Zoomorphic bell-bearers in the frost

In the interaction between human and non-human life, apart from the – beneficial or harmful – cosmic natural phenomena, animals were the first and most decisive – whether in a positive or negative way – elements in mankind’s natural environment. Once only wild, predatory and threatening, before becoming domesticated, sources of food, workers, burden carriers or guardians of humans, with complex and polysemous economic, productive, biotic interdependencies with them. This deep and indissoluble ontological and psychic relationship of humans and animals expressed itself through beliefs and ritual practices of a magical nature, such as animal sacrifices and zoomorphic disguises, that eloquently echo the times of superstition preceding their domestication, crossing cultures and transcending history.

Throughout the Balkans, but especially in Greece, which never experienced communist statism, pre-national, pre-modern, pre-Christian perceptions and practices, the so called ‘traditional’ ones, that until recently remained strong, coexisted with evolving conditions – not to mention the various psycho-social levels at which they remain prominent, and not merely as forms of nostalgia. This pre-modern past of the neo-Hellenic world is supposed to evoke ways of life, concepts and practices that are bounded, sacred, reassuring, immutable. Customs of rural origin, or rather their revivals, have evolved, especially over these last decades, into mechanisms for managing the past as regards to the issue of the national identity of many ‘ethnically suspects’, usually stigmatized and minoritized, groups of Greek citizens by reason of their different language or religion. From a body of the experiential knowledge and practices, orally transmitted from generation to generation and closely linked to the continuity of life and production, certain segments are selected, isolated, “folklorized”, i.e. stripped of their original meaning. They are then infused with other meanings so as to be used both arbitrarily and strategically, with a view to attaining different objectives, but mostly that of proving unbroken continuity stretching back to Antiquity.

Ethnographic research has produced descriptions of rituals that have shed light on ancient literary sources, from Aristotle to surviving theatrical works, leading researchers to the certainty that even ancient drama can potentially be reduced to a substrate of elementary folk theatrical events, even though the details of the evolutionary process are, and are likely to remain, obscure. One cannot but be struck, however, by the analogies in form, content, and purpose between the rural religious rites of antiquity – Dionysian and otherwise – and their contemporary counterparts. This was the captivating element that, for years – and not without reason – entrapped primarily Greek, but also Hellenophile and antiquity-obsessed scholars, who ignored or were unable or unwilling to perceive all the other dimensions of this vernacular language and the real dynamic that allowed such forms of popular creativity to endure over time. In doing so, they easily, even unwittingly, fueled contemporary nationalist ideological and political agendas.

The terms “custom”, “rituals” and “rites” – coined relatively recently by scholars and greedily adopted by their institutions – denote a system of publicly displayed, magical, performative acts with a complex and uncertain interpretative code which accompany critical passages in the cycle of life or annual vegetation. Sometimes loosely connected through common symbols with the Church’s calendar, they are repeated, often without any apparent meaning, amounting to instances of intense joy and renewal, temporary breaks in the relentless rotation of time. Yet it is through these ‘traditional’ collective activities and their customary rites, that communities try to speak of their present by speaking of the past in order to conceal, reveal, project, shade, or smooth over. In this sense, these rituals are not just spectacular remnants of a distant past. They embody both the real and the imagined and symbolic identities of the groups that engage in them. The real identity, because they are a collective creation that readdresses the group; the imaginary one, because they embody common ideas, values, beliefs, and expectations and contribute to the identity of group members while differentiating them from other groups. From both a psychoanalytic point of view and the study of human behaviour, it is argued that the symbolic acts and theatrical behaviours within rituals promote communication by replacing real acts and are believed to reduce and defuse aggression by ensuring the survival and coexistence of individuals and groups. As highly performative, they allow the release of otherwise socially not acceptable emotions. In other words, rituals function as mechanisms of social equilibrium between individuals’ drives and the social conventions, demanding their repression. Over time, as the ritualistic commitment to strict adherence to formality waned, actions were free to develop in other directions, acquiring an aesthetic and recreational dimension that gradually became a sufficient reason for performance.

In their effort to conceal their mortal, finite nature, humans have always used fake faces to disguise themselves. The most direct way for someone to escape their vulnerable self is to wear a mask. In the belief that this connects them with supernatural, superior powers, humans hope to control them by inspiring the same awe that the unknown inspires within them. Through disguise, external demons encounter their internal counterparts, an encounter that is explosive and can only be tamed if we domesticate this ineffable unknown, if we identify with it, narrate it, and represent it ritualistically.

As the Master of Illusions who endowed his followers with the power to see the unseen world, encouraging them to ‘go wild’, to become ‘ecstatic’, to change their personality, to free themselves from themselves, Dionysus became theatre’s patron god after he had already become the god of masquerade.3 The theatrical use of masks originates in its magical use. By transforming the effect of wine and orgiastic dancing to equally orgiastic music – sounds played in the Phrygian mode4 on the flute and drum – the Dionysian experience, both collective and contagious, was a cult of catharsis. The groups of beast-like masked figures in folk rituals seem to originate from the ecstatic practitioners in Dionysian and other mystical cults.

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The use of masks, especially zoomorphic ones, is undoubtedly one of the oldest manifestations of civilisation, predating even the time when humans began to cultivate the land, as evidenced by paintings and carvings of masked figures on the walls of prehistoric caves dating back to approximately 15000 BC, for instance in the Kiya site, in the Siberian lower Amur basin. The presence and inexhaustible variety of masks through the centuries and across societies creates a mythical universe that is almost impossible to interpret in its many intractable dimensions.

In the region of today’s Greece, masks and ritualistic beast-like disguises are more prevalently displayed in the months of frost and darkness, at that critical turning point in the cosmic cycle that will eventually lead to the cosmogony of Spring. During this period of transition, people in rural societies, farmers and herders bound to the land and to their primordial beliefs, felt the need to assist nature in its task of regenerating light and vegetation through their own magical ceremonies. We are referring to the wide and multiform but essentially common type of rural customary rituals performed during the period of the Twelve Days of Christmas and Apokria (Greek carnival), which in recent decades have come to be called Dromena, with the constant aim of magical efficiency as well as collective recreation.

The disquised performers, normally always men – although modernity, alongside the lack of available men in the empty rural villages have allowed women to participate too – with their various local names (tragoi [goats], arkoudes [bears], bambougeroi [grumpy old men], rogatsia [mummers dressed in animal hides], genitsaroi [janissary]), form a structured troupe, the tseta (from the Turkish word çete, meaning irregular military corps) with a hierarchy, a leader, and rules, uniforms made of animal skins and hides, zoomorphic masks, shepherds’ bells, sticks, scarves, and predetermined movements, with theatrical, dance, musical, and even verbal elements and other activities involving frightening, daring and subversive but not unpredictable behaviours.

During the years of homogenisation and “Hellenisation” of the northern ‘new territories’, before and after WW2, this military-style structure may have facilitated integration into these troupes of a more recent group with different connotations: the Evzones or tsoliades, elite Greek soldiers, who in some cases completely replaced the bell-bearers. During the pan-Macedonian struggle for integration into the rest of Greece, ‘Greekness’ prevailed over paganism. After serving the purpose of legitimising the bell-bearers for decades, during the first half of the 20th century, by dissociating them from various risky Balkan associations and connecting them with a distant ancient Greek past, Dionysus was overshadowed by more pressing needs. The Fustanella-clad patriotism demanded and pointed towards other pursuits: not only of unbroken continuity but also of national consciousness and participation through interpretive rhetoric developed around customs and their symbolism, adeptly connecting them either with Alexander the Great or with the War of Independence – both arguments that reflect the same reasoning.

The disguised figures combine the sanctity of religious idols with the trickery of the Carnival. The costumes become almost genuine priestly vestments. Revealing the holiness of the rite are the honorary nature of the right to masquerade, the prohibition on switching from one type of disguise to another for members of each generation, the ritual way of dressing up, the way costume or bells are stored for the rest of the year, the origin and significance of many of its accessories, as well as the relationship between the ritual and some holy and sacred centers.

The masks are imbued with a ferocity, mystery, and severity, serving as evidence of the supernatural’s omnipresence and a multitude of forgotten myths. The violence of the forms and sounds are remnants of a primordial tradition that stands out for its ability to constantly renew itself within the severity of ritualistic repetition, drawing inspiration from contemporary myths, fusing the religious with the social, to bring forth new meanings in the flow of history, and undertake the task of transmitting them, attracting today’s visitors along with the communities’ younger members.

Bells [koudounia] are an important accessory of zoomorphic costumes. Koudounia is a generic term of ancient Greek origin that refers to any type of bell, regardless of its shape, size, sound, material, or use. Depending on the region, livestock farmers — the first to use bells either for their herds or rituals, and are avid listeners of these wild and stimulating sounds — use any number of other terms to refer to these musical objects based on their properties and characteristics. Despite the variety of names, the basic types of bells include tsokani, batali, kypri, and koudouni.

The larger a bell is, the lower its pitch. Users and connoisseurs of bells can ‘match’ the ‘voices’ – tones, intervals, tonality, timbre, etc. – both for flocks and for those holding together the ‘dozens’ at zoomorphic carnival parades by paying great attention to individual preference as to achieve just the right sound and sound combinations. The boundaries between the sound object and the musical instrument become blurred. In the village of Sochos, for instance, where the ‘voices’ of the bells alternate and interact with those of the singers, the answer tends to become even easier.