Chocolate wars, flour blasts, and yogurt fights–all indulgences that have replaced the lewder, more explicit pagan customs associated with the ancient rites that inspired the modern apokries.
Modern urban society is downright puritanical when compared to ancient Greece, whose mythology is more ridden with social scandal than the raciest television soap opera, and Dionysian celebrations would bring a blush even to the uninhibited. These ancient practices have been passed down through the lyrics of rural folk songs, which often surprise with their vulgarity of their innuendo, and are reflected in local customs linked to Apokries, three weeks of romping carnival before the sobriety of Greek Orthodox Lent.
Just as Christianity fused the dodekatheo, or twelve gods of Olympus into a single God, so did the ancients fuse a variety of fertility deities into a single god, Dionysus. More widely celebrated today as the god of wine, Dionysus represents nature’s fertility. It’s this raw sexual energy linked to fertility in nature that is preserved in the folk traditions of Apokries. Certainly a lot has been toned down as Greece’s agrarian tradition has been supplanted by a “modern” culture, but the frenzied dances, the lewd gestures punctuating the double entendres of traditional Apokries songs, and the half-animal costumes that accentuate female but especially male body parts associated with reproduction maintain the link with the ancient fertility rites. This is hardly surprising: Apokries marks the end of winter and the arrival of spring and nature’s renewal.
In Greek cities like Athens and Thessaloniki, the Apokries have been stripped of most pagan associations, with elaborately decorated floats and even troupes of Brazilian dancers infusing the celebrations with a more cosmopolitan air. Looking back on past apokries, the most noticeable change was made in Athens in the late nineteenth century when the organizing committee sought to inject some refinement into the celebrations by introducing a less vulgar form of satire in the guise of floats to replace the customary outpouring of baton-wielding masqueraders with coal-smeared faces and maypole dances.
Though Athens has a long apokries tradition, Greece’s indisputable carnival capital is the western port city of Patras, where each year hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to take part in the festivities. Patras was established as the king of Greek carnivals in 1831 when the first apokries ball was held there in honor of Greece’s first governor, Ioannis Capodistrias. It’s now blossomed into a huge production for which the city prepares for an entire year. The celebration culminates in the final week with a city-wide treasure hunt joined by as many as 40,000 masqueraders, afternoon balls known as bourboulia where women cloaked and masked in a costume known as the domino have the initiative in choosing dance partners, and a parade on the last Sunday led by the King Carnival whose effigy is thrown on a large pyre.
In both cities–Athens and Patras–the most popular costumes and floats tend to satirize recent political events and contemporary political figures, offering frustrated citizens a way to let off steam through humor.
But the fertility-oriented nature of the Dionysian celebrations survives in the coarse social satire of rural traditions. For this, parodies of weddings are common. In the northern Greek town of Naoussa, the apokries tradition of boules calls for locals to don wedding gowns and masks as they dance through the streets. Nearby, at Kali Vryssi, festivities center on a parody of the wedding where the protagonists–baboyeroi, literally old coots–help the koumbaro capture and kill the groom, then revive him as symbol of nature’s renewal with spring’s arrival. On Skyros, men wearing masks from goat hide dance and thick belts with several goat bells attached dance through the village trailed by the korela, a man wearing a bride’s costume. At Tyrnavos, as famous for its carnival as it is for its tsipouro, the phallus is so prominent that its shape is even given to candy sold during Apokries.
Food, of course, is an essential element of Apokries. It might seem odd that there are special days associated with the consumption of specific types of food, most notably Tsiknopempti (meat) and tis Tyrinis (cheese and dairy) given that the word “apokries” means “far from meat”. It’s not: the three week carnival is preparation for the Lenten fast. Tsiknopempti is derived from the Greek words for the smoke that comes off the grill or barbecue (tsikna) and Thursday (Pempti). It’s believed Thursday was chosen as the day for unbridled consumption of meat because in the Orthodox calendar Wednesdays and Fridays are days of fasting.
Custom dictates that Greeks eat dairy, especially cheese, and eggs on the last Sunday of Apokries, “tis Tyrinis”. Cheesepie, rizogalo (rice pudding), galaktobouriko (thick custard baked in fyllo and drenched with syrup), and makarounes (thick pasta served with plenty of grated cheese) are popular dishes on the day and the preceding week. In the central Peloponnese, tyrozoumi (literally, cheese broth) is eaten during the week as a first course; it’s a thin meat soup with wild greens served with chunks of mizithra cheese–and is followed by plates of pasta tossed with cheese. In other parts of Greece, the last food eaten before Lent is eggs–which is also the food with which the fast is broken on Easter.
The start of Lent is celebrated with Kathara Deftera, which this year falls on February 27. Lenten foods replace the rich fare of Apokries, but tradition allows revelers one last romp. At Galaxidi, the day is marked by public flour fights: locals (and visitors) carry sacks of flour tinted in colors associated with spring like blue, green, yellow, and red, and toss it at anyone who crosses their path. On Karpathos, the Lenten “cleansing” is observed in a more direct manner with a mock public trial for “immoral acts”. Locals parodying gendarmes are sent to arrest and bring before a people’s court locals who have been assigned to wander through the village making obscene gestures.
A Carnival of Customs
Every town has its own carnival customs, but some stand out.
On Naxos, the island of Dionysus, look out for the koudounatoi, or bell-wearers, who go around Apeiranthos village making obscene gestures and waving around thick sticks that are symbolic phalluses. The koudounoforoi tragoi, or bell-wearing goats are a custom observed in the northern village of Sohos where locals, disguised under goatskins, prance around town teasing anyone who crosses their paths.
Mock weddings are commonly held as part of the carnival revelry. In the southern Peloponnese town of Kalamata it’s simply the enactment of a peasant herder wedding, but the nuptials enacted in Methoni date from the fourteenth century–and the entire wedding party is played by males. Conversely, on Zakynthos it’s the enactment of the Karnavalos’s funeral on the last day of apokries that gets all the laughs.
At Amfissa the carnival closes with a “haunting”. The tradition is rooted in the tanneries once located in the town which locals believed was protected by a kindred spirit known as the Harmaina. At Tyrnavos, the bourania is dedicated to Dionysus and are accordingly bawdy.
Bonfires and lighting of fires is quite common–Kozani’s fanos, Ioannina’s tzamales, Messene’s neighborhood pyres. In one Drama neighborhood, it’s not the fires you need to watch out for but the ashes; locals known are babougeroi, old geezers, carry around sacks of ashes which they dump on unsuspecting visitors. In Arta and Preveza, the focus is on women, who hold their own costume parade through the towns before partying.