The "Bunghers" Dance from Capu-Satului (Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Bucovina, Romania)

The "Bunghers" dance is a part of the New Year's tradition, being strictly the Bucovina tradition since the "bunghers" represent the high-ranking Austrian Army since Bucovina was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1775-1918). "Bunghers" is a group of guys, beautiful dressed in costumes that imitate (parody) those of the Austrian generals (emperors): black hats with golden/gilded threads or beads, sometimes with gilded feathers, gallons and golden epaulets, trousers with red piping, sometimes swords. Specifically, they are diagonals across the chest (like a platter) and the leather belt, loaded with buttons (even up to 300 pieces) and with small bells. From these buttons (in Romanian, literary - ”bumbi”, popular - ”bunghi”) comes the name of the ”bungher” (bumbier). The dance of bunghers is a sort of ”hora” (Romanian round dance), male dance, with its own melody reminding of the Moldovan ”arcane”. The group is led by a leader who shouts ”strigaturi”, some ”dirty”.
Recording during the festival ""Winter Holidays at Campulung Moldovenesc", Câmpulung Moldovenesc, December 27, 2018, performed on the stage set on the downtown plateau. The dance of the ”bunghers” is part of the traditional New Year suite from Capu-Satului (Village-Head, eastern part of Campulung Moldovenesc town), together with the dance of the ”goat”, of the ”bear” and the village ”hora”.