Παλαιαί συνήθειαι του φθινοπώρου εις το βλαχόφωνον χωρίον Σκρά (Λιούμνιτσα)

Abstract

Until about twenty years ago, banquets would be held in the village of
Skra in the second half of August, when the maizestripping began, and around
the end of September, when the maize harvest was over. Throughout this
period, “young men dressed as girls” (Bubuléts) would make their appearance at the places where the work was being done. The article argues that the
banquets hark back to an ancient custom whereby the members of the family
or the clan would try the products of the latest harvest in the evening inside a
hut in the vineyard; while the masquerade had its origin in a custom whereby
young men “attired as maidens” would invade other people’s vineyards to
steal grapes or carry young women off to marry them. In these customs lie the
origins of the ancient festivals of Camia, Oschophoria, and Apaturia, which
were held in honour of the pre-Apollonian polyonymous deities: the solar
Anactus and the lunar Parthenus, gods of fruit.