. It is only natural, then, that a multitude of cultural aspects became interwoven around it, endowing it with sacred symbolism. Thus, in folklore everywhere, as well as in major religions, wheat has become a bearer of magical and ritual meanings.
The mana of wheat: the “unseen gift” of the fields
According to Gheorghe Pavelescu, the word mana, belonging to the Melanesian cultural circle, is also found in Indonesia and Polynesia, from Madagascar to Hawaii, and “means a special force or power that manifests in singular and unusual effects… The idea appears under different names and with varied degrees of meaning, oscillating between the notion of an impersonal force and that of an individual personality of sacred and divine character.” (Gheorghe Pavelescu, Mana la români, p. 11)
Biblical influences
In everyday language, the term mană appears by analogy with the biblical manna, God’s manna (heavenly food), and designates “a thickish liquid, whitish like white honey, which children eagerly sucked into their mouths” (Gheorghe Pavelescu, Mana la români, p. 27), found on plants such as goosefoot, but also describing a cryptogamic disease of the vine. Romanian folklore preserves formulas such as “heaven’s manna” / “God’s manna,” which bees are said to feed on—made, according to a belief from Bukovina, from the tears of the Virgin Mary. Pavelescu notes that these values represent later additions, while the Romanian essence of the notion retained its magical and primitive character.
The mana of wheat and milk
In popular belief, mană represents “the authentic efficacy of things, their quality par excellence” (Gheorghe Pavelescu, Mana la români, p. 29), which makes them fruitful, multiplying, and “abundant.” In an agrarian-pastoral culture such as the Romanian one, its primary sense revolves around staple foods like wheat and milk: “the mana of wheat/of the fields/of the crops,” “the mana of the land/of the ploughland/of the meadows.” In the case of milk, mană means “its power, richness, and sweetness” (its absence being revealed in milk that is “thin, bluish, and tasteless”). Hence the saying: “It’s only water, it has lost its mana.” (Pavelescu, p. 29)
Thus, the Romanian notion of mană is predominantly primitive-magical, designating the quality that brings fruitfulness, growth, and abundance (especially to wheat and milk), but extending also to vines, maize, trees, bees, and, more generally, to a wide range of properties that can be “stolen”: the strength of oxen, the wool of sheep, the fat of pigs, hens’ eggs, the blaze of fire, rainfall, the yield of the plough, the power of rifles, household prosperity, children’s sleep, women’s beauty, etc. It can be conserved, “taken” or “brought” through magical practices, fulfilling a symbolic function of fertility, abundance, and “the luck of the fields.” (Pavelescu, op. cit.)
The spirit of wheat, the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the Mystery of Christ’s Resurrection
Ion Ghinoiu notes that dough and ritual bread concentrate within them the power of wheat and its spirit, arguing that “the Spirit of wheat dwells in the body of the mother-plant until it bears seed, dries up, and dies; afterwards, it withdraws into the impenetrable shelter of the new seed, becoming, through successive generations, immortal. Yet the avatars of the spirit of wheat, which sprouts (is born), grows, and multiplies, continue not only in the sown (buried) seed, but also in the ground seed, transformed into sacred food (bread, ritual loaf), and finally animated by a rite of incineration: baking in the oven, under the clay lid, on the hearth.” (Lumea de aici și lumea de dincolo, p. 28)
He continues by comparing the life cycle of humans with that of the plant, highlighting the idea that “like man, the spirit of wheat has preexistence, existence, and postexistence.” (Ghinoiu, p. 28). Preexistence: the child in the mother’s womb, mirroring the seed in the earth. Existence: human life, parallel to the plant’s growth. Postexistence: the harvest, where the image of the reaper with his scythe mirrors that of death in human life.
This analogy was made in Antiquity in the Eleusinian Mysteries, where wheat became a symbol of immortality. At Eleusis, in Greece, a cult dedicated to Demeter (the goddess of grain and fertility) and Persephone (the goddess of spring vegetation) was celebrated for nearly 2,000 years. The wheat grain symbolized Persephone, carried off by Hades into the underworld, and Demeter, in her grief, halted the growth of vegetation. After Persephone’s return to the surface for part of the year, plants flourished once again. The Eleusinian Mysteries were based on this cyclical myth of death and rebirth, where the hidden seed in the ground became a metaphor for the soul’s immortality.
Christianity later absorbed and reinterpreted this symbolism: wheat and bread were sacralized in the Eucharist. Bread became the Body of Christ, and the grain that dies and is reborn became a symbol of the Resurrection. Saint Paul writes: “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Corinthians 15:36). In this way, wheat embodies both the mystery of mortality and that of eternal life.
Wheat in Romanian folklore and rituals
In Romanian traditions, wheat plays a central role in customs and rituals linked to the agricultural calendar, life cycles, and the afterlife. At Christmas, wheat sprouts are grown in dishes to symbolize renewal and prosperity in the year to come. At weddings, wheat and bread are present in ritual loaves (colaci) offered as blessings for abundance and fertility. At funerals, ritual foods made of wheat (colivă) are distributed in memory of the dead, symbolizing both the body’s return to the earth and the hope of resurrection.
Coliva, prepared from boiled wheat mixed with honey or sugar and decorated with a cross, is one of the most significant ritual foods in Orthodoxy. Its symbolism directly echoes both the Eleusinian Mysteries and Christian teachings: the grain that dies to give life anew.
Wheat is also used in magical practices: ears of wheat are woven into wreaths for protection, scattered in fields as offerings, or placed in homes to guard against evil spirits. At New Year, divination rituals involve wheat grains or sprouts, foretelling abundance, luck, or misfortune.
From the Neolithic to contemporary rituals, wheat has remained not just a source of nourishment but also a vessel of sacred meaning. It embodies abundance, fertility, protection, death, and resurrection. Through its spirit, mana, wheat links the earthly with the divine, the visible with the invisible, reminding us of the deep interdependence between human life, nature, and the sacred order of the cosmos.
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