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Traditions on Maundy Thursday - Joi-Mari or Joimarita
Joimarita or Joimarica is a character to be found in Romanian mythology alone, a name deriving from Joi-Mari (Maundy Thursday).
Joimarita was originally a deity of death, who used to watch the fires on Maundy Thursday, which were lit in honour of the ancestors, but gradually became a retributive character that struggles against laziness. She is the protector of spinning and weaving, who watches people\\\'s industriousness. She lives in the mountains and appears as a wheel of smoke, fire and in the form of a sturdy and ugly woman.
Maundy Thursday is the day to honour the memory of the ancestors and Joimarita sees to this cult being observed. As it is cold on Maundy Thursday, in the morning and the evening of that day, they light fires for the dead for them to be warm and have light (sometimes they give water or bread for free, sometimes they light candles for every dead member of the family).
They believe that, on this day, the dead come to their old houses, where they live till the Mosi or the feast to commemorate the dead (Saturday before Pentecost or Whit Sunday), when they give alms for the departure of the souls, when the dead leave carrying the pot and the bread they received. In the meantime they sit down on the eaves of the house or in courtyards, on chairs specially put there for the souls of the ancestors to have a rest.
On Maundy Thursday, early in the morning, bread, cabbage, peas, beans and potatoes are given to relatives and the poor, which they put in the new beautiful earthen pots embellished with small flowers. They bake a long loaf of bread which is given as alms for the dead that were forgotten. Women go to incense things and throw two pails of water on the grave; afterwards they go to the river and throw nine pails of water on the green grass. Then they give water for free to helpless women. This is to be done nine Thursdays after Easter.
In Oltenia (southern Romania), on Maundy Thursday they used to make a fire in front of the house and women brought as many chairs as there were men in the house and put them round the fire. On the chairs they put joimarite (mugs) of water decorated with green leaves and on them they put a piece of bread, incense them and give them as alms. In Oltenia too it is customary to light fires in the courtyard and in the cemeteries, at the end of every grave, where women used to come in the morning and incense things.