2024-03-08 20:07:02
It’s Monday and everyone around me wishes “Happy New Year”, and that too. They wear cruel capes, old clothes and bells, they have smoke on their faces. The rural carnival of Nedoussa is not a carnival in the sense that we know it, but a true event of euphoria, like those of the Twelve Days of Northern Greece. At eight o’clock in the morning, the people of Nedousia of the region and of Kalamata have already gathered at the “headquarters”, the house where the “troupe” will return throughout the day to change costumes. For the time being, Panagiotis Batsikouras, president of the cultural association, and Grigoris’ uncle are “warming up” their voices and the instruments – tambourine and flute. The president of the community, Aris Varelas, makes the fumo with which he will smudge the faces of those he meets throughout the day, while Georgia Batsikouris, the hostess, brings out appetizers – taramo salad, olives, pasta, all the Lenten and local spoons (pancakes ) with honey. And the tsipouro, of course, the fuel for the great “tour”.
Sickle and straw: the act of Plowing begins. (Photo: Antonios Panitsas/antonispanitsas.gr)
“The significance of the Nedusa event is the coexistence of three ritual acts – Plowing-Sowing, Marriage, Death-Resurrection, which is not found in any other popular event”, says Christos Zeritis, a retired banker, member of the Center for Folklore Studies of Kalamata, who seems to have made it his life’s goal to save and highlight the events of Nedousa, the Messinian village on the northern slopes of Taygetos, in the region of Alagonia . It was in 1995 when he was here, he was amazed at the rituals, he did studies, he informed and invited the great Greek folklorists for recognition, while making known to the locals the value of what they had unknowingly preserved. In 2001, at a scientific folklore meeting, the professor of folklore at the University of Athens and president of the Hellenic Folklore Society, Michalis Meraklis, would liken the event to an “archaeological find”, officially placing it in its rightful place.
Twenty-eight years later, everyone knows that something important is happening in Nedousa. Crowds of people come on Shrove Monday to witness the celebration, the locals truly experience their every masquerade and reenactment, Zeritis proudly shows them off, facilitates them and actively participates – like everyone else: “At our carnival there are no spectators, there are co-celebrants and co-connoisseurs. All the people of Nedos are part of the troupe and all the visitors participate in some way,” says Zeritis, but as I noticed, as the number of visitors increases, their participation is limited, and sometimes they even interfere with what is going on. “It’s something we should consider now, to organize better now that so many visitors are coming to see us,” admits Takis Balikis, who will play the groom a little later.
The procession with the instruments, after the Agermos, accompanies the goats that are ready to pour into the square. (Photo: Antonios Panitsas/antonispanitsas.gr)
“I have attended Nedousa two or three times and I have seen a genuine folk event, a ritual act with a cult dimension in its primary form,” says Giorgos Aikaterinidis, PhD in Folklore and former Research Director of the Center for Folklore of the Academy of Athens, explaining how these kinds of ceremonies are observed in agricultural societies, that is, where people had a direct dependence on natural forces, which determined their production and, by extension, their lives. “They were mainly manifested as fertile for the rich fruiting of the earth and the abundance of herds and as deterrents of evil. In both cases, the ultimate goal was prosperity, a good year”, he concludes. This included the health and fertility of land, animals and people, which given the superstitions and age-old fear of natural phenomena, passed down from generation to generation, had to be ensured by magical, pagan ceremonies and certainly collectively. The community was united, with shared anxieties, a sense of responsibility and solidarity, elements that are preserved to this day.
Alarm, goats, plowing
The most important and most serious moment of the event, the Plowing. (Photo: Antonios Panitsas/antonispanitsas.gr)
For three hours we wander around the village, as part of the Agermos, the first stage of the action. The instruments that the inhabitants make themselves often change hands, the purposes are known to all. The first stop is at a wood-fired oven that burns all year round and Yiannis Iliopoulos smears the faces of all those present, a deep symbol of equality and Basqueness. The long procession moves around the village, in a symbol of protective significance, and stops at every inhabited house, where singing and dancing begin. Brostari are the bearers with a large basket, where the householders will throw whatever food they want for the common table that will be set up in the square – a call for peace and protection. On the spot, however, the entire procession will be treated to wine, tsipouro, and mezes. As the time passes, guests are added, the feast becomes intense, the drum is transferred to the hands of Athena Zeritis, who raises the Dionysian rhythm, the alcohol flows abundantly leading to merriment, the mock teasing that the days demand and songs full of profanity. Children listen, they learn from a young age about the reproductive process, but they also learn to parallel it with the fruitfulness of the earth.
The bride and groom are always men, they prepare themselves with puns and profanities and head to the square for the mock wedding. (Photo: Antonios Panitsas/antonispanitsas.gr)
And then comes the time of the Goats. Some men wear hairy clothes, hang heavy bells on their heads, and wear helmets with goats’ horns on their heads, and are tied with a rope, which is handled by a third party, to tie them down or restrain them. Kids dressed as goats lead the way, introduce themselves and immediately pairs of goats rush down the main alley of Nedoussa. When they reach the square, they will virtually fight each other, just like goats do in the spring, the breeding season. At the same time, the bells are rung, driving away evil spirits. It is there that Christos Zeritis will instruct all the goats to be careful with their horns both towards the world and towards each other, for fear of an accident and the action being banned, as happened with the famous Easter War of Wheat in Kalamata.
The dead person is carried in mourning. Often the protagonist changes, as everyone wants to have a role in the action. (Photo: Antonios Panitsas/antonispanitsas.gr)
The goats leave and as if in a procession, the “cowboy” again descends the central street to the square, with two yoked “oxen”. They will figuratively plow three times and behind them the rest of the troupe will sow the earth with seeds – it is the Plowing, one of the top symbolic moments of the action, which is not perceived by all those present, those cut off from the earth. In this act the troupe is serious and unsmiling, but in the next the satire and jokes begin. The bride and groom, who are both men, have gotten ready and are happily walking down to the square. The priest marries them with profanities and mocking verses, and soon after the couple begins trying to have children on the previously plowed land. Suddenly the groom lies dead. The troupe mourns him with obituaries, calls for him to rise. His resurrection is celebrated, the resurrected one dancing last in line, to close the cycle of death.
The death-resurrection motif respectively symbolizes spring flowering after winter’s dormancy. Everyone dances, displays phalluses in various versions, talks obscenely: “On Clean Monday in Nedousa, we all become different. We disguise ourselves and transform ourselves, leaving aside our everyday face and identity. We are the same, with a common goal to chase away evil spirits, to call nature to wake up, profanity is an ancient element and lewdness is acting,” says Zeritis. I look at seven-year-old Anna – she is first in the procession with us, since eight in the morning, next to her father. “Did you have fun;” I ask her. She nods her head so strongly, with seriousness and wide eyes, that you think she has instinctively understood everything that happened around her.
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On Clean Monday, the Kalamatians in the historic center of the city they fill the sky with small balloons, similar to those of Leonid Kynourias. However, the authentic folk fairs, with large hand-made balloons, are held in the districts of Rachi, Kalyvia, Agios Sideris, Fragolimna and Fytia. The difference with Leonidio is that here they do not travel in the sky, but fall and the faithful chase after them, as this dictates the custom: to take them back and even take them in addition to the other districts.
One of the most special Epitaphs takes place every Good Friday in the coastal village of Kitries. The tour ends at the sea and Epitaphios gets into a boat to continue his journey around the bay. In the sea, that same night, Judas is also burned on a special platform.
The most famous custom of Kalamata is the Saitopolemos, which took place on Easter Sunday. The packs, given historical names such as Hidden School and Kugi, consisted of 10-20 Saito fighters each and began a special war dance with their lit shuttles (cardboard tubes filled with gunpowder) that shot sparks. According to one version, the roots of the custom go back to the Ottoman Empire, when warriors were inspired by improvised shuttles to intercept the cavalry of the Turks. According to another version, it is later and was born to honor the warriors of Verga. In 2019, due to negligence, a man lost his life, as a result of which the Saitopolemos stopped being held.
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