Dodola (also spelled Dodole, Dodoli, Dudola, Dudula etc.) and Perperuna (also spelled Peperuda, Preperuda, Preperuša, Prporuša, Papaluga etc.) are rainmaking pagan customs widespread among different peoples in Southeast Europe until the 20th century, found in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia. It is still practiced in remote Albanian ethnographic regions, but only in rare events, when the summer is dry and without atmospheric precipitation.
The ceremonial ritual is an analogical-imitative magic rite that consists of singing and dancing done by young girls or boys in processions following a main performer who is dressed with fresh branches, leaves and herbs, with the purpose of invoking rain, usually practiced in times of droughts, especially in the summer season, when drought endangers crops and pastures, even human life itself.
According to one interpretation, the custom could have Slavic origin and be related to Slavic god Perun, and Perperuna could have been a Slavic goddess of rain, and the wife of the supreme deity Perun (god of thunder and weather in the Slavic pantheon). Recent research criticizes invention of a Slavic female goddess, and indicate as possible both Slavic and old-Balkan influences. In Albanian ritual songs are invoked Dielli (the Sun), Perëndi (the Sky, or deity of weather), and Ilia (Elijah, who in Christianized Albanian and South Slavic folklore has replaced the Sun god and the thunder or weather god, Drangue and Perun).
Names
Rainmaking rites are generally called after the divine figure invoked in the ritual songs, as well as the boy or girl who perform the rite, who are called with different names among different peoples (South Slavs, Albanians, Greeks, Hungarians, Moldovans, Romanians, Vlachs or Aromanians, including regions of Bukovina and Bessarabia). The custom's Slavic prototype name is *Perperuna, with variations:
Preperuna, Peperuna, Preperuda/Peperuda, Pepereda, Preperuga/Peperuga, Peperunga, Pemperuga in Bulgaria and North Macedonia Prporuša, Parparuša, Preporuša/Preporuča, Preperuša, Barburuša/Barbaruša in Croatia Peperuda, Papaluga, Papaluda/Paparudă, Babaruta, Mamaruta in Romania and Moldova Perperouna, Perperinon, Perperouga, Parparouna in Greece Perperona/Perperone, Rona in Albania Pirpirunã among Aromanians Dodola (including Serbia among previous countries, with local variants Dodole, Dudola, Dudula, Dudule, Dudulica, Doda, Dodočka, Dudulejka, Didjulja, Dordolec/Durdulec etc.).
In Albanian the rainmaking ritual is also called riti i ndjelljes së shiut ("Rain-Invoking Ritual"), riti i thirrjes së shiut ("Rain-Calling Ritual" or "Rite of Calling the Rain") or simply thirrja e shiut ("Call of the Rain"), riti i thatësisë ("Drought Ritual"), as well as riti me dordolecin or riti i dordolecit ("Dordoleci Ritual"), riti i dodolisë ("Dodoli Ritual").
Etymology Some scholars consider all the Balkan names of the type per-, perper-, peper-, papar-, etc. to be taboo-alternations to "avoid profaning the holy name" of the pagan Indo-European god *Perkʷūnos. According to Roman Jakobson and others perperuna is formed by reduplication of root "per-" (to strike/beat). Those with root "peper-", "papar-" and "pirpir-" were changed accordingly modern words for pepper-tree and poppy plant, possibly also perper and else.
Dimitar Marinov derived it from Bulgarian word for butterfly where in folk beliefs has supernatural powers related to rain, but according to Jakobson the mythological context of the customs and links explains the Bulgarian entomological names. Michail Arnaudov derived it from Slavic verb "pršiti" (spray). Petar Skok considered prporuša a metaphorical derivation from Slavic prpor/pŕpa (hot ash), pórusa ("when water is poured on burning ash"). Stanisław Urbańczyk and Michal Łuczyński put into question Jakobson's theonymic derivation, deriving instead from Proto-Slavic *perpera, *perperъka (in Polish przepiórka), name for Common quail, which has a role in Polish harvest rituals and the name of the bride in the wedding dance. These are also related to *pъrpati (onomatopoeic), cf. Polish dial. perpotać, perpac, Old East Slavic poropriti.
The name Dodola has been suggested to be a cognate to the Lithuanian Dundulis, a word for "thunder" and another name of the Baltic thunder-god Perkūnas. It is also hypothesised to be distantly related to Greek Dodona and Daedala. Bulgarian variant Didjulja is similar to alleged Polish goddess Dzidzilela, and Polish language also has verb dudnić ("to thunder").
The uncertainty of the etymologies provided by scholars leads to a call for a "detailed and in-depth comparative analysis of formulas, set phrases and patterns of imagery in rainmaking songs from all the Balkan languages".
Origin The rainmaking practice is a shared tradition among Balkan peoples, and it is not clear who borrowed it from whom. The fact so similar customs in the Balkans are known by two different names the differences are considered not to be from the same time period and ethnic groups. Similar customs outside the Balkans have been observed in the Caucasus, Middle East, and North Africa. William Shedden-Ralston noted that Jacob Grimm thought Perperuna/Dodola were "originally identical with the Bavarian Wasservogel and the Austrian Pfingstkönig" rituals.
Ancient rainmaking practices have been widespread Mediterranean traditions, already documented in the Balkans since Minoan and Mycenaean times. There is a lack of any strong historical evidence for a link between the figures and practices of the ancient times and those that survived to the end of the 20th century, however, according to Richard Berengarten, if seen as "typologically parallel" practices in the ancient world, they may be interpretable at least as forerunners, even if not as direct progenitors of the modern Balkan rainmaking customs.
In the scholarship is usually considered they have a mythological and etymological Slavic origin related to Slavic thunder-god Perun, and became widespread in the Southeastern Europe with the Slavic migration (6th-10th century). According to the Slavic theory, it is a (Balto-)Slavic heritage of Proto-Indo-European origin related to Slavic thunder-god Perun. It has parallels in ritual prayers for bringing rain in times of drought dedicated to rain-thunder deity Parjanya recorded in the Vedas and Baltic thunder-god Perkūnas, cognates alongside Perun of Proto-Indo-European weather-god Perkwunos. The same ritual in an early medieval Ruthenian manuscript is related to East Slavic deity Pereplut. According to Jakobson, Novgorod Chronicle ("dožd prapruden") and Pskov Chronicle ("dožd praprudoju neiskazaemo silen") could have "East Slavic trace of Peperuda calling forth the rain", and West Slavic god Pripegala reminds of Preperuga/Prepeluga variation and connection with Perun. Serbo-Croatian archaic variant Prporuša and verb prporiti se ("to fight") also have parallels in Old Russian ("porъprjutъsja").
According to another interpretation the name Perperuna can be identified as the reduplicated feminine derivative of the name of the male god Perun (per-perun-a), being his female consort, wife and goddess of rain Perperuna Dodola, which parallels the Old Norse couple Fjörgyn–Fjörgynn and the Lithuanian Perkūnas–Perkūnija. Perun's battle against Veles because of Perperuna/Dodola's kidnapping has parallels in Zeus saving of Persephone after Hades carried her underground causing big drought on Earth, also seen in the similarity of the names Perperuna and Persephone. Recent research criticize invention of a Slavic female goddess.
Another explanation for the variations of the name Dodola is relation to the Slavic spring goddess (Dido-)Lada/Lado/Lela, some scholars relate Dodole with pagan custom and songs of Lade (Ladarice) in Hrvatsko Zagorje (so-called "Ladarice Dodolske"), and in Žumberak-Križevci for the Preperuša custom was also used term Ladekarice.
Other scholars like Vitomir Belaj, due to the geographical distribution, consider that the rainmaking ritual could also have Paleo-Balkan origin, or formed separate of worship of Perun but could be etymologically related. One theory, in particular, argues that Slavic deity Perun and Perperuna/Dodola customs are of Thracian origin,Dimitǔr Dechev, Die thrakischen Sprachreste, Wien: R.M. Rohrer, 1957, pp. 144, 151 however, the name of the Slavic thunder-god Perun is commonly accepted to be formed from the Proto-Slavic root *per "to strike" attached to the common agent suffix -unŭ, explained as "the Striker". The Romanian-Aromanian and Greek ethnic origin was previously rejected by Alan Wace, Maurice Scott Thompson, George Frederick Abbott among others.
Ritual Perperuna and Dodola are considered very similar pagan customs with common origin, with main difference being in the most common gender of the central character (possibly related to social hierarchy of the specific ethnic or regional group), lyric verses, sometimes religious content, and presence or absence of a chorus. They essentially belong to rituals related to fertility, but over time differentiated to a specific form connected with water and vegetation. They represent a group of rituals with a human collective going on a procession around houses and fields of a village, but with a central live character which differentiates them from other similar collective rituals in the same region and period (Krstonoše, Poklade, Kolade, German, Ladarice, those during Jurjevo and Ivandan and so on). In the valley of Skopje in North Macedonia the Dodola were held on Thursday which was Perun's day. In Hungary the ritual was usually held on St. George's Day. The core of the song always mentions a type of rain and list of regional crops. The first written mentions and descriptions of the pagan custom are from the 18th century by Dimitrie Cantemir in Descriptio Moldaviae (1714/1771, Papaluga), then in a Greek law book from Bucharest (1765, it invoked 62nd Cannon to stop the custom of Paparuda), and by the Bulgarian hieromonk Spiridon Gabrovski who also noted to be related to Perun (1792, Peperud).