Ora-digging – a calendar custom with ritual fires associated with the Feast of Prochka. The most present was in Eastern Macedonia, as a small dance-dig and great ora-dig. The small dances-digs carried out children for a week before the Proco, the great oro-diged, was made on the very day of the Chevka and in its performance, besides the children, the adults turned on. Preparations for customs have begun a few days or weeks earlier, when the fire materials were collected. It is a kind of competition among children from more neighborhood which group will make a bigger fire and burn longer. The custom was the children three times to skip the fire. The Great Oroca-digs was much larger than the small dance-digging that children did. While burning the fire and the small dance-dig and the great dance-dig, the children sang the appropriate songs. Unlike the small dance-digging, which jumped only the children, the Great Origa has skipped and adults. Lit.: Zorka Delikolova, customs associated with individual holidays and weekly days in Radovis, “Messenger of the Ethnological Museum”, 1, Skopje, 1960.149. M. Keith.
Original article in Macedonian language Cyrillic alphabet
Кириличен напис ОРА-КОПА