Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia: Beliefs about Protection and Fertility 9781847880291, 9781859732823

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Acknowledgements This book could not have happened without the help of colleagues, students and friends who share my interest in folk dress and its many meanings. Appreciation is extended to the many individuals who listened to my ideas and read drafts of papers over the years. Special thanks to Kathryn Earle, editor at Berg, who encouraged me to submit a proposal when the Dress, Body, Culture series was first announced. Her help along with the editorial assistance of Sara Everett, Emma Wildsmith, and David Phelps has made working on this project a pleasure. Joanne Eicher, who is Series Editor, helped me to formulate the concept for the book. She is my former professor at the University of Minnesota, and I continue to learn from her. I especially thank the contributors to this volume who responded to my suggestions with grace and returned manuscripts to me quickly. Their interests, thoughts and insights helped shape the final manuscript. Thanks to the Costume Society of America for granting permission to reprint Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s article “On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing” from Dress 21. Appreciation is extended to museums for allowing Berg to publish photographs of objects in their collections, as well as to individuals who supplied one-of-a-kind images.

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Preface This volume is the result of my interest in the hidden meanings of folk dress. Richly colored, densely embellished, and painstakingly crafted, folk dress has great aesthetic appeal. When I began researching women’s folk dress in Greece, I questioned what these beautiful objects meant to the people who wore them. Twenty years and five field research trips later, I am still answering the question. The answer is not easy because folk dress embodies multiple layers of meanings, one of which is spiritual. The magico-religious beliefs associated with folk dress in Europe and Asia Minor (Anatolia) are deeply-rooted and especially difficult for scholars to decipher. To study the associations of dress with the supernatural requires lengthy fieldwork, knowledge of languages rarely taught at the university level, access to literature on folklore found only in libraries abroad, and understanding of the implicit meanings of folk tales. By assembling the work of a variety of scholars from various disciplines, I attempt to provide the reader with an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural view of the supernatural beliefs associated with folk dress. As a whole, this book represents skills in numerous languages and research data from many field trips. Each chapter articulates the relationship between dress, the body, and the supernatural beliefs of agrarian communities (or the reinvention of such beliefs as part of nationalism) and is supported by research using primary sources. Several contributors are natives of the cultures about which they write. All are women. Through the collected experiences of the contributors to this volume, the reader begins to uncover the hidden meanings of dress.

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Notes on Contributors E. J. W. Barber is Professor of Archaeology and Linguistics at Occidental College in Los Angeles, having received a BA from Bryn Mawr College in archaeology and Greek and a Ph.D. from Yale University in Linguistics. In addition to numerous articles in the fields of archaeology, linguistics and Classics, Barber has authored several books: Archaeological Decipherment (Princeton, 1974), Prehistoric Textiles (Princeton, 1991), Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years (Norton, 1994) and The Mummies of Urumchi (Norton, 1999). Marlene R. Breu is Assistant Professor of Textiles and Apparel at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1996. Her dissertation focused on the traditional dress of Turkey, which she continues to research. She is also investigating changes in Turkish contemporary dress, both mass fashion and the socio-political uses of dress. Laurann Gilbertson is Curator of Textiles at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. She has a BA in Anthropology and an MS in Textiles and Clothing, both from Iowa State University. Her interest in ethnic dress and textiles extends to the material culture of Norwegian-Americans from the immigrants themselves to later generations. Mary B. Kelly is an artist, textile researcher and Professor of Art at Tompkins Cortland Community College, State University of New York. She holds an MA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Syracuse University. Her research on Eastern European folk embroideries has appeared in numerous journals, magazines, exhibition catalogs and edited books as well as in Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe (1989). Kelly’s textile research was highlighted in a recent television production “Threads to the Past” produced by PBS and aired in 1998. Îra Kuhn-Bolšaitis, Associate Professor Emerita of the University of Rhode Island, studied French and German literature and received her BA at Douglass xi

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College and her MA and Ph.D. at the University of Kansas. At the University of Rhode Island she was instrumental in establishing a comparative literature undergraduate and MA program that she directed. Before her retirement, she became interested in interdisciplinary research in Latvian folk dress, textiles and mythology. Vesna Mladenovic is from Skopje, Macedonia. She received a BFA in 1997 from Washburn University. Her field research in Macedonia in 1996 focused on children’s and women’s folk costumes. Currently she resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Skopje, Macedonia. Ruta Saliklis received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995. Her chapter emanates from her dissertation titled Lithuanian Folk Costume: A Contested Symbol of National Identity. A Fulbright Fellowship from the Institute of International Education provided funding for this research. She is currently Adjunct Professor at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania and textile consultant for the Historic Bethlehem Partnership. Linda Welters is Professor in the Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design Department at the University of Rhode Island. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. In addition to European folk dress, her research interests include archaeological textiles and the material culture of New England. She has published widely, most recently a book co-edited with Margaret Ordoñez titled Down by the Old Mill Stream: Quilts in Rhode Island (Kent State University Press, 1999). Patricia Williams received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where she is now an Associate Professor. She conducted research in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1992 and 1995. Her teaching and research interests include traditional textiles, non-Western material culture and immigrant culture in the United States. Williams’ recent work has appeared in Dress, Ars Textrina and Dress in American Culture. Presently she is working on her doctoral dissertation at the University of Leeds.

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Introduction: Folk Dress, the Supernatural and the Body

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Introduction: Folk Dress, Supernatural Beliefs, and the Body Linda Welters

Throughout history, dress and adornment have fulfilled a basic human need to connect with the supernatural world. In folk cultures, the dressed body offers human beings a way to negotiate the invisible influences on their natural and social environments. A belt, shawl, or cap worn as culturally prescribed provides a modicum of control over events whose outcomes are unpredictable. By wearing material objects on the body and performing rituals involving such objects, people believe they exert apotropaic power over the unseen forces adversely affecting their lives. The supernatural beliefs associated with European folk dress are not well understood. Many early studies on folk dress divide styles into categories based on national or regional differences (Oakes and Hill 1970). Books on folk dress of individual countries, often written by curators in governmentfunded museums, promote a sense of national unity (Zora 1981). Scholars in a number of disciplines have recognized folk dress as a sign system that communicates identity, gender and ethnicity (Bogatyrev 1971; Barnes and Eicher 1992; Eicher 1995). Cultural anthropologists have begun to address the role of dress in social and ritual practices (Cordwell and Schwarz 1979; Weiner and Schneider 1989; Tarlo 1996). Recent works on textiles have identified some of the qualities of European and near-Eastern folk dress believed to embody protective powers and ensure fertility (Paine 1990; Barber 1994). The aim of this book is to explore long-held beliefs that articles of dress could protect the human body from harm by warding off evil spirits, bring fertility to new brides and young married women, or assure human control

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of supernatural powers. Contributors to this volume represent a variety of academic backgrounds – art history, linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, literature, folklore and ethnohistory – which results in an interdisciplinary examination of this phenomenon. The time periods covered range from the Palaeolithic Era (Barber, Ch. 2) to the 1990s (Saliklis). The chapters cover a broad geographical area including Turkey (Anatolia), Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Russia. Three chapters are based on research that could only have been undertaken since glasnost and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (Kelly; Welters and Kuhn-Bolšaitis; Saliklis). All studies are grounded in objects and their ritual use, and are thus united by a focus on material culture. Elizabeth Barber’s work on East European folk dress, originally published in Dress,1 associates string skirts, back aprons and specific motifs and colors with the human need for procreation. Marlene Breu, in her study of the Turkish village of Kocakovacýk, found that parts of the local dress acted as tangible, visible objects to enhance women’s roles as sexual beings and procreators. Linda Welters, in her chapter on the Peloponnesian zonari, examines the belief that a fringed belt protected Greek women during and after childbirth. Welters’ chapter on dress and women’s reproductive role investigates the relationship between fertility symbols and customs associated with female attire on the Greek mainland. Vesna Mladenovic discusses the fertility connotations of red fringed aprons worn by Macedonian brides. Barber’s second chapter connects the sleeves of costumes worn by young women during Eastern European víly or rusálki festivals to fertility rites for both crops and women. Patricia Williams’ research investigates the use of shawls and caps and their respective motifs in Czech and Slovak birthing, marriage, and funeral rites. In her chapter on Carpathian textiles, Mary Kelly examines the fertility connotations of commonly-used motifs. Welters and Kuhn-Bolšaitis, in their chapter on Latvian belts, use folk songs to explore the protective qualities associated with this article of dress. Laurann Gilbertson illustrates the belief that metal attire protected the wearer from evil spirits through its reflectance. In the final chapter Ruta Saliklis explores Lithuanian national costumes as affected by social, political and cultural changes in the Baltic states.

Terminology Before discussing the theoretical underpinnings of beliefs about protection and fertility, it is necessary to define some of the terms used by the contributors 2

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to this book. Of prime importance is the meaning of folk and folklore, because it affects our understanding of folk dress. The word folk was coined by European nationalist scholars in the first half of the nineteenth century who discovered in folklore a rationale for a “national character.” These scholars systematically collected and analyzed orally-transmitted culture, such as songs, legends, myths and beliefs (folklore), as well as material objects. In the past, “folk” denoted social groups other than the cultural elite that were thought to have remained uncorrupted by civilization. Early folklorists sought survivals, or remnants of earlier cultures, in the customs and traditions of the social groups who lived in pre-industrial rural communities, often described as peasants. Over the years, the terms “folk” and “folklore” have undergone a transformation, and the word “peasant” has become outmoded. Yoder, an American folklorist, first referred to folklife studies as regional ethnology (1976). Currently, a folk group is defined as any group of people who share common factors (El-Shamy 1997) and folklife as “all those cultures found within the context of the local region” (Primiano 1997: 322). Such a definition of folk includes urban as well as rural groups. Folk dress, variously called peasant, rural, ethnic, or regional dress, is popularly understood to mean the traditional dress worn by people outside urban areas (Roach and Musa 1980). Folk dress is sometimes called nonWestern dress, because it develops outside the realm of the Western European fashion system. Recent conceptualizations of folk dress have been expanded to include the notion of a folk group’s being any group with its own culture. Wilson offers the following definition: “any manner of stylizing, marking, or manipulating the appearance of the human body with culturally understood symbols and forms” (1997: 147). Dress is preferred to costume because the latter evokes images of Halloween costumes, theatrical or stage costumes, or historical ensembles (Baizerman, Eicher, and Cerny 1993). Only when cultural groups appropriate an ensemble as part of performance is costume the preferred term (see Saliklis). Tradition is a term used by the authors in this book to mean a “repeated pattern of behaviors, beliefs, or enactment passed down from one generation to the next” (Allison 1997: 799). Folklorists find tradition to be a slippery concept. Dan Ben-Amos identifies seven different strands associated with tradition that parallel the development of the discipline of folklore studies (1984). Tradition is commonly thought to be unchanging. It frequently seeks to form a tie with the historic past. In recent decades, folklore scholars have explored how traditions are sometimes invented (Hobsbawm 1983). This was certainly the case in Wales, where nineteenth-century romantics revived the Welsh language, systematically recorded myths and songs, and established 3

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a female Welsh “national costume” consisting of black hats and blue or red tweed cloaks (Morgan 1983). Saliklis exemplifies in this volume the concept of an “invented tradition” in the “costumes” worn by Lithuanian folk dance groups. Currently, tradition is recognized as a set of practices with origins in the past, or a set of practices created in the past that are purposefully maintained by the group in the present (Allison 1997). Tradition thus represents both continuity through time and innovation with subsequent generations. Picton’s work on African textiles incorporates such a definition by placing weaving traditions inherited from the past within the context of twentieth-century technological developments like lurex (1995).

“Magic,” Protection and Fertility Magic in the traditional sense of the word is the use of spells, charms and rituals that humans believe ensure their control over supernatural powers. The term magic is also a loaded term in folklore studies. Associated with the occult, the word has developed a pejorative connotation and is equated with the synonym superstition (O’Connor 1997). While magic practice is rare in European and Anatolian folk cultures, magical thinking is prevalent. Magic belief accepts the possibility of human supernatural agency using overt magical practices of conjury, prophecy and witchcraft, while magical thinking deals with the remnants of such belief. Examples of magical thinking include beliefs in scapegoating, the evil eye and fertility rituals (Woodbridge 1994). Magical thinking is grounded in fear and desire for power. In some folk cultures, fears and beliefs are expressed through myths, legends, fairy tales, songs, religious practices and the ritual use of material objects. The preChristian beliefs of European and Anatolian agricultural communities revolved around the natural world – sun, moon, stars, earth, sky, water and trees – resulting in a pantheon of deities, many of whom were feminine in character. These supernatural beings had a helpful, positive nature, but had a negative aspect too. At times of crisis and transition, folk groups invoked the assistance of positive supernatural beings. Sometimes magical thinking blended with organized religion. Most Europeans are nominally Christian while most Turks are Muslim, yet older pre-Christian and pre-Muslim beliefs lie just below the surface in religious practice, as several of the essays in this volume demonstrate (Barber, Ch. 7; Williams, Kelly, Welters and KuhnBolšaitis, and Gilbertson). Belief in the evil eye and the enactment of fertility rituals are two examples of magical thinking that incorporate dress. The evil eye concept still exists in 4

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Mediterranean cultures today, where blue glass “eyes” protect humans, animals and inanimate objects from harm. The evil eye may be explained as the fear of staring (Siebers 1983: 33). Staring creates envy, which can cause harm. Breu, Welters (Ch. 4), Mladenovic and Williams found evidence of belief in the evil eye among the Turks, Greeks, Macedonians, Czechs and Slovaks. In northern European cultures the evil eye does not exist, but its functional equivalent is found in the form of troublesome spirits such as the huldrefolk of Norway, who seek to be like humans by tricking young women into marriage or by stealing babies (see Gilbertson). The evil eye, demonic creatures and other harmful agents can be avoided through protection magic. Such magic often involves distracting the attention of the evil spirits through the wearing of specific articles of clothing. Fertility, a basic preoccupation of all societies, is especially important in agricultural communities, where fecundity is a constant theme in daily life. Fertility is connected to crops and animals as well as to human reproduction, and forces that affect fertility may both aid and protect. Life-promoting practices fuse with protective magic in the wearing of talismanic objects that simultaneously bring fertility and keep evil at bay. The relationship of magic to mythology, religion, superstition and psychology has been of interest to scholars for over a century. One of the earliest and best-known works on myth, magic and religion is Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, first published in 1890. Encyclopedic in nature, this thirteen-volume work sought to investigate “how primitive thought seeks to control and regulate the world” (1978: 18). In the first and subsequent editions, Frazer described beliefs and rituals shared by cultures throughout the world. He categorized magic as either positive magic, which brings about desirable events, or negative magic, which prevents unwanted ends. He divided magic into two branches: (1) “homeopathic” and (2) “contagious” (1978: 35). Homeopathic magic is based on the idea that “like produces like” (1978: 36), whereas contagious magic holds that “things which have once been conjoined must remain ever after” (1978: 42). Although influential, Frazer’s work later was seen as superficial and oversimplified. The anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, working in the tradition of positivism, identified magico-religious acts as rites of passage (1961). He analyzed rituals and ceremonies accompanying the “life crises” of pregnancy and childbirth, puberty, betrothal, marriage and death. He viewed these crises as transitions from one social status to another that create social anxiety. By imposing a period of separation followed by reincorporation, the social group sought to manage the uncertainty of the transitions of its members. (In this volume, Patricia Williams draws on van Gennep’s theories in her chapter on rites of passage among the Czechs and Slovaks.) 5

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The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1948) incorporated the new science of psychology into the study of magic in Magic, Science and Religion, published in 1925. Malinowski interpreted magic as an attempt to impose order on uncertain situations. Whereas science is guided by reason, magic is governed by tradition. Magic is irrational, in that there is no causal relationship between the instruments of magic and the desired consequences of the magical practice. Yet magic creates in the practitioner a sense of control that is important to carrying out an activity and achieving a desired end. Magic practice includes rituals, taboos and fetishes. Rituals are prescribed behaviors that people observe in an effort to ensure that events turn out positively. Taboos stipulate what is to be avoided. Fetishes or charms are material objects believed to embody supernatural powers that aid or protect the owner from harm. More recently, anthropologists have approached the study of magic as a symbolic system. Mary Douglas (1984) examined pollution beliefs in Purity and Danger, first published in 1966. She argued that by examining what is considered unclean in any culture, universal cultural patterns can be established. According to Douglas, societies’ concerns with the body’s margins and orifices reflect social boundaries. In her later work, Douglas developed a theory of the body as a natural symbol that represents both self and society (1973). Once dubbed irrational, and confined to so-called primitive thought, theories about magic in folklife have undergone a redefinition (O’Connor 1997). Scholars currently think that magic must be understood as part of a belief system that is religious in nature. Anthropologists have written of magical phenomena as objectively real, even though inexplicable in scientific thought (Winkelman 1982). In this volume magic means folk religious belief and practice that draws on the powers of the supernatural by ritual and material means to influence the course of events. The recent attention given to the body by anthropologists demands that attention be paid to the role of dress in culture, because the dress and adornment of the body play an important part in displaying cultural belief systems. In the words of Bryan Turner, “the body is an important surface on which the marks of social status, family position, tribal affiliation, gender and religious condition can easily and publicly be displayed” (Turner 1990: 5–6). The availability of dress in folk cultures makes it an ideal candidate for exploration of culture and the body. In both pre-modern societies and contemporary folk cultures such as those discussed in this book, culture and the body coincide in the ritualized use of dress.

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Dress and the Body Beliefs about the apotropaic and symbolic properties of substances applied to or worn on the body probably began before humans learned to manipulate textiles. According to Cordwell, permanent scarring and tattooing or temporary paint and dyes on the skin offered protection against unseen, malevolent forces (1979: 52). Some scholars surmise that with the development of textiles, such cosmetic amulets moved to cloth. In fact, the designs of tattoos in the Middle East are the same as the designs found on rugs and embroideries of societies living over a thousand miles apart (Cordwell 1979: 57). This observation suggests a common symbolism, perhaps deriving from ancient religious beliefs. Dress serves a dual purpose in the magical thinking of folk cultures. It may bring positive results as well as protect against negative influences. The placement on the body of garments associated with fertility is particularly revealing, as it concerns the belief in the positive outcomes resulting from the contact of cloth with the body. For example, belts and sashes decorated with fertility motifs gird the waist and abdomen, only inches away from female reproductive organs, while headdresses accentuate a woman’s hair before marriage, advertising her availability and supplementing the potency of her own hair. The ability of folk dress to guard the body against evil is evident in embroidered symbols placed at strategic locations on clothing. Such locations include hems, necklines, sleeves and other areas thought to be vulnerable to entry by harmful spirits. In the past, agrarian communities invested a variety of dress items with apotropaic power. In some cases, such as Greek bridal attire, the whole ensemble held the power (Welters, Ch. 5). In other cases, such as Norwegian silver brooches, a single item of dress prevented harm (Gilbertson). Sometimes just a single motif on an article of clothing was enough to affect supernatural forces (Kelly). The first object of dress and adornment that southern European folk cultures invest with supernatural powers is the chemise or shirt. Such garments touch the skin directly, yet have parts that remain visible when other layers are added (see Welters, pp. 81–91). The chemise is ideal for display of embellishments such as embroideries or fringes located at edges or openings. Clothing that envelops the body also has the potential for special meaning. In Mediterranean cultures, veils or scarves that shield the eyes from the envious stares of others help brides avoid the evil eye. Garments that cover the shoulders and mid-section of the body, such as shawls and coats, often are seen as protective. The white plachta discussed by Patricia Williams is such a garment. 7

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Accessories worn over strategic points of the body either draw attention to or protect that part of the body. Macedonian aprons incorporate fringes that protect against evil spirits (see Mladenovic). The belts and shawls discussed by Marlene Breu attract the eye to a woman’s buttocks, signaling availability for marriage. Cloth worn on the head communicates marital status, as seen in the capping of brides in Slovakia (Williams) or the color of a headscarf in Greece (Welters, Ch. 5). Sometimes it is not the garments themselves but the objects attached to them that have apotropaic properties. The bracelets worn in the rusálki festivals described by Barber promoted fertility. Cosmetics can be magical too; henna painted on the hands of brides and on the little fingers of the grooms’ relatives in some areas of Greece and Turkey are examples of cosmetics with fertility associations (Breu, Welters, Ch. 5). The specific qualities in dress and adornment believed to impart apotropaic power are as varied as the cultures in which they are found. Visually complex patterning is one feature thought to prevent evil spirits from inflicting harm on an individual. For example, the evil eye becomes confused by looking at shawls with complicated borders, such as the Slovakian plachta (Williams); or, in Macedonia, the demon’s attention is diverted from a woman’s beauty by the long, multilayered fringes of her folk dress (Mladenovic). Materials are often in themselves protective. This is especially true of metals, which reflect the gaze of the evil spirits back upon them. The silver brooches of Norwegian folk dress repulse the mountain-dwelling huldrefolk, making the brooches an essential part of daily attire for all Norwegians, even for babies (Gilbertson). Fringes and tassels appear on aprons, sleeves, belts and headdresses, and are featured in five of the chapters (Barber; Breu; Welters Ch. 4; Mladenovic; Welters and Kuhn-Bolšaitis). As suggested by Barber and verified in Latvian folk songs about “bushy” belts, fringe is a visible manifestation of the female pubic hair that appears on a girl’s body at puberty, signaling her ability to mate. Fringed headscarves and false braids are associated with the luxuriousness of young women’s hair, and may be used to augment a bride’s natural beauty. Motifs embroidered, woven, or otherwise incorporated into cloth may be linked to pre-Christian religious beliefs. For example, rhombs and lozenges have long been connected with fertility, as Barber and Kelly point out. In Latvia, women weave such motifs into their belts (Welters and KuhnBolšaitis). In the Carpathian mountains, five distinct motifs emerge as fertility symbols (Kelly). In Greece, anthropomorphic images embroidered onto bridal outfits symbolize a bride’s future children (Welters, Ch. 5). The appearance of such motifs on clothing items worn by young married women attests to the belief in these motifs’ abilities to ensure fertility. Typically, the motifs are 8

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separate and distinct, so that each could work its own particular power. A textile’s complex structure was occasionally viewed as protective. The Peloponnesian zonari, a fringed belt made by an interlinking method known as sprang, caused the devil “to burst” because there was no weft, according to the Greek women who had worn them (Welters, Ch. 4). Often color has special meaning. Anthropologists have identified a basic triad of black, red and white as culturally meaningful, suggesting that these colors represent the products of the body (Hutchings 1998: 200). Red, which humans have deliberately collected since the Palaeolithic Era, is the color of blood. It is not surprising, then, that red, symbolic of menstruation and birth, is a common color for the apparel worn by brides and newly married women in some cultures. White, the absence of color, is an essential part of a protection or cure (Hutchings 1998: 206). In some folk cultures, white is common for mourning attire (Williams). Black represents the body’s waste and the earth (Douglas 1973: 29). Black also is associated with chthonic beings, like snakes and toads, that are believed to represent fertility. Black often appears with red in wedding clothing. Sometimes green, the color of growth in nature, symbolizes fertility and protection, as in the green belts worn by Latvian women (Welters and Kuhn-Bolšaitis) and the green embroidered and beribboned shawls worn by Czech and Slovak women (Williams). Numbers are linked to dress also. In several of the chapters an individual in a transitional state wears a garment for a specific number of days, usually forty days, or dons a garment forty days after a major life event (Williams; Welters, Chs. 4 and 5). The number of times a garment is worn has meaning too (Welters, Ch. 5) as does the number of times it is wrapped around the body (Welters and Kuhn-Bolšaitis). Movement is an important and powerful action for bringing about protection and fertility through dress. The manner in which textiles drape and move when the body is in motion enhances a garment’s perceived ability to intervene. Dress in movement incorporates ritualized behaviors such as dance. The ultra-long sleeves of the spirit maidens known as víly or rusálki (Barber, Ch. 7) and the deeply fringed aprons of Macedonian brides that “swished like water” (Mladenovic, p. 104) exemplify the power of movement. The essays in this book focus exclusively on women’s dress with the exception of the mention of men’s dress in the Gilbertson and Saliklis chapters. Together, the essays express women’s concern with their own fertility. In most of the chapters, articles of dress embody beliefs about the positive use of supernatural power to ensure fertility rather than for protection against unseen evils. In societies that emphasized women’s reproductive role, women presumably gained some control over their fate by participating in fertility rituals involving dress. They incorporated fringes, symbolic motifs, sacred colors and materials into their clothing. As Mary Kelly demonstrates in her 9

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chapter, women taught their daughters and granddaughters to do the same. Several essays discuss archaic elements in folk dress and behaviors associated with them that derive from ancient myths, cults and rituals. Barber and Kelly, especially, allude to the longevity of magical thinking associated with dress. Although it is nearly impossible for researchers to draw an unbroken line between ancient and modern customs in dress, parallels may be drawn. Ethnographic research and museum artefacts provide evidence that long-standing supernatural beliefs associated with folk dress persist into the twentieth century. Many of the social groups represented in this volume are farmers and pastoralists who have occupied the same geographical territory for centuries. They celebrate their connections to their place through customs and rituals handed down to them from their ancestors, including those involving dress. Dress links people to place, and can evoke the homeland when people are displaced. Dress may become an emblem of social and political control in a post-structuralist world (Synnott 1993). Such is the case with the LithuanianAmericans discussed by Saliklis in her chapter. Her work deals with the expression of national identity through folk dress. Within the last few years Lithuanians have reinvented a national folk dress by rejecting costumes developed during the Soviet occupation and designing a so-called “neopagan” ensemble based on scant archaeological evidence of dress from pre-Christian Lithuania. The fixation on pre-Christian Lithuania signifies a desire to return to “authentic” Lithuania, before the Middle Ages when invading foreign powers introduced Christianity. Lithuanian folk dress is an example of a continually changing tradition, metamorphosing to reflect shifting political paradigms. In many parts of the Western world, people still believe that clothing holds special powers. They still practice rituals and customs that invest cloth with the power to aid and protect the body. “Luck” is a quality we all associate with certain articles of dress in our wardrobes. For decades brides have worn “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” to ensure a happy union blessed with children. Baseball players use clothing rituals as “magic to try to control or eliminate the chance and uncertainty built into baseball” (Gmelch 1995: 252). These examples attest to the currency of beliefs in our own cultures about the perceived ability of dress and adornment to control the outcomes of unpredictable events.

Note 1. Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1994) “On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing,” Dress 21, pp. 17–29. Reproduced with permission. 10

Introduction: Folk Dress, the Supernatural and the Body

References Allison, R. S. (1997), “Tradition,” in T. A. Green (ed.), Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Vol. II, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 799–801. Baizerman, S., Eicher, J. B., and Cerny, C. (1993), “Eurocentrism in the Study of Ethnic Dress,” Dress 20, pp. 19–32. Barber, E. W. (1994), Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, New York: Norton. Barnes, R. and Eicher, J. B. (eds) (1992), Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning, Oxford, UK and Providence, RI: Berg. Ben-Amos, D. (1984), “The Seven Strands of Tradition: Varieties in Its Meaning in American Folklore Studies,” Journal of Folklore Research 21 (2–3), pp. 97–131. Bogatyrev, P. (1971), The Functions of Folk Costume in Moravian Slovakia. The Hague: Mouton. Cordwell, J. M. (1979), “The Very Human Arts of Transformation” in J. M. Cordwell and R. A. Schwarz (eds), The Fabrics of Culture: The Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment, The Hague, Paris, New York: Mouton, pp. 47–75. Cordwell, J. M. and Schwarz, R. A. (eds) (1979), The Fabrics of Culture: The Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment, The Hague, Paris, New York: Mouton. Douglas, M. (1984), Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London and New York: ARK Paperbacks (first published in 1966). —— (1973), Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology, London: Barrie and Jenkins (first published in 1970). Eicher, J. B. (eds) (1995), Dress and Ethnicity, Oxford, UK: Berg. El-Shamy, H. (1997), ”Folk Group,” in T. A. Green (ed.), Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Vol. I, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 318–22. Frazer, J. G. (1978), The Illustrated Golden Bough, New York: Doubleday. Gmelch, G. (1995), “Baseball Magic,” in M. E. Roach-Higgins, J. B. Eicher, and K. K. P. Johnson (eds), Dress and Identity, New York: Fairchild Publications, pp. 251–9. Hobsbawm, E. (1983), “Introduction: Inventing Tradition,” in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–14. Hutchings, J. B. (1998), “Color in Anthropology and Folklore,” in K. Nassau (ed.), Color for Science, Art and Technology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier Science, pp. 195–208. Malinowski, B. (1948), Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays, Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. Morgan, P. (1983), “From a Death to a View: The Hunt for the Welsh Past in the Romantic Period,” in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 43–100. Oakes, A. and Hill, M. H. (1970), Rural Costume: Its Origin and Development in Western Europe and the British Isles, London: Batsford; New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 11

Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia O’Connor, K. M. (1997), “Magic,” in T. A. Green (ed.), Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Vol. II, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 519–27. Paine, S. (1990), Embroidered Textiles: Traditional Textiles from Five Continents, London: Thames and Hudson. Picton, J. (1995), “Technology, Tradition and Lurex: The Art of Textiles in Africa,” in The Art of African Textiles: Technology, Tradition, and Lurex, London: Barbican Art Gallery and Lund Humphries, pp. 9–30. Primiano, L. N. (1997), “Folklife,” in T. A. Green (ed.), Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Vol. I, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 322–30. Roach, M. E. and Musa, K. E. (1980), New Perspectives on the History of Western Dress, New York: NutriGuides. Siebers, T. (1983), The Mirror of Medusa, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Synnott, A. (1993), The Body Social: Symbolism, Self and Society, London and New York: Routledge. Tarlo, E. (1996), Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Turner, B. S. (1990), “Recent Developments in the Theory of the Body,” in M. Featherstone, M. Hepworth and B. S. Turner (eds), The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory, London: Sage, pp. 1–35. van Gennep, A. (1961), The Rites of Passage, Chicago: Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago Press (first published in 1908). Weiner, A. B. and Schneider, J. (eds) (1989), Cloth and Human Experience, Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press. Wilson, K. E. (1997), “Folk Costume,” in T. A. Green (ed.), Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, Vol. I, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 147–52. Winkelman, M. (1982) “Magic: A Theoretical Reassessment,” Current Anthropology 23 (1), pp. 37–66. Woodbridge, L. (1994), Shakespeare and Magical Thinking, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Yoder, D. (1976), “Folklife Studies in American Scholarship,” in D. Yoder (ed.), American Folklife, Austin and London: University of Texas Press, pp. 3–18. Zora, P. (1981), Embroideries and Jewellery of Greek National Costumes, Athens: Museum of Greek Folk Art.

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On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing

2

On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing E. J. W. Barber

In much of Russia and Ukraine well into this century, there came a time in each girl’s life when she was finally offered a panjóva to wear. Up to this point, like her mother, she had worn a long white chemise, a belt or sash, and in cold weather a coat or fur. But the overskirt that her mother invariably wore – the plákhta or panjóva – was allowed to her only when she came of age as a young woman (variously at fifteen, or at puberty, or when she was deemed marriageable). According to Zelenin, in South Great Russia the girl would climb up onto the wide bench that ran along the wall of the main room of the house, while her “mother or relatives followed her with a panjóva in hand and asked her to jump into the panjóva.” She was supposed to leap of her own free will, and would chant the formula, “If I want to, I’ll jump; if I don’t, I won’t!” (Khochu – vskochu; ne khochu – ne vskochu!) “If she jumped, then she was proclaimed a [prospective] bride, and if a suitor was already wooing her, she thereby expressed her willingness to marry this bridegroom” (Zelenin 1927: 207–8). At the wedding itself, another mark of marital status was added to the woman’s dress: an obligatory headdress that completely covered her hair, since her hair was viewed as magically connected with her fertility. In form the panjóva or plákhta was a simple woolen back-apron or skirt (Figure 2.1) that was normally woven with a squared pattern. It might be a single piece of cloth, or two or more rectangles sewn together. A panjóva for everyday hard work might be completely unornamented; on the other hand, an especially fancy one might be sewn together of up to eight pieces and embroidered on top of the woven design (Zelenin 1927: 209–11). In its oldest, simplest form, it was a mere uncut and unsewn rectangle that was belted on at the waist so it hung down behind as a back-apron – a blanket-wrap. So we find it even today in the Ukrainian national dress (Figure 2.1.D, F). This 13

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back-apron could be narrow, in which case the woman wore a second woolen apron of approximately equal size in front (Figure 2.1A); or, as in the modern Ukrainian dress, it could encircle the wearer, the slit left in front sometimes being covered by a smaller front-apron (Figure 2.1B). In parts of Ukraine, for example around Chernigov, it was folded over at the waist, so that it hung down in a double layer (as in Figure 2.1.F). The wide back-apron had many variants. A popular trick, found for example in Orjol and Kursk, consisted of tucking its front corners up into the belt at the back, forming triangular “wings” (as they were often called) that stuck out to either side (Figure 2.1.E). This fashion had already been recorded in a sketch made in 1785 (Figure 2.1.F; Rigel’man 1847; reprinted with discussion in Zelenin 1927: 110–11 and 247, Fig. 193), and it was still found thirty years ago in women’s dress in the Šumadija area of Serbia, where fine pleating forced the “wings” to stick out elegantly far.1 Sometimes several rectangles of cloth were carefully sewn together and folded so that the “right” side of the fabric would show when tucked up, and any embellishment was strategically placed so that it would show in this position. In several South Great Russian provinces like Tambov, Tula, and Voronezh, the grown woman’s back-apron evolved into a sewn-up skirt, but with the interesting feature that a different material (usually plain black) was used to complete the tube in front, so that the skirt still gave the visual impression of being a back-apron (Figure 2.1C). Over the solid “gap” (as over the real one) a colored apron was usually worn. Regional dress often uses cheaper Figure 2.1. Typical shapes of East Slavic women’s marital apron (panjóva): (a) Narrow double apron (one worn in back, the other in front). (b) wide squared back-apron (the archetypical panjóva), worn with or without smaller front-apron. (c) squared material worn in the back like a panjóva but closed up into a skirt by sewing a strip of different material in front, and worn with or without a frontapron. (d) Example of Ukrainian national dress (area around Kiev), with checkered plákhta or back-apron over embroidered white chemise; the front apron, here covering much of the plákhta, is often much smaller (State Ethnographic Museum, St Petersburg). (e) Woman from the province of Orjol, Russia, wearing square-patterned panjóva with its corners tucked up behind (after Vinogradova 1969). (f) Ukrainian peasant girl wearing squared and doubled back-apron with corners of top layer tucked up behind; from drawing done by Rigel’man (1847) in 1785. (g) Late nineteenth-century panjóva from the Russian province of Orjol: typical of this area are the black woolen background material with tiny white stripes forming squares, the embroidered vertical strips dividing the apron into panels, and the applied decorations that sometimes all but cover the base material (after Sosnina 1984: plate 54).

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materials where they can’t be seen – for example, I own an old Icelandic outfit that has a cheap panel where the apron will hide it completely. But in these Russian dresses, the apron is generally short enough that the change of fabric is quite obvious. The panel would seem to be there not for economy but to preserve a ritual form while providing greater warmth and convenience to the wearer. (It is in the next provinces to the north, where the climate is even colder, that we begin to encounter closed skirts that have been lengthened and pulled all the way up to the armpits for warmth: the classic Russian sarafán – see Barber 1975). Corroboration of this hypothesis comes from the fact that the squared skirt with the panel is still called a panjóva rather than a júbka – the usual Russian term for a closed-up skirt falling from the waist. Probably the most elaborate embellishments on the panjóva are to be found in the province of Orjol. The already square-patterned cloth was embroidered in a wide strip across the bottom and in equally thick strips running up the open edges and vertically two to four times up the back (Figure 2.1.G). As if to reinforce the social connotation of the back-apron as the garment of the now-fruitful woman, the embroideries typically include one or the other of two lozenge motifs (Figure 2.3.A): one where the lozenge is surrounded by rays or hooks, and the other where the lozenge is quadrisected by an X with a dot placed in each resulting small lozenge. Both these symbols are traceable in Eastern Europe back to the Neolithic. The hooked or rayed lozenge, which occurs on women’s aprons and sleeves all over Eastern Europe, is generally thought to represent the female vulva. The other motif is known as “the sown field,” with the dots representing the seeds planted in the plowed area. The earliest European example of the “sown field” that I know of occurs incised on the buttocks or belly of naked female figurines from Neolithic sites of the Cucuteni/Tripolye culture. In fact, the dots representing seeds were often made by impressing actual seeds into the clay figure (Figure 2.3.A center). The design also occurs on the neck of the non-Christian vegetation deity, Simargl, represented on a wedding bracelet from Kievan Rus’. (Rybakov [1981: 47, 50–1] illustrates a number of ancient to recent examples.) In Russia, the dominant color of the panjóva – whether formed as a backapron or as a skirt – was black, with thin white (or red and white) stripes marking off the black squares. Superposed embroidery was generally red, with white and bits of other colors for contrast. The squares of the Ukrainian plákhta, however, had a checkerboard appearance, being themselves colored, and although red and black usually prevailed in a given piece, yellow, blue and green were often used in quantity as well. Each of these colored squares contained a woven pattern, also typically based on hooked, rayed, or dotted lozenges. 16

On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing

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Figure 2.2. Map of the principal areas and sites mentioned that are relevant to study of the squared back-apron and the string skirt (Moscow, Belgrade and Bucharest are marked for reference). ----- East Slavic dialect boundaries ...... area of the panjóva/plákhta territory of Finno-Ugric users of the string skirt

x ancient site • modern town

The geographical distribution of the woman’s panjóva/plákhta (Figure 2.2) runs across most of the area occupied by the South Great Russian dialect – especially in the provinces of Tula, Tambov, Voronezh, Kursk and Orjol. It stretches south into a sizeable chunk of Ukraine – the Dniepr province (Chernigov, Poltava, Cherkassy, Kiev), where the squared back-apron constitutes part of the national dress – and west into part of Belarus, especially around Vetka and Smolensk. Related garments appear to be scattered here and there southwest across Polessia, Volhynia and into Slovakia. Garments of similar cut and draping and connected with similar customs (although not of squared material) are in common use through Romania, Serbia, Macedonia and parts of Bulgaria. (These lists should be taken as indicative but not comprehensive: they are based on numerous published photographs and drawings and on personal knowledge, not on systematic field survey – which is no longer possible, in any case, since in many areas the old regional dress has not been used for over fifty years and can only be found, often poorly documented, in museums.)2 As will be seen below, little pockets of old clothing usages persisted in remote areas for centuries and even millennia after they had been replaced by newer fashions elsewhere. 17

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It is interesting, then, that the earliest representations of the squared skirt known from archaeology come from Serbia: a Late Bronze Age (second millennium BC) female cult statue (Figure 2.3.B), from Klièevac on the central Danube, who wears an outfit almost identical to the north Ukrainian regional dress without its jacket, and several fourth-millennium Neolithic figurines from Vinèa sites (Figure 2.3.C left). This simple garment, in fact, first turns up at just the time that the inhabitants of southeastern Europe had acquired woolly sheep from the ancient Near Easterners and were learning to weave colored woolen cloth. (For the development of this technology, see Barber 1991.) What more important use for distinctive clothing than to mark the otherwise invisible yet key social status of childbearing women? The keeping of such customs over thousands of years should not alarm us, as marital customs are among the most conservative in human society. Linguistic analysis confirms these conclusions. Although the two chief terms for the squared back-apron differ somewhat in geographical distribution, both words are pan-Slavic and are among the very few clothing terms that appear to go back to proto-Slavic. Figure 2.3. Motifs and dress represented in early times: (a) Fertility figures typically woven into women’s marital aprons. Left (all from nineteenth-century panjóvy of Orjol province): “hooked lozenge” (top; Sosnina 1984: plate 51), “sown field” (middle) and combination of the two designs (bottom) (Rybakov 1981: 47). Center: clay figurines of the Late Neolithic Cucuteni/Tripolye culture (Ukraine–Romania, late fifth to early fourth millennium BC), representing women with “sown field” symbol incised on buttocks or belly (left – Rybakov 1981: 51; right – Gimbutas 1982: 206 figure 204, from Cucuteni). Right: Simargl (vegetation deity, shown as four-footed creature whose tail and wings end in sprouts) with “sown field” symbol on neck, from eleventh-century Kievan woman’s wedding bracelet (Darkevich and Mongait 1967: 213 figure 2). (b) Late Bronze Age cult figure of woman wearing squared skirt and deeply fringed apron over what appears to be a full-sleeved chemise. Compare the distribution of ornamentation and the overall shape of garb with the Ukrainian dress in Figure 2.1.D. From Klièevac, on the Serbian bank of the Danube (after Hoernes 1898: plate 4). (c) Neolithic female figurines from central Balkan sites of the Vinèa culture (early fifth millennium BC) – two wearing squared skirts and two wearing string skirts. (Left to right: from Vinèa, Gradac, Vinèa, Crnokalaèka Bara; after Gimbutas 1982: 49 figures 7, 6, 8; 52 plate 21.) (d) Small bronze figure of girl wearing string skirt, from Grevensvaenge, Denmark; Late Bronze Age (after Munksgaard 1974: 77, figure 50b). (e) Only a few Palaeolithic “Venus figures” wear clothing: left, one of several from Kostenki wearing a band around the chest or waist (after Efimenko 1958: figure 140 and plate XIV); center, Venus from Lespugue, France, wearing string skirt behind (Musée de l’Homme, Paris); right, Venus from Gagarino, Russia, wearing string skirt in front (after Tarasov 1965: figure 14) – all from before 20,000 BC.

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Panjóva is first attested in Old Church Slavic (in the form ponjava) where it translates Greek sindô´n, othónion – themselves clothing terms of uncertain translation, perhaps not far from “veil, covering.” The specific meaning “back-apron” is used with the form ponjáva in Ukrainian, and with the form ponjóva in Belorussian (White Russian) and the South Great Russian dialects of Orjol, Kursk and Smolensk, according to Vasmer (1950–8 or 1964–73: under ponjáva). Russian also knows the word as referring to coverings more generally, such as head-scarves, while the South Slavic languages typically use the term to refer to sheets or blankets. It is unclear on purely linguistic grounds whether the word is to be taken back to an old Slavic verb meaning “to stretch” or to a common borrowing into several western Indo-European languages that simply meant “a piece of cloth, something woven” – Latin pannus, Greek pênos (cf. pç´ nç “weft”), Gothic fana. In the latter case, its use in Slavic would date back to the second millennium BC. The word was borrowed (along with many others to do with textiles) by these other IndoEuropean groups as they moved into central Europe from the east and learned from the native inhabitants the craft of weaving large cloth on the warpweighted loom (Barber 1991: Chapter 12). Plákhta, which is used chiefly in Ukraine and parts of Russia for the married woman’s back-apron, refers to the flat, untailored form the garment has and comes from an Indo-European word meaning “flat.” In other Slavic languages the word usually refers to any flat cloth, such as a sheet, blanket, or curtain. According to Kostrzewski (1949: 186, with drawing of Volhynian married woman wearing squared back-apron) the women of Volhynia and Slovakia call the woman’s customary back-apron zapáska (etymology uncertain). He appears not to have found such apparel farther northwest, that is, in Poland; nor have I. In Ukraine, zapáska more commonly refers to the front-apron.3 The most surprising conclusion suggested by these observations, besides the great age of the garment, is that the ancestors of the Slavs may have lived for a considerable time much farther to the southwest than has generally been supposed, namely in the lower Danube valley, where they could have picked up the form and also the name of the squared back-apron. For, since they are the only ethnic group who have it, they must have been the ones to carry the panjóva eastward from its Bronze Age cradle to its present distribution – unless, without leaving us any artifacts to tell the tale, the Bronze Age inventors had already spread the garment to the Dniepr and beyond.4 *** Now that we understand the function, distribution and antiquity of the woman’s “marital” back-apron, we are ready to integrate into this picture 20

On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing

some related data that will bring us back even further, to the very threshold of costume history. For just beyond the area of the back-apron, to both northeast and southwest, a quite different garment is used for the self-same function of marking the grown woman’s “marital” status. Both among the Mordvins, who live immediately northeast of the South Great Russians (Figure 2.2), and in remote areas all through the Balkans, to the southwest of Ukraine, this special status is marked by aprons made chiefly of long, unwoven strings or fringes – the so-called “string skirt.” And this garment has archaeological predecessors in this area not only in the Bronze Age and the Neolithic, but all the way back to the Paleolithic more than 20,000 years ago. In fact, it is among the first garments ever depicted on human beings. Typically black and/or red in recent examples, the string skirt or apron is found worn in front/back pairs of equal size (as in parts of Wallachia, the southernmost province of Romania), or only in back (as in the Romanian/ Serbian Banat, in the Banija area of Croatia and among the Mordvins), or only in front (as among the Albanians, Macedonians and Bosnians, and among the shepherd Vlachs of Serbia). In all these cases, the “skirt” is apronlike in form, with the fringe hanging at right angles to the belt-band. In both the Peloponnese and part of Macedonia, however, women use an enormously long sash that is wrapped many times about the wearer in such a way that the ends hang down to form an apron of extremely long strings. The Mordvin girl, at betrothal, put on a very fancy string back-apron (Figure 2.4.A), intended (like her special, flashy headdress) to protect her from evil spirits until after the crucial birth of her first child. The apron was black and often decorated with rows of cowrie shells – considered worldwide to be a symbol of female fertility (or magical aid thereto) because of its perceived resemblance to the female vulva. If three years of marriage went by without a child, however, the Mordvin bride had to relinquish this special form of the string skirt (perhaps being viewed as “proved infertile”). Married women continued to wear a plainer black string back-apron to old age (Lehtinen 1979: 171–5, 208).5 In those parts of Romania and Serbia where the garment survived, the string apron typically consisted of a fairly shallow top part woven with lozenge figures in contrasting colors (light colors on black among the Vlachs, and dark colors on fiery red among the Wallachians: Figure 2.4.B.a–b) and below that a tremendous fringe of thick, hard (combed) yarn making up 2/3 to 5/6 of the length of the apron. We have encountered these lozenges representing female fertility already on the panjóva. According to Secosan and Petrescu (1984), the girl of marital age also donned at her waist a chain with rings and keys attached (another unsubtle symbol of sex and fertility), 21

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which she was required to move to the hem of her skirt at about the age of thirty if she were still unmarried and childless, since she had “trampled” her sacred ability to bear children. In parts of Romania and Serbia these narrow aprons were worn in pairs, whereas in Albania the black, lozenge-decorated apron was wider and worn only in front (Figure 2.4.C). The Romanian inhabitants of the Banat wore a single floor-length fringed back-apron (Figure 2.4.B.d), the woven top part of which was often so covered with gold coins or gold cloth that no motifs were visible. The Serbs living in Croatian Banija, for their part, wore a deeply fringed apron in the back with a fully woven apron in front (Gjetvaj 1988); Serbian women in most parts of BosniaHerzegovina, and a few in Croatia as well, wore small, large, or even diagonally hung woven aprons with considerable fringes (Karanoviæ 1926). (Muslim women, and most Croatians, however, did not wear fringes, according to careful survey by Èuliæ [1963].) The standard Serbo-Croatian term for these various fringed aprons is simply pregaèa, the usual word for any apron. Serbian women in the Gnjilane area of Kosovo, however, wore in the back a short black string skirt (i.e., with the strings attached directly to the belt-band) called a rep (Ðekiæ 1989). In Macedonia, the most archaic form is still found in the village of Drenok. A fiery orangey-red apron, half fringe and half woven, adorns the girl’s front (Figure 2.4.B.c). Although it has no lozenges, it often sports an appliqué

Figure 2.4. European string skirts and sashes: (a) As worn by Mordvin women: left – young woman’s (an old woman’s is similar, but with much less decoration); right – everyday variety (fancy string skirt for festive occasions worn over this). (After Lehtinen 1979: plates 140, 142.) (b) Deeply fringed Balkan aprons: (a) black front-apron of the Serbian Vlachs; (b) red front-apron from Wallachia, southern Romania (after Tilke 1945: plate 43); (c) red front-apron from Drenok, Macedonia (worn with sash pictured in Figure 2.4.D); (d) multicolored back-apron from the Romanian Banat (after Oprescu 1929: color frontispiece). (c) Albanian string skirts from Mirditë area (the top of the apron on the right is covered in the original picture and thus unknown) (after Gjergji 1988: unnumbered color plate; and Mborja and Zoizi 1959: plate 18). (d) End of woman’s sash from Drenok, Macedonia: sash woven in black and white, fringe made of combed and hard-twisted red wool. Worn in back, with the apron of Figure 2.4.B.c in front (courtesy of P. Hempstead). (e) Prehistoric sash ends: left, woolen sash from the Bronze Age site of Borum Eshøy, Denmark, similar in construction to the woolen string skirt of the same era from Egtved, Denmark (see, for example, Barber 1991: figure 6.9); and right/ center, a horsehair sash from an Iron Age bog find at Armoy, County Antrim, northern Ireland, similar in construction to Figure 2.4.D. (After Barber 1991: figures 6.7, 7.6.).

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patch of decoration that exactly frames the pubic bone. The girl’s back-side is covered with the hanging ends of a long sash, as described above, in such a way that she wears at least as much heavy, hard-twisted woolen fringe in back as in front (Figure 2.4.D). In surrounding areas of Yugoslav Macedonia, the fringed sash is gone and the front-apron is composed mostly of a large piece of woven wool, which, however, is usually fiery orange-red and still has a remarkably copious fringe. The sleeves and shoulders of the overdress, too, are often ornamented with enormously long orange-red or black fringes of combed, hard-twisted wool, as though the sacred strings had migrated upwards from the apron to other parts of the outfit (see below). Such lavish sleeve-fringes can be found as far south as the Karagouna area of Thessaly in Greece. Indeed, in Tambov, on the eastern borderland between the innovative area of the panjóva and the archaic (Mordvin) area of the string skirt, the fringe appears to have migrated upwards onto the woman’s headdress, which looks like an orange-red “string skirt” nearly a foot long going around the woman’s head. Among the Serbs of Kosovo (specifically around Gnjilane), women and girls wore a belt covered with long black tassels in the back (rep), while only married women also wore a special black headdress (krpa) covered with chest-length black tassels (Ðekiæ 1989). In Macedonia, the dress of the isolated area of Mariovo is particularly laden with masses of orange fringes on apron, shoulders and sleeves, while in Corinthia the long narrow head-scarf sometimes ends in long red fringes echoing those on the zóstra worn at the waist (see Appendix 2.2). The fringed Karagouna dress, for its part, is thought to be heavily influenced by Albanian Vlachs who came into Thessaly from Epeiros. Some of the Greek Epirot outfits also have heavy fringes on their aprons, similar to those in neighboring Macedonia (Broufas n.d.: 26, 36). Note that a few, but by no means all, of the enclaves in which string skirts/ aprons are worn are the result of “recent” people-movement. Thus the examples within Croatia all appear to stem from Serbs who fled westward from the Turks five hundred years ago: they are worn (with the tenacious conservatism seen throughout this chapter) only by the “newcomer” Serbians in those areas, not by the “native” Croatians. The Vlachs, too, have carried their tradition of fringes with them as they traveled with their animals. (A better fix on the disputed origins of the Vlachs could be helpful in untangling all this.) Not far south of Thessaly, in the areas around Corinth and Argos, women still possess long red sashes with deeply fringed ends. The local name for such a sash is zóstra. Although they no longer wear these belts and only the oldest village women still know how to make the knotless netting (sprang) of which they are composed, the sashes are viewed as sacred, passed down 24

On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing

from mother to daughter, never sold. They are still brought to the woman’s magical aid as she goes into childbirth, and they used to be employed as well to support her belly (or carry the baby to the fields) in the weeks after parturition. In this case, the lore of the fringed sash now revolves around childbirth rather than marriage or puberty; but of course the three are closely connected for a woman. In former days, such sashes were given to the bride by the prospective bridegroom.6 Archaeologically, we can trace the string skirt back for millennia in this same geographical area of southern and eastern Europe, and wherever we get a glimpse of its function in addition to its form, it has to do with women’s marriage, sexual intercourse and childbearing. We have one ancient literary reference. Homer, who composed his poems about 800 BC, relates a comic story (Iliad 14.153–351) about how Hera, wishing to divert Zeus’s attention from the Trojan battlefield, bathes herself and dons a “girdle with a hundred tassels” in order to attract and seduce him. Then she asks Aphrodite if she may borrow her (archetypical) tasseled girdle, wrought for “love and lust and flirtation.” As Aphrodite obligingly hands it over, she remarks that what Hera wishes “will not go unaccomplished.” Nor does it. Zeus no sooner sees Hera than he forgets Troy and starts making amorous propositions. One can conclude that the woman’s girdle with pendant strings was a familiar object to both Homer and his audience, and that it was known somehow to signal the woman’s readiness for a sexual encounter. The word Homer uses is zô´nç, related to the modern Greek term mentioned above, zô´stra, and an etymological descendant of the Indo-European term for a belt or girdle, reconstructed as *yôs-. Only two terms for clothing are known to go back to proto-Indo-European (dated to the third millennium BC): *yôs- “belt, girdle” and *wes- “clothing, garment” – the latter being an exceedingly general term that comes down into English, via Latin, in the forms vest and vestment. Both terms are widespread,7 but they suggest that, when the Indo-Europeans began to expand across Europe and the Middle East in the late third millennium, these people had only the crudest notion of clothing – a wrap and a belt or girdle. The structure of the borrowed vocabulary in the daughter languages backs up the idea that further apparel was learned from the inhabitants of the areas to which they moved. As for the woman’s clothing, the pivotal importance of her sash is underscored by Homer’s constant epithets for women: eú-zônos “beautiful-girdled” and bathý-zônos “deep-girdled.” One wonders if these “beautiful girdles” are in fact string sashes like those from Drenok, Corinth and Argos. A few centuries before Homer, in Denmark, young women of childbearing age were laid in their graves wearing string skirts. Remnants of several such 25

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skirts as well as one perfectly complete one (from Egtved, now dated to about 1370 BC) have been excavated, the wool being preserved by the acid groundwater of the far north.8 From Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland we also have Bronze and Iron Age remnants of several sashes with long endfringes (Figure 2.4.E) that have been crafted either like the Danish string skirts or like the modern ones from Drenok. Bronze Age figurines from Denmark and Neolithic figurines from various sites in the Balkans (e.g., Vinèa) and Ukraine (e.g., Šipintsi) show women dressed only in string skirts (Figures 2.3.D, 2.3.C right). The Danish ones especially appear not just to show but to flaunt the sex of the wearers. Finally, earliest of all, we have the Palaeolithic “Venus” figures, dating to the Gravettian, a period of several millennia ending about 20,000 BC. The so-called “Venus” figures are small carvings, commonly done in bone, of plump women rendered with voluminous breasts and thighs but tapering to a mere knob where head and feet would be. Virtually all of them are naked, but a few appear to wear a band around some part of the torso, and two clearly wear string skirts (Figure 2.3.E). Of these, the one from the French site of Lespugue wears her apron low and in the back, while that from the Russian site of Gagarino wears hers high and in the front, directly under her breasts – which is just where Aphrodite directs Hera to tie hers on: “under your breast-fold.” Years before I had discovered either the Homeric reference or the recent regional outfits with their attendant lore, I had deduced from the form and the mode of wearing that the Stone and Bronze Age string skirts must have something to do with ability and/or willingness to engage in sexual activity and childbearing. To begin with, these earliest of garments are of no use whatever for warmth, being made of free-swinging strings. Second, since the Gagarino lady’s skirt hangs only about to her navel, and that of the Venus of Lespugue only in back, they are of no use for modesty (at least by our definition!). Indeed, the strings frame, play peekaboo with, and generally draw attention to the female sexual organs. Thus these earliest of all attested garments can only have had a social purpose, and that purpose must have related to the woman’s reproductive or “marital” status – whatever that might mean to a particular culture (see Appendix 2.1). As far back as we can gather evidence, and up until this half-century when we have finally reached the stage of lethally overpopulating our planet, fertility and marriage have been viewed as the central concerns of being a woman. When does the girl-child move into that miraculous state of being able to produce another human being? Is she indeed fertile? Who has the right to unleash or hold back that fertility? These questions have been so important that many (most?) cultures have seen fit to mark the bride (see 26

On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing

Appendix 2.1) with special clothing, jewelry, and/or body paint, starting, as we now see, in the Upper Palaeolithic. Once again the form of the dress matches what we know of technological innovations. At 25,000 BC, string itself had apparently just been invented and was newly available for social as well as practical uses. Our first proof of weaving does not come for another 18,000 years, around 7000 BC, although I suspect that the true date of the invention of weaving may be closer to 12,000 or even 15,000 BC (for the development of this technology see Barber 1991). In the Palaeolithic, change was slow and the sets of traits that we distinguish as “cultures” lasted several thousand years each. Thus it is not surprising that the Gravettian culture should gradually have spread over the thousands of miles of southern Europe from just west of the southern Urals to France and northern Spain, and with it the string skirt and its lore. The distribution of marital string skirts in recent times is remarkably similar, stretching across southern Europe from just west of the southern Urals to the western Balkans, although not going clear to the Atlantic (Figure 2.2). Right in the middle, in part of Russia and Ukraine, this geographical sweep is interrupted by the area in which we find the panjóva or plákhta: a different form carrying the same function. The map of these distributions looks like nothing so much as a dialect map in which old forms that are preserved in the periphery have been supplanted by innovations spreading in some central area. Linguists have repeatedly observed such distributional phenomena in areas where the linguistic history is well documented (for example, among the Romance languages of Western Europe). But in any case it is simpler to hypothesize that one (central) area made an innovation and that the several outlying areas that show the same forms as each other are remnants of a former state, than to assume that the center represents the archaic state and the same arbitrary innovation was made repeatedly in non-contiguous areas round about. Thus it is far more plausible to assume that the string skirt, which occurs with similar associations in discrete eastern and western areas, is the survival of an old form and the squared back-apron, which occurs in one patch in the center, is the innovation, than to assume the reverse. These logical deductions will be seen to match those made from archaeological and technological considerations (i.e., that the panjóva apparently was invented as soon as both weaving and woolen yarns were available, late in the Neolithic, whereas the string skirt followed hard upon the invention of string in the Upper Palaeolithic). The matching of several independent lines of inquiry strengthens the entire historical case.9 In sum, our data suggest that some of the oldest features of human clothing have been preserved among the conservative marital traditions of southeast 27

Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia

Europe, and also that the very first clothing that humans fashioned – the next step beyond grabbing a fur wrap against the cold – was designed to mark the social status of women. We have found the usefulness of treating the early history of regional dress with the tools developed by linguists, both in mapping and in word reconstruction. (In fact, we found that clothing material, so treated, could in turn answer long-standing questions posed by linguists.) And we have seen that the astonishing longevity of human customs applies not least to women’s dress, that seemingly most changeable of human ideas.

Notes 1. When a front-apron is worn, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish in photographs between back-aprons with tucked-up corners and the habit found here and there from Russia to the Balkans of flipping up the front of a full overskirt so the embroidered chemise shows below, as in Sosnina 1984: photo from 1902 on p. 26, and Ramanjuk 1981: plate 129, 186–7. 2. For fairly systematic (if sparse) photos and drawings of regional folk dress, see especially Sosnina (1984) for Russia; Ramanjuk (1981) for Belorussia; Matejko (1977) and Nikolaeva (1987) for Ukraine; Kirin (n.d.) for former Yugoslavia; and Èuliæ (1963) for Bosnia/Herzegovina. 3. See, for instance, the terminology used throughout Nikolaeva (1987) and Matejko (1977). 4. The Slavs may, of course, have shifted northeastward from the lower Danube before they began their rapid expansion in the first millennium AD. The earliness of the projected borrowing of both *pan- and the squared back-apron suggests, in fact, that this first stage should be common Balto-Slavic, and therefore that there might still be some reflex in the Baltic languages and/or customs. See Appendix 2.1. 5. Some of the neighboring Chuvash women, too, wore triangular aprons with shorter fringes. 6. My thanks to Linda Welters for discussing with me her extensive fieldwork on these sashes. See Ioanna Papantoniou – 1981a: 25 for a photograph, and 1981b: 21 for discussion. See Barber 1994 for a lengthy discussion of the string skirt. 7. See Barber 1991: 254, 337n; the derivatives of *yôs- include the pan-Slavic term for “belt,” po-yas. 8. See Barber 1991 and 1994 for discussion and pictures. 9. The white vegetable-fiber chemise, the foundation garment for the regional folk dress of Europe, can be shown archaeologically and linguistically to have been introduced from the Near East by around 2000 BC (see Barber 1975; Barber 1991: 255 n.4, 295 n.6). Practicality makes me wonder whether the dark-colored backapron was devised to hide the inevitable stains of menstrual blood, hard to wash out entirely, that would sooner or later accrue on the back of the white chemise as the woman sat, despite the usual precautions. 28

On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing

Appendix 2.1: The Social Position of “Bride” A clearer notion of how the Eastern Europeans generally viewed the matter of “brides” can be culled from Algirdas J. Greimas’ description of the Lithuanian term marti: First of all, a girl is called marti when she is of marriageable age, a future bride . . . Marti is also a woman who is already married, spending her first days at her husband’s house, still as a guest . . . Marti continues to be used for a married woman up to the time she delivers her first child: “She was a marti for a long time; married for eight years without children” (Greimas 1992: 173).

That is, the girl-child at puberty moves into a special, liminal stage of her life during which she has not yet fully taken up her place as a mother of descendants of the clan, but now has the potential to do so. The special marks of dress and title accorded the woman in different parts of Eastern Europe in some places make a two-way division, either between pre- and post-puberty girls (recognizing capability), or between girls before and after betrothal (recognizing the liaison leading to offspring), or between mothers and childless females. The Lithuanian situation is interesting in that it recognizes almost all of these boundaries. The dress code in many East and South Slavic areas typically marks puberty or betrothal with the panjóva or string skirt, then marks actual marriage by covering the hair and changing the title from devitsa “girl, maiden, miss” to zhena “woman, Mrs” – but in olden days (as the priests constantly complained) most brides in Russia had long since ceased to be “maidens” in our sense, that is, virgins, and the marriage of a bride who failed to have children could be considered as not having happened. Pregnancy was the proper proof of wifehood. Farther south, however, where maintaining life itself was not so hard, more stringent rules applied. In Bulgaria, for example, proof of wifehood was the girl’s bloody chemise on the wedding night – and woe betide the non-virgin bride! See, for example, Ivanova 1987.

Appendix 2.2: The String Skirt and Women’s Hair After this article was first published, I did much more research on Slavic wedding customs, including the strictly enforced covering of the married woman’s hair, which I found very puzzling. In fact, the traditional Russian wedding makes such a fuss over the bride’s losing her “maiden braid” – which she laments at great length (hours or days) before it is finally divided, wound around her head, and covered for evermore with the married woman’s cap – 29

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that I began to suspect the braid was far more important than just a hairdo. Since other cultures (such as the Tibeto-Burman) often view the head as an analog of the nether anatomy, it occurred to me that the division of her upper hair refers to the wedding-night division (penetration) of her lower hair, and therefore what she is actually lamenting in analogic terms is the loss of her virginity. Loretta Shartsis then pointed out to me that the form of the string skirt, the oldest European marital garment, also has clear analogs in the woman’s hair. Moreover, its more modern placement does too. In the more recent folk costumes the heavy string fringes – usually black and/or red – occur as often on the woman’s head and shoulders as around her pelvis. Finally, Paul Barber added the last piece of the puzzle by observing that a woman’s pubic hair grows in at precisely the time she becomes fertile. To the pre-scientific notion of causation – post hoc ergo propter hoc, or “after it, therefore because of it” – the woman’s (nether) hair “brings” and therefore must contain or cause her fertility, at the same time forming a visible sign of it. All the related analogies in custom, belief, dress, and color mentioned here flow easily from this observation. Most particularly, it suggests that the string skirt began as a highly visible sign of the girl’s maturation as seen in her body-hair, a wearable symbol all the more useful once the body itself came to be covered by a chemise, starting in the Bronze Age. This basic notion that the pubic hair causes fertility, and that this status can be signaled analogically by strings or fringes on the apparel and/or by treatment of the head hair, may also explain the Minoan tradition of allowing the child’s shaved head hair to grow out at puberty.

References Barber, E. J. W. (1975), “The Proto-Indo-European Notion of Cloth and Clothing,” Journal of Indo-European Studies, vol. 3, pp. 294–320. —— (1991), Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, with Special Reference to the Aegean, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. —— (1994), Women’s Work – The First 20,000 Years, New York: Norton. Broufas, C. (n.d.), 40 Greek Costumes from the Dora Stratou Theatre Collection, Athens: Dora Stratou Theatre. Èuliæ, Zorislava (1963), Narodne nošnje u Bosni i Hercegovini, Sarajevo: National Museum. Darkevich, V. and Mongait, A. (1967), “Starorjazanskij klad 1966 goda,” Sovetskaja arkheologija, no. 2, pp. 211–23. Ðekiæ, M. (1989), Srpska narodna nošnja Kosova – Gnjilane, Zagreb: Kulturno Prosvjetni Sabor Hrvatske. 30

On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing Efimenko, P. (1958), Kostenki I, Moscow: Akademija Nauk. Gimbutas, M. (1982), Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, Berkeley, CA: University of California. Gjergji, A. (1988), Veshjet Shqiptare në Shekuj, Tiranë: Akad. Shkencave e RPS të Shqipërisë. Gjetvaj, N. (1988), Naroda nošnja Banije–Lušæani, Zagreb: Kulturno Prosvjetni Sabor Hrvatske. Greimas, A. (1992), Of Gods and Men, trans. M. Newman, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Hoernes, M. (1898), Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Europa, Vienna: Holzhausen. Ivanova, R. (1987), Traditional Bulgarian Wedding, Sofia: Svyat. Karanoviæ, M. (1926), Þenska Nošnja u Zmijanju, Sarajevo: State Press. Kirin, V. (n.d.), Narodne nošnje Jugoslavije, vols. I–V. Zagreb: Naklada RVI/Kolor/ Naša Djeca. Kostrzewski, J. (1949), Les Origines de la civilisation polonaise (trans. from Polish [1947] by B. Hamel), Paris. Lehtinen, I. (1979), Naisten Korut (Women’s Jewellery in Central Russia and Western Siberia), Helsinki: Museovirasto. Matejko, K. (1977), Ukraïns’kyj narodnyj odjah, Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Mborja, D. and Zoizi, R. (1959), Arti populor në Shqipëri, Tiranë: Universiteti Shteteror i Tiranes. Munksgaard, E. (1974), Oldtidsdragter, Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet. Nikolaeva, T. (1987), Ukrainskaja narodnaja odezhda: Srednee Podneprov´e, Kiev: Naukova Dumka. Oprescu, G. (1929), Peasant Art in Roumania, London: The Studio, Ltd. Papantoniou, I. (1981a), Greek Costumes, Nafplion: Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation. —— (1981b), Catalogue, Nafplion: Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation. Ramanjuk, M. (1981), Belaruskae narodnae adzenne, Minsk: Belarus’. Rigel’man, A. (1847), Letopisnoe povestvovanie o Maloj Rossii i ee narode i kozakakh voobshche, 1785–1786 goda, Moscow. Rybakov, B. (1981), Jazychestvo drevnikh Slavjan, Moscow: Nauka. Secosan, E. and Petrescu, P. (1984), Portul Popular de Sav rbav toare din România, Bucharest: Editura Meridiane. Sosnina, N. (1984), Russkij narodnyj kostjum, Leningrad: Khudozhnik. Tarasov, L. (1965), “Paleoliticheskaja stojanka Gagarino,” Materialy i issledovanija po arkheologii SSSR, vol. 131, pp. 111–40. Tilke, M. (1945), Kostümschnitte und Gewandformen, Tübingen: E. Wasmuth. Vasmer, M. (1964–73), Etimologicheskij slavar’ russkogo jazyka (trans. from German [1950–58] by O. I. Trubachev), Moscow: Progress. Vinogradova, N. (1969), Russkij narodnyj kostjum, Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo. Zelenin, D. (1927), Russische (ostslavische) Volkskunde, Berlin: de Gruyter.

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The Peloponnesian “Zonari”: A Modern String Skirt

4

The Peloponnesian “Zonari”: A Twentieth-century String Skirt Linda Welters

This chapter focuses on the zonari, a fringed belt worn by women in certain areas of the eastern Peloponnesian peninsula of Greece as recently as the mid-twentieth century. Elizabeth Barber has interpreted the Greek zonari as a modern example of an ancient string skirt, a ritual textile with eye-catching cords and tassels worn to indicate “something about the childbearing ability or readiness of the woman” to bear children (1994: 59). This essay confirms and refines this interpretation, proposing that the zonari served chiefly to protect women in matters regarding childbearing rather than to signal marriageability. My interpretation of the zonari as a protective textile for women is based on research conducted in Greece in 1986. The methodology combined documentary research with fieldwork. In libraries and archives I read travelers’ accounts and studied notes from previous field research (Harami 1975–6). In museums I examined extant belts and gathered pictorial images. In the villages of Argolida and Corinthia, I conducted interviews with the aid of a Greek-speaking assistant over a two-month period. Together we asked a series of questions regarding clothing and the traditions associated with them. Toward the end of each interview, we showed photographs of components of traditional dress from various districts in Argolida and Corinthia, including a zonari. We recorded the interviews on tape for later transcription, and photographed items of traditional dress from the women’s trunks as well as making copies of old photographs from family albums. The Peloponnesian Folklore Museum in Nafplion owns six examples of these fringed belts. Of the five on exhibit, I was able to examine closely the physical characteristics and technique of manufacture of one belt in the 53

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collection. In the field, I interviewed 146 people, mostly elderly women, about their memories of traditional dress. Forty women provided me with information about the zonari. Three women showed me fringed belts they still owned. Through the interviews, I learned the range of cultural properties associated with this object that make it a ritual textile believed to protect women during childbearing years. In presenting this work, I first discuss recent scholarship on the history and meaning of string skirts. Then I focus on the characteristics, manufacture and cultural attributes of the Peloponnesian zonari to explain its talismanic relationship to women’s bodies in rural Greek culture.

String Skirts Barber considers the string skirt “among the first garments ever depicted on human beings” (see Chapter 2, this volume: 21). These string skirts are belts or bands that incorporate long unwoven strings, fringes or tassels. Archaeological evidence indicates that they existed in Europe as far back as the Palaeolithic era. The earliest evidence for these skirts is from the Gravettian culture of southern Europe (26,000–20,000 BC). The so-called Venus figures from this culture wear belts or bands around the middle of their corpulent female bodies (see Figure 2.3E, this volume). One of these figures is a fullbodied female made of bone from the Lespugue district of southern France. The figurine wears only loose cords suspended from a string. Later female figurines from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, in geographical areas reaching from southern Europe to the Ukraine and Russia, depict string skirts worn on the lower extremities. The earliest extant string skirt, preserved in the National Museum in Copenhagen, is a narrow hip belt with thick woolen cords dating from Bronze Age Denmark (14,000 BC). Other belts from Bronze Age Denmark display fringed ends. These early fiber structures, both the actual artefacts and the carved images of skirts on female bodies, indicate that early string skirts appear to be made of corded yarns with fringed ends. These skirts predate the first evidence for weaving by many millennia (Barber 1991: 253). Their relative complexity suggests that they had more than a utilitarian function. These abbreviated fringed garments were not meant for warmth or modesty, as skins would have better achieved such ends. Barber’s hypothesis is that these fringes may have functioned as a sign to the community that a woman was ready to mate (1991: 257, 1994: 59, this volume). The fringes would have moved when worn, attracting the eye to the hips, buttocks and pubic area. Barber suggests that perhaps when a 54

The Peloponnesian “Zonari”: A Modern String Skirt

girl reached puberty she donned one of these skirts and continued wearing it throughout her childbearing years. These archaic meanings cross temporal and regional boundaries. In classical mythology, goddesses donned sacred belts to attract the attention of male gods. In some rural areas of Eastern Europe, fringed elements decorated sleeves, belts, headscarves and aprons. Women in Romania, Serbia, Albania and Macedonia reportedly wore fringed aprons or belts to mark social status (Barber, Chapter 2, this volume). Other contributors to this volume – Breu, Mladenovic, and Welters and Kuhn-Bolšaitis – offer additional evidence of the widespread use of strings and fringes in agrarian culture. In all these examples, the use of fringes by brides and married women correlated with female fecundity. The customs associated with the clothing of divorced women in certain districts of Albania further demonstrate the association of fringes with a woman’s status as a bearer of children. Only married women were permitted to wear fringed garments. When a woman was divorced, the back fringes of the belts worn in the Mirdita area and the fringes hanging from the shoulders of the costumes worn in Shkodra and Tropoja were cut off (Gjergji 1988: 236). This removal of fringes served as a signal of the divorced woman’s new social status: that of someone who, although biologically capable of reproduction, was socially prohibited from reproducing. The Greek zonari is related to the above-mentioned examples in both form and function. Through examination of the technique of manufacture and discussion of the cultural traditions with which it is associated, the zonari may be considered a vestigial example of a string skirt. The field research supporting this essay allows a comparatively detailed interpretation of the cultural meaning of the belt.

The Zonari: Characteristics and Manufacture Before describing the zonari, a word must be said about vocabulary. All of the women in this study called the belt zonari. (Zonari is the singular; zonaria is the plural.) Ioanna Papantoniou, working in mountainous Argolida in the 1970s, heard women use the term zostra as well as zonari (Papantoniou 1976: 44). Zostra derives from the ancient Greek zoster. The root word for zonari is even older: zoni, the contemporary word for belt in Greece, is the same word Homer used to describe the many-tasseled girdles of the goddesses Hera and Aphrodite of Greek mythology (Barber 1994: 66). Linguistically, the word zonari predates Classical Greece and is related to other Indo-European words for belt, such as the Latvian jostas discussed in Chapter 10. 55

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The Peloponnesian zonari is always a belt, never an apron or skirt, as are some other fringed garments worn in the Balkans. Women described it as a long belt with tassels wrapped around the body more than once. One woman said that her mother made them 2.5 meters long. The museum example I studied measured nearly three meters in length, but only about 10 centimeters in width. One zonari in the field measured 465 centimeters long without fringe, plus 80 centimeters of fringe on each end. It would appear from this limited sample, then, that there was no fixed length for the zonari.

IMAGE NOT A VAILABLE AV

Figure 4.1. Detail of a zonari.The yarns are interlinked in a technique known as sprang. Photograph courtesy of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation.

The zonari is made in a technique called “sprang,” which is a type of knotless netting (Figure 4.1). The word “sprang” is Swedish, and refers to both a process and a product (Collingwood 1974: 34). Sprang is not a form of weaving, as it has no weft to hold the threads in place. Hella Skowronski and Mary Reddy (1974: 7) described sprang fabrics as simply “a network of threads twisted over each other.” Irene Emery (1980) and Peter Collingwood (1974) are more precise in their definitions. Both define sprang as interworked elements produced on a frame so that the fabric builds up on both ends. The 56

The Peloponnesian “Zonari”: A Modern String Skirt

interworked warps can be manipulated in one of three ways: interlinking (plaiting), interlacing (braiding), or intertwining (oblique intertwining). Fabrics can be made either flat or circular. The process of making sprang begins by stretching the warps between two beams. The work takes place at one end of the warp, but as a result of the warp’s being fixed on both ends of the frame, each movement is mirrored at the opposite end. The elements are finger-manipulated. As the warps are crossed back and forth, the fabric fills with interlinkings. The maker uses sticks to hold the crosses temporarily in place. The final crossing at the center is secured by chaining, so that the contrary twists do not unravel. The resulting fabrics resemble net or mesh, and can be mistaken for knitted fabric. They are highly elastic and springy. The technique of sprang is over three thousand years old. Archaeological evidence indicates that sprang was used to make caps or hairnets in Bronze Age Denmark and fabric-impressed pottery in Neolithic Germany (Barber 1991: 122–3). Images on fifth-century BC Greek vases depict women working on what appear to be embroidery frames or tapestry frames, but may be sprang frames instead, as the work builds up on both ends (Barber 1991: 124). A number of sprang caps and bags survive from Roman and Coptic Egypt. Modern examples have been recorded in many areas around the world – for example, Afghanistan, Egypt, Peru, and Arizona among the Hopi Indians – revealing that knowledge of the technique is widespread (Collingwood 1974: 37). The belts worn on the Greek islands of Chios and Lesbos are made by the sprang technique (Papantoniou 1978: 19). The Peloponnesian zonari is made by interlinking yarns in a circular manner. In the villages of Argolida and Corinthia, women regarded the technique as highly specialized. Only two women in Angelokastro, Corinthia knew how to make them (A. Virla, interview, 8 Nov. 1986). In Kaparelli, Argolida, eighty-four-year-old Haralambo Kaparellou told us that only “myself and a few other old women knew how to make it” (interview, 3 Dec. 1986). The Greek women we spoke to did not use the word “sprang,” and, in fact, did not have a specific word for the technique in which their belts were made. They describe the process with phrases like “knitting with sticks,” or “plaiting,” or “weaving without passing through.” The process of making a zonari began with the spinning of good-quality sheep’s wool, always with a drop spindle in this area of Greece. The yarns were plied, measured, and then warped. The tools necessary for making a zonari were quite simple. The women used weaving terms when referring to the apparatus, although there were no harnesses, heddles, or shuttles. One informant described it as “sticks like a loom” (E. Karatzouli, interview, 21 57

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Nov. 1986). Two round sticks served as warp beams, one of which was attached to a branch or a house beam (pataros), the other to the ground. The warps were wrapped around the sticks in circular fashion. The woman squatted at the area where the crosses would occur and began manipulating the yarns.1 The first movement crossed every other yarn; then adjacent yarns were crossed; and repetition of the movements resulted in the cloth’s building up on each end. Sticks held the crossings in place: hence, the description “knitting with sticks.” A flat stick was used to beat the crossed yarns tightly into the already completed work. The work progressed until it became difficult to make the last crossings in the remaining space. Then the yarns were chained in the middle to prevent the undoing of the interlinkings. This chaining across the middle of the work is the telltale sign of the sprang technique (interlinking on a frame). To form the tassels of the belt, a section of yarns remained uncrossed for plaiting. One belt I examined had seventy-six warps plaited into nineteen tassels. In mountainous Argolida the belts were always a deep red, almost brownred in color. This color was obtained naturally by peeling the roots of an evergreen shrub called pournari and boiling the outer part with the belt (H. Kaparellou, interview, 3 Dec. 1986) or by using madder (Vellioti-Georgopoulos 1987: 30). More recently, women bought packaged dyes from peddlers. In other regions, the color of the belts was either blue or black. Regardless of color, the belts were dyed after fabrication. The red belts of mountainous Argolida had resist-dyed tassels, resulting in a red-and-white tie-dyed pattern (Figure 4.2). The resist mediums were cotton string, rags,

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Figure 4.2. Zonari. The tassels are resist dyed to create red-and-white tie-dyed patterns. Photograph courtesy of the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation.

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women’s hair, or even spindle whorls, which gave a moon shape to the resisted portion of the tassel. The use of women’s hair and textile implements is especially relevant for the making of the zonari as spinning, weaving and sprang-making were strictly women’s work in Argolida and Corinthia. Two women from mountainous Argolida called the resist-dyed areas liarizes (S. Giannitsou, interview, 22 Oct. 1986; H. Kaparellou, interview, 3 Dec. 1986). One explanation in the village of Kefalovrisso for why women tie-dyed the fringes was to make them pretty (Vellioti-Georgopoulos 1987: 32). A belt with three patterned areas was considered better than one with two patterns.

The Cultural Attributes of the Zonari To better understand the cultural attributes of the zonari, I provide a brief geographical, historical and cultural background. The provinces of Argolida and Corinthia cover a large geographical area and are home to people of several distinct ethnic groups. The three main ethnic groups are indigenous Greeks, Arvanites who migrated to the region from Albania, beginning in the fourteenth century, and Sarakatsani shepherds, who once summered high in the Killini mountains and wintered on the plains of Argolida. Argolidocorinthia is bounded by the Gulf of Corinth and the Geranian mountains in the north, the Killini range in the west, the mountains of Lyrkio and Artemission and the Argolid Gulf to the south, and Ermionida and the Saronic Gulf to the east. The topography of the region includes fertile plains, beautiful coastal areas and rugged mountains. These provinces include three main cities: Corinth, Argos and Nafplion. Nafplion served as Greece’s first capital after the 1821 uprising that ended the Turkish occupation of nearly four hundred years. By 1836 foreign visitors found a much-Europeanized city, with cafés, restaurants, billiard halls, dressmakers and tailors. By contrast, some of the villages in the interior of Argolidocorinthia remained isolated well into the twentieth century. It was not until the 1950s that engineers built roads through the mountains that reached some of these villages. Urban residents attired themselves differently than the peasants and shepherds. Beginning with the 1830s after the liberation of Greece from Ottoman rule, urban dwellers changed from Turkish-inspired attire to Western-style dress. People living in villages near the sea also gave up local dress very early in favor of fashionable European styles. The people in mountainous villages clung to their old customs much longer. Until the late 1940s elements of their apparel closely resembled Byzantine forms of dress. Women typically wore cotton chemises next to their bodies. A short-sleeved bodice worn over the chemise supported the bosom. The outer layer was a 59

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sleeveless woolen vest or coat: the black knee-length yiourndi was characteristic of mountainous areas, while the shorter white sigouni was common to the plains. Belts, aprons and headgear completed the ensemble. In areas where two or more ethnic groups resided, appearance differed enough to signal an individual’s ethnicity (Welters 1995: 75). Few pictorial images from the nineteenth century exist that depict women from rural Argolida or Corinthia. Two that do illustrate women wearing red belts, possibly the zonari (Welters 1989: Figures 2 and 3). In the first image, the belt is worn at the waist over a white sigouni. In the second, it is worn low on the abdomen under a black yiourndi. Transitional forms of dress eventually appeared in the villages; these varied from one group of villages to the next. The older forms of dress are not worn in Argolida and Corinthia today. Most women wear conservative versions of modern dress, and have done so since about 1950. Occasionally one meets an elderly woman wearing a component of village dress – a headscarf, a shawl, or a vest – but such occurrences are rare. People remember the old outfits well, however, and some even saved parts of the ensembles as keepsakes for their children. Generally speaking, village dress in Greece distinguished women as unmarried, married, past the age of menopause or widowed. Dress did not function to mark puberty or to signify “readiness to mate.” Young women of marriageable age were not distinguishable by their dress. Only upon marriage, or less frequently at betrothal, did young women don garments that signified a change in status. Throughout mainland Greece, specific colors, symbolic motifs and fringes intended to augment a woman’s procreative abilities decorated dresses worn by brides and newly married women (Welters, Chapter 5, this volume). The Peloponnesian zonari had special meaning for married women. The zonari was not worn in all districts of Argolida and Corinthia. Nevertheless, the use of this belt was fairly widespread in the villages of these two provinces. Women in ten villages in mountainous Argolida and one in neighboring Arcadia identified the red belts as “theirs.”2 Some villages in nearby mountainous Corinthia also had the red belts.3 Women in two villages on the Argolid peninsula, in eight villages on the Corinthian plains and in the foothills above Voha along the Gulf of Corinth mentioned black or blue belts.4 The manufacture and use of this belt was not related to ethnicity. Both indigenous Greeks and Arvanites wore the belt with their local dress. Sarakatsani women did not wear it; their very distinctive dress utilized braiding as a technique, rather than interlinking or plaiting (Smith 1985: 17). Its use continued longest among the indigenous Greeks in the more conservative villages of mountainous Argolida. There I located extant 60

The Peloponnesian “Zonari”: A Modern String Skirt

examples and interviewed women in their eighties who remembered how to make them. The women described the belt as wrapped around the waist numerous times, “around and around,” with the tassels hanging behind (Figure 4.3). Maria Kapetanou of Kefalovrisso remembered it as the belt with “ten turns around the waist” (interview, 23 Oct. 1986). Some women reported that the zonari was worn over the other garments in most villages. A few women mentioned that they wore the belts at Easter, Greece’s most important religious celebration of the year, and on other holidays. These belts were associated most often with pregnancy and childbirth. Women received the belts in their dowries, often from a mother, mother-inlaw, or grandmother. Sometimes mothers or grandmothers made the belts; at other times the women themselves made them. Several women mentioned that they had received more than one zonari in their dowries. One woman had worn out two zonaria, which implies that these belts had a practical use outside the ritual use. The women who had worn such belts themselves ranged in age from 69 to 95 in 1986; thus, these women, who were the last to use them, were born before the end of the First World War. The fact that the zonari was a necessary part of a woman’s dowry implies that it was considered essential to the female wardrobe. Along with the other clothes and household goods that constituted a dowry, the recipient used the belt as needed. This need could occur in four ways, namely conception, pregnancy, delivery and young motherhood. First, newly married women wore the belt, perhaps in the belief that it aided conception, although only one interviewee mentioned this.5 Second, the belt was worn during pregnancy to ease a difficult confinement or, perhaps, to avoid a miscarriage (E. Derlopa, interview, 15 Nov. 1986; A. Tsakopoulou, interview, 24 Nov. 1986). Third, it was placed over the abdomen during birth so as “not to suffer” (M. Kapetanou, interview, 23 Oct. 1986; Catalogue, 1988, 33). Finally, a new mother wore the belt during the “dangerous” forty days after childbirth. During this time the belt was wrapped tightly around a woman’s hips (Harami, 1975–6). In addition, the belts could be used to carry the baby cradle to the field. Elderly women reportedly wore the belts as a support garment when they had back problems. It is clear from the descriptions of when and how these women used the zonari that it was thought to protect women’s bodies against a host of real and imagined dangers. These included all the problems a married woman might face with procreation, such as infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, or the death of the baby or herself during birth or in the period following parturition. But it also extended to protection against supernatural powers that could cause harm during pregnancy, the delivery, or the recovery. To understand 61

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Figure 4.3. Stamata Kapou of Kefalovrisso, Argolida modeling her zonari. She married in 1936. Photograph: Linda Welters.

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The Peloponnesian “Zonari”: A Modern String Skirt

more fully the fears that gave rise to the belief that a fringed textile could protect a woman, I examined three factors: (1) the biology of fertility and birth in Greece and elsewhere, (2) purification rituals, and (3) Greek beliefs in supernatural beings. Studies of human fertility show that the first birth typically occurs within two years of marriage in societies where contraception is not practiced (Leridon 1977: 18). In the same studies, less than 6 per cent of women had not given birth after twenty-four months of being married. Intrauterine mortality after four weeks of gestation affects approximately 25 per cent of all pregnancies (Leridon 1977: 76). Maternal mortality during or after childbirth results from hemorrhage, trauma, shock, toxemia or infection. Midtwentieth-century demographic studies from Europe and North America show that stillbirths range from 2 to 5 per cent, while infant mortality rates range from 2 to 27 per cent (Holmberg 1970: 36, 64). Fertility rates vary depending on a number of variables, both biological and cultural (MacCormack 1982). In Yewoubdar Beyene’s study of 96 women from the village of Stira in Euboea, Greece, the average age at marriage was 24.4, with the first birth occurring at the age of 26 (1989: 9). The average number of pregnancies was 2.9, with 2.5 infants surviving the first year of life. One-fourth of the women reported experiencing a difficult labor (1989: 114). The number of children per family represented a decrease from previous generations, which averaged five to seven children. In Greece, family size is often limited through abortion to provide greater resources to existing children. Married women with no children, however, are to be pitied. Although Beyene’s statistics examine recent fertility rates in Euboea, her findings provide a rationale for the cultural response to fears associated with reproduction in earlier periods elsewhere in Greece. Some women will not be able to get pregnant; others will not carry the fetus to full term; some infants will die within the first year of life; and a few women will die during or after childbirth. In many societies, pregnancy and childbirth are treated as a transitional period for women, and often involve a period of separation from the community (van Gennep 1961: 41). A woman’s established role changes when she becomes a mother and introduces a new member to the social group. The act of separation allows the group to deal with the transition. Pregnancy and childbirth, a time fraught with anxiety, were considered a period of crisis in Greece (Blum and Blum 1970). When the danger passed, a purification and reincorporation ritual took place. The act of separation and reincorporation in Greece is reinforced by pollution beliefs. The products of women’s bodies, the blood of menstruation and childbirth, are seen as unclean in many societies (Douglas 1984). Pregnant 63

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women and those who have just given birth are considered both dangerous and vulnerable. They must be ritually purified in a church ceremony to reenter society with their new offspring. Such rituals create social unity and reinforce the moral code. The danger associated with the period following childbirth was deeply embedded in Greek culture until quite recently (Blum and Blum 1970; Beyene 1989; Hirschon 1978: 81). During this time period, a new mother was referred to as a lechona. For the sake of herself and her child she remained secluded in the house for forty days. A forty-day period of seclusion after childbirth is common to many cultures; in other cultures the number of days can vary from as few as two to as many as 100 (van Gennep 1961: 46). Anthropologists view this period as a time when the new mother regains her strength and bonds with her infant. The days following childbirth also involve abrupt changes in hormonal levels. A period of rest from work allows women to adjust until the normal hormonal balance is achieved (MacCormack 1982: 5–6). One of the functions of the zonari, then, was to serve as a sign to the immediate family that a woman’s body was in a transitional state emotionally and physically, and that she should be shielded from the world outside her own house. Whenever a pregnancy failed or an unexpected death occurred, people sought a reason. It is unlikely that women in Peloponnesian villages understood the biological reasons for a failed pregnancy or death through any means other than the knowledge that midwives had gained from their experiences delivering babies. Thus, belief in the supernatural offered an explanation for mysterious afflictions and sudden death. Until recently, Greeks believed that illnesses could be caused by spirit possession or by the “evil eye.” Some Greeks believe in the evil eye to this day. Charles Stewart (1991) identified more than thirty named exotika in Greek folklore. These include demons, fairies and other spirits that live in marginal places outside the confines of the villages. The exotika were associated with a limited range of experiences, mainly misfortunes occurring at birth, marriage and death. Although none of my interviewees mentioned them by name, several of the named exotika identified by Stewart are pertinent to this study: Khamotsároukhos, a goat-like demon who attacks pregnant women; Moíra, an old woman, personifying fate, who comes to the house before a child is born and sometimes three days after the birth; and Móra, a frightening old woman who attacks unbaptized children while they are sleeping (Stewart, 1991: 252–3). Directly relevant to the zonari is the belief in the “evil eye.” The “evil eye,” or simply “the eye,” is still a concept found throughout Mediterranean societies. It is the belief that someone can project harm merely by looking or 64

The Peloponnesian “Zonari”: A Modern String Skirt

staring. Often the person who casts the evil eye is unaware that he or she has done so. Common targets are people at critical stages of life, such as newlyweds, pregnant women and children, as well as valuable possessions like farm animals (Di Stasi 1981: 30; Dionisopoulos-Mass 1976: 44). In Greece, any illness that is not ascribed to an organic disease, breakage or a chill is believed to come from the evil eye (Hardie 1981: 110). A headache, listlessness or fever are all symptoms of the evil eye (Stewart 1991: 232). A lechona is in particular danger of being afflicted by the eye (Blum and Blum 1970; Stewart 1991). Anthropologists offer a number of theories to explain the existence of evileye beliefs, most commonly that they are the product of envy. Although not universal, belief in the evil eye prevails in rural agricultural areas in the IndoEuropean world where competition for limited resources thrives. Greeks who still believe in the evil eye take precautions against it (Stewart 1991: 232–7). Victims undergo a ritual performed by a woman, often involving oil and water. One can avoid the evil eye by “spitting” (uttering pthou several times) when giving compliments, especially when admiring an infant or young child, or by wearing apotropaic amulets. Amulets believed to protect against the evil eye take many forms. Throughout the Mediterranean, blue glass beads painted with the outline of an eye are believed to repel the evil eye. Garlic, salt, a nail and a cross are among the many material objects in the Greek repertoire of apotropaics. In many areas of Greece, children wear a blue glass bead pinned to the backs of clothing or a snippet of red string around their wrists. In the words of the women I interviewed, the zonari was one of these amulets. Two elderly women from Angelokastro, Corinthia, who had worn the belts earlier in this century, described them in terms of protection, specifically against the evil eye: “It was used as a piece against the evil eye, a öõëá÷ôü [talisman]. When they were giving birth to a child, they put it on to keep them from the evil eye, especially after the child was born” (A. Virla, interview 8 Nov. 1986). Georgia Dafni, who married in 1939, referred to the zonari as an amulet against the devil, stating that she “wore them for all three children” (interview, 8 Nov. 1986). Several women specified the qualities of the zonari that contributed to its ability to protect them. Some described the prophylactic characteristics of the zonari in terms of its structure. The sprang technique reportedly made it resistant to evil forces. Haralambo Kaparellou said that the “devil was bursting because for the zonari we were not putting any weft” (interview, 3 Dec. 1986). She meant that the belt confused “the devil” or “the evil eye” because of its unusual structure. Anastasia Virla ascribed special meaning to the tassels, saying that they were so well made that they were difficult to 65

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unravel: “You cannot find an edge to undo it.” Georgia Dafni attributed its protective quality to color: “They used to say that when you wore black the devil wouldn’t bother you” (interview, 8 Nov. 1986). None of the women mentioned red, the color of the zonari in Argolida, as having specific talismanic qualities; however, red is a color associated with fertility and protection in many Eastern-European folk cultures (Paine 1990: 148–50). Likewise, no one mentioned the tie-dyed patterns of the red-andwhite tassels as protective. Their intricate patterning and the preference for belts with three patterned areas rather than two raise the possibility that the irregular coloration was seen to be confusing to the evil eye. One of the features of amulets against the evil eye is that they divert attention away from the wearer. In the case of the zonari, it is likely that the combination of structure, color and pattern was believed to provide effective protection against malevolent beings who eventually tired of trying to figure out how to get past the belt into women’s bodies and left them alone. The wrapping of the belt many times around the waist or abdomen further protected a woman. Women who had worn the belts, or whose mothers and grandmothers had worn them, expressed great warmth and enthusiasm for this article of dress. When shown the photo album, women who recognized the zonari would cry out affectionately “Our zonari!” They fondly recounted stories of how they had used them when they had their children. Other researchers encountered similar responses. Ioanna Papantoniou, in attempts to collect these belts for the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation Museum in the 1970s, found the women very reluctant to give them up (Catalogue, 1988: 33). This accounts for the rarity of these pieces in museum collections. Women preferred to keep them as charms or amulets, and continued to use them until they wore out. Besides functioning as a visual symbol of the transition from pregnancy to motherhood and an amulet against the evil eye, the belt may be seen as a metaphor for marriage. In the village of Kaparelli, 84-year-old Haralambo Kaparellou, who had made, used, and still owned a zonari, sang us a song. She thought this song was not unique to her village in the Lyrkian mountains of Argolida. The song was about a young woman named Eleni whose parents had betrothed her to a man from another village. In rural Greece, a person from outside one’s own village is referred to as îÝíïs, literally a foreigner or stranger. Eleni did not want to marry the foreigner; instead she had her heart set on a young man from her own village: “Why are you crying, Eleni? And you are pouring out black tears? 66

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I have a big dowry for you. Ten zonaria I have for you.” “Let fire burn the dowry and the zonaria. Who cares for the dowry compared to the good man The handsome young man? They brought a foreigner from foreign places.” The girl is holding a glass in her hands to offer to the foreigner. But the stranger was sly, very devilish And says: “We in our place, it is done in our village, the person who offers drinks first, then the stranger.” The ending, which she did not sing but related to us, reveals that Eleni was forced to drink first. Because the wine she offered contained poison, she died while the “foreigner” lived (interview, 3 Dec. 1986). The cultural meanings about women’s place in Greek village society are evident in this song and are partially symbolized by the zonari. A woman’s place was to marry, and to marry the person selected by the family as the most suitable mate. The scarcity of resources encouraged arranged marriages that advanced a family’s interests. Village society did not accommodate the desires of the individual. In the song of Eleni, the zonari represents married life, the birth of children that would result from a socially approved union, and the continuation of her husband’s family to another generation. Eleni rejected the life planned for her with her suggestion of burning the zonaria, opting instead for romantic love. But she was foiled by her own scheme. The moral lesson here was for a woman to do as she was told, and not to upset the social fabric of the community.

Conclusion We have seen that the zonari of Argolida and Corinthia served as a vital component of women’s lives. Made by women for women in their own communities, the belts were an essential part of a girl’s dowry, to be used during pregnancy, childbirth and the forty-day period after the birth. On one level, the zonari signified a woman’s seclusion during the transitional period following childbirth. On a second level, it provided protection against the “evil eye” throughout the reproductive cycle. In a period before rural health care provided the services of doctors, women relied on the help of this article of dress to empower them and protect them against the dangers of childbirth. The specific characteristics of the zonari that provided protection against danger were the colors black and red, the weftless structure (sprang), 67

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the tassels and their intricate patterning. The methods of wrapping of the belt – either many times around the waist or tightly across the abdomen after childbirth – further protected women’s bodies from harm. To a lesser degree the belt may be viewed as associated with fertility and marriage; its fringes, blood-red color and its use by married women reflect such an interpretation. In combination, the form and cultural attributes of the Peloponnesian zonari support a connection to archaic string skirts (Barber 1994: 60–1).

Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation, the Pasold Research Fund and the American Philosophical Society. I am grateful to the University of Rhode Island for granting me a sabbatical leave to conduct field work in 1986. This chapter was developed from a paper presented at the “Confluences: Fashioning Intercultural Perspectives” Conference of the International Textile and Apparel Association in Lyons, France in 1997.

Notes 1. For an illustration of a woman constructing a zonari, see Papantoniou (1978), Figure 18. 2. Kefalovrisso, Gymno, Skotini, Alea, Kaparelli, Schinohori, Malandreni, Lyrkia, Karia, and Kiveri in Argolida and Nestani in Arcadia. 3. Lafka and Drosopigi. 4. Heli and Dimena in Argolida; Athikia, Angelokastro, Krioneri, Dafni, Kesari, Velo, Moulki, and Zeugolatio in Corinthia. 5. The association of the belt with the attire of newly married women was made by 90-year-old Sophia Giannitsou, Lyrkia, Argolida, 22 Oct. 1986.

References Barber, E. W. (1991), Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages With Special Reference to the Aegean, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. —— (1994), Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, New York: Norton. Beyene, Y. (1989), From Menarche to Menopause: Reproduction Lives of Peasant Women in Two Cultures, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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The Peloponnesian “Zonari”: A Modern String Skirt Blum, R. and Blum, E. (1970), The Dangerous Hour: The Lore of Crisis and Mystery in Rural Greece, London: Chatto and Windus. Catalogue: Folk Art Museum – Nafplion, (1988), Nafplion, Greece: Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation. Collingwood, P. (1974), The Techniques of Sprang, New York: Watson-Guptill Publications. Di Stasi, L. (1981), Mal Occhio [evil eye]: The Underside of Vision, San Francisco: North Point Press. Dionisopoulos-Mass, Regina (1976), “The Evil Eye and Bewitchment in a Peasant Village,” in C. Maloney (ed.), The Evil Eye, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 42–62. Douglas, M. (1984), Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London and New York: ARK Paperbacks (first published in 1966). Emery, I. (1980), The Primary Structure of Fabrics, Washington, DC: The Textile Museum. Gjergji, A. (1988), Veshjet Shqiptare në Shekuj [English summary], Tiranë: Akadamia E. Shkencave E RPS Tëshqipërisë, pp. 233–44. Harami, F. (1975–6), “Kefalovrisso,” “Malandreni,” and “Schinohori” field research reports, Archives, Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation, Nafplion, Greece. Hardie, M. M. (1981), “The Evil Eye in Some Greek Villages of the Upper Haliakmon Valley in West Macedonia,” in A. Dundes (ed.), The Evil Eye: A Folklore Casebook, New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., pp. 107–23 (reprinted from Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 53 [1923], 160–71). Hirschon, R. (1978), “Open Body/Closed Space: The Transformation of Female Sexuality,” in S. Ardener (ed.), Defining Females: The Nature of Women in Society, New York: Wiley, pp. 66–88. Holmberg, I. (1970), Fecundity, Fertility and Family Planning: Application of Demographic Micromodels (Reports 10), Gothenburg, Sweden: Demographic Institute, University of Gothenburg. Leridon, H. (1977), Human Fertility: The Basic Components, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. MacCormack, C. P. (1982), “Biological, Cultural and Social Adaptation in Human Fertility and Birth: A Synthesis,” in C. P. MacCormack (ed.), Ethnography of Fertility and Birth, London: Academic Press. Paine, S. (1990), Embroidered Textiles: Traditional Patterns from Five Continents, London: Thames and Hudson. Papantoniou, I. (1976), “Ïé ×ùñéêÝs ÖïñåóéÝs ôçs Áñãïëéäïêïñéíèéás” [The Village Costumes of Argolidokorinthia], ÐñáêôéêÜ ¢ Äéåèíïõ-s Óõíåäñïõ Ðåëïðïííçóéáêù-í Óðïõäù-í, pp. 419–67. —— (1978), “ÓõìâïëÞ óôç ÌåëÝôç ôçs Ãõíáéêåßás ÅëëçíéêÞs ÐáñáäïóéáêÞs ÖïñåóéÜs” [A First Attempt at an Introduction to Greek Traditional Costume (Women’s)], ÅèíïãñáöéêÜ, vol. 1, pp. 5–92. Skowronski, H. and Reddy, M. (1974), Sprang: Thread Twisting, A Creative Technique, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.

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Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia Smith, J. R. (1985), “Analysis of the Female Costume of the Sarakatsani,” in Female Costume of the Sarakatsani, Providence, RI: Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University. Stewart, C. (1991), Demons and the Devil: Moral Imagination in Modern Greek Culture, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. van Gennep, A. (1961), The Rites of Passage, Chicago, IL: Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago Press (first published in 1908). Vellioti-Georgopoulos, M. (1987), “Le Plangi en Gréce Traditionnelle et a Chypre: Une Technique du Passé,” Pliages-Plissages-Plangi: Technique Artisanale de Coloration des Tissues a Travers le Monde, Mulhouse: Musée de l’Impression sur Etoffes, pp. 27–33. Welters, L. (1989), “Women’s Traditional Dress in the Provinces of Argolida and Corinthia,” ÅèíïãñáöéêÜ, vol. 7, pp. 17–30. —— (1995), “Ethnicity in Greek Dress,” in J. Eicher (ed.), Dress and Ethnicity, New York and Oxford: Berg Publishers, pp. 53–77.

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5

Gilding the Lily: Dress and Women’s Reproductive Role in the Greek Village, 1850–1950 Linda Welters

In agricultural societies throughout Europe, dress functioned to communicate important attributes of the individual to the community at large (Bogatyrev 1971). Rural dwellers, especially women, attired their bodies in sociallyapproved garments to signify age, gender, marital status and economic standing to others in their villages. To those outside the village, their dress often affiliated them with an ethnic group or a specific geographical locale. In Greek villages, women’s dress communicated all of these characteristics plus others. The customs associated with village dress, particularly bridal and festival dress, suggest that clothing was closely associated with a woman’s reproductive role. As proscribed by local custom, brides and newly married women embellished themselves with embroidered and fringed garments, jewelry, and elaborate headgear, which they continued to wear until reproductive goals had been achieved. In the male-centered world of the Greek village, a woman’s value was measured by whether she had a husband and children. Both virginity and fertility were important attributes of womanhood. Women had some resources within their power to aid in fulfilling their roles as wives and mothers, and one of these resources was dress. As makers of their own clothing, women incorporated fertility symbols into their garments, and wore them when socially permissible. This chapter is based on a series of research projects I conducted in Greece on women’s nineteenth- and early twentieth-century dress. In 1983 I studied the folk dress of Attica; in 1986, Argolida-Corinthia; in 1988, Boeotia and the western part of Fokida; and in 1990 and 1995 the island of Euboea. My approach was both historical and ethnological. Documentary sources included extant garments, travelers’ accounts, and visual images such as paintings, 71

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drawings and photographs in Greek and American library and museum collections. In the field I interviewed over 400 villagers, mostly women, about their memories of folk dress. I conducted and transcribed these interviews with the aid of Greek-born assistants.1 Often families still possessed old clothing and photographs of ancestors in village dress, which I documented in slides and photographs. The chronological period represented by this research covers roughly one hundred years, from 1850 to 1950. Most surviving village dress also dates from this time period. Although nearly all of the women I interviewed married during the first half of this century, their memories of stories told to them by their mothers and grandmothers go back to the mid-nineteenth century. This period spans Greece’s emergence from four centuries of Turkish occupation to the devastating civil strife following the Second World War. During this period, Greece’s towns and cities rapidly became modernized, while villages retained their customs. Geographically, this research focused on provinces in the northern Peloponnese and in the central Greek mainland, including the large offshore island of Euboea. It is difficult to generalize about sartorial customs and habits in these regions because of the presence of different ethnic groups, variations in local economies, internal and external migration, and the existence of transportation routes to remote areas. As a result of these factors, village dress developed differently in the various districts. In all these communities, however, dress in some capacity indicated a woman’s role of bearing children. To explore this premise, I discuss the role of women in rural Greece by reviewing anthropological studies from regions where I conducted fieldwork. This discussion is supplemented by the experiences of my interviewees and the writings of nineteenth-century travelers. I then present the role of dress in communicating and facilitating a woman’s reproductive role.

The Role of Women in Greek Peasant Culture Three studies in the anthropology of modern Greece are useful in examining women’s roles for the regions studied, because they focus on villages I visited during fieldwork for this project. Ernestine Friedl’s Vasilika (1965) described the social structure and way of life in a village on the Boeotian plains. Juliet du Boulay’s Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village (1974) examined life in a remote village in northern Euboea she called Ambéli, a pseudonym.2 Her book and subsequent publications are especially relevant for the examination of women’s position within Greek village life. Yewoubdar Beyene (1989) 72

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studied peasant culture in Stira, Euboea as part of a comparison of the reproductive histories of women in Greece and Mexico. A fourth study, Renée Hirschon’s fieldwork in a residential locality of Piraeus called Nea Ephesos (1978), is useful for its discussion of the cultural values placed on female sexuality, even though it focuses on a community of Greek refugees from Asia Minor. Although these studies postdate the period when women still wore village dress, they provide us with a context for understanding women’s roles in village life. Only in the last few years have women’s roles changed. The following descriptions represent attitudes, values, and beliefs in place until relatively recently. In Greek village society, women found self-fulfillment primarily as wives and mothers. Since the nuclear family was the central social unit, a married woman held the most desirable social position. In fact, it was considered a woman’s duty to marry. The pressure to conform was very strong, and both sexes preferred the married state. The cultural emphasis on marriage was expressed in this popular advice to young women: “God wants you to marry and become a housewife” (du Boulay 1986: 162). Families often arranged marriages for their grown sons and daughters, and only a serious physical or mental ailment prevented a match from being made. Virginity, chastity and fertility were important attributes of womanhood. Virginity was a prerequisite to a good marriage. In Vasilika, where marriages were still arranged in the mid-1950s, young people did not converse with the opposite sex unless related. Thus it was possible that the bride and groom might never have seen each other before the marriage negotiations began (Friedl 1965: 56). As elsewhere in Greece, such customs reduced the possibility of premarital pregnancies or even the suggestion of an illicit liaison. Women’s sexual nature was considered a constant threat in Greek society. Women were viewed as sexually weak, and thus capable of endangering their families’ reputations. In Ambéli, girls and reputable unmarried women were treated as “underprivileged but neutral members of society” while widows were perceived to be “dangerous and disruptive” (du Boulay 1974: 135). Throughout Greece, strict social sanctions awaited those who did not comply with expected behavioral codes. A virtuous woman brought honor to the entire family, whereas a woman with loose morals brought shame. Promiscuity threatened the family by bringing dishonor to an existing marriage or by making it difficult for a father to find a decent husband for an unchaste daughter. The responsibility for chastity rested primarily with women. Thus, a sense of shame was a highly desirable quality in a Greek village woman. Only by maintaining virginity until marriage and remaining faithful to her spouse throughout married life was a woman able to tame her potentially destructive sexuality. 73

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Du Boulay illuminates our understanding of this phenomenon in her writings on women’s sexual nature (1974; 1986; 1991). She postulates that chastity and motherhood embodied women’s divine nature. Women are seen as “Eves,” born with the potential to destroy the social order through uncontrolled sexuality. But they also have the ability to redeem themselves by remaining chaste, marrying and giving birth to children. By following this path, they align themselves with goodness and can become “like the Mother of God” (1986: 141). As a result of these conceptions, the course of life for a village woman can be viewed as having three critical stages (Beyene 1989: 3–4). The first stage, one of seclusion, is that of the unmarried girl. The second stage is that of wife and mother of small children; although no longer secluded, a married woman is still a potential threat. The final stage is that of a mature woman whose eldest son is married; at this time a woman gains freedom from the restrictions of social convention. Throughout the life cycle, societal pressure controlled women’s sexual behavior. Acculturation to this belief began with birth. The arrival of a baby girl was not as welcome as that of a baby boy in the Greek village for several reasons. Parents viewed daughters as liabilities because of the eventual need to provide a dowry at marriage and their potential to dishonor the family. Also, a daughter was not a permanent part of the domestic group, for when she married she became a member of her husband’s family. According to Hirschon, “concern with preventing the unrestrained expression of female sexuality underlines fundamental aspects of Greek social experience” (1978: 69). From an early age family members instilled in daughters and granddaughters the vulnerability of being a woman. When a girl reached the age of six or seven she ceased playing outside and helped her mother inside the house. She learned textile crafts, such as spinning, weaving and embroidery, so that she could assist her mother and grandmother in the preparation of her own dowry. This seclusion of unmarried girls continued until the 1980s in the village of Stira, where girls attended local schools until the junior high school level, but did not undertake further education because it meant living in distant cities where the family honor might be jeopardized (Beyene 1989: 96). Most girls stopped their education and remained in Stira until an appropriate match could be found. Marriage negotiations culminated in a formal engagement. In Vasilika, when the fathers of the bride and groom reached agreement on the details of a marriage contract, they exchanged gifts over food and drink. Ten days later the bride’s family hosted a large engagement party. Friedl reported that the engagement period could last from a few weeks to several years, although villagers discouraged prolonged engagements. An engaged couple could spend 74

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time together, but were expected to refrain from sexual relations (Friedl 1965: 57). Weddings varied according to local customs. In past decades weddings often lasted several days, after which the bride moved to the home of the groom. Ideally, the bride was soon absorbed into her husband’s family, where she assumed her role as new daughter-in-law. This position was one of subservience to both husband and mother-in-law. Only when the older woman died would the daughter-in-law become mistress of the house (du Boulay 1986: 147). Once safely married, a woman was expected to have a family. Children were the desired result of the marital union. At weddings, guests toasted the couple with salutes such as: “To a son!” and “With children!” (Hirschon 1978: 68). Women feared being infertile; miscarriages or delayed conception necessitated medical and spiritual intervention. In recent years, birth rates have declined in Greece as a result of family planning. Even though family size has decreased, starting a family soon after the wedding is the norm. In Stira, the average age at marriage was 24.4, the average age at the birth of the first child was 26, and the average number of children was 2.5 (Beyene 1989: 112). The women in the Stira cohort came from families of five to seven children. In Vasilika in the 1950s, couples averaged four children, whereas their parents had had eight children (Friedl 1965: 50). This decrease in the birth rate over the course of the twentieth century is attributed to the desire to improve the family’s economic position. In the Greek village, a pregnancy should be appropriate to a woman’s age and status. Although women treated pregnancy as a natural state, those who became pregnant in their later reproductive years felt a sense of shame. These mothers considered it embarrassing for their teenage sons to see them pregnant, because a swollen belly revealed sexual activity (Beyene 1989: 114). As a woman approached menopause, her children married and she found herself in a position of increased power. Her sexuality no longer threatened the family and community, and she experienced fewer social restrictions. However, when a woman’s husband died, she retreated from full community life no matter what her age. She then deferred to her eldest son. As du Boulay points out, women were without influence in the community once they lacked a husband. Young widows were especially prone to gossip because of their unfulfilled sexual desires, whereas older widows represented less of a threat (du Boulay 1974: 123). Older widows were objects of derision because of their low prestige (du Boulay 1974: 184). This lack of power was particularly pronounced if a widow lived alone, without the protection of her children. Village women reinforced and expanded upon these views of womanhood during the interviews on which my research is based. As unmarried girls, 75

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they did not associate with men other than immediate family members. When outside the house, girls were very careful not to be seen talking to anyone of the opposite sex. Even the suggestion of impropriety could shame the whole family. These views prevailed until very recently, as is revealed in the following account provided by a woman born in 1916 in the southern Argolid village of Didima: My mother used to tell us tales and stories to admonish us that we shouldn’t go out with boys, etc. If someone went out with a guy, that was a bad thing, everyone pointed a finger. These were labeled in the village and couldn’t get married. That was an abomination for the village. For the woman to have a relationship before being married was a death sentence even though she might be the best woman in the village. All the good things she might have done or privileges she had would be bypassed and she had a stigma on her (E. Prodrima, interview, 22 Nov. 1986).

Even when engaged, the bride-to-be never met the groom alone: “Without stefani [wedding crowns] there was no contact between the couple” (S. Margariti, interview, 22 June 1988). My interviewees reported that engagements lasted anywhere from two days to four years. The average was said to be six months. Some women mentioned that after the engagement they went to church with their fiancé and his family. Many women commented that their marriages had been arranged by matchmakers. Some referred to this process as “being invited in marriage.” In matchmaking, the ability to work and the provision of a dowry made for a good bride. In the words of a woman from Desfina in Fokida, “We took a bride who could work hard. A thin woman could not work a lot. Also, if a woman had a piece of land she could become a good bride, or a vineyard, . . . fields or animals” (S. Margariti, interview, 22 June 1988). Romantic love is not unknown among villagers, despite matchmaking. Many elderly couples displayed great affection for each other. One couple in their seventies remarked on their good luck to have fallen in love even though their marriage had been arranged. Two women said they were pregnant at the time of their weddings. This admission came about because many older women did not know their current age or the date of their marriage. We calculated their ages based on their age at marriage, the age of their oldest child, and the amount of time between the wedding and the birth of the first child. These women often made the excuse that they “did not know letters” (i.e., could not read), thus could not be expected to know their age or the date of their wedding. One woman from Agia Triada in Boeotia, born in 1905, said it was the “job” of her husband to know how old she was (V. Klarithi, interview, 24 June 1988).

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Quite a few village men bypassed the matchmaking process, perhaps, as one man stated, out of fear of having “a really fat girl” emerge as the bride at the wedding (N. Dimaki, interview, 29 June 1988). A marriage not arranged by matchmaking was termed an “elopement,” but more often the bride was described as having been “stolen” or “kidnapped.” Sometimes a woman said “we stole each other” or “I stole my husband” rather than “I was stolen.” Elopements involved a young couple who wanted to marry, but lacked parental approval. These couples “went away for a few days” or “went up to the mountain,” and came back “married.” The stories about “stolen” or “kidnapped” brides involved girls who evidently had limited resources: by “stealing” the bride, the families avoided the negotiation of a dowry. Often such brides were the youngest girls in large families or were orphans whose relatives offered no help in raising a dowry. They married at much younger ages – sometimes as young as the age of fourteen – compared to those with arranged marriages, who wed in their mid-twenties. This practice reveals the role of fate – birth order and survival of parents – in choice of mate. It also reveals the economic side of marriage in village society: an orphan or a poor girl often married after she had reached childbearing age to free the household of one mouth to feed. Wedding customs differed slightly from one locality to another. Many of the customs associated with weddings symbolize a bride’s hoped-for fertility. In Boeotia and Fokida, people told us that the old weddings lasted eight days. Food preparation began on the Monday before the ceremony with the making of a wheat dish that involved a village boy who had two living parents. On Thursday the families sent a special bread to relatives and friends to announce the forthcoming wedding. On Saturday evening the bride’s fingers were stained with henna, as were the small fingers of the groom and his relatives. Called kna, this henna stain lasted forty days. Sunday, the day of the wedding, began with the groom’s family arriving at the bride’s house on mules or horses. The ceremony itself took place in the village church, where the exchange of the wedding crowns took place. Dancing in the village square followed the ceremony. Then the meal was served. If the groom lived in a neighboring village, the bride traveled by horse or mule, accompanied by relatives with much fanfare. Later, at the home of the groom, the bride broke a pomegranate on the hearth and the couple ate honey and walnuts. After the consummation of the marriage, the mother-in-law secured proof of the bride’s virginity. Within two or three days the mother-in-law accompanied the bride to the village water fountain, where the new bride bowed to the water. During this time the two families offered meals to each other. Fifteen days after the ceremony the bride went to church with her motherin-law. In some areas this church ceremony marked the end of the young 77

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woman’s transition from unmarried girl to married woman, but in other areas the new bride continued to have special status for forty days. Severe sanctions awaited a bride who could not show “proof” of maidenhood to her mother-in-law the morning after the consummation of her marriage. In Argolida, Corinthia, and Euboea this proof was the bloodstained chemise in which the bride first slept with the groom. Several elderly women still had these chemises in their dowry chests. The chemises were plain white cotton and were simply constructed like nightshirts. According to one woman, “It was the tradition in the village that the mother-in-law undressed the bride; then she cut the neck of the wedding night chemise and the next morning she took it for the virginity sign to be able to be sure the girl was a virgin.”3 By cutting the neck of the chemise herself, the mother-in-law guaranteed the authenticity of the bloodstain on the chemise. Celebrations, sometimes excessively symbolic, accompanied the showing of the proof of virginity: Should the bride be found honest the relatives on both sides would set up a dance and by displaying the seal of proof on the chemise, everybody in the village would know about the honesty of the bride. Many were shooting off guns in the air. Some brave lads were shooting the chemise to make it full of holes (E. Prodrima, interview, 22 Nov. 1986).

In Boeotia, the mother-in-law hung the bloodstained chemise from the ceiling of the house for everyone to see. Women in Euboea had heard from their elders that the relatives danced and celebrated with the chemise when the bride was “good.” Supposedly a bride who failed the test could be returned to her natal family. Our interviewees, when asked what the consequence was if the bride was “not good,” responded “back to the father!” Although many knew of a bride who had not been a virgin, the family often “closed their eyes and didn’t send her back home.” A ninety-three-year-old woman from Kokkino, Boeotia explained that in such cases “the bride was sitting on a chair with her hands crossed in her lap, and she was waiting for her mother-in-law to tell her what she might do. They never sent a bride back to her parents, but quite often they hit her” (P. Kontou, interview, 14 July 1988). The whole family awaited the young bride’s first pregnancy. The birth of male children was especially important. In many municipalities, only the birth of males was recorded until the end of the last century. Sometimes the women themselves did not count their female offspring among their “children.” In Boeotia and Euboea, some women distinguished between “girls” (koritsia) and “children” (paidia). To wit: one ninety-year-old woman from Neohoraki in Boeotia, when asked how many children she had, replied “I have two

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girls and a child” (Z. Tsami, interview, 9 July 1988). She meant that the “child” was a boy. This lack of enumeration of daughters is found in other areas of the Balkans where patrilineality is central to social organization (Denich 1974: 250). One question raised during this project was the fate of married women who were childless. Adoption is rarely mentioned in Greek anthropological studies as a formally recognized method to build a family. Only recently in Stira did Beyene find that a couple without a son had adopted a boy to continue the family name (1989: 97). Other field researchers, however, acknowledge that in the villages in which they resided for their field work, infertile women informally adopted children from other, more prolific couples, so that no couple went childless.4 Adopted children usually came from blood relatives. The care of orphaned children might be considered a type of informal adoption. Numerous women in my studies were orphaned through the premature death of a mother and father, but only one used the word “adopted.” Widows are easily identifiable by their black garb. Many of the elderly widows interviewed for this project lived with a married son or daughter rather than alone by themselves. To interview such women, we had to secure the permission of the children, who then remained with us during the interview. Some women were widowed young and faced years of economic uncertainty for themselves and their children. Only one had remarried and borne additional children. Most remained widows for the rest of their lives, which necessitated developing strategies to conserve resources. One woman with “two children and three daughters” whose husband was killed during the civil war chose to send her youngest daughter to a nunnery. Many widows developed an alternative source of income; they frequently embroidered and sewed for other women in the village. Widowers with children presented a challenge to the community. Several women who had been orphaned as young girls married widowers much older than themselves. Although not considered an ideal match, it was one avenue open to women without dowries. One woman living with her stepdaughter said: “I was young when I married, I was poor, with no mother, my relatives in America, I had no dowry . . . I married a widower” (G. Ghika, interview, 15 Oct. 1986). From the above descriptions, we see that the experiences of the women I interviewed verify and reinforce the findings of the anthropological studies. An earlier view of women’s lives in these regions of Greece is provided by two travelers’ accounts from the 1860s and 1870s.5 In a tone reflecting the more enlightened Parisian society, Baron Paul d’Estournelles de Constant 79

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published his observations of women’s lives based on travels in the northern Peloponnese and central Greece: Women have no individual existence, and count for nothing in [Greek] society . . . Women, without exception, are responsible for everything concerning the household and the family. In the country, women are the ones taking care of the children, the maintenance of the house, the household, the cooking, and when their work is done, don’t think that it is time for them to rest: women then go to the fields to join their husbands, and, handling a hoe or a spade, do twice as much work in an hour as the men do. When they return home, while the men are seated, smoking, near the fire, the women are nursing babies, preparing a meal, or fetching water from a sometimes very distant spring or well, carrying large jars of water on their shoulders . . . (de Constant 1876: 409).

Given such a bleak existence, Baron de Constant asked: do women revolt or refuse to get married? “No,” he replied, “young girls had only one idea: get married, even though they have in front of them the example of their mother” (1876: 410). Their sole desire was to leave their own families to do what their mothers had done. He continues his commentary on the lives of Greek women by describing their later years: Grandmothers are the only women in Greece who can rest. That’s waiting a bit long; but from the day they live at the home of their son-in-law or daughter-inlaw, from one extreme to another, they are allowed to do nothing: slowly caress their komboloi (beads which Greeks and Turks always carry around to entertain themselves), chat, eat, deafen their grandchildren with comical threats or with scolding, such are their daily occupations. To say that they are loved, spoiled by their children around them, would be a gross exaggeration. Taking them in is rather a duty, accomplished with some indifference. The day when they die of course is a day of mourning, but it is always to be expected, and taken as a matter of course . . . (1876: 411).

Dora d’Istria, an educated woman writing about her travels through Boeotia, Attica and the Peloponnese, made similar comments about the women she met: In any Hellenic village, women are the ones doing the farming and the manufacturing. While the daughter is weaving cotton, the mother tills the ground and at the same time nurses the child she carries on her back. Far from bemoaning the numerous progeniture adding daily to her fatigue, this resigned matron considers her fecundity as a blessing from Heaven. When I was riding through the Greek mainland and the Peloponnese, each woman I met was asking me: “Kyria, (Mrs.), how many children do you have?” And when I answered that I did not have any,

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Dress and Greek Women’s Reproductive Role 1850–1950 the faces of these excellent women expressed a sincere compassion (d’Istria 1863: 436–7).

From the anthropological literature, interviews, and travelers’ accounts, we observe that a woman’s role is to bear children, preferably sons.

Dress and the Life Course How does dress fit into this picture? The earlier discussion of the former role of women in Greek village society leads to the expectation that gender, marital status, and motherhood would be among the first aspects of a woman to be signified by clothing. The customs associated with women’s clothing in Greek villages suggest that elaborate forms of dress, particularly embroidered garments, celebrated a woman’s reproductive role, but only within marriage. Although customs varied from region to region, particularly in regard to engaged girls, the basic principles were the same in all four provinces studied. One or more aspects of appearance indicated that a woman was “free,”6 engaged to be married, a bride, newly married, married with children, post-menopausal, or a widow. In some areas a simple change of headscarf signified a change in marital status; but in other areas, the clothing cues encompassed all aspects of appearance. In the time period under discussion – 1850 to 1950 – village dress underwent major changes, consisting of two or more stages, before disappearing in favor of European-inspired fashions. These changes can be considered generational, in that each age cohort assembled their dowries using materials and technologies available at the time. A dowry chest contained clothing in addition to household linens and utensils. The supply of clothes a woman owned when she married was enough for a lifetime. One woman referred to the handwoven fabrics in her dowry as a “deposit” of materials, “enough for our lives” (F. Eleftheriou, interview, 12 Nov. 1986). A typical dowry contained clothes for different occasions, such as church, festive occasions, and work, as well as for the different stages of life such as middle and old age, and to signify mourning. The clothes in the dowry were made in whatever fabrics and styles prevailed in the village when the woman married.7 Older forms of village dress consisted of one or more of the following components: 1.

white chemise – long, with or without sleeves; often made of handwoven cotton; hem, sleeves, and neckline may be embellished; 81

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2. 3.

4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

tight-fitting bodice worn over the chemise; sleeves may be decorated with embroidery or fringes; long sleeveless coat – often in heavy woolen fabric; embellished with embroideries or purchased trims; this coat is termed sigouni in many villages; belt – most often red, but also black or dark blue; ends have fringes or tassels; headscarf – oldest types are long, handwoven scarves with embroideries and fringes on the ends; in the nineteenth century, many villagers replaced them with factory-made silk or cotton scarves; false braids – in some districts, women supplemented their own hair with thick braids of human hair or cords of silk or wool suspended from the back of bridal and festival ensembles; apron – aprons were not an essential component of village dress in the regions studied; however, brides in Argolida and Corinthia reportedly once wore aprons with geometric embroideries; in other regions brides wore woolen aprons, most often in red; jewelry – rings, bracelets, necklaces and belts were popular for bridal and festival dress; coins were often substituted for stones or worked metal components; and shoes – for everyday wear, women went barefoot or wore homemade pigskin shoes; for dress occasions they wore purchased shoes.

Newer styles of village dress generally substituted factory-made cloth for home-produced cloth. Both the form and the decoration of the new styles drew inspiration from European fashion, although the total ensemble would never be recognized as “fashionable” in a European city. Around the time of the First World War, such transitional village dress consisted of the following components: 1.

2.

3.

blouse and skirt – most blouses buttoned at the front rather than at the back; long skirts had ruffles or trim at the hem. Bridal and festival blouses and skirts had lace trim or whitework. Fabrics were factory-made cottons or silks, or cloth woven at home from machine-spun yarns; sleeveless coat – shorter than its predecessor, the newer sigouni incorporated the same cut as the older version. Those worn for weddings and festivals were filled with embroideries. In most villages, women no longer wore the sigouni for everyday dress; headscarf – white or yellow block-printed cotton scarves manufactured in Athens; sheer silk for bridal and festival wear; plain scarves in white, brown or black; 82

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4. 5. 6. 7.

apron – European in styling; made of velvet, fine cotton or silk, with floral embroideries and lace trim; jewelry – coins on chains; shoes – purchased footwear was worn for all occasions; and underwear – drawers, knitted camisoles and petticoats were considered an innovation and a mark of modernity.

The nomenclature for the village dresses and their parts is complicated and far from standard across the regions studied. Often the use of a particular term or name was restricted to a mere handful of villages. The terminology is usually Greek, or French for recently introduced garments; but in areas settled centuries ago by immigrants from Albania, dress terms are Arvanitika, the language spoken by this ethnic minority. Often the whole ensemble took the name of its most important component. In Attica, for example, both the silk-embroidered chemise and the whole outfit worn by a bride was called foundi, an Arvanitika term. No matter how poor the villagers were, clothing served to mark a married woman’s reproductive years. A discussion of clothing worn at various stages of the life cycle illustrates how pervasive was the need to express sanctioned fertility visibly. Both young girls who were not yet betrothed and unmarried women wore plain clothing with little or no embroidery. The objective of the dress of unmarried females was to avoid attracting unwanted attention, to make these women invisible in the community. Most of the time they wore simple, undecorated versions of the basic dress components. In Attica, little girls wore chemises with just a hint of red embroidery at the hem. In mountainous Argolida, unmarried girls wore plain white scarves, never the printed scarves customary for married women. In the Aghia Anna villages of Euboea, at a certain age, a girl donned a plain white chemise called paliruta and a sigouni. This age was variously given as ten, twelve or fifteen, the age at which girls experience menarche.8 In some villages the sigouni seemed to be equated with a woman’s honor whether unmarried or married. A woman did not go out of the house without her sigouni; doing so signified that she was shameless. Girls learned this association of sigouni with honor early in their lives. A 76-year-old woman from Euboea recalled that: “Our mothers made us wear the sigouni” (V. Simitsi, interview, 29 June 1990). In Boeotia, I was told by a 104-year-old woman “no girl dared to take off her sigouni during work; she would be considered ineligible for marriage” (M. Rizzou, 1 July 1988). We were told that “only whores went without a sigouni” (E. Barbadinou, interview, 1 July 1988). No wonder a little girl who went outdoors without her sigouni in the 83

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village of Pisia in the Perachora district of Corinthia was severely scolded (M. Sakelariou, interview, 4 Dec. 1986). In Desfina in western Fokida, a red belt differentiated the unmarried girls from the married women. This implies that in a few villages unmarried women appeared in public prior to betrothal, and that clothing identified these women as prospective mates. After a girl became engaged, she sometimes changed an aspect of her clothing to signify her new status. In certain areas of Boeotia, an engaged woman donned a sayia, a sleeveless coat embroidered in red that she wore until the wedding. In Attica, the bodice worn by engaged girls had cotton embroideries in specific patterns on the sleeve. In a few Peloponnesian villages, “free” girls exchanged their plain white scarves for white scarves printed with flowers when they got engaged. A woman occasionally wore the official festival ensemble of her village for the first time at her engagement party. However, in most areas there was no visible difference between the “free” and the betrothed girl. From an economic viewpoint, making special clothing to wear for the relatively short engagement period did not make good use of limited resources. It was better to invest effort and materials in the bridal outfit. The most elaborate clothing was worn by brides and newly married women. In the more prosperous districts, brides were resplendent in richly embroidered garments, fine silk scarves and jewelry. The bride in Figure 5.1, from Peania in Attica, wears a chemise embroidered in silk and gold, a bodice with golden sleeves, a bridal sigouni, lace-trimmed apron, headscarves, and much jewelry. She is, quite literally, gilded. Only a family with substantial economic resources could afford to acquire such a showy costume for its female offspring. The abundant gold thread on her garments and the copious amounts of jewelry on her neck, wrists, fingers, and head are evidence of her socio-economic standing within the village. Interestingly, we interviewed the sister of the bride in Figure 5.1 about this wedding ensemble. It was made to be worn by each of the two sisters in the Hatzikiriakou family, but unfortunately only one sister wore it. The other sister had to wear a chemise with less embroidery, because the groom’s family was mourning the death of the father and mother at the time of her wedding (K. Stamou, interview, 29 June 1983). The chemise, with its silk and gold embroideries, is the centerpiece of this wedding ensemble. The mother of the Hatzikiriakou girls had given the chemise to a professional to embroider in silk; then she and her two daughters added the gold over a period of six months. This chemise and all other wedding chemises from the Messoghia villages of Attica, along with the sleeves of the overbodice, display embroidered fertility symbols that had been 84

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Figure 5.1. Bridal couple from Peania, Attica, circa 1910. This “gilded” bride wears a chemise embroidered in silk and gold, a bodice with golden sleeves, a bridal sigouni, a lace-trimmed apron, headscarves and much jewelry. The embroidered motifs on the chemise and bodice include fertility symbols. Photograph: Privately owned. Copied by Linda Welters with permission during field research.

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part of village dress at least since the eighteenth century. These include carnations, acorns, anthropomorphic figures and frogs (Welters 1988: 66–9). The older forms of the bridal garments from other districts in this study also exhibit a number of motifs associated with fertility on their chemises, bodices, sleeveless coats, headscarves and aprons (Barber 1994; Gimbutas 1982; Kelly 1989). Such motifs include anthropomorphic figures, birds, fourfold designs, sun signs and frogs. These are artfully arranged on the clothing in areas that showed, such as borders on hems, embellishments for seams in the body of a garment, in columns climbing up the fronts and/or backs of chemises, on sleeves, around the openings of necklines, and covering seams where sleeves joined the body of a garment. Fringes and tassels abound on sleeved bodices, belts, and old handwoven headscarves (bolia). Elsewhere in Europe fringes and tassels on clothing denoted a female past menarche (Barber 1994: 59). Color is another traditional element often linked to fertility. Red, a color symbolic of life forces, is prominent in embroideries and fringes worn by Greek village brides. In the Aghia Anna villages of Euboea, brides wore two chemises, one over the other, arranged to display the embroidered hems. Only chemises with specific motifs could be worn for weddings. Brides had at their disposal a dozen or more chemises, each with different embroidery patterns, yet elderly women reported wearing only mais, itia, and perdika for their weddings. Each of these three chemise types incorporated fertility motifs. Mais had double-ax motifs, believed to be a representation of a butterfly that symbolized regeneration; this motif is a frequent one in Mycenaean art. The word mais also means the month of May, the month of planting. Itia had motifs based on vegetal forms resembling a tree of life. Itia also means willow tree, a symbol of faithfulness. Perdika had repeating fourfold designs, a cosmological symbol from Neolithic Europe designed to promote and assure the continuance of the life cycle (Gimbutas 1982: 91). Perdika in modern Greek means “partridge,” a symbol of well-being and good health. Village women in modern times do not generally associate the geometric motifs and fringes on their clothing with fertility. The meanings come out in other ways, namely through the customs associated with the wearing of such clothing. The old bolia of Corinthia, for example, had both embroidered geometric motifs and ample fringes. Brides arranged the ends of the bolia with one fringed, embroidered end in front “to throw the bolia to the groom” (K. Nikolouli, interview, 31 Oct. 1986). Such symbolic actions allude to the meanings once associated with geometric motifs and fringes on clothing. The bride continued to wear her wedding ensemble for a period of time after the ceremony. Some brides wore the costume continuously for fifteen days. Others wore it on the third day after the ceremony when they went to 86

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the fountain with their mothers-in-law, and again on the fifteenth day when going to church with their mothers-in-law. In Euboea, we learned that it was important to pay attention to the number of times a new bride wore the ensemble after the wedding: the bridal costume must be worn either once or five times (E. Eliodromitou, interview, 9 June 1990). Other customs peculiar to specific villages helped mark the newly married woman. In Messoghia, a single coin in the middle of the forehead signified a new bride. Women in these villages wore their bridal jewelry for one or two weeks after the wedding, even to harvest olives. In mountainous Argolida, brides continued to wear a crown made of gold tinsel called telia for forty days after the wedding. Women who eloped side-stepped such symbolism on their wedding day. However, the need to show a change in status necessitated some difference in appearance after the elopement. Sometimes the in-laws of “stolen” brides provided them with simplified versions of bridal ensembles to wear as newlymarried women. After the forty-day period ended, a newly married woman wore her bridal outfit or a “second” similar outfit for every festive occasion in the village, especially at Easter, the celebration of the village saint’s day, and the weddings of other young women in the region. Many women mentioned that they wore their wedding ensembles to the weddings of others. They said that “in a marriage ceremony you could distinguish fifteen women” wearing the transitional form of village wedding attire (S. Margariti, interview, 22 June 1988). Everyone enjoyed the visual spectacle of young women dressed in their finest, especially when they danced: “The whole place was becoming white” (E. Karatsouli, interview, 21 Nov. 1986). All the women I interviewed reported that they stopped wearing their wedding outfits on festive occasions after they had had their children. This practice had nothing to do with weight gain after pregnancy. They phrased their remarks as if it was impossible to continue wearing their wedding ensembles: “I had the children, so I couldn’t” (D. Prifti, interview, 7 July 1983). Often women ceased wearing their bridal ensembles after having only one or two children. At first the imprecision of their answers was perplexing. One or two? Why not just one? Remembering that some women differentiated between “children” and “girls,” it appears that the wedding ensemble was worn until the birth of the first male child. This hypothesis is confirmed by the same Boeotian woman who said she had “two girls and a child:” she stopped wearing the bridal costume after her first child, the boy, was born (Z. Tsami, interview, 9 July 1988). The woman in Figure 5.2, from Desfina in Fokida, was pregnant with her second child at the time the photograph was taken. She is wearing the same 87

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Figure 5.2. Valaoura Panagiou of Desfina in Fokida was pregnant with her second child at the time this photograph was taken. She wears the same clothes that she wore on her wedding day, with the exception of a brown scarf signifying her status as a young mother. After the birth of her second child, she no longer wore her wedding outfit. Photograph: Privately owned. Copied by Linda Welters with permission during field research.

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clothes that she wore on her wedding day, with the exception of the scarf. As a young mother, she is wearing a brown scarf instead of the white one worn by brides. After the birth of her second child, she put the costume away. She explained: “After you got married and started having a family you didn’t wear these outfits” (V. Panagiou, interview, 22 June 1988). In some regions women continued wearing ornamented clothing until their children had grown. But as soon as their children married, women were supposed to wear less showy attire. The embellished clothing was carefully folded and stored in a trunk for future use by daughters and/or daughtersin-law. Sotiris Parthemion, speaking about the women of Menidi, stated: “To show that she had children, she didn’t wear the costume, because it would go to her daughter or daughter-in-law” (interview, 7 July 1983). According to strict local custom, women past the age of menopause did not wear highly ornamented clothing or fringed garments. In the Aghia Anna villages of Euboea, women began wearing chemises with little or no embroidery between the ages of forty and sixty. In the village of Heli in Argolida, women took off the bodice with fringed sleeves after their children had grown.9 In Attica, chemises with bands of narrow cotton embroidery substituted for the more lavish ones with silk embroidery. Some older women cut off the embroidered hems so they could continue wearing their chemises into old age. Even in poor villages where little distinction existed in women’s clothing, the color of a headscarf indicated changes in reproductive status. As a woman matured, she wore yellow printed scarves instead of the white ones she wore as a newly married woman. When she reached the age of forty or fifty, she put on a plain brown scarf. Widows, regardless of age, signified their mourning through clothing. In the twentieth century, widows throughout Greece wore black. It did not matter whether a widow was fifteen or fifty, she continued to wear black as long as she remained a widow. Today, elderly widows throughout Greece still wear black clothing and cover their hair with black headscarves. In former times, widows wore plain white clothing with an accessory that signified mourning. In the villages of the Peloponnese and Euboea, a widow wore a plain white chemise and an unembroidered sigouni with a black dickey, black headscarf and black apron (Figure 5.3). In some districts, widows turned the sigouni inside out so that the embroideries did not show. In the words of one woman, “it would show that she was a widow when she went to church like that” (G. Oikonomou, interview, 6 Nov. 1986). It was common practice for women to keep their bridal costumes for their own funerals. We met one ninety-year-old woman who had her costume neatly packed in her trunk along with candles, ready for her relatives to find after 89

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Figure 5.3. Anastasia Krioneriti, a ninety-year-old widow from the village of Kerasea in Euboea. As an aged widow, she is dressed appropriately in a white chemise without embroidery, plain white sigouni, black plastron, black apron, and black headscarf. Photograph: Linda Welters, 1990.

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her death so they would dress her appropriately for the “last journey.” In Attica, relatives sometimes removed valuable stones before the interment. Many times the social pressure to comply with local custom in matters of dress was effected through ridicule, as is illustrated in the following comment heard in the village of Papades in Euboea: “It was impossible for an old woman to wear embroidered chemises. Everyone laughed at her” (K. Ravenou, interview, 8 June 1990). Shame also forced compliance. In the Aghia Anna villages, we met a seventy-year-old woman still wearing an embroidered chemise and sigouni. She had sewn a piece of white cotton around the hem to cover the embroideries. When asked why she had covered the embroideries, she replied that she was “ashamed,” and that she was too old to wear embroidered chemises (Y. Georgatzi, interview, 6 June 1990). The implication was that the presence of embroideries on the chemise hem signified a woman in her childbearing years.

Interpretation To summarize the role of clothing through the course of a woman’s life, a married woman’s fertile years were marked by wearing embroidered and fringed garments. Young girls and older married women, who were not in a position to become pregnant, wore plain, unembellished clothing without fertility symbols. Brides and newly married women wore the most decorative forms of dress. After they began having children, women put their best ensembles away and saved them for the next generation. The clothing of widows lacked any ornamentation. These customs correspond to a woman’s role in Greek village society as the bearer of children. Clothing both communicated and facilitated this role. The customs imply that the wearing of embellished clothing simultaneously helped a woman fulfill her duty to bear children and sanctioned her right to do so within marriage. The embroideries and fringes were meant to be visible. The concept of “showing” was critical. Overgarments did not cover the embellishment, at least in the older forms of these ensembles. The purpose of added ornamentation went beyond mere decoration by signaling the woman’s reproductive goals to the community. In the past, these decorative elements may have been thought of as promoting the fertility of the wearer by silently invoking divine assistance in becoming pregnant. When worn, the symbols may also have imparted a protective quality, to ward off evil forces, although this meaning remains unconfirmed. Their location on the edges and seams of garments connected the symbols closely with the body and guarded the most vulnerable places where the body could be accessed. 91

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The customs associated with wearing such clothing reinforce this interpretation particularly when we compare the decorated bridal dress to widows’ garb. As has been pointed out earlier, a pre-menopausal widow threatened a community’s stability. In Corinthia it was the custom for widows to wear the sigouni inside out, so that the wool embroideries were out of view, because the local sigouni was embroidered with fourfold designs, a recognized fertility motif. Once when a widow from Athikia wore such a sigouni right side out, the village women joked with her, “Hey, you have it on the right way. Are you looking for a husband?” (G. Oikonomou, interview, 6 Nov. 1986). By teasing the errant widow, the village women forced her to turn the sigouni inside out, hiding the potent fertility symbols from public view. The traditions associated with widowhood – turning a sigouni inside out so that the embroideries would not show, covering the embroideries of a chemise, and wearing plain white chemises – may have evolved from deepseated, but long-forgotten, beliefs that these embroidered motifs and fringes could attract divine assistance with fertility. Wearing such garb when widowed, before marriage or after menopause was socially inappropriate. In some cases such clothing was packed away after achieving the reproductive goal of giving birth to a son. Embroidering chemises was women’s work; consequently a shared culture developed around the performance of this task. Every woman knew how to embroider. Embroidering the bridal chemise was a skill learned in the company of women. Mothers and grandmothers taught the stitches to their daughters and granddaughters, along with the rules for when to wear them. “Our mothers told us: ‘Do your needlework so you have something to put on your chemises’” said a ninety-year-old woman from Prasino in Boeotia (S. Peppas, interview, 8 July 1988). Women pressured others to embroider the known designs by ridiculing anyone who departed from tradition: “Those who did not embroider the ‘small people,’ we were laughing at them” (M. Rizzou, interview, 1 July 1988). Women socialized with their neighbors while stitching outside in the evening hours. In Attica, we learned that: “They would light a fire in the middle of the street and all the women would sit around and embroider” (K. Ghinis, interview, 24 June 1983). Many women remembered stitching by oil lamp late into the night. Although male tailors sewed some garments, the process of spinning the cotton yarn, weaving the cloth, and embroidering the motifs on the chemises was reserved for women.10 Just how valuable these articles of dress are to the women who made and wore them is illustrated in the following story. When the Germans burned the village of Prodromos during the Second World War, Serafoula Palikari saved her wedding ensemble by carrying it on her shoulders as she left the 92

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village. Although her house burned, her bridal clothes survived. She said: “I love this costume, I love it very much” (interview, 7 July 1988). In recent years, scholars have reassessed women’s roles in Greek peasant society. These scholars acknowledge the persistence of the culture of honor and shame in the Mediterranean, yet argue that women in Greece were not completely powerless (Dubisch 1986). Juliet du Boulay’s discussion of cosmos and gender (1991), Renee Hirschon’s ethnography of a refugee community in Piraeus (1978), and the studies of women’s death laments by Margaret Alexiou (1974), C. Nadia Seremetakis (1991), and Anna Caraveli (1986) provide a picture of women’s lives that gives them some control over their existence. Seremetakis, for example, interprets ritualized laments as women’s cultural response to historical fragmentation, as an “empowerment of the periphery” (1991: 1). The making and wearing of embroidered and fringed garments believed to facilitate fertility was also an act of empowerment for women. Creating such garments allowed Greek peasant women living in a male-oriented society to control their own well-being. By placing fertility symbols on cloth, these women sought aid in fulfilling their destinies as females. Even after the original meanings of these motifs were forgotten, adherence to the rituals preserved their place in Greek society. The customs associated with the older forms of village dress transferred to the transitional forms, thereby continuing the visualization of women’s reproductive role through dress.

Acknowledgements Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the International Textile and Apparel Association Conference in Pasadena, California on 19 October 1995 and the Modern Greek Studies Association Symposium in Cambridge, Massachusetts on 3 November 1995. I thank the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation, Earthwatch, the American Philosophical Society, the Pasold Research Fund, and the University of Rhode Island for making it financially possible for me to conduct field work in Greece. The many volunteers who participated in my Earthwatch projects deserve special mention.

Notes 1. Cassette tapes and photographs are stored at the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation, 3 Platia Victorias, Athens, Greece. 2. In 1990, one interviewee in a remote Euboean village asked if we knew Juliet; hence, we learned the location of Ambéli. 93

Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia 3. This information was supplied by the daughter-in-law of ninety-year-old Constantina Panayiotopoulou, Karia, Argolida, 27 Oct. 1986. Apparently Constantina’s children had found a blood-stained chemise in her dowry trunk and asked for an explanation. 4. Thanks to Irene Loutzaki and Kleo Gougouli for clarifying issues of adoption. 5. Both of these accounts are in French. One of my Earthwatch volunteers, the late Danielle Cooper, provided translations of the text. 6. Young, unmarried women are called “åëåýèåñås,” the “free ones.” 7. In the 1980s and early 1990s I saw many elderly women wearing older clothing from their dowries that must have been at least a half-century old. 8. In Stira, Euboea the average age at menarche was fourteen in the mid-twentieth century (Beyene 1989: 9). 9. The bodice with fringes on the sleeves was gergefya in Heli, a village inhabited by Arvanites. Women in the villages of Kokkino in Boeotia and Amphithea in Euboea referred to similar garments as gergef and gergefisia. 10. Men, as the traditional tailors, cut and sewed the sigouni. Some women in Attica embroidered chemises for hire after the designs increased in complexity. Female specialists in both Attica and Argolidocorinthia made the bridal and festival sigouni.

References Alexiou, M. (1974), The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barber, E. W. (1994), Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, New York: Norton. Beyene, Y. (1989), From Menarche to Menopause: Reproductive Lives of Peasant Women in Two Cultures, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Bogatyrev, P. (1971), The Functions of Folk Costume in Moravian Slovakia, The Hague: Mouton. Caraveli, A. (1986), “The Bitter Wounding: The Lament as Social Protest in Rural Greece,” in J. Dubisch (ed.), Gender and Power in Rural Greece, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 169–94. de Constant, Baron P. d’E. (15 Mars 1876), “La Vie de Province en Grèce,” Revue des Deux-Mondes [Paris], in Petits Voyages Français en Grèce (1823–1900), Gennadius Library, Athens. Denich, B. S. (1974), “Sex and Power in the Balkans,” in M. Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (eds), Woman, Culture, and Society, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 243–62. d’Istria, D. (1863), Excursions en Rouméli et en Morée, Vols. 1 & 2, Zurich/Paris. Dubisch, J. (ed.) (1986), Gender and Power in Rural Greece, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. du Boulay, J. (1974), Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village, Oxford: Clarendon Press. —— (1986), “Women – Images of Their Nature and Destiny in Rural Greece,” in

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Dress and Greek Women’s Reproductive Role 1850–1950 J. Dubisch (ed.), Gender and Power in Rural Greece, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 139–68. —— (1991), “Cosmos and Gender in Village Greece,” in P. Loizos and E. Papataxiarchis (eds), Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 47–78. Friedl, E. (1965), Vasilika: a Village in Modern Greece, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Gimbutas, M. (1982), The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hirschon, R. (1978), “Open Body/Closed Space: The Transformation of Female Sexuality,” in S. Ardener (ed.), Defining Females: The Nature of Women in Society, New York: Wiley, pp. 66–88. Kelly, M. B. (1989), Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe, Winona, MN: Northland Press. Seremetakis, C. N. (1991), The Last Word: Women, Death, and Divination in Inner Mani, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Welters, L. (1988), Women’s Traditional Costume in Attica, Greece, Nafplion: Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation.

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Threads of Life: Red Fringes in Macedonian Dress

6

Threads of Life: Red Fringes in Macedonian Dress Vesna Mladenovic

During the summer of 1996 while I was searching for folk dresses in the republic of Macedonia,1 I encountered numerous older women who told me stories of their past village life and the pride they felt in making and wearing clothes. I went to ten villages in different parts of western Macedonia and talked to curious women (between 35 and 85 years old) who wanted to learn the purpose of my visit. In every village at least one woman invited me to her house to show me the dresses she had made in the past. While I was admiring the handwork, I heard stories that revealed to me the hopes, beliefs, and expectations of Macedonian village women. In those conversations I learned the moral attitude they grew up with and believed in, and their understanding in attributing aesthetic and magical or supernatural qualities to the dresses they made. My questions regarding the symbolism of the embroidered figures and fringes were always answered first with a confirmation that their visual aesthetic qualities were solely attributable to physical and spiritual beauty. After they were comfortable with my inquiry, some of the women would mention the use of fringes as protection from the evil eye. That explanation regarding the folk dress reappeared in villages or settlements that had different ethnic origins (Macedonian Orthodox, Turkish Muslim, Albanian Muslim and Roma), which explained the tendency of all these people to protect what was considered beautiful from the evil eye. One of the women I met was Marija Madþikovska (62 years old), who showed me four dresses she made and wore before she moved from her village into a nearby town (Figure 6.1). Tetka (aunt) Marija is from the village of Vitolište, the major village in the Mariovo area in western Macedonia. She was taught, as was every woman in her village, to make her clothes in order to exercise and demonstrate her abilities to make things for her future 97

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household. I asked her about the beautiful dense rows of bright red fringes she had put on the shoulders and at the slit openings on her overdress (saja) and her apron (pregaè). “Oh, they are to make you beautiful. Just to make you beautiful, to make the dress pretty!,” she replied. Very cautiously she avoided my questions related to the evil eye, and once in a while would say “let God keep us from evil.” Obviously she was uncomfortable speaking about the evil eye, fearing that somehow it would affect us. Hence she would verbally express a prayer for protection. Later, through my conversations with Dr Gjorgi Zdravev, a folk textile specialist, and from reading the work of Macedonian folklorists (Èaušidis 1994, Cepenkov 1972, Georgieva and Klièkova 1965, Penušliski 1969, Radovanoviè 1935, 1936, Vraþinovski 1995 and Zdravev 1988), I learned that the use of certain elements in the women’s dress, such as fringes, may signal a belief that the body needs to be protected from invisible, as well as visible, harm through eye-pleasing decorations. Among these decorations are the red fringes applied to the women’s garments in particular districts of Macedonia. Red fringes are used as decorative elements on the women’s folk dresses in two districts in western Macedonia: the Brsjak and the Debar-Miyak.2 They are commonly called kiski or resi. Kiska (the singular from kiski) means a sprig of a plant.3 In Macedonian folklore kiska bosilok, a sprig of basil (Ocymum basilicum) was a well-known apotropaeon (protection) against the evil eye. According to Vojislav Radovanoviè, in Mariovo, a mountainous area in the Brsjak district, a sprig of basil was always wrapped with a red woolen thread called alovno predeno, which “acts as an amulet against the evil eye, the envy of people, the malediction, the magic, and the evil spirits” (1935: 129). The wrapped sprig was placed on people’s garments and all their possessions, including animals, to protect them from harm. In a similar way, to protect against the evil eye and possession by evil spirits, the red woolen thread was used as a decorative element in various customs of the Miyak people.4 Even today, it is very common to see a baby girl with red woolen threads passed through pierced earlobes acting as earrings. This is a common way to keep the ear piercings open until the child is old enough to wear metal earrings; but the thread used is always red.

Western Macedonia: The Brsjak and Debar-Miyak Districts The two districts discussed here are both situated in western Macedonia, the region west of the river Vardar. The Debar-Miyak district is a mountainous territory bordering Albania. It takes its name from the largest town in that 98

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Figure 6.1. Overdress saja seen from the back. Festive maiden and bridal costume v made after the First World War by Marija Madzikovska from the village of Vitolište, Mariovo area, Brsjak district. Copyright, Vesna Mladenovic, 1996. 99

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district, Debar, and from the Miyaks, a Christian-Orthodox tribe who lived in that district. The Brsjak district, the largest district of western Macedonia, borders the Debar-Miyak district (northwest) and Albania (southwest). It encompasses a part of Pelagonija, a fertile wheat valley that extends into Greece to the south, and Mariovo, a mountainous area to the southeast of Pelagonija. Both districts have plentiful pastures for sheep grazing, and this geographical feature attracted numerous nomadic tribes throughout the centuries, who created settlements based on sheepherding. The Brsjak and the Miyak districts are named after Slavic tribes, the Brsjaci and the Mijaci. These tribes created a sedentary settlement in Macedonia after the fifth century AD and transformed their nomadic lifestyle into one centered on sheep and goat herding. Their patriarchal societies were organized around clan relationships that have not completely disappeared in Macedonia to this day. The tribes adopted cultural influences from the territory where they settled, as well as later introductions from numerous invaders. These influences included Christian Orthodoxy. The tribes lived in clusters of mountainous villages. This kind of population distribution allowed them to keep their ethnicity well guarded from frequent and violent raids from various people who passed through or settled in the Balkans. The villages remained lively centers of prosperity until the First World War. After this period, persistent outside cultural, political and economic influences inspired many village inhabitants to relocate to the cities. With this the village life slowly disintegrated, but retained some folk traditions. The village occupants maintained their older customs by continuing to practice them, and this encouraged the making of clothes for community identification. Clothing identified the ethnic origin of the wearer, the village of origin, and also the clan’s philosophy. For an individual who grew up in the values of the community, the most important existential goal was to procreate a new generation so that the community and its customs continued. This attitude towards life is linked to synthesized poly- and monotheistic beliefs emanating from the understanding that an unbroken tie exists between humanity and nature. Nature has the ultimate power of determining survival in the course of life and death. The human being, as nature’s transcendental creation, parallels the behavior of the cosmos and also pays tribute to nature as creator. Remnants of nature worship were rooted in certain folk systems that had developed from the distant human past. Villagers with such subconscious beliefs were very confident about their identity. Therefore, the concern was not to discover one’s origin, but to preserve the life course and to ensure that it prevailed in the oral historical heritage of the generations to come. 100

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The women supported the traditions of their patriarchal culture, firmly believing that its preservation resulted in conferring identity upon their existence. Their role in the family was one of a caretaker of the household, responsible for bringing up the offspring and providing the necessities of life. In a sheepherding community, women were responsible for manufacturing necessities within the house, such as food and clothes, while the men took care of the family’s assets, which in most cases were livestock. As caretakers of the household, the women understood their important influence in bringing up children to be a part of the community and to contribute to its prosperity. Women were praised for their service to the family and their ability to prolong its legacy through their fertility. Fertility was expected from every woman as her primary function. To ensure that her fertility would be consummated in marriage, a woman’s reproductive capabilities were protected from malevolent forces through her dress. Although the chastity of the bride-to-be was important, none of the decorations of the female dress symbolized or implied chastity. Instead, the decorations’ purpose was primarily to protect the wearer from evil and to encourage fertility. A secondary purpose of the ornaments was to display the aesthetic capabilities and domestic skills of the maker.

The Evil Eye in Macedonian Folk Life Belief in the evil eye, urok, originated in the fear that the individual is constantly in danger of being harmed. Demonic creatures such as samovili (fairies), navi (children who died unbaptized), vampiri (vampires), vešterki (witches), and supernatural others5 could harm humans by inflicting illness such as paralysis, epilepsy, madness, and even death. In Macedonian demonology, samovili appear as very attractive female creatures manifested in human form at night, and as a weather formation (a violent storm) during the day. Their beauty could attract men, who would, out of passion, leave their families. Otherwise, the samovili would cause harm to the whole family or the wife by inflicting illness or even death. Sometimes the samovili had zoomorphic physical attributes, such as goats’ hoofs and wings. Vampiri, vampires, had the ability to change instantly from a human to an animal, such as a four-eyed dog. Vampires are humans who have died and risen from the dead because they have not fulfilled certain duties in their lives. Their souls are left to wander on earth until they are expelled to “the other world” by magical chants and rituals, or by a physical murder of the vampiri. While being vampiri, the souls still performed their obligations 101

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towards the family, and only at night appeared in their zombified state. Very often vampires might drink blood from the family cattle, and were even able to create a child with their spouse. Such a child later in its life would have the ability to recognize demonic creatures. The vampiri were known to dance during the night by the cemetery; hence the villagers purposely avoided these places at those hours. Witches, vešterki, are ordinary humans, usually very old women, who have the ability to perform magical rituals and cast spells on people. A witch was very often a woman who was an outsider in the village, physically or mentally different from the others. She created and performed spells for others for hire. The people in the community believed that witches had connections with the devil, who provided witches with the ability to do harm to the whole village by creating storms to ruin crops; starting floods, fires, and earthquakes to kill people; and causing children to be stillborn or born with physical or mental disabilities. Hence, in every community villagers believed that the disabled had certain supernatural qualities and lacked the abilities to function normally in society because they were bewitched. Other demonic creatures, such as devils and dragons, could also harm an individual or the whole community. The habitat of the demonic creatures included both the sky and the earth. Therefore, the villagers were constantly subject to being attacked by demons, especially if the most vulnerable parts of the body, such as the head, the hair, and the vital organs, were exposed. To protect themselves from all these forms of evil, people used amulets in a deceptive manner to distract attention away from the real body and draw it just to the clothing. The more beautiful the decorations were, the less chance there was of attracting a demon’s attention to the actual body. Certain stages during a person’s life were the most vulnerable to harm, especially birth and the first forty days of marriage. For women, the first forty days after giving birth were also a period of danger. The number forty continued to be significant even after death. It was believed that the soul of the deceased wandered on earth during the first forty days after death. Dress was also connected to curses, which played a significant role in harming people. A curse, kletva, derived directly from a person, with the aid of demonic creatures. A person’s envy could cause a kletva, which, when spoken or wished for, caused an unpleasant occurrence or “unmerciful punishment” for the victim (Kitevski 1989: 217). Curses were verbally expressed to an enemy, a friend, or a family member. They were considered to be powerful, and people could not escape their spell if they were not protected with amulets placed on the clothing and the body. The village vešterki also were able to assist people in casting a kletva on someone. If the victim was protected by amulets, he or she could avoid the spell of the kletva. 102

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Protective Elements and Fertility Symbols in Dress Besides the fringes and the jewelry that served as amulets in the women’s attire, various embroidered elements were applied as decorations on the garments to protect from the evil eye, to give strength and beauty, and to promote reproduction. Numerous geometric patterns executed in elaborate embroidery encouraged fertility; for example, circular and rhomboid shapes associated with fruitfulness were embroidered on the chemise around the lower hem, around the neck and chest opening, and around the sleeves. The location of the embroidery protected the wearer from penetration by evil spirits as well as giving strength to certain areas of the body such as the arms, the legs, and the head. The ornaments on the apron protected and gave strength to the genital area. A girl started to embroider at the age of 7 or 8, and this work was of great importance to her. She was expected to do well, and, if she did not, she would have a lesser chance of finding a good marriage companion. By the time she was of marriageable age, between 19 and 23 years, she would have produced all the clothing she needed for the rest of her life and the articles used in her future household. These included woven pieces, such as aprons, blankets, and rugs. Usually, the maiden also created her bridal dress; but in some areas, such as the Miyak, relatives and friends helped her. The most powerful clothing amulets against the evil eye and curses are red woolen thread and sprigs of basil. The color red has apotropaic properties, and its visual properties – warm, bright, and exuberant – tend to adorn and beautify the wearer. Red is the color of the life force and strength, and it is analogous to blood, the juice of life. To obtain the red color, the yarn and fabrics were dyed, a job performed by the women. Only certain villages had dyers, whose knowledge of dyeing survived as the work of certain families. In other villages dyeing was a part of the “women’s work,” which included the entire process of manufacturing the outfit, from processing fibers to stitching the garments, as well as taking care of the family and the household. Before the First World War, all dyes derived from plants and pigments. For bright red,6 madder (Rubia tinctoria) called brok was used. Women used to grow it in their gardens specifically for dyeing. The Miyak women used krmas,7 the dried bodies of insects that live on oak trees, to obtain red color. Georgieva and Klièkova (1965: 111) explain: For sleeve decoration, the best wool is chosen, and to get the job done as soon as possible, one of the girlfriends brings the wool to the close relatives of the fiancée in the village, who usually spin a designated quantity of wool. When the wool is spun, it is collected at the house of the fiancée and dyed. Al is a red color obtained

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Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia from krmas – tiny red granules, kezap – luta voda, yellow dye þoltilo, and wine sediment streþ. In the same time when the al is being dyed, dried corn is being cooked in a clay pot. The al is considered completed when the boiled corn is done which is actually a measure for dyeing the al. The well dyed wool is considered as a sign of happy marriage. If the wool is not dyed well, that predicts an unhappy event (1965: 111).

Zdravev mentions that magical formulae were recited over the dyeing in order to bring successful results. Later, aniline dyes purchased in the market were used (1988: 37–8). Basil is considered to be a magical plant because “it grew from the belly button of Jesus Christ, and for that reason it protects all the people from evil” (Radovanovic 1935: 129). Together, the woolen thread and the basil made the wearer a powerful spiritual being. The purity of the spirit was reflected in the clothing of an individual. The style of the person’s clothes could indicate powerful spiritual beauty. To the demons the dress was a message of the wearer’s ability to resist their spells; to the community, it was a message of strength. A young woman dressed in an elaborately made outfit was displaying inner radiance which made her even more desirable for marriage. In the Brsjak and Debar-Miyak districts these qualities were especially shown through the fringes. The red fringes (kiski) on the Macedonian folk dresses were used as a powerful protection against the evil eye. Their placement on particular garments such as the apron, the headdress, and the girdle protected the most important areas of the woman’s body, the ones vital to life and fertility. The apron specifically protects the genitals, the girdle the abdomen, and the headdress the head and hair. The importance of the fringes is metaphorically connected with water: “When we walked, the fringes were making ‘waves’ just like in water, and they were swishing” (Zdravev 1996: 130). Water as a source of life has a significant relationship to the existence of the human. Its flow in many cultures represents life and procreation. The symbolism of the sound of the fringes compared to the sound of the water waves relates to an archaic understanding of the vital functions of women paralleling the vital functions of nature. Nikos Èaušidis (1994: 100–2), who wrote about pre-Christian south Slavic figurines and how they relate to Slavic culture, explains this idea by comparing the lower part of the woman’s torso, particularly her genitals, to the earth, the underground waters, all of which give life. The upper part of the torso, especially the breasts, is compared to the sky and the clouds, which provide the rain, also the source of life. Just as the flow of water projects vitality, the fringes project youthfulness during a woman’s reproductive years.

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The kiski, in various parts of the Debar-Miyak and the Brsjak districts, are applied on different parts of women’s folk dresses. The Miyak women applied red fringes around the edge of the heavily embroidered sleeves of the female chemise, as illustrated in Figure 6.2. The Mariovo women attached red fringes to the overdress, saja. The two most common garments with red fringes are the apron and the headdress.8 Fringes were also applied on the ends of the woman’s girdle; but only the Miyaks made them in red wool. The woolen aprons were a necessary part of the women’s dress. The aprons were woven on horizontal looms with one harness in a tapestry weave. The warp was made of cotton or linen yarns, and the weft was woven from dyed sheep’s wool. The fringes were attached on the finished pieces and were made of two twisted red woolen cords. In the Brsjak region black and crimson red woolen fringes were added, but the bright red color had to dominate. Some aprons had three rows of fringes at the bottom. Girls started wearing aprons as soon as they started walking. This garment is practical in that it protects the chemise from being soiled and it also protects the genital area from cold. The girls’ aprons were made as colorful as possible, but once the wearers reached puberty, which meant availability for marriage, they started wearing aprons in predominantly bright red wool (Figure 6.3). The headdress also was decorated with red fringes (Figure 6.4). The brides wore it during the first forty days of their marriage, then at every festive occasion during the first year of marriage. The fringes had to be long enough to cover the hair and create an illusion of hair, because it was believed that hair was susceptible to the spells of demons. Women’s hair constituted an important part of their beauty. Even though they had to protect their hair from the evil eye, they managed to make a woolen illusion of its beauty. The numerous fringes on the headdress were very long, reaching to the hem of the chemise, and were attached in sections. The Mariovo brides had an additional waist attachment made of dense rows of long black woolen fringes that extended the woolen hair illusion to the hem of the chemise. The Brsjak brides in Pelagonija attached similar fringes to elaborately embroidered dresses. The Miyak brides wore a headdress made of embroidered cloth with long red fringes. The Debar brides in the Golo Brdo area attached groups of long red fringes to a square piece of linen as part of a headdress.

Conclusion The red fringes on the women’s folkdress in Macedonia are used only in two districts in Western Macedonia, the Debar-Miyak and the Brsjak. They are used in the clothing of Macedonian Christian-Orthodox women on five 105

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Figure 6.2. Fringed sleeve, part of a married woman’s chemise. From the village of Galiènik, Debar-Miyak district. Copyright, Vesna Mladenovic, 1996.

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Figure 6.3. Bridal apron from Bitolsko/Prilepsko Pole, Brsjak district, circa 1875– 1925. Courtesy of the International Folk Art Foundation Collections at the Museum of International Folk Art, a unit of the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe. Ref # A.78.2-5. Photographer Blair Clark, 1997.

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Figure 6.4. Bridal headdress called korpa from the Golo Brdo area, Debar-Miyak district, circa 1875–1925. Courtesy of the International Folk Art, a unit of the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe. Ref # A.78.2-1. Photographer Blair Clark, 1997.

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particular garments: the headdress, the apron, the overdress, the chemise, and the girdle. Fringes are considered as attractive decorations to represent the women’s spiritual beauty, thus making them suitable for marriage. Their fundamental use, however, is to protect from the evil eye in a deceptive manner: the beauty of the garment distracts the evil from the beauty of the individual, in order that she should not be possessed or cursed.

Notes 1. Currently admitted by the UN under the temporary name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM); (Macedonian Republika Makedonija). 2. The ethnographic division into regions, districts, and areas is explained by Gjorgji Zdravev (1996: 21, 228). Zdravev categorizes the Macedonian folk dress into two basic types: the western Macedonian and the eastern Macedonian type. These types are divided into two ethnographic regions: eastern Macedonian, east of the river Vardar, and western Macedonian, west of the river Vardar. Each region is subcategorized into geographically divided territories – districts. And each district encompasses several areas, and each area more or less has its own folk dress, which is different from that of the neighboring area. 3. Translation by the author and personal knowledge from growing up and living in Macedonia. 4. For a description of Miyak wedding customs see Milica Georgieva and Vera Klièkova (1965: 95–184) 5. For a complete description of Macedonian demonology see Tanas Vraþinovski (1995). For stories about demonic creatures see Tanas Vraþinovski (1995), and Kiril Penušliski (1969). Marko Cepenkov (1972) lived among and documented the folk tales and beliefs of Macedonian villlagers in the nineteenth century; his complete works were published for the first time in 1972. 6. The bright red color called alova refers to warm or “hot” red, scarlet red, turkey red, crimson red and orange red. 7. For more information on krmas, or kermes (Kermococcus vermilio), read E. J. W. Barber (1991: 230–2). 8. For bridal attire the women wore more than one headdress; but at least one of them was fringed.

References Barber, E. J. W. (1991), Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. Èaušidis, Nikos (1994), Mitskite Sliki na Juþnite Sloveni, Skopje, Macedonia: Misla. Cepenkov, Marko K. (1972), Makedonski Narodni Umotvorbi: Narodni Veruvanja / Detski Igri, book 9, Skopje, Macedonia: Makedonska Kniga. 109

Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia Georgieva, Milica and Klièkova, Vera (1965), “Svadbenite Obièai od Seloto Galiènik – Debarsko,” Glasnik na Etnološkiot Muzej, no. 2, pp. 95–184. Kitevski, Marko (1989), Prilozi za Makedonskiot Folklor, Skopje, Macedonia: Kultura. Klièkova, Vera (1963), The National Dresses of Macedonia, Skopje, Macedonia: Ethnological Museum. Penušliski, Kiril (1969), Predanija i Legendi, Skopje, Macedonia: Makedonska Kniga. Radovanoviè, Vojislav S. (1935), “Narodna Nošnja u Marijovu,” Glasnik Skopskog Nauènog Drustva, no. XIV, pp. 107–79. —— (1936), “Narodna Nošnja u Marijovu,” Glasnik Skopskog Nauènog Društva, no. XV, pp. 127–208. Vraþinovski, Tanas (1995), Narodnata Demonologija na Makedoncite, Skopje, Macedonia: Matica Makedonska. Zdravev, Gjorgi (1988), Tekstilnoto Narodno Tvoreštvo i Narodnata Nosija vo Titovvelešsko, Skopje, Macedonia: Folkloren Institut Marko Cepenkov. —— (1996), Macedonian Folk Costumes I, Skopje, Macedonia: Matica Makedonska.

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7

The Curious Tale of the Ultra-long Sleeve (A Eurasian Epic) E. J. W. Barber

At a critical point in the oft-told Russian fairytale of the Frog Princess, the tsar commands the beautiful Princess to dance for him. Arising from the banquet table, where she has been quietly stowing bones from the platter of swan meat into her right sleeve and the dregs of her drink into the left one, she begins to dance and twirl. As she waves her left sleeve, an apparition of the lakes and rivers of Russia appears; as she waves the right one, great flocks of wild white swans and geese appear swimming on the waters. The tsar and all the guests marvel, until everything disappears as she finishes her dance (Afanasiev 1855–63: tales 267–9; Afanasiev 1973: 119–23). The tale is a popular one in Russia still; it is colorful and picturesque, with a happy ending. Many recent artists, including Ivan Bilibin, when illustrating his art nouveau edition of 1899 (1974), and the later Soviet painters of delicate lacquer boxes, have rendered this charming scene – but they always get it wrong, putting the dancing Princess into the standard Russian wristlength embroidered blouse and sarafán (jumper). Artists of a thousand years ago got it right, however. They were still unChristian enough to know just what the Princess’s dance meant and how she would have performed it. The sleeves she wore did not end at the wrist, but enveloped her hands and hung down a foot or two beyond her fingertips when she took off the bracelets that normally held the sleeves up. Plenty of room in there for bones. Ultra-long sleeves of this sort persisted in local dress of South Great Russia into the twentieth century (Figure 7.1a), some of them broad and floppy, others narrow and tubular, becoming so long and skinny in the area around Moscow that women cut a hole in the sleeve for the hand

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to slip out. I have located ultra-long sleeves in the tightly clustered provinces of Kursk, Voronezh, Tambov, Penza, Rjazan’, Tula, Vladimir, Moscow, Tver (Kalinin) and Novgorod; and possibly in Orël (Orjol) and Kostroma, as well as in westernmost Ukraine (Lvov/L’viv) and part of Romania (see map – Figure 7.2 – and Appendix 7.1). Both the sleeves and the sleeve dance were already portrayed in images on Slavic girls’ metal wedding bracelets in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries (Figure 7.1b), before proselytizing Christian priests annihilated the ritual. The wide cylindrical bracelets, which come in pairs and are hinged for easy capture of the mass of cloth, often depict a woman waving her ultralong sleeves as she dances (Figure 7.1c). Sometimes a musician accompanies her on a gúsli, a flat, multi-stringed instrument rather like a small zither; and sometimes a man also dances, with a sword or staff like a Morris dancer. Other panels and other bracelets crawl with vegetation and water symbols, with girl-faced birds known as víly or rusálki (two names for the same supernatural spirits: see below), and with quadrupeds, often man-faced, whose tails turn into sprouts and leaves. These last represent an old non-Christian vegetation deity partly borrowed from the Iranians and known as Simargl (Rybakov 1968). (See Appendix 7.2 for a list of known Kievan bracelets.) A scene remarkably similar in its elements, though very different in execution, exists on a ninth-century Byzantine stone stele in Athens (Figure 7.1d), where a woman dancing with trailing sleeves and hair is accompanied by a centaur-like creature playing a stringed instrument rather like the gúsli (Mavrodinov 1943: 173 fig. 117). Perhaps the Hellenized “centaur” is in fact intended to be Simargl, accompanying his own festival. The clearest representation of the sleeve dance occurs in a splendidly illustrated manuscript known as the Koenigsberg or Radziwill Chronicle,

Figure 7.1. Examples of clothing with ultra-long sleeves: (a) South Great Russian regional dress: left, from Tambov province, with wide sleeve (after Sosnina 1984: 10); right, from Penza province, with narrow tubular sleeve (after Rybakov 1968: fig. 4); (b) hinged cylindrical wedding bracelet from Kievan Rus’ (c.1200 AD) of type used to hold up long sleeves except during rituals; from Old Rjazan’ (after Rybakov 1971: fig. 157); (c) sleeves, sleeve-dancers and musician portrayed on Kievan wedding bracelets, twelfth to early thirteenth centuries AD (left to right: from Appendix 7.2 bracelets nos. c, a, d, b, b); (d) ninth-century Byzantine stone stele in Athens, showing woman dancing with trailing sleeves and hair, accompanied by centaur-like musician (Simargl?) (after Mavrodinov 1943: fig. 118); (e) woman dancing with hair and sleeves hanging down, accompanied by men playing pipe and drum, at non-Christian Rusálii festival (after Radziwill Chronicle, sheet 6).

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Figure 7.2. Map of areas (enclosed) still using ultra-long-sleeved dress in the twentieth century: chiefly South and Central Great Russia, but also westernmost Ukraine (near Lvov/L’viv) and part of Romania. Compare and contrast the central area with that of the map in Figure 2.2.

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now in St Petersburg. This tome is a faithful fifteenth-century copy of an earlier chronicle of 1206. We can gauge its accuracy because in 1240 Batu and his Mongol warriors utterly destroyed Vladimir’s Cathedral of the Tithes in Kiev (along with everything else in Kiev and the Ukrainian area, 90 per cent of the population included), but the manuscript accurately depicts the cathedral in its pre-destruction form (which is known today from archaeology), not in the rather different form it had after rebuilding (Rybakov 1989: 378–9). Thus the miniatures derive from the same period as the bracelets, the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the height of Kievan Rus’. On the sixth sheet of the manuscript, by way of illustrating the nonChristian Rusálii festivals, the miniaturist depicted a woman dancing with both her hair and her sleeves hanging down, accompanied by men playing pipe and drum (Figure 7.1e). The Rusálii festivals were held thrice yearly (at midwinter, midsummer, and around the spring equinox) to honor the spirit maidens – the rusálki or víly – who also are depicted on several of the bracelets. These supernatural creatures, whose cult has continued in rural areas virtually to this day, were thought to be the souls of maidens who died before having children, and who then returned as unfulfilled spirits. If they died by drowning, they took the form of mermaids; otherwise they appeared to mortals as waterbirds, most especially as swans or geese. They were thought to spend their days and nights mostly in the form of beautiful girls, cavorting in the water and dancing on the grass; but if surprised in their revels by mortals, they were likely to take lethal revenge, dancing or tickling their victims to death. (The second act of the popular ballet Giselle depicts such a scene, in which the spirit of the maiden Giselle, who died of a broken heart in the first act, tries to prevent the other “willies” in the graveyard from dancing her now-penitent lover to death.) Since these prematurely deceased maidens had not used up their allotment of fertility, it was presumed still to be theirs to give out. And so the tired and hungry peasant women tried to cajole the spirits with prayers, gifts, rituals and even a little trickery to bestow this precious fertility and healing power where it would do the villagers some good. Spring Rusálii rites recorded in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sought to lead the víly/rusálki out of the wild woods into the cultivated fields with songs and dances, for it was believed that wherever the spirit maidens danced and cavorted the plants grew more lushly. In some areas, girls dressed in white, with their hair let down, led the procession (Barber 1997; Propp 1963, 1987). According to custom in most of eastern and central Europe, a married woman never showed her hair, keeping it bound up beneath her marriage 115

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cap (Williams 1995 and this volume, Chapter 8), while unmarried girls let their hair show but had to keep it tightly braided. For in these cultures a woman’s hair was thought to be where her fertility resided.1 Only a witch or a víla/rusálka would let her hair hang down loose – in fact, that was a good way of recognizing these powerful creatures when you met them. The village girls’ loose hair and ritual white dress, mentioned above, give us the final key to the rituals: the girls impersonated the víly/rusálki in order to attract their powers. And so, apparently, did the loose-haired girls waving their long white sleeves like the wings of swans. The dance was intended, through imitation, to “channel” the fertility of the swan maidens, the víly/rusálki, into the dancer and her kin at the Rusálii festival. It was a non-Christian fertility dance, part and parcel with all those other fertility symbols on the bracelets. No wonder the Christian priests worked so hard to stamp it out. The only place where the sleeve dance seems to have survived to the present is in the mountains of southern Bulgaria. At the midsummer Rusálii, the village girls of marriageable age (i.e., of incipient fertility) dance through the streets carrying a little girl (both of whose parents must be living: the child represents fertility achieved), while she flaps her arms, which are encased in the sleeves of the bridal chemise (a second symbol of incipient fertility) in which she has been dressed. Since the embroidered white chemise is adult size, the sleeves are much longer than the child’s arms. As the girls progress from one village fountain or spring to the next, married women come out and lay in their path the medicinal herbs they have just collected during the potent midsummer night, in the full belief that their efficacy will be further enhanced by the dancers stepping over them (Katsarova-Kukudova and Djenev 1958: 43–4; Marinov 1914: 492). For the víly/rusálki have medicinal herbs and waters in their care, too, such as the willows that grow around their springs and streams, a remedy for fever (Kemp 1935: 94–5; Marinov 1914: 63, 471, 478; Barber 1997: 24–8). (Aspirin, of course, came originally from willow: the medicine was actually effective.) Clearly, these dancers, too, are intended to impersonate and thus “channel” the powers of the víly/ rusálki into the healing herbs, the springs and fountains, the marriageable girls themselves, and the village generally. Present-day custom in southern Bulgaria corroborates, then, that the ultralong sleeves had much to do with the Slavic cult of the spirit maidens and the dancing that invoked them. That the Russian Frog Princess is closely related to this lore can be seen not only by her sleeve dance and her role in the story as the “perfect bride,” but also by the fact that later in the tale, when Prince Ivan burns her frogskin in an attempt to keep her with him in her beautiful human form, she flies away as a swan. 116

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The ritual significance of covering the hands, whether with sleeves or something else, survived far more widely than the dance, and the data can be pieced together to reveal the meaning. To begin with, several other pages in the Radziwill Chronicle illustrate people with sleeves covering their hands, almost all of them men. (Few women are shown in the miniatures.) Some of these men receive instruction from the prince, one is asleep, and some weep into their sleeves beside a dead prince. In each, the persons pictured with hands covered are in positions of passivity. The same is true of the early murals showing extended sleeves. One, in the stairwell of the St Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, shows Olga with arms crossed and sleeves down, passively watching the show in the Hippodrome at Constantinople. Another shows acolytes taking instruction from St Cyril, in the Church of St Cyril. The theory that covered hands marked those who were passive “channels” rather than active agents receives clinching support from one of the last pages in the Radziwill Chronicle, sheet 215. Near the top of the page, conspirators are slaying a prince, Andrej Bogoljubski, with the connivance of his wife, who is shown holding Andrej’s severed arm. At the bottom of the page, the dead prince lies on a slab while his retainers weep into their extended sleeves. The wife, however, weeps prominently into her right sleeve, which has been let down, while her left sleeve remains braceleted up: clearly the artist’s way of pointing out that, since she had a hand in the murder, she is weeping crocodile tears. The custom of covering the hands in ritually passive circumstances still survives in wedding ceremonies. In many Slavic areas, from Macedonia to Russia, the bride (and sometimes the groom) must have their hands covered during key portions of the wedding. They may be hidden by towels or sleeves or a tablecloth, but covered they must be, both from view and from touching certain ritual objects (such as the glass for the wedding toast). The couple remain purely passive receptacles of the many analogic rites for inducing fertility until they retire to the nuptial bed. *** Where did these ultra-long sleeves originate? The standard answer, since they became rather common in Russia in the later Middle Ages, is that the Russians picked up their use from the Mongols, who also wore them sometimes. But that cannot be the case. The Slavs first met the Mongols only when the latter suddenly rode out of the far east and nearly annihilated the Kievan Slavs in 1238–41. The Kievan bracelets we have – the very bracelets that held up the ultra-long sleeves and depict the sleeve dance – are found in hoards of precious wedding jewelry that the Slavs frantically hid

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from the arriving Mongol warriors, and hid from each other’s depredations even before that. Indeed, one of the largest hoards of these bracelets was discovered in the ruins of Ljubech Castle, looted and burned by a prince of Smolensk in 1147, almost a century before the Mongol raid (Rybakov 1965: 88–9). To determine their origin more accurately, we have at least four research strategies open to us. First, we can collect even earlier representations and actual examples of the sleeves themselves: difficult at this remove, but occasionally possible. We can also track the development of the wide, paired bracelets, moving back in time and space from medieval Kiev. Looking at the ethnographic and historical dress material from all over Eurasia, we may in addition search out the historical relations between the various costumes with extended sleeves. And finally we can try to trace the origins of the lore with which the ultra-long sleeves are so closely associated. The single most enlightening series of earlier artefacts that I have located comes from this same region, the Ukrainian steppes around Kiev, some 1,500 years earlier than Kievan Rus’ (which itself is a thousand years back). In the mid-first millennium BC, these steppes were inhabited primarily by the Scythians, a non-Slavic group who were nonetheless ultimately related to the Slavs in language and culture. The Scythians spoke a dialect of Iranian, which, like Slavic, Greek, Latin, and English, belongs to the Indo-European language family. Nomadic herders for the most part, the Scythians (like many

Figure 7.3. (a) Burial of woman, perhaps priestess, wearing tall gold-covered headdress, wide gold bracelets and robes bedecked with small oblong gold platelets; fourth century BC, Tolstaja Mogila, Ukraine. Note the round bronze mirror and shallow bowl (by the shoulders) for divination; the positions of the platelets indicate something of the form of the clothing. (After Gold aus Kiew 1993: 198; Trippett 1974: 22–3; From the Lands of the Scythians 1975: plate 27.) (b) Repoussé figures from gold platelet (top) and headdress (bottom), showing women with extended sleeves and tall headdresses, holding round mirrors. (After Klochko 1992: fig. 2, 1.) (c) Ultra-long-sleeved coat stitched from small pieces of fur dyed green and adorned with 10,000 bits of gold-covered wood; found in large burial mound, Katanda River, Altai Mountains (central Asia); fifth to fourth centuries BC. (After Silk Road Exposition, vol. 2: item 137.) (d) Women dancing with ultra-long sleeves, depicted on Han Dynasty stamped brick from Sichuan, first to second centuries AD. (Zhou and Gao 1988: fig. 71.) (e) Scene painted on large jar from Boeotia, c.700 BC, depicting girl with bird-like face, long wavy hair and fish on her apron (Wolters 1892: pl. 10). (f) Middle Bronze Age sealing from Zakro, East Crete, c.1625 BC, showing woman with human breasts and bird’s head, wearing flounced Minoan skirt and sleeve-like “wings” (Hogarth 1902: #20 Figure 8).

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other mobile Indo-European groups) buried their upper-class dead in lavish graves covered by giant earthen mounds that could be seen from afar. Such, for example, was the burial of the Greek hero Patroclus in Homer’s Iliad and, some 1,500 years later, of Beowulf at the end of the Germanic epic of Beowulf. This type of mound, visible all over eastern and western Europe even today, is known variously as a kurgan, tumulus, or barrow. The associated Scythian funerary rites were first described by Herodotus in the fifth century BC. In several kurgans of the fourth century BC, Ukrainian archaeologists have found the remains of women buried alone, laid to rest wearing high cylindrical or conical headdresses covered in gold, with wide gold bracelets on each wrist, and robes lavishly decorated in gold platelets, with a round bronze mirror and sometimes a shallow bowl set nearby (Figure 7.3a; Gold aus Kiew, 35 fig. 4; Trippett 1974: 22–3; Rolle 1989: 61, fig. 37). Since they were buried alone with great wealth, they were presumably not “just” wives or concubines or servants, but women important in their own right: princesses, perhaps, or priestesses, or even both at once (as was the custom, for example, in the ancient Near East). Some of the repoussé platelets and diadems tell us more about these women. Although most of the platelets carry geometric designs, a few show people, specifically women (Klochko 1992). They sit on great chairs, holding a round mirror in one hand and wearing an outfit quite similar to those just described: a high cylindrical or conical hat (with a veil falling down the back) and long robes (Figure 7.3b). The outermost robe, moreover, is merely thrown over the woman’s shoulders, with its long sleeves hanging all the way to the floor – sleeves far longer than the seated woman’s arms would be. The chairs depicted are of ordinary height: if you sit in a chair and hang your arms straight down, you’ll find that your fingertips are still a foot above the floor. Can we believe the representations? The hats and mirrors match the gravegoods made of metal, but the cloth has long since perished. Did extended sleeves exist so far back – over two millennia ago? In fact, an ultra-long-sleeved garment, a coat, has actually survived from the fifth or fourth century BC from farther east, in “the great kurgan” of a cemetery near the Katanda River in the Altai Mountains (Figure 7.3c, Zakharov 1926: 83–4 and pl. III). Although we have no early inscriptions in the area to indicate who owned the coat, we know from place names and loan words that Iranian-speaking nomadic herders had penetrated to the Altai and beyond by this time. The culture is viewed as closely related if not identical to that of the Scythians. The coat itself was stitched from small pieces of green-dyed fur ornamented with over ten thousand bits of goldcovered wood. Its sleeves are tremendously long, and so skinny that the wearer 120

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could not possibly have inserted his or her arms into them all the way. They must have hung down behind for show like a cape, wooden shoulder-pads and all, in the way that officers’ coatsleeves did in the hussars’ uniforms of several European countries in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.2 The purpose of this garment is clearly different from that of the one we are pursuing, being made of leather and having unusable sleeves; but its survival establishes the fact that ultra-long sleeves truly existed that far back. Furthermore, the two types of ultra-long sleeve – the men’s and the women’s – continue to have closely related histories for the next 2,500 years (see Knauer 1978). Geologists have a saying, “What did happen, can happen.” And so here too: if some of the nomadic kurgan builders in the Eurasian steppes did have ultra-long sleeves in the mid-first millennium BC, then others of them could have had such sleeves. In short, we should take the Scythian representations seriously. We can surmise in addition that the cylindrical bracelets found around the wristbones of the dead women in the rich Scythian kurgans may have served to keep ultra-long sleeves in place. The Kievan bracelets are rather wider and tighter than those found in the kurgans, because they are hinged to let the arm in without having to go over the hand. Clearly hinges were an advantage for the woman trying to wrestle a great sleeve into the circle of the bracelet along with her arm. The Scythian bracelets of the fifth to fourth centuries BC consist simply of a metal circle (see Figure 7.3a); but in late Hellenistic times, only a century or two later, long multi-tubed hinges and clasps on bracelets turn up abruptly in Anatolia and the Black Sea colonies. Two such bracelets in the Walters Art Gallery (Figure 7.4a) were collected near Olbia, one of the major Greek colonies on the Ukrainian shore of the Black Sea. They date apparently to the late second century BC (Reeder 1988: 234–5). Each bracelet has two hinges and a clasp, all formed by inserting a pin through a tube consisting of tiny rings set alternately on two neighboring sections of the bracelet, exactly as on the Kievan pieces. The decoration consists, however, not of molded or repoussé figures like the Slavic pieces, but of large oval gemstones set amidst geometric and leaf-shaped designs applied in gold granules and colored enamel. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has some similar examples.) The Hellenistic Greeks, for their part, seem to have learned the hinge-and-pin bracelet design in Egypt (recently conquered by Alexander the Great), where it is already attested among the golden bracelets of Tutankhamun in the fourteenth century BC.3 The nomads of the Ukrainian steppes had engaged in lively trade with the Greeks along the Black Sea since at least the sixth century BC, and could not have failed to see the new Hellenistic style. Surely women already wearing 121

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ultra-long sleeves would have quickly noted and adopted a breakthrough in the engineering of bracelets that made the metal “garters” so much easier to wrap around both arm and sleeve. The wide, non-hinged bracelets in the rich kurgans (Figure 7.3a) in fact are highly likely to have been precursors of the Kievan hinged type, for we can pinpoint the Greek acquisition of the more practical design to a time between these two groups of surviving bracelets on the western steppes. Specifically, the northward spread of the hinged design may well have occurred just before the Roman wars that finally curtailed Hellenistic Greek power late in the first century BC; the hinged form of bracelet must then have stayed alive in the heart of the continent, like embers beneath ashes, hidden from “civilized” Greco-Roman view until Kiev’s rapid rise to power centuries later. That the bracelets should have first reached Kiev with Christianity from Constantinople in the ninth or tenth century belies their thoroughly non-Christian use and motifs. So much for the bracelets; but before we follow our sleeves further afield, we need to investigate another possession of the gold-clad kurgan women: their mirrors. The casual modern observer tends to assume that mirrors were used for primping. But mirrors had and still have another, more important function in East Europe and elsewhere – divination. Anything that reflects will do for this purpose: a mirror, a pool of water, a crystal ball. To people unacquainted with the scientific principles of optics and biology, reflections and shadows and dream images often seem to be most efficiently explained as intangible “doubles” of people in the real world – spirits that can move about somehow, sometimes (as in dreams) quite independently of their “owners.” Thus my double can visit you in your dream, and vice versa, while we are sleeping miles apart. What is more, the image of a person long dead can come back and visit us in our dreams, acting very much alive (P. Barber 1988: 179–88). To this day at midwinter, girls in many parts of eastern and central Europe use mirrors and dishes of water to try to divine from the passing spirits specifically who they will marry, when they will marry, how many children

Figure 7.4. (a) One of pair of gold enameled bracelets with multi-tubed hinges and clasps from a tomb near Olbia (a Greek colony on the north shore of the Black Sea); Hellenistic, late second century BC. (The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.) (b) One of four painted sides of an Attic red-figure vase by Sotades, found on Aegina; shaped like knucklebone (astragal) to hold knucklebones for divination, and decorated with thirteen girls dancing or flying through the air on wings formed from their sleeve-like dress overfolds. Second quarter of the fifth century BC. (© The British Museum, #E804.)

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they will have, or whether they will die first – all questions of women’s fertility (Barber 1997). At midsummer and around Easter the girls play other games to the same purpose, also involving water, this time in pools, streams and wells. Midwinter, midsummer, and Easter-tide: these are the dates of the old Rusálii festivals. And who better to ask about fertility than the fertility deities themselves, the víly/rusálki? Although slightly veiled by Christianity, the rituals are clearly of non-Christian origin and closely connected in every way with the spirit maidens, their lore, and dress. All of this suggests that the mirrors shown in the repoussé scenes of women with ultra-long sleeves, found in the rich Scythian women’s tombs, are not for fleeting vanity but for divination of the most crucial things in the preindustrial woman’s life: marriage, fertility and childbearing. Perhaps even the shallow bowl, set out as carefully by the one shoulder of the gold-clad lady as the mirror is by the other, served for divination by water, just as it does among Slavic girls today. *** Having demonstrated that ultra-long sleeves existed in Iranian nomadic territory by at least the mid-first millennium BC, we can begin to untangle other pre-Kievan evidence for such sleeves, the most copious of which comes from China. Even today some of the non-Chinese peoples of western and southwestern China possess women’s outfits with ultra-long sleeves,4 while aristocratic ladies in the Chinese opera punctuate their remarks and dance about with a type of tremendously long silk over-sleeve known as a “water sleeve.” The heyday of such sleeves in China was the Tang Dynasty (618–906 AD), a period known for its lavish indulgence in the arts of music and dance. Numerous figurines of the time represent women with ultra-long sleeves dancing in the “pliant” or “soft” style, rather than in the “vigorous” style. (A slightly older statuette of a long-sleeved dancer with musicians, dated to about 480 AD, has turned up in a tomb at Xianbei in Mongolia: Kessler 1994: 84–6). Interestingly, the Tang era is precisely when the Silk Road linking China with Central Asia and the West was re-opened, flooding China with exotica, among which Central Asian music, dances, costumes and foodstuffs topped the list. Some of the most popular of the Tang court dances and accompanying music were copied by the performers of the Japanese court, where they have been preserved in some form to this day (Schafer 1963: 52–3). Perhaps the most famous exotic dance was that of Emperor Xuan Zong’s favorite courtesan, the ill-fated Yang Guifei. Set by the emperor to a Central Asian tune, the dance bore the title “Rainbow Chemise, Feathered Dress.”

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To perform it, Guifei wore a special robe crafted of dazzlingly beautiful golden feathers that had been sent to the emperor as tribute. It would be interesting to know whether she fluttered long sleeves, but we are not told. At any rate, the Tang Chinese also knew imported tales of birds who could doff their feathers to become beautiful but tricksome women; and authors remarked that some believed these bird women to be the spirits of girls who had died in childbirth (Schafer 1963: 52–5, 112–15). The stories appear to derive directly from lore well rooted in Europe (including the víly/rusálki, traceable there back to the Neolithic: Barber 1997) and north central Asia (bird girls captured by stealing their feather-robes: Hatto 1961). Ultra-long sleeves were not, however, new to China in the Tang era. Several representations of women dancing with long sleeves have survived from the later years of the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD; Figure 7.3d). Once again, this is a period of major Central Asian influence: the first such, since it was the Han Emperor Wudi who, in the late second century BC, finally defeated the nomadic horsemen to his west and first opened the trade route (now known as the Silk Road) running from China through the Tarim Basin and the oasis zone to Iran, Mesopotamia, and Syria. Ultra-long sleeves appear to have been one of the imports to China at that time, not only for dancing women but also for male dignitaries at court (Zhou and Gao 1988: 35, 45, 71), an affectation we see later farther west in the Persian court, when we begin to get representations there (principally thirteenth to fifteenth centuries AD: Gutkowska-Rychlewska 1968: 483–5). Earlier than the Han Dynasty, we see no extended sleeves in the Far East: clearly the Chinese got them from neighbors to the west, who persisted in wearing them into this century. The explorer Sven Hedin saw and sketched women dancing with white ultralong sleeves in the Tarim Basin around 1900 (Hedin 1925: 250–2), and we have already mapped the distribution of such sleeves in the relatively recent Slavic world. Returning now to the West, we can see that the Iranians, who we saw had this peculiar sleeve already in the mid-first millennium BC, must have played a major role in spreading it around Eurasia as they themselves migrated widely during that millennium. Elfriede Knauer, in her extensive and copiously illustrated study of early sleeved coats, mentions Xenophon’s observation (early in the fourth century BC) that Persian men wore a leather coat called a kandys, with ultra-long sleeves that were often sewn up at the end. “In the presence of the king,” she reports, “the noblemen had to slip on the sleeves for safety reasons. The cul-de-sac character of the sleeves and, at times, their great length were supposed to prevent any attempt on the king” (Knauer 1978: 23). (On the other hand, a seventeenth- century Western ambassador to Russia, Adam Olearius, complains of the Muscovites that “sometimes 125

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when walking, they allow the sleeves to hang free below the hand. Some slaves and rogues carry stones and bludgeons in them, which are difficult to detect. Frequently, especially at night, they attack and murder people with these weapons” (Baron 1967: 128). So much for the Persian king’s presumed safety.)5 But were the Iranians the first to have the ultra-long sleeve? Apparently not, for other and earlier evidence awaits us in the southern Balkans, particularly in Greece. From the island of Aegina comes an unusual Attic red-figure vase dated to the second quarter of the fifth century BC. It has a highly unusual shape, that of a knucklebone, and a unique decoration that has mystified Classical scholars. One side shows girls dancing toward a man who is perhaps directing them; but the other three sides show girls flying merrily through the air, their feet hanging down at an angle (Figure 7.4b, and see Neils 1992). Although they wear typical Attic tunics (the khitô´n or chiton), several of the girls have pulled the overfolds down past their hands to form shapely sleeve-wings while others hold the hem of the overfold up like a woman about to fill her apron. Young girls taking wing in the vicinity of other girls who dance appears remarkably like the Slavic girls’ Rusálii dances channeling the aid of the bird maidens, the víly/rusálki. Two more aspects of this vessel point in the same direction. The knuckleboneshaped vases were used to hold sets of real knucklebones (astragals), which were used for divination. Our víly/rusálki, as we have seen, were viewed as the purveyors of divinatory information and were consulted by means of mirrors and water. (This consultation continues today in a broad area from Poland and northern Russia south and west into Italy at least). In ancient times, pouches full of knucklebones were placed in graves found in a wide area reaching from the Ukrainian steppes through Greece to Sicily (Neils 1992: 233). Furthermore, the Greeks handed down a much older Cretan legend about a maiden named Diktynna, a devotee of the virgin goddess Britomartis. Pursued relentlessly by the unwanted attentions of Minos, in desperation she finally threw herself into the sea off the northwest coast of Crete. But, the story continues, some passing fishermen caught her in their nets and conveyed her across the gulf to the island of Aegina, where she became the patroness of fisherfolk, a deity of the fertility of the waters (Barber 1997: 36–8). A maiden who dies before marriage and becomes a fertility “goddess” of the waters she drowned in? The parallels to the rusálki legends are too great for chance. Nor does it seem to be an accident that the unusual Greek knucklebone vase depicting víla- or rusálka-like creatures should have been 126

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found precisely on Aegina, the site of her cult. The Classical Greeks, it seems, knew all about the bird maidens. Another Greek vase supports that conclusion as well as pushing the date back (Figure 7.3e). A large jar from Boeotia, dated to about 700 BC, depicts a girl with a remarkably bird-like face, long wavy hair, and a fish on her apron (Wolters 1892). A large bird perches on each outstretched arm; toothsome beasts, tongue out, approach the wavy sides of her bell-shaped skirt from either side. One might even wonder if the wavy outlines of her hair and skirt (with the fish in between) were intended to be “read” as water that the animals are coming to drink. A dismembered haunch and head, one on each side among the filler ornaments, suggest that she is the recipient of animal sacrifices and thus is some sort of deity. Birds, fish, and water: is she, too, a víla/rusálka, a mistress of life-giving waters who often appears disguised as a bird or a fish?6 In addition, her sleeves are so long that they cover her hands and droop down slightly beyond them. And this vase dates back to 700 BC, significantly before the Scythian “priestesses” on the steppes. The story of Diktynna, however, is patently Minoan, a fact suggesting that we should look around on the island of Crete a millennium still earlier. We are well rewarded in doing so, for among the sealings unearthed at the site of Zakro in eastern Crete are several depictions of women with human breasts and birds’ heads (Hogarth 1902). One in particular (Figure 7.3f) shows a figure with the typical attributes of a Minoan woman from the shoulders down: prominent breasts and a multiply flounced and split Minoan skirt, with her feet showing below. From the shoulders up, however, is another matter: her head is that of a bird and her arms have been transformed into feathered wings. Yet the wings are not angled the way a bird would hold them. They look more like human arms draped in floor-length sleeves designed to resemble wings – perhaps for a particularly elaborate sleeve dance? The seals were impressed before the eruption of Thera, a cataclysm that geologists now set at 1625 BC. I have demonstrated elsewhere that the lore of the bird maidens (called víly or rusálki by the Slavs, who still believe in them) goes back still further in time, originating apparently among the first farmers of Europe in the fifth and sixth millennia BC (Barber 1997). But I do not think that the ultra-long sleeve can be pushed a great deal further back than the Zakro sealings. Linguistic evidence indicates that the white linen tunic that carried with it the very idea of a sleeve reached Europe from the Near East, word and all, in the Early Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC), and probably towards the end of it (Barber 1994a: 132–7). Shortly after 2000 BC, Balkan figurines begin to show a variety of sleeves, whereas before that (certainly in the fourth 127

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millennium) the women are shown wearing at most an apron or simple skirt (Barber 1994b). We know that the notion of a sleeved garment had moved northwest to Denmark by 1370 BC (sleeved blouses of various designs were excavated at Egtved, Borum Eshøy, and Skrydstrup: Munksgaard 1974: figs. 41–3) and northeast to the Tarim Basin by 1000 BC (shirts, dresses, and overcoats with tube sleeves sewn to armholes were found with Caucasoid mummies at Cherchen: Barber 1999). Our very earliest evidence for the sleeve anywhere in the eastern hemisphere comes from purportedly First-Dynasty tunics from Egypt, c.3000 BC, now in the Petrie Museum in London (Landi and Hall 1979; Barber 1991: 146–8 and fig. 5.2), although quite so early a date for those pieces has been questioned. Clearly there could be no ultralong sleeves until there were sleeves. If, then, the sleeve itself began to take hold in earnest in Europe only around 2000 BC, the Zakro sealings of about 1650 BC suggest not only that the ultralong sleeve cannot be much older than that, but also that this curious variation on the sleeve became part of women’s ritual apparel almost immediately. Many people today perceive clothes as being first and foremost for warmth and protection from the elements, but once again, just as with the string skirt and the squared back-apron (Barber 1994b), our evidence suggests that prehistoric European clothing developed originally as a means of promoting women’s fertility through ritual and charms. Only later did other aspects of clothing, such as warmth or modesty, become important. Perhaps the use of garments as a new way to get the gods’ attention, or avoid the demons’ attention, constituted the only reason strong enough to induce the conservative early farming cultures to adopt such newfangled items.

Notes 1. For further ideas on the significance of the woman’s hair in fertility, see the addendum to “On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing” printed as Appendix 2.2 in this volume. 2. Studying the sleeved coat, Knauer (1978) traces the “pendant sleeve” (which hangs down behind unused) all over Eurasia from Scythian to modern times. Until quite late it was usually of leather, like the Katanda specimen: male attire associated particularly with horseriding warriors and herders. The woman’s extended-sleeve garment has a different development, spread, and set of associations, although the two histories cross repeatedly. 3. For example, the Treasures of Tutankhamun catalog (1972: entry 35) describes his scarab bracelet thus: “Both the hinge and the fastening are made of interlocking cylindrical teeth held together by long gold pins, the hinge-pin being fixed and the other movable.” 128

The Curious Tale of the Ultra-long Sleeve 4. A friend photographed a girl folkdancing with extended sleeves in a tourist show by “ethnic minorities” in Yunnan, SW China, but he could not learn her exact origin. She dances with the same sleeve positions shown on the Kievan bracelets. When I choreographed The Frog Princess in 1993, we found that such sleeves strictly limit the dance movement by their penchant to wrap around each other and “straightjacket” the dancer. 5. See Appendix 7.1 for further descriptions by Olearius. 6. Very similar images have been embroidered onto ritual cloths (rúshniki) and women’s sleeves throughout Russia and the Ukraine to this day. See Barber (1997) and Kelly (1989) for examples.

Appendix 7.1: Data on the Ultra-long Sleeve Distributional evidence (see map, Figure 7.2) from recent Slavic traditional (as opposed to factory-produced) dress is not so clear as I would like because of the paucity of village-to-village information (Soviet policies wiped out regional dress a long time ago) and because of the difficulties of obtaining East European publications. The best single costume book for Russia that I have located is Sosnina (1984). The Russians also published a postcard collection of drawings by Vinogradova (1969) that must have been made from the clothing collection in the State Historical Museum in St Petersburg from which much of Sosnina’s material comes. For extended sleeves, see also Coleman (1987), Zelenin (1927: 206 and pl. II fig. 250) and Rybakov (1968: 38 fig. 4). The provinces with the extended sleeve correspond rather closely to the South Great Russian and Central Russian dialects today, and to the territory occupied by an early Slavic tribe called the Vjatichi. I suspect it is significant that these sleeves survive in a broken circle around the zone in which the population was virtually wiped out by the Mongol invasion of 1240 – the core of Kievan Rus’ (see below). The northerly lands where the ultra-long sleeves survived were heavily forested in the thirteenth century – not easy terrain for hordes of mounted horsemen to penetrate and overrun. Kiev itself was in the more southerly zone of grasslands and “forest steppe” (part forest, part prairie), presenting no problem to the Mongols. Besides the patently ethnographic material, scattered evidence also exists from somewhat before ethnographic research began. While visiting Northern Russia and Moscow in the seventeenth century, Adam Olearius described the rich women’s sleeves thus: “The sleeve is not fully sewn above, so that they may thrust their hands through and allow the sleeves to hang . . . The sleeves of their blouses are six, eight, or ten ells long, and, if of light cotton, even longer, but narrow; when worn these are drawn into small folds” (Baron

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1967: 129). Coats with ultra-long pendent sleeves can also be discerned on background figures in several of his drawings. Yet earlier representations of women wearing extended sleeves exist from areas west of the Orient during the early part of our current millennium. Besides those on the bracelets (see Appendix 7.2) I am aware of the following (mostly collected and illustrated by Darkevich and Mongait 1967, figs. 8–9) and would be interested in knowing of others: l

l l l

l l

l

Siculo-Arabic oliphant (carved ivory drinking horn) showing woman with very full extended sleeves and long hair flanked by male dancers and musicians; tenth(?) century (Jasbereny Museum, Hungary; Falke 1930, 42 fig. 5 – another oliphant in fig. 7 depicts related víly and Simargls; Mavrodinov 1943, figs. 119; Grabar 1960, fig. 29–30; but the best illustration of this scene is Darkevich and Mongait 1967, fig. 8.3); Byzantine psalter showing a dancer with tubular extended sleeves entertaining King David; 1059 AD (Vatican Library); Iranian polychrome metal plate showing woman waving extended sleeves, flanked by two musicians (?); eleventh–twelfth centuries; Near Eastern carved ivory box panel showing woman dancing with ultralong sleeves; twelfth century (Florence, Museo Nazionale; Cott 1939, pl. 78b); figures of woman dancing with extended sleeves, as details on two different twelfth-thirteenth centuries Byzantine silver vessels; thirteenth-century Armenian gospel showing Salome dancing before Herod in fashionable thirteenth-century ultra-long-sleeved attire (Freer collection; Nersessian 1945: 128 and pl. 29.2); ivory pyxis showing musicians and an ultra-long-sleeved female dancer (among others) performing before a royal audience in the Hippodrome at Constantinople; fourteenth-century Byzantine (Dumbarton Oaks; Grabar 1960, figs. 5–6).

Appendix 7.2: The Kievan Bracelets Rybakov lists many of the known bracelets with ultra-long-sleeved dancers and related imagery in his 1968 article (R.1968) and gives photographs of many in his book of 1971 (R.1971). Two casting-molds for making such bracelets have also been found. The roster includes: (a) identical pair of gilded bracelets, source unknown, showing ultra-longsleeved dancer and onlookers (one a musician?), Simargls, birds, hare, 130

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(b)

(c)

(d)

(e) (f) (g) (h)

(i) (j) (k) (l) (m) (n) (o) (p) (q)

interlaces, vines, arches (State Historical Museum; R.1968: 48 fig. 10; R.1971: 112–13, figs. 159–60); bracelet from Kiev, with ultra-long-sleeved woman and man with sword and shield both dancing to accompaniment of gúsli player, under arches, with bird, Simargls, vines (Kiev State Historical Museum; R.1968: 50–1, fig. 12; R.1971: 106–8 figs. 149–53); non-identical pair of bracelets from Staryj Rjazan’: one with ultra-longsleeved dancer, gúsli player, beverage-drinker, Simargl, interlaces, vines, arches; the other with Simargls, vines (Rjazan’ Regional Museum; R.1971: 110–11, figs. 157–8; major publication: Darkevich and Mongait 1967); casting-mold showing ultra-long-sleeved dancer under arch, flanked by arches with beverage-drinkers; found in hoard of jewelry molds at Serensk, southwest of Smolensk in the province of Kaluga (Nikol’skaja 1981: 142 fig. 48.16); bracelet from Trubetskoj estate (Kiev), with Simargls, birds, interlaces, vines (R.1968: 38 fig. 3); bracelet from Rakovskij estate (Kiev), with bird-girls, interlaces, vines, arches (R.1968: 47 fig. 8); bracelet from Demidovo village, east of Odessa, showing person with spear and conical hat, birds, arches (R.1968: 51 fig. 13); bracelet from Tver’ hoard, showing male dancer, beverage drinkers, Simargls, tree of life, interlaces, vines, arches (State Russian Museum; R.1968: 51–2, fig. 14; R.1971: 102–4 figs. 145–8); bracelet from Mikhajlovski Monastery (Kiev) hoard of 1903, with Simargls, interlaces (State Historical Museum; R.1971: 16 fig. 14); bracelet from Kiev hoard of 1893, showing bird-creatures, interlaces, arches (State Russian Museum; R.1971: 40 fig. 43); bracelet from Pecherny hoard of 1896, with bird-girls, interlaces (State Historical Museum; R.1971: 17 fig. 15); bracelet from Pecherny hoard of 1896, with bird-creatures, interlaces (State Historical Museum; R.1971: 41 fig. 44); bracelet with birds, Simargls, arches, interlaces, vines (State Russian Museum; R.1971: 42 fig. 45); bracelet with two birds pecking vertical interlace (tree of life), lion, hare, interlaces, vines (State Russian Museum; R.1971: 108–9 figs. 154–6); hoard of bracelets, at least three of them hinged, from Lyubech castle (Rybakov 1965: photo on p. 89; subjects unclear). casting-mold with solar interlaces entangling Simargls and bird-men, from Kiev (R.1968: 48 fig. 9); two bracelets, one with swordsman, Simargl, víla in arch, interlace, vines; 131

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the other with sawtooth pattern in granules (Ukrainian National Museum; Gold aus Kiew 1993: 315–16). The bracelets occur in the territory of the ancient Poljane and Vjatichi tribes (see Note 1 above), suggesting that although these tribes used the ultra-long sleeve, the Dregovichi (who occupied today’s Belarus) and the Krivichi (living in today’s North Russia) did not. That in turn suggests that the phenomenon is not so much Slavic as areal, and specifically southern.

References Afanasiev, A. (1855–63), Narodnyje Russkije Skazki, reprint 1957, ed. V. Propp, Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Khudozhestvennoj Literatury. —— (1973), Russian Fairy Tales, abridged, trans. N. Guterman, New York: Pantheon. Barber, E. J. W. (1991), Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, with Special Reference to the Aegean, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. —— (1994a), Women’s Work – The First 20,000 Years, New York: Norton. —— (1994b), “On the Antiquity of East European Bridal Clothing,” Dress, vol. 21, pp. 17–29; reprinted in this volume. —— (1997), “On the Origins of the víly/rusálki,” in M. R. Dexter and E. C. Polomé‚ (eds), Varia on the Indo-European Past: Papers in Memory of Marija Gimbutas (Washington: Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph #19), pp. 6–47. —— (1999), The Mummies of Ürümchi, New York: Norton. Barber, P. T. (1988), Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Baron, S. (trans./ed.) (1967), The Travels of Olearius in Seventeenth-Century Russia, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bilibin, I. (1974), Tsarevna-Ljagushka: The Frog Princess, trans. B. Isaacs (Eng. edition of Russian original of 1899), Moscow: Goznak Central Board. Coleman, E. (1987), Pearls Among the Gold: Russian Women’s Festive Dress, Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum. Cott, P. (1939), Siculo-Arabic Ivories, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Darkevich, V. and Mongait, A. (1967), “Starorjazanskij klad 1966 goda,” Sovetskaja arkheologija, no. 2, pp. 211–23. Falke, O. (1930), “Elfenbeinhörner II,” Pantheon, vol. 5, pp. 39–44. Grabar, A. (1960), “Une Pixide en ivoire,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers vol. 14, pp. 123–46 and figs. 1–39. Gutkowska-Rychlewska, M. (1968), Historia Ubiorów, Wroc³aw: Zak³ad Narodnowy Imienia Ossoliñskich Wydawnictwo. Hatto, A. (1961), “The Swan Maiden: A Folk-Tale of North Eurasian Origin?,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 24, pp. 326–52. 132

The Curious Tale of the Ultra-long Sleeve Hedin, S. (1925), My Life as an Explorer, trans. A. Huebsch, New York: Boni and Liveright. Hogarth, D. (1902), “The Zakro Sealings,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 22, pp. 76–93. Katsarova-Kukudova, R. and Djenev, K. (1958), Bulgarian Folk Dances, Sofia: Science and Art State Publishing House. Kelly, M. (1989), Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe,Winona, MN: Northland Press. Kemp, P. (1935), Healing Ritual: Studies in the Technique and Tradition of the Southern Slavs, London: Faber and Faber. Kessler, A. (1994), Empires Beyond the Great Wall: The Heritage of Genghis Khan, Los Angeles, CA: Natural History Museum. Klochko, L. (1992), “Plechovyj odjag skif’janok,” Arkheologija, vol.3, pp. 95–106. Knauer, E. (1978), “Toward a History of the Sleeved Coat,” Expedition, vol. 21.1, pp. 18–36. Landi, S. and Hall, R. (1979), “The Discovery and Conservation of an Ancient Egyptian Linen Tunic,” Studies in Conservation, vol. 24, pp. 141–51. Marinov, D. (1914), Narodna vera i religiozni narodni obichai, Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Science. Mavrodinov, N. (1943), Le Trésor protobulgare de Nadyszentmiklós,Budapest: Hungarian Historical Museum. Munksgaard, E. (1974), Oldtidsdragter, Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet. Neils, J. (1992), “The Morgantina Phiormiskos,” American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 96, pp. 225–35. Nersessian, S. (1945), Armenia and the Byzantine Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nikol’skaja, T. (1981), Zemlja Vjatichej, Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ‘Nauka’. Propp, V. (1963), Russkie agrarnye prazdniki, Leningrad: Leningrad University. —— (1987), Les Fêtes agraires russes, trans. L. Gruel-Apert, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose. Reeder, E. (1988), Hellenistic Art in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, MD and Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rolle, R. (1989), The World of the Scythians, trans. F. G. Walls, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rybakov, B. (1965), Early Centuries of Russian History, trans. John Weir, Moscow: Progress Publishers. —— (1968), “The Rusálii and the god Simargl-Pereplut,” SovietAnthropology and Archaeology, vol. 6.4, pp. 34–59; translation of “Rusálii i bog Simargl-Pereplut,” Sovetskaja arkheologija 1967 no. 2, pp. 91–116. —— (1971), Russkoe prikladnoe iskusstvo, Leningrad: Aurora. —— (1989), Kievan Rus, trans. S. Sossinksy, Moscow: Progress Publishers. Schafer, E. (1963), The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of Tang Exotics, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sosnina, N. (1984), Russkij narodnyj kostjum, Leningrad: Khudozhnik.

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Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia Trippett, F. (1974), The First Horsemen, New York: Time-Life. Vinogradova, N. (1969), Russkij narodnyj kostjum, Moscow: Izobrazitel’noe iskysstvo. Williams, P. (1994), “Wreath and Cap to Veil and Apron: American Modification of a Slavic Ritual,” in Contact, Crossover, Continuity: Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, 1994, Los Angeles, CA: Textile Society of America. Wolters, P. (1892), “Boiotikai arkhaiotetes,” Ephemeris arkhaiologike, pp. 212–39 and pl. 10. Zakharov, A. (1926), “Materialy po arkheologii Sibiri: Raskopki Akad. V.V. Radlova v 1865 g.,” Trudy gossudarstvennogo istoricheskogo muzeja, vol. 1, pp. 71–106. Zelenin, D. (1927), Russische (ostslavische) Volkskunde, Berlin: de Gruyter. Zhou, X. and Gao, C. (1988), 5000 Years of Chinese Costumes, San Francisco, CA: China Books and Periodicals, Inc. Authorless Catalogs From the Lands of the Scythians (1975), New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gold aus Kiew: 170 Meisterwerk aus der Schatzkammer der Ukrain (1993), Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. The Silk Road Exposition, Vol. 2: The Oasis and Steppe Routes (1988), Nara, Japan: Nara National Museum. Treasures of Tutankhamun (1972), London: British Museum.

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8

Protection From Harm: The Shawl and Cap in Czech and Slovak Wedding, Birthing and Funerary Rites Patricia Williams

During the 720th anniversary celebration of their village’s founding, young Slovak people jumped over fires (A. Hrokova, 27 June 1995, Abalova). A man in another village jumped over fires during St John’s Eve festivals in the 1930s (J. Kapustik, 28 June 1995, Poniky). Village residents believed in both cases that fire-leaping gave the youth an opportunity to “show off.” The Roman poet Ovid, who lived from 43 BC to 17 AD, wrote about the Festival of the Parilia, in which shepherds leaped over and drove their flocks through sacrificial fires to propitiate the gods and ensure fertility. The ritual, Ovid said, predated the founding of Rome in 753 BC (1927: 243). Over much of pre-Christian Europe on Midsummer Eve young people passed through the smoke of bonfires as a fertility ritual. Christian churchmen, unable to eradicate the practice, explained that the fire symbolized the expulsion of devils and witches, and renamed the festival “St John’s Eve.” However, more than a name changed between the time of Ovid and early Christian Europe. The concept of spiritual protection changed. Ritual assurance that the life cycle would continue became the concept of protection from harm. The evolution of the bonfire ritual from the founding of Rome to the late twentieth century is a synthesis of preservation and innovation and illustrates the construct known as “tradition.” This essay focuses on two west Slavic groups, the Czechs (composed of Bohemians and Moravians) and the Slovaks, and examines selected garments that held a special place in each group’s culture. The large linen shawl or plachta and a matron’s cap or cepec served as social indicators and provided 135

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spiritual protection. I place the shawl and cap within the framework of Arnold van Gennep’s The Rites of Passage (1960 [1908]) and examine their surface decoration through the construct known as “tradition.” I suggest that in past belief the cap and shawl deterred evil spirits and brought fertility to the wearer, making the “magico-religious” connections as important as the visible social ones. The work of researchers from the first half of the twentieth century complements my fieldwork in 1992 and 1995.

The Rites of Passage and Magic Archaeological finds suggest that ritual acts accompanied burial since early times. The presence of ritual attracted the attention of scholars, and in 1908 Arnold van Gennep presented the first substantial interpretation of such acts. Van Gennep (1960 [1908]: 10) called these ceremonies rites of passage, and described them as the “magico-religious” aspects of crossing frontiers associated with life changes. According to van Gennep, the more technically simple the society, the more often the holy or sacred enters all phases of life. Humans are most vulnerable to supernatural forces in the course of the normal but critical events of birth, puberty, marriage and death. Thus, special rites enable them to pass safely from one position to another. Community recognition and support of an individual’s entry into a new role come through rites that restore the social order, which has been disturbed by change. Van Gennep’s extensive survey included preliterate and literate societies world-wide and demonstrated that three stages characterize all rites: separation, transition, and reincorporation. The person establishes a new identity through symbolic separation from a previous status, undergoes adjustment to a new status during a period of transition, and finally achieves reincorporation in society in a new position. Van Gennep declared this to constitute a universal pattern, although each category was not necessarily developed to the same degree by all societies or in every set of ceremonies. The goals accompanying social changes include protecting newlyweds and newborns from harm and dispatching the spirit of the deceased to the afterlife. The explicit reasons for conducting rites are often forgotten over time, but they may continue as a means of preserving “tradition.” European folk rites, although not specifically religious, usually conducted within a religious context, were often regarded by the participants as religious acts. Rites possessed special authority and in all probability represented remnants of pre-Christian beliefs. The community required both the restoration of social equilibrium and the sense of psychological comfort provided by the “magico-religious” aspects. People believed that such aspects helped them to secure a competitive 136

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edge, to explain failures and to alleviate personal anxiety. Most importantly, they served as a tool for confronting the uncontrollable forces of the natural world. In agrarian societies it was understood that everything on earth owed its existence to six inches of top soil and the right amount of rain. Thus, the protection of fertility was at the core of early religion. People wore protective amulets to combat supernatural forces and propitiated the gods with offerings. Adversity resulted from neglect of the gods or the envy of a rival. Hostile spirits caused direct harm to the individual, while indirect harm resulted from contact with the power of the gods, and was dangerous but not necessarily malevolent. The evil eye is an example of direct harm. A person with the power, called a fascinator, is able, either voluntarily or involuntarily, to cause misfortune by a mere look. Demons irritated by human luck and prosperity are the origin of the power. Taboo is an example of indirect harm and combines the sacred with the impure or unclean. Impurity in this sense is a sacred condition derived from contact with extraordinary forces. It is not connected to hygiene or morality. The Latin term sacer can be translated as both “holy” and “accursed,” but its essential meaning is “set apart.” In Hebrew, “holy” means “separated” or “cut off” and also “accursed” or “devoted to destruction.” Holiness is transmissible and actively dangerous, as in the biblical account of the Ark of the Covenant (2 Samuel 6: 6–7). We can relate tabooed objects to objects with an electrical charge: improper use is deadly. Thus a taboo is a warning prompted by respect and fear. Tabooed persons are holy because they have a connection to the power of the gods and must remain separated from normal contacts until purification rites rid them of the power. The Church held a moderate official stand toward “magic” until the early medieval period, when the practice of witchcraft seemed to be on the rise. In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII contributed to the craze when he appointed two clerics to write a report on witchcraft. He subsequently issued a papal bull declaring that demons were an indisputable reality: demons caused death to humans, animals, and crops; they inflicted inner and outer torment and affected fertility. Many churchmen regarded demons as mere superstition; but fear spread when the bull received wide distribution in the Christian world as the preface to the Malleus Maleficarum or Hammer of the Witches, the handbook of the Inquisition (de Waal Malefijt 1968: 286–9).

The Cap and the Shawl in Marriage Rites Two items are marked with special beliefs. The first item is the bridal cap. An ecclesiastical decree of 1279 AD prohibited European women over the 137

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age of eighteen from appearing in public with uncovered heads. Many ignored the decree until 1355 AD, when a more restrictive one, ordering all women veiled, prompted the creation of new forms of headcovering. During this period social differentiation by clothing developed in Bohemia, and by the fifteenth century the dress of the court and townspeople of the Czech lands diverged from that of the peasantry (Šronkov 1954). For example, the length of the skirt indicated social rank: excessive length represented high status, while short skirts meant manual labor. Rural dress evolved slowly and preserved elements of older styles. Peasant women, in contrast to the upper classes, wore large medieval-like veils into the nineteenth century in some parts of Europe; as veil size decreased the underlying cap became more prominent. In Slavic lands this cap was the most important identifier of the married woman. An unmarried Czech or Slovak girl wore a floral wreath for ceremonial and festive occasions; but the village matron always wore a cap called a cepec.1 The main part of the cap was constructed of white linen, lace or net and fitted close to the head, covering all or most of the hair. Some styles included a “horned” wooden support; others had a separate forehead band; most were worn under a kerchief. Gazdiková (1991) compiled an extensive regional listing of Slovak cap styles, and noted that the wedding ritual of “capping,” once practiced by most Slavs,2 shows the cap’s importance as a social indicator in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (1991: 113). The capping ceremony followed a similar pattern in most villages. Bridesmaids sang melancholy songs, mourning the loss of girlhood, while an older married woman removed the bridal wreath and placed a matron’s cap on the bride’s head. The village matrons then accepted her into the ranks of married women with songs of welcome.3 Marriage rituals were used to secure the fertility of the union since early times. However, it was not until the Council of Trent in AD 1563 required it that an ecclesiastical act was necessary for the validation of a Christian marriage. In addition to church sanction, custom still dictated the performance of ritual acts such as “capping.” Slavic wedding festivities might last a week, but the groom could not exercise “his marriage privileges” until after the “capping,” which usually occurred at the end of the celebration. This made the “capping” ritual more important than the church ceremony. The cap thus identified the married woman and carried the promise of new life, assuring the ongoing existence of the group. Capping ultimately became so strongly associated with the loss of virginity that nineteenth-century village matrons forcibly capped unwed mothers in Moravian Slovakia (Bogatyrev 1971: 72). The culturally ingrained relationship between wearing a cap and modesty made the appearance of a married woman in public without a cap 138

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equivalent to appearing naked. In parts of Moravia not even a husband could see his wife without a cap. Here, it was believed that failure to wear it brought individual and community misfortune (Bogatyrev 1971: 52). A woman’s diligence in wearing her cap could determine prosperity, as is evidenced by the boast of a wealthy woman, “The beams of my house have never seen my hair” (Vlahos 1979: 134). The tenacity of custom is evident in parts of Slovakia today, where elderly village women still wear a cap. The capping ceremony as a social rite of separation is performed at “traditional” weddings today, and exists as a wedding rite in America among the descendants of nineteenth-century immigrants (Williams: 1995, 1996). But the cap served as more than a social indicator; it had “magical” connections as well. If we consider the “magical” aspects of the cap without reference to the social ones, it becomes clear that its primary function was once related to fertility rather than to marriage. The cap protected the woman from evil forces that threatened her fertility and that of the community. The issue of forced capping seems on the surface to be an issue of morality, a “scarlet letter” of sorts, and indeed it became one in more recent times. But in a culture with close connections to nature, the cap marked and protected the fertile woman, married or not. Old caps display an abundance of embroidered protective and fertility symbols concentrated primarily on the back and edges of the cap, including eight-pointed stars, “dice,” “crayfish,” and “teeth.” The second item of bridal dress that Czechs and Slovaks imbued with certain powers is the shawl. The ceremonial shawl, called a nevestinká plachta or bridal cloth, was an essential wedding garment for a village bride (Figure 8.1) and her bridesmaids well into the twentieth century. Preserved shawls from the 1700s to the present century have a consistent form: two narrow lengths of linen are seamed together with embroidery or lace along the join and on the ends. A plachta measuring approximately 80 × 100 centimeters was folded lengthwise in three narrow sections. The center embroidered area ran horizontally around the outside of the body. Embroidery on the oldest shawls is red; on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century examples it is polychrome and more densely decorated. Shawls contain a variety of motifs, such as “teeth,” “ram’s horns” and the tree-of-life, all identified as protective and fertility symbols (Václavik, 40). Before the church ceremony the plachta was crossed lightly over the chest, a possible reference to girding with a belt or wrap, and seen in Slavic folklore as a force for strengthening human power.4 The bride’s “mantle” covered the groom in a Bohemian custom of the late nineteenth century. According to Hutchinson (1974 [1897]: 236) “the groomsman places the bride’s mantle on the bridegroom’s back . . . this curious little custom is evidently of ancient 139

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IMAGE NOT A VAILABLE AV

Figure 8.1. Bride from Stráni, Moravia, wearing ceremonial shawl with sprigs of fresh rosemary tucked into the folds (illustrated after Václavik).

origin, for the act is performed for superstitious motives: it is to prevent a ‘marriage-devil’ from creeping in and dividing [the couple].” Hutchinson’s use of the word “mantle” may be a generic reference to a type of plachta. In southwestern Slovakia the wedding ceremony contained an extra ritual that is still remembered by elderly village women. The chief bridesmaid received the bride’s shawl from the best man before the ceremony and carried it to the church, where the godmother wrapped the bride in the plachta from head to foot. It could also be merely thrown over her. A priest led the covered girl around the altar three times and sprinkled her with holy water. After 140

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this cleansing ceremony, called a “marriage churching,” the shawl was pulled down to her shoulders. Village women in the 1920s and 1930s told Antonin Václavik, a Czech ethnographer, that the marriage churching represented the bride’s entry into the order of women. He interpreted this as a reference to the adult state (Václavik 41). Wrapping the bride may also be a regional survival of forms of concealment used for protection from the “evil eye,” a well-documented belief among the Slavs.5 Villagers also told Václavik that bridesmaids wear the plachta to secure a future marriage. He felt the shawl was of “magical” origin, but dismissed the act as part of “innumerable irrational marriage practices for ensuring . . . fertility” (Václavik 40–1). This practice as well as the marriage churching present the possibility that the shawl was once an important item in now forgotten initiation rituals, where it signaled availability and protected the fertile young female as she entered “the order of women.” It is tempting to call this a puberty rite, but, as van Gennep points out, physiological and social puberty are essentially different and only rarely converge (1960: 65–6). Further, he feels that covering with a veil and purification may be rites of separation from previous surroundings (20, 130) or they may be related to “magic,” as in an incident of covering which took place at a 1948 Slovak wedding: attendants held a feather tree and a plachta over the bride and groom “to keep off the evil eye” (Z. Zilkova, 30 June 1995, Jakubany). In that same year, when Czechoslovakia became a Stalinist satellite, folk and religious belief were suppressed. Authorities regarded both as “outworn ways of life” (Svagera, 1985: Foreword). Government policies supported the preservation of customs to satisfy the human need for ceremony and ritual, but separated them from belief systems (Williams, 1996: 39–41). Wedding celebrations incorporated old customs, which were explained as symbolic: for example, covering the bride and groom might be interpreted as symbolizing unity.

The Shawl and Cap in Birth Rites In many societies women face physical segregation and confinement following childbirth. People believe sexual fluids, especially those of the female, cause impurity (Frazer [1922] 1947: 208). Thus, the three- to six-week fluid emission following childbirth presents great danger. The traditional Czech and Slovak response to this life crisis was isolation in a draped corner bed for forty days after delivery. At childbirth, the bridal shawl became a pulling cloth and then was used as a screening device or koutne plachta (corner cloth) for the new mother’s 141

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bed. A plachta could be draped in several ways (Václavik, 40). In Slovakia and southeast Moravia, it usually hung suspended from the ceiling with the embroidery horizontally placed, enclosing the two open sides of the bed. In the Tatras Mountains, the plachta formed a tent-like covering over the bed. Higher ceilings in the homes of prosperous Czech families permitted them to hang a set of two or three cloths with the embroidery in a vertical position. Many nineteenth- and twentieth-century examples have a center lace insertion, which allowed the mother to see out. Special lace with alternating areas of red and white was used on the edges of corner cloths extant from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. This lace appears exclusively on folk textiles from Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, and may be a remnant of an old village belief, since there is no evidence for its use on any items for the nobility or middle class (Stankov 1985). In folklore, alternating the color on borders is a method for confusing the evil eye. Other symbols embroidered on the plachta represented teeth and sharp objects. As an adjunct to the embroidered symbols on the plachta, the corner bed contained an axe that kept vampires and spirits at bay. Large needles that pierced through the fabric and iron objects placed in the bedding served as protection from evil (S. Paulinyova, 2 July 1995, Martin). To further increase protection it was also necessary to wear a matron’s cap during childbirth confinement (Václavik, 29). The mother’s embroidered chemise or shift, called a rubac, hung over the top of the cloth for additional protection. In Moravian Slovakia an old belief ascribed curative power to the chemise. Rubbing people and cattle with the hemline broke the spell of the evil eye (Bogatyrev 1971:52). Thus, the presence of the chemise on the curtain provided auxiliary protection to the mother. Greek fertility beliefs connected to the chemise reinforce the concept of its “magical” function (Welters 1992; also Welters this volume, Chapter 5). A report from Rhodes in 1853 further supports belief in its power: in an exorcism on the corpse of a woman believed to be a vrykolakas or vampire, the priest used a chemise to dispatch the evil spirit (Newton 1865: 212). The separation period in childbirth rites forms a transition to the new state of motherhood and varies in duration from place to place. As with marriage rites, separation rites intermingle with rites of protection. The Slavic people and most other Europeans performed rites aimed at protecting mother and child from malevolent powers, the evil eye and disease. Van Gennep (1960: 45–50) notes that, in general, intermediaries play a role in passage ceremonies. They neutralize an impurity, attract evil to themselves and serve as bridges to facilitate social change. In this case the intermediaries were village matrons, who brought special food to the confined mother. Receiving gifts, a rite of incorporation, began the process of the mother’s return to society. 142

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Corner isolation ended in Bohemia and most of Moravia in the nineteenth century. Although the duration of the ritual time decreased, the practice persisted in Slovakia and southeast Moravia into the twentieth century, where it gradually disappeared after the Second World War, with a few occurrences even in the 1990s. An informant in Slovakia stated that, after home births ceased, and as recently as 1982, some village women continued to use their plachty, bringing them to the hospital (S. Paulinyova, 2 July 1995, Martin). Villagers today explain Czech and Slovak corner isolation as a hygiene-related practice (the curtain protected from disease), as a privacy issue (it concealed nursing) or as the persistence of superstition. On the third day after its birth, the child, swaddled in red-edged and embroidered bands and wrapped in its mother’s wedding plachta, was carried to the church for baptism, a rite of incorporation into society. The godmother functioned as the mother’s proxy when the forty-day separation rite was still customary. A purification ceremony, called the churching of women, took place at the end of the separation period or at the time of baptism. Historically, Christian churching ceremonies for women originated from the Mosaic regulation for purification of the physical state of the body (Leviticus 12, 1–8). Over time, the concept changed from one of sacredness to one of hygiene: women were “unclean,” polluted by sexual fluids, and in need of purification. Theodore of Tarsus, the seventh Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690 AD, required a forty-day purgation after childbirth before allowing a woman to enter a church (Douglas 1966: 60–1). The Christian church subsequently attempted to change the law from a physical to a spiritual interpretation, but met strong resistance. Thus, belief in pollution by bodily fluids continued. The rite of purification ultimately became an official act of simple thanksgiving or “churching” during the reign of Pope Paul V (1605–21). Van Gennep distinguishes, as he does with puberty, between a physiological and a social return from childbirth, which are not necessarily simultaneous. In Christian culture, the churching of women was the social return (1960: 46). The mother walked to the church wrapped with her child in the embroidered shawl, which was called an úvodnice plachta when used for this rite. The Czech word úvodnice derives from úvod, an entryway or introduction,6 thus the ceremony was an entrance or introduction to a new role in society. A group of matrons, clad in caps and shawls, who had children and were still of childbearing age, accompanied the new mother as intermediaries. The escort group not only kept the new mother and child safe from evil, but acted as a barrier between her and the rest of the community. After entering the church, the mother gave thanks for the delivery of her child and was purified with holy water. After the churching some households enacted a 143

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fertility ritual: the midwife or godmother cut down the corner plachta and threw it over the father or another married man “so that it should soon catch again” (Václavik, 40). Although the churching ceremony was still present in the English Book of Common Prayer and in Lutheran hymnals of the twentieth century, its use gradually disappeared. It remained, however, an active Roman Catholic ritual until the second Vatican Council brought about changes in worship in 1962– 4. Although Czechoslovakia was a predominantly Catholic country, churching ceased prior to the Second Vatican Council when government policies suppressed religious expression. The procession of women accompanying a new mother was, however, staged as an “old custom” during folk festivals.

The Final Rite Many cultures believe evil spirits wishing to inhabit the body of the deceased lurk around funerals. As animated corpses or vampires they bring harm to the living. The conception of the vampire is found particularly in Greece, the Balkans and the Slavic areas of Europe, with written reports beginning in the seventeenth century (Summers 1995 [1928]: 21–2). Churchmen contributed to the credibility of such tales by declaring a diabolical origin for vampires. They advised that a priest be summoned to perform invocations where there was suspicion of vampire activity. A connection to these beliefs may be responsible for the custom of burying women with a protective plachta and cepec. That the plachta was also traditional garb for women mourners (Hasalová 1974: 15) suggests a belief in protection for the living as well as the dead. Practices varied, and in some locations every woman was buried with a plachta, but one of lesser quality. If a young woman died within a year of her marriage, she was buried with her wedding shawl (Václavik: 41). In the representation of mourning rituals at the Starè Lebovna Museum in Slovakia, the plachta is placed over the figure of the deceased like a blanket. During the first half of the twentieth century, as industrialism challenged the strength of rural culture, many village women no longer felt pressured to wear a cap. Others, with deep-seated feelings of modesty, continued old customs and were buried in a cepec because they wished, even in death, to be appropriately dressed in front of their relatives and husbands (Bogatyrev 1971: 37f.). Wearing the plachta, although not connected to social imperatives, was a custom that still carried an undefined mystique. In 1995, Marta Rybarová, who no longer wore a cepec, displayed her carefully preserved wedding plachta from the 1940s. She was saving it for her funeral (Figure 8.2). 144

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Figure 8.2. Marta Rybarová modeling the bridal shawl she wore for her wedding in the 1940s. Detva, Slovakia; 1995 (photo by author).

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Mourning is a rite of separation in the transition period between life and death. It is a rite for the survivors colored by a variety of religious beliefs and social customs. The mourning practice of burning the deceased’s clothes is still common in some Slovak villages; and there are instances of elderly women giving away or selling their clothing, since what remains after death will be burned by the family (M. Pavelcikova, 30 June 1995, Staré Lebovna).

Embroidery and Symbolism In past centuries, the purpose of non-Christian symbols was concealed because of the penalties for witchcraft. When official policy during the Socialist regime declared both Christian and folk belief to be superstition, governmentpreserved “traditional” forms were emptied of meaning. In the light of this, Antonin Václavik provides what are probably some of the last links to old meanings in Czech and Slovak embroidery, because his research was conducted prior to the Second World War. The earliest extant examples of Slavic ritual cloths have red embroidery, which represents good fortune and is a repellent of the evil eye. The idea of the color was so powerful that it did not matter if the dyes failed to achieve a deep tone. What did matter was the concept of “red” as a symbol (Václavik 34). Some observers suggest that red predominated for practical reasons: it was an easily obtained color. In reality, producing red was more technically difficult than producing blue, since it required mordants (metallic oxides) in order to fix the dye. Before the discovery of aniline or synthetic dyes in the mid-nineteenth century, some natural red dyes accounted for as much as 60 per cent of the cost of the textile (Schneider 1987: 427). The widespread use of red in folk textiles, despite higher costs and difficulty in execution, indicates its importance. Throughout history, blood was a treatment or cure for bewitchings and ailments. According to the principles of imitative magic, the color red assumed the properties of blood. Czechs and Slovaks associated certain plants with “magic” power (Stanková 1987: 15). They were tied with ribbon and routinely displayed in homes year-round for health and protection; indeed, branches of fir, birch trees and sprigs of rosemary were and still are part of important ceremonies and rituals. For example, in 1995 I saw a row of cut birch trees placed in the sanctuary of a church in Moravia for the Pentecost or Whitsun season, a season that preserves many practices tied to ancient tree worship and fertility rites (Frazer 1947 [1922]: 120–35). In addition to trees, strong-smelling plants like garlic, chives and rosemary played an important role in the lives of the people; they were an antidote to the power of evil (S. Paulinyova, 2 July 1995, Martin). 146

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Rosemary’s dual properties made it especially valuable: the aromatic quality acted as a prophylactic against spirits, while its evergreen nature assured a continuation of the life cycle. Thus, the color green perhaps assumed the properties of live greenery when small amounts of green embroidery or green ribbons decorated shawls and corner cloths (Václavik, 34). Václavik feels that sometime during the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries simple embroidery, incorporating symbols first developed in materials other than textiles, replaced the use of three-dimensional fetishes and amulets worn on the body and attached to clothing. He uses this date because by the seventeenth century folk embroidery had reached a higher technical standard (Václavik 19, 23). Pattern books illustrating fashionable Renaissance motifs, published at the end of the sixteenth century, served as a design source in the manor workshops of the gentry in the Czech lands and in Slovakia. Skilled village women, bound by corvée, or forced service, learned the art of embroidery when they were called to the manor house to embroider the trousseaux of the nobility. Sumptuary laws forbade the use of decorative work on garments of the lower classes; but embroidery reached the village through the church. The oldest dated advanced forms of embroidery in the Czech lands that originated outside elite circles are found on the seventeenthand eighteenth-century antependium cloths made for village churches. Perhaps creating such altar cloths inspired women to embroider textiles for their own ceremonies with signs considered beneficial to the Slavic people (Hasalová 1974: 9). I examined the 167 photographs of Czech and Slovak embroidery dated 1700–1850 in Václavik’s book. Regardless of the names attached to motifs by either investigators or creators, 144 designs appear to derive from the foliated tree of life and also incorporate the sown field motif associated with fertility and protection. Only 16 of the 167 have no motif with a clear connection to fertility or protection. In some cases, I discovered the similarities only after tracing a complicated motif. Simple line drawings eliminated superficial differences and revealed positive/negative shape relationships. The time period I examined represents the so-called “classic age in folk culture,” which occurred before industrialization affected the crafts of the people. Later examples, however, also showed the dominance of the same motifs. Karel Šourek, a Czech artist and theoretician of the 1930s and 1940s, investigated the symbolism of Slavic art, and notes that plants and animals associated with fertility are represented in embroidery on the dress of the peasant classes (Šourek 19). Carl Schuster (1937) points out the similarity of eastern European peasant and southeast Asian aboriginal embroidery motifs. He theorizes that they both had a zoomorphic origin that was long obscured and represents a very old and widespread tradition. B. A. Rybakov 147

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(1968) identifies a common Slavic design with the Middle Eastern tree of life, and contends that this ornamentation has always been associated with protection from evil and the idea of fertility (Figure 8.3 a, b). Animals associated with fertility, often stags or roosters, may face a tree, a schematized woman or a floral motif, or may alternate with it in a linear design. In some cases, the tree and the animals are hidden in the pattern or are highly abstracted. Fertility in its generalized form, Rybakov states, is a plant-woman (Figure 8.3 c, d). In his (1981) essay on the distribution of the “birth symbol” on traditional textiles, Max Allen theorizes that the symbol is an ancient abstraction of a woman giving birth and represents fertility (Figure 8.3 e–g). The symbol ranges from eastern Europe to the Philippine Islands, following the track of known migrations and cultural diffusion. It is still used on ceremonial textiles in many cultures and has a clear connection to fertility and protection. Schuster, Rybakov and Allen all describe symbols that are similar to those found on Czech and Slovak village dress. A symbol called ram’s horns is similar in form and it is difficult to know if it is actually distinct from those just mentioned, since all are associated with the concept of protection and fertility (see Kelly this volume, Chapter 9).

Figure 8.3. (a) Iranian medieval “tree of life” (after Rybakov 1968). (b) Twelfth-century Russian pendant, “tree of life” (after Rybakov 1968). (c) “Plant-woman”/”tree of life” with stags; detail of corner cloth embroidery; Podluzi, Moravia, c.1780 (after Václavik). (d) “Plant-woman” in birthing position; detail of matron’s cap embroidery; Nova Paka, Moravia, early nineteenth century (after Václavik). (e) Chain of “birthing figures” and “sown field” motifs; Celebes, Indonesia, twentieth century (after Allen 1981). (f) “Birthing figure” and “sown field” motif; Burma-Thailand; Meo people, twentieth century (after Allen 1981). (g) “Birthing figure” and “sown field” motif; Samarkand Region; Uzbek people, twentieth century (after Allen 1981). (h) “Shoots and sprouts” motif; Russian bracelet, twelfth century (after Rybakov 1968). (I) “Crayfish” motif; detail of matron’s cap embroidery; Vlcnov, Moravia, c.1700 (after Václavik). (j) “Birthing figure” in toad form; Kolešovice, Bohemia; c.5500 BC (after Gimbutas 1982). (k) “Clocks” motif (alternates with “tree of life” which incorporates “sown field”) embroidered border; Vlcnov, Moravia, c.1890 (after Václavik). (l) “Wedding cakes” motif (chain of “birthing” figures and “sown fields”). Detail of ceremonial shawl embroidery; Popovice, Moravia, c.1820 (after Václavik). (m) “Dice” motif; author’s illustration. (n) “Dice” seen as “sown fields”; author’s illustration. (o) “Sown field” modified into “eight-point star;” author’s illustration.

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Floral versions of the tree of life motif are prominent on Czech and Slovak textiles. These naturalized forms evolved as floral elements blended with a simple female form. The trunk or stem is a schematized human figure whose head and hands become large flowers. A base replaces the lower body, and in some examples splayed legs become branches or vines. Rybakov (1968) identifies a vining design with fertility when he analyzes Russian symbols on twelfth-century AD bracelets. However, he calls it “roots and sprouts,” associating it with vegetation rather than with human fertility in the image of a woman (Figure 8.3 h). The tree of life motif has a geographical range that extends from the Near East to India, and was thus a frequent pattern in textiles exported to Europe from Asia. Although trade with the east and pattern books from the manor house influenced village products, it is difficult to believe that a single image, the tree of life, would be so frequently used on textiles as a mere decoration. Václavik explains that although village artisans introduced new designs into their work, they chose those adaptable to older, already known forms (Václavik 28). Václavik discusses the necessity of the matron’s cap for marriage rituals and in childbirth confinement and speculates on the meaning of the embroidery. He states that the patterns on women’s caps are obviously not indigenous, and must have arrived through trade, because they resemble eastern patterns of “goddesses with birds and stags.” Václavik reasons that people used this “foreign” motif even if they could not understand its meaning, merely because they “liked zoomorphic designs.” However, he observes that they respected this “foreign” composition in the same way as they respected liturgical symbols, and that, furthermore, it seemed to represent a taboo to them, although this, he states, is impossible, because the “foreign” motif lacks any content that he is able to associate with folk belief. Václavik then contradicts his own statement by saying that a village embroiderer would not arbitrarily choose a pattern for ceremonial items, because the rules for ceremonies include set patterns limited by “tradition” (Václavik 31). Since people respected the symbols as they respected liturgical ones, it is tempting to speculate that the symbols are not “foreign,” but survivals of earlier beliefs. Václavik concludes that “crayfish” motifs on the caps and shoulders of brides averted evil and were considered protective (Václavik 19, 47). The figures that Václavik refers to as “crayfish” are transmuted birthing female figures with splayed legs (Figure 8.3 i). This form has a long history in the region. A birth-giving figure engraved on the base of a dish from the Linear Pottery culture was excavated at Kolešovice in the district of Rakovnik, Bohemia; it is dated to the sixth millennium BC (Figure 8.3 j). Gimbutas (1982: 177) associates this form with the toad; and, of significance, toad 150

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figures are still used as votive offerings in central and eastern Europe as a protection against barrenness and to ensure a safe pregnancy. (In translation the word “crayfish” may have been used where “toad” was intended by Václavik.) Although he was unable to determine why “clock” motifs and “mermaids” were worn by brides, Václavik thought that “clocks” seemed to be a pair of confronting birds. Indeed, the “clocks” are the central motif in what appears to be a geometric tree of life with confronting animals (Figure 8.3 k). The symbol called “mermaid” was not illustrated, but the rusalka, a spirit figure, is sometimes portrayed as a mermaid. In Czech folklore a rusalka was the spirit of a maiden whose untimely death enabled her to bestow her unused fertility on others – a fitting bridal symbol (see Barber, Chapter 7). Another popular embroidery motif is the poppy. Archaeological excavations of Slav settlements from the fourth century AD indicate that early settlers cultivated poppies for poppy seed – still popular today in Czech breads and baked goods. Poppy heads are frequently embroidered on shawls and corner cloths; their many seeds may suggest fertility. The “wedding cake” symbol had to be explained to Václavik by old women, because the iconography was unclear to him. They explained that its diagonal crossings represented the cheese topping on ceremonial poppy-seed pastry (Václavik 47). Similar cakes with grid-like designs on top are known in other areas of continental Europe and England, where they are called simnel cakes, traditionally served during holiday seasons. The form and ornamentation is nearly uniform wherever they are found. Some early simnels were marked with Christian symbols, indicating a religious significance and a possible derivation from the pre-Christian custom of eating consecrated cakes at religious festivals (Book of Days: 336 v. 1). The pattern of diagonal crossings on the wedding cake symbol and simnel cakes is known to archaeologists as the sown field motif (Figure 8.3 l). It is found on the abdomen of goddess figures from the eastern European Cucuteni culture of 4500 BC (see Barber, this volume, Figure 2.3 A) and is believed to indicate fertility: A lozenge with a dot or dash in its centre or in the corners must have been the symbolic invocation to secure fertility . . . early Cucuteni figurines from the western Ukraine . . . were impressed with real grain [particularly the abdomen and buttocks] . . . this ideogram, already present on seventh millennium stamp-seals from Çatal Hüyük (Anatolia) is encountered throughout old Europe (Gimbutas 1982: 205).

Another connection to the “sown field” motif was a symbol that Václavik called dice. This design puzzled Václavik because he believed it represented

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grapes, yet the “grapes” were square. He subsequently found an example of square “grapes” embroidered next to round ones, and concluded the square ones were dice used in fortune-telling games (Václavik 22). But if the motif is traced with the positive and negative areas reversed, the result is a sown field symbol. Likewise, the sown field is easily transformed into the good luck symbol, the eight-point star, by joining the ends (Figure 8.3 m–o). Václavik used motif names given to him by villagers at the time of his research. He noted that they made “mistakes” by associating the design with familiar items. He also suggested that people who interpreted symbols had forgotten their original meanings. I hypothesize, instead, that informants may have concealed meanings that portrayed them as “superstitious” or “primitive” to outsiders. Most villagers today do not attempt to interpret the motifs; rather they simply call them “traditional” or “good luck” symbols

Summary The plachta and cepec, special garments associated with Czech and Slovak female rites of passage, played a major role in village culture until at least the middle of the twentieth century. Close examination discloses the importance of their “magico-religious” connections. Through van Gennep’s paradigm it is suggested that these garments provided spiritual protection from the forces of evil and safeguarded fertility during life-crisis situations. The protective power came not from the textile itself but from its embroidered symbols. The veneration of such symbols is perhaps a retention of preChristian religious beliefs. When the medieval church officially linked the powers of the devil with spirits, witches and later, vampires, people relied on remnants of old belief and ritual, incorporated into Christian rites, to protect them. A society whose world-view centered on the concept of fertility and the unpredictable forces of nature needed protective devices. Motifs derived from fertility-giving sources passed from generation to generation and resulted in changes in form and meaning. Although speculation on motif origins is possible, most Czechs and Slovaks today regard the shawl and cap and their embroidered symbols only as expressions of heritage and tradition.

Notes 1. I use the Czech spelling cepec. In Slovak it is cepiec. 2. H. N. Hutchinson in Marriage Customs in Many Lands (1974 [1897]: 214– 21) relates an account of a Slavic wedding among the “nobles of the country of

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Shawl and Cap in Czech and Slovak Rites of Passage Poland” that took place in the late eighteenth century. It included the “capping” ceremony. 3. Further evidence of the ritual’s importance can be seen today at Krivoklat in Bohemia (Czech Republic), where there is an eighteenth-century “capping chair.” It was kept for brides of the estate. 4. A ritual towel or rushynk filled with protective symbols was used to gird the bride in eastern Slavic folk weddings, particularly in the Ukraine. V. S. Zelenchyek in Moldavian National Costume (1984: 98) relates that the Slavic custom of girding was believed, in the past, to impart miraculous power to the wearer. 5. C. Maloney in The Evil Eye (1976: xii–xiii) states that such beliefs occur in some form over most of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India. 6. In Norway a “churched” woman was indgangskoner, which means “woman re-entering.” The ceremony was similar in form to the Czech and Slovak ritual.

References Allen, M. (1981), The Birth Symbol in Traditional Women’s Art From Eurasia and the Western Pacific, Toronto: Museum for Textiles. Bogatyrev, P. (1971), The Functions of Folk Costume in Moravian Slovakia, The Hague: Mouton. Book of Days – A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities (n.d.), London: W. & R. Chambers. de Waal Malefijt, A. (1968), Religion and Culture, New York: Macmillan. Douglas, M. (1966), Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Pollution and Taboo, New York: Praeger. Frazer, J. (1947 [1922]), The Golden Bough (reprint), New York: Macmillan. Gazdíková, A. (1991), Zenské Cepce v L’udovom Odeve (Women’s Caps in Folk Dress), Martin: Slovenské Národné Múzeum. Gimbutas, M. (1982), The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hasalová, V. (1974), Folk Art of Czechoslovakia, New York: Arco. Hutchinson, H. (1974 [1897]), Marriage Customs in Many Lands (reprint), Detroit: Gale Research. Maloney, C. (1976), The Evil Eye, New York: Columbia University Press. Newton, C. (1865), Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, London: Day and Son Ltd. Ovid (1927), Fasti, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rybakov, B. (1968), “The Rusalii and the God Simargl-Pereplut,” Soviet Anthropology and Archaeology, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 34–59. Schneider, J. (1987), “The Anthropology of Cloth,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 16, pp. 409–48. Schuster, C. (1937), “A Comparison of Aboriginal Textile Designs from Southwestern China with Peasant Designs from Eastern Europe,” Man, Vol. XXXVII, pp. 104–6.

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Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia Šourek, K. (n.d.), Folk Art in Pictures, London: Spring. Šronková, O. (1954), Gothic Women’s Fashion, Prague: Artia. Stanková, J.(1985), “A Chapter in the History of Woven Lace,” Textile History, 16 (2), pp. 141–9. —— (1987), Lidové Umení z Cech, Moravy a Slezska (Folk Art in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia), Prague: Panorama. Summers, M. (1995 [1928]), The Vampire (reprint), London: Studio Editions. Svagera, J. (1985), Mezi Hudci (Among Musicians), Brno: Blok. Václavik, A. (n.d.), Textile Folk Art, London: Spring. van Gennep, A. (1960 [1908]), The Rites of Passage (translation), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vlahos, O. (1979), Body The Ultimate Symbol, New York: Lippincott. Welters, L. (1992), “Greek Folk Dress: Application of the Ethnohistorical Method,” Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 10 (3), pp. 29–35. Williams, P. (1995), “Wreath and Cap to Veil and Apron: American Modification of a Slavic Ritual,” Contact, Crossover, Continuity, Proceedings of the Fourth Biennial Symposium of The Textile Society of America, pp. 19–29. —— (1996), “Festival, Folk Dress, Government and Tradition in Twentieth Century Czechoslovakia,” Dress, vol. 23, pp. 35–46. Zelenchyek, V. S. (1984), Moldavian National Costume, Chisinau, Moldavia: Timpyel.

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9

Living Textile Traditions of the Carpathians Mary B. Kelly

High in the Carpathian mountain chain in western Ukraine and in northern Romania, village women embroider the powerful figure of a pre-Christian goddess called Berehinia, a protectress and bringer of fertility. Today folk artists in Ukraine and those of Ukrainian descent in the United States who use this strong female figure identify it by the name Berehinia, the “goddess.” On nineteenth-century textiles, the figure is clearly identifiable. It appears on woven ritual cloths, embroidered folk clothing and decorated Easter eggs. It can be seen both in local Carpathian museums, and in North American Ukrainian Museums in New York, Toronto and Saskatoon. Other motifs from the nineteenth century also can be seen on contemporary folk art: the Tree of Life, horns and the so-called “fertile field.” Most of these motifs are older than the nineteenth century; some stem from preChristian times. In mountainous areas such as the Carpathians, where modern influences are less evident, women continue to practice all of the textile arts: spinning, carding, dyeing, and weaving wool and flax cloth on home looms. Women teach their children to make cloth, to embroider it in prescribed locations and to use the motifs that are customary to their villages. A visit to Carpathian villages enables the researcher to see these traditions practiced today (Figure 9.1). Unlike “invented” traditions, they rise directly from the rural way of life that prevailed throughout the Ukraine until the First World War, and that still in part persists in the Carpathians. I was first introduced to the image of Berehinia and other folk motifs in the Moscow State History Museum, the Moscow Folk Art Museum and the Museum of Applied Arts during a six-month study trip in 1980. At the time, I also had access to the collections of the Ethnographic Museums in Kiev and Lvov/L’viv, Ukraine. Later research trips, sponsored by the International Research and Exchanges Board, Washington, DC (IREX), allowed me to 155

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Figure 9.1. Grandmother and her granddaughter, dressed alike in vests bearing the image of the goddess Berehinia. Yasinia, Ukraine, 1992. Photo credit: Mary B. Kelly.

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visit the villages that produced these treasures. After the Ukraine opened its borders in 1992, I traveled for several months in the Ukrainian and Romanian Carpathians, visiting remote villages as well as ethnographic museum collections in the Ukrainian cities of Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk and Uzhgorod, and the Romanian cities of Sigheti-Marmatiel, Humor, Radauti and Suceava. In 1994, also sponsored by an IREX grant, I worked with the textile curator Maria Olenici, of the Ethnographic Museum in Suceava, Romania. With her help, I visited additional Carpathian villages in Romania, interviewed textile makers, and saw their personal collections of embroideries and weavings. Throughout the Carpathians, I saw numerous images of the goddess Berehinia accompanied by Trees of Life and other fertility or protective symbols. On ritual clothing made for marriages, on ritual cloths used in homes for protection, and even on decorated eggs made for Easter rituals, several key motifs are identifiable. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these motifs were used for ritual as well as decorative purposes. This may be accounted for, in part, by the geography of the Carpathian area in which they were made.

The Carpathian World Separated by its mountainous location and distinctive in its folk ways, the Carpathian area was closed to Western visitors from the Stalin years until the breakup of the Soviet Union because of sensitive defense installations. But the mountainous areas have long been inaccessible even to local travelers. Winter renders many area roads impassable, and some villages are so high that no roads reach them, even today. The Carpathian “crescent,” or mountain chain, begins as foothills just above Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It rises northward, growing ever steeper until it reaches the Polish border, where the snow-covered peaks become the Tatras. Descending into pine-covered mountains, the chain continues into the western Ukraine, briefly forming the border with Romania before curving gently southward into the heart of Romania. The mountains are home to many folk groups, each with distinctive folk arts and rituals. The Goral and Rusyn people live on the Slovak borders, while the Lemko live on the Polish border with the Ukraine. The Boyko and Hutsul groups live wholly in the Ukrainian Carpathians, except for a few remnants who spill over into Romania. The Hutsuls in the Ukraine are one of the few farming groups who were never collectivized. In similar remote mountain villages in Romania, each household remained separate. Although the Hutsuls had arrived in Romania in the seventeenth century, their way of life changed 157

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little and they retained their Ukrainian language after learning to speak Romanian. Mostly shepherds living in settled villages, these groups were joined occasionally by nomadic Vlach and Roma people. German and Jewish populations lived in the Carpathians, too, adding their own special flavor to the mix. Each group generally had the raw materials needed to produce their characteristic folk art – wool for thread, wood for carving and building, and leather and fur for the highly decorated vests worn by men, women and children. On the eastern slopes of the Carpathians, the land of Bukovina lies divided between the Ukraine and Romania. The name “Bukovina” comes from the German word Buchenwald (beech woods) and refers to the forests covering the Carpathian mountains that border the area. During the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1774–1918) Bukovina was one country, the easternmost part of the empire. It remained united after 1918, but was divided after the Second World War. It is still united by customs, dress, agricultural traditions, religious faith and in some places, language. After the Second World War, however, Stalin took the northern section as part of Soviet Ukraine and the Ukrainian language was mandated. The southern portion of Bukovina remained in the state of Romania, where Romanian continued to be spoken. After the break-up of the former Soviet Union, the Ukraine and Romania became independent nations. Closed off as it was by high mountain passes, and for security reasons, the Carpathian world was, and still is, separate from the modern world. Because of this isolation, each group developed distinct, colorful and eye-catching art. Much of the folk art from the Carpathians has a style different from work produced in the plains. Change came slowly to this out-of-the way corner of the world. Surrounded by mountains and broad fields in summer, inaccessible in winter, Carpathian villagers kept alive customs from the past. Essentially conservative, they used designs that at one time had had ritual meaning. Particularly on ritual clothing and textiles, we observe motifs that may have their origin in prehistory. (See Chapter 2 of this volume for similar ties to the past.)

A Possible Link to Prehistory Curators of Carpathian cultural material allude to the long history of these decorative motifs. Lubow Wolynetz, curator of textiles at the Ukrainian Museum in New York, made the following remarks about the Hutsul embroidery of the Carpathians: 158

Living Textile Traditions of the Carpathians Many of the individual motifs in the ornamental designs are ancient symbols, magical signs dating as far back as the Neolithic Age. These were primeval man’s language and writing. Preservation of these ancient motifs to the present time in Hutsul embroidery, textiles, wood and pysanky (Ukrainian Easter Eggs) points to the deeply intuitive perceptions the Hutsul had of the importance of these items and the necessity of safeguarding them (1995: 8).

Wolynetz and other researchers refer to archaeological finds from Neolithic Tripolye, a town near Kiev, Ukraine, and to the Cucuteni Neolithic group in northern Romania. Ceramics and modeled figures dating from the late fifth millennium BCE display motifs that are similar to those portrayed on Carpathian cloth. In addition, these Neolithic artefacts appear to have been used in ritual contexts. The Russian archaeologist V. A. Gorodtsov was one of the first to notice and identify motifs on the archaeological material while excavating Neolithic Ukrainian sites. He noted that village women in the area still embroidered similar motifs. In particular, he mentioned the “fertility goddess” that appeared on both Neolithic pottery and contemporary Ukrainian ritual cloths (1926: 8). B. A. Rybakov, an academician and ethnographer, drew parallels between nineteenth-century folk customs and those depicted on Neolithic ceramics. He observed women at Midsummer festivities raising a bowl of water to the sky, and made comparisons to rituals found on Tripillian ceramics of women raising bowls to beseech rain. He noted the lozenge-shaped motif incised on the abdomen of Neolithic fertility figures, and named it the “fertile field.” He then made the connection to the same motif embroidered on nineteenth-century ritual clothing and towels. Fertility symbols, he noted, were particularly long-lived. He identified the “fertile field” symbol as one that had always been connected with fertility (1965: 21). Marija Gimbutas, excavating in Moldavia, unearthed female figures of many kinds and spent most of her research career writing about them. With her knowledge of the symbols, she argued that it was possible to “read” the images and decode their meanings. Although controversial, her books Language of the Goddess (1989) and Civilization of the Goddess (1991) aid in understanding the meaning of the motifs on contemporary embroidery. Gimbutas noted the continuity of fertility symbols from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic civilizations of Old Europe, even when those cultures were overlaid by Indo-European culture. Though the belief systems were substantially different, “the Old European sacred images and symbols were never totally uprooted . . . they could have disappeared only with the total extermination of the female population” (1989: 318). She identified the female images on Russian and Ukrainian ritual cloths as “representations of the Old European Goddess” (Personal communication, 17 August 1983). 159

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Joanna Hubbs traces the cult of the Russian Mother Earth from Neolithic Trypolye through Scythian and Slavic incursions to the nineteenth-century embroideries of Russia and the Ukraine (1988: 52). She documents a kind of tenth-century rebellion when the “god-cursed women” refused to take up Christianity, and continued to pass down to their children the pre-Christian ways to which they were accustomed. She refers to this situation as a “double faith,” as does the Russian researcher Maslova (1978: 170). This explanation helps to account for the continued usage of “goddess” images on ritual cloth even when the entire Carpathian area was nominally Christian. Sheila Paine, whose catalog of embroidered textiles from five continents illustrates many motif variations, explained the difference between depictions of “goddesses” and those of female figures: An embroidered female figure is usually goddess-derived, rather than merely a depiction of a woman, if she is accompanied by other mythological symbols, such as zigzags, birds, chevrons or toads or by a worshipping figure. She will normally form part of a repeated symmetrical pattern or be one herself, portrayed in a ritual stance, often with the suggestion of a held branch. The deformation of figures – women that are half trees, or birds, or bees, or that have a base like an idol rather than legs – also usually indicates a cult origin (1990: 65).

Natalia Kononenko Moyle further remarked on the similarities between the archaeological material and that of the nineteenth century: In drawing the connection between the prehistoric and the contemporary, we should add that not only are the actual figures similar, but they are placed in similar settings of plant, animal and human motifs. Furthermore, what we find in the extensive ethnographic work that was done in the Slavic and East European areas starting in the late nineteenth century is exactly what we would expect as remnants of a former system of belief in a Great Goddess. In the arts we find sacred cloths such as the ones here. In ritual, we find agrarian festivals such as Russalye, a festival in which a female being is supposed to bring crop fertility to the fields. As might be expected if this were a remnant of former religious practices, Russalye is both taken seriously by the peasants and looked down upon as folk superstition by the church (1986: 17).

These researchers imply that it may be possible to link motifs found on ethnographic Carpathian cloth and clothing to artefacts from earlier periods. Village women do not know of these links, as the archaeological material was not discovered until the early part of this century. Nontheless, on the oldest clothing and textile pieces in Russian and Ukrainian Museums, which date mostly from the nineteenth, but occasionally from the seventeenth and

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eighteenth centuries, the researcher can identify motifs like the Tree of Life, the fertile field, and the fertility goddess.

Five Key Symbols Five motifs currently found on Carpathian mountain embroideries and weavings also appear on Neolithic artefacts. These may be the oldest motifs used in the Carpathians. Their importance is stressed by the frequency with which they are produced there today. These include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Rhombic Fertility Symbols Horns, Horned Beasts and Reciprocating Spirals Mother and Daughter Images Birds and Snakes as Soul Animals and Guardians The Fertility Goddess Motif

I now discuss each of these motifs as they appear in both Neolithic and ethnographic artefacts. Rhombic Fertility Symbols

One of the most reproduced images from Tripolye, the Ukrainian Neolithic site, is a stylized goddess figure with a diamond incised on her stomach. Within the quadrants of the diamond are four dots, one of which is convex (Figure 9.2a). The female figure is pregnant; the symbol indicates her fertility. The symbol looks like a diamond that is quartered; in each quarter a dot represents a fertilized seed. This symbol looks like a diamond that is quartered; in each quarter a dot represents a fertilized seed. This symbol may also be applied to agriculture. B. A. Rybakov, the Russian ethnographer, noted a similar folk custom in nineteenth-century Belarus, just west of the Ukraine, which used this symbol. When people built a new house, he observed that they first drew a quartered diamond on the ground, then fetched a large stone from four fields and placed a stone in each of the quadrants . . . making a fertile field for the house to be built upon (1965: 21 passim). In the nineteenth century, a field was plowed in quadrants and ritually planted with seed to ensure its productivity (1965: 20). Ethnographers have further documented its use in Romania as a marking for birch trees. The birch tree, which symbolized “woman” in Slavic countries, bears the scratched marks of the fertile field symbol as a sign of hoped-for fertility. It thus becomes a living Tree of Life (Stahl 1968: Fig. 58.).

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One can easily identify the fertile field symbol on many contemporary Ukrainian ritual cloths and Easter eggs. The symbol can be seen alone as it was on the abdomen of the Neolithic figurine, or between her legs as a sexual indicator (Figure 9.2b,c). In 1992, we saw a rug in the village of Javoriv, Ukraine stretched out under the apple trees that showed a large fertile field filled with seeds between the outstretched legs of the Birth Goddess. Romanian kilims also retain the fertile-field image; often it is shown with a goddess beside it (Petrescu 1969: 169). Horns, Horned Beasts and Reciprocating Spirals

Another geometric symbol often seen on contemporary Carpathian kilims is called “ram’s horns.” These look like spirals or reciprocating spirals. In the Neolithic, female deities appeared with horns and horned cattle. A small ceramic object from Tripolye shows a horned beast’s head; on it is carefully incised a female figure, her hands upraised, her pubic triangle carefully inscribed. (Figure 9.2e). This spiral is also incised on the goddess figure herself in place of the “fertile field” (Figure 9.2d). An Upper Palaeolithic figure from Mezin, Ukraine is marked with large spiral figures (Gimbutas 1974: 134). A north Romanian Cucuteni vase shows large spiral decoration (Gimbutas 1974: 132). Horns and spirals are often seen on Hutsul embroideries. On blouses from Kosmach, a female figure is shown with large red horns (Figure 9.2f).

Figure 9.2. (a) Goddess with fertile field incised on abdomen, Cucuteni culture, northern Moldavia, fifth millennium BCE. Illustration after Rybakov 1995: 27. (b) Diagram showing goddess with fertile field in her skirt. Illustration from Hutsul belt. Multicolor woven wool, Nineteenth Century. Historical Museum, Moscow #A 41053 98080 1477n. (c) Detail shows doubled goddess figures with fertile field in their skirts. Kosiv, Hutsul region, early twentieth century. The Ukrainian Museum, New York City (72.52.28). (d) Goddess with spirals incised on abdomen, Tripolye, Ukraine, Neolithic. Masson. (1992) Archeologia SSSR , Moscow. Plate #9, p. 281. (e) Goddess incised on a horned animal’s skull. Tripolye, Ukraine, Neolithic. Masson, #15, p. 294. (f) Horned goddess, fertile field at her side, daughter in her skirt. Embroidered sleeve. Kosmach, Ukraine. Contemporary. Photographed by the author in Kosmach (1992) and sketched from a photograph of the blouse. (g) Wall painting of mother–daughter chain. Çatal Hüyük, Anatolia. Neolithic. Mellaart et al. 1989: 38, Plate VIII, #13. (h) Mother goddess with daughter on her head. From embroidered samples, Bukovina, twentieth century: Ethnographic Museum, L’viv, Ukraine #38077.

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Although the figure is stylized, it contains a smaller female figure, a daughter, in her skirt with two large fertile field motifs at each side. Romanian blouses also have embroidered sleeves that show rows of little goddess figures in black; all are horned (Ethnographic Museum, Suceava #1970). Mother and Daughter Images

Chains of females, one over the other, or one beside the other, are a common feature of woven and embroidered textiles in the Carpathians. The motifs are found on woven belts, leather vests and embroidery. Much earlier versions of these images are to be found at Çatal Hüyük, the Neolithic site in Anatolia, where imagery on wall paintings resembles that on Hutzul woven belts. On the wall painting (Shrine AIII/11) (Figure 9.2g) the Mother goddess has outstretched legs, her daughter is shown between them, and her daughter is between her legs. Through repetition of the female image, a matrilineal chain is indicated. Ukrainian weavers use these mother–daughter chains on their belts. Usually the configuration is one over the other, but sometimes one of the figures is inverted (Figure 9.2h). One of the most compelling images from Tripolye is the figure of the Great Goddess, her hands upraised. This image is reinforced by mirroring, which increases its visual power. On woven cloth and kilim rugs in contemporary Ukraine, this same mirror image is still present. On rugs in the collection of the Ethnographic Museum in L’viv, the goddess, in whose skirt is a fertile field, can be turned upside down without altering its meaning, an advantage when a textile is used on the floor rather than on the body. Ukrainians also use a motif in which the daughter is shown on the head of the mother, not below her. In this motif, which appears first in Neolithic vase painting and sculpture (Gimbutas 1974: 161), the single mother figure is crowned by a smaller figure of the daughter. Four arms are sometimes visible. Leather vests worn by both men and women throughout the Carpathians still bear this image. Usually it is found in the front corner of the vest or on the pocket. Sometimes it is used as a decorative device all along the back of the vest. In either case, the heads of the goddess and her daughter are always greatly embellished with silver grommets, pompons and much embroidery. Little female figures also can be seen on the head of their mothers on the nineteenth-century embroidery. According to Moyle, this is not unusual if we understand that the goddess figures are not just reproductive, but productive, of plant, of animal and of human life: “They represent not just human fertility but the fertility of animals and crops . . .” and “Thus a little female figure, or a bird or some sort of tree/flower or ear of grain may sit directly atop the head of the central female figure” (Moyle 1983: 4).

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On Neolithic ceramics, birds and snakes attended the goddess. Incised on the Tripolye ceramics are large birds: snakes are painted in spirals on other vases. As Rybakov notes, the snakes guard the home and have a protective function. He states that they are shown beside the fertilized seed, and in long chains of S’s surrounding the perimeter of a ceramic vase (1965: 25). On other Neolithic examples, the goddess is overlaid by bird images; occasionally she is winged or bird-headed (Gimbutas 1974: 134, 139). Ukrainian fibulae from the fifth century CE retain the bird/snake connection with the goddess (Figure 9.3a). The goddesses on these fibulae hold snakes and birds.

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Figure 9.3. (a) Women’s fibula showing goddess whose body is a bird, holding snakes.5cCE Illustration after Vasilenko,V. (1977), Ill. 31. (b) Goddess riding bird; snake motif appears as the zig-zagged line above the motif. Embroidery on ritual cloth, contemporary. Museum of Architecture and Life, Kiev #MAP KB 125812. (c) Goddess giving birth to horned cattle. Çatal Hüyük, Anatolia, Neolithic. Illustration after Gimbutas 1974: 176. (d) Goddess with upraised arms, woven ritual cloth. Chernigov Region, Ukraine. contemporary, Museum of Architecture and Life, Kiev, MAP-KB- 1092/21. (e) Horned birth goddess with upraised arms and legs. After Stasov, V. V. (1872), Ill. 190.

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On ritual cloths from all over the Ukraine, both northern Krolevetz cloths and those from Poltava, birds and snakes guard the goddess image or the Tree of Life. Birds light on the arms of the goddess or she is shown riding a large bird. These animals are indicators of spirituality and holiness; their presence on ritual cloths increase its power. The cloths guard the home and the wearer, ratify contracts, convey holiness to the gravesite, or welcome a guest to the home. The “S” symbol on many ritual cloths is the last vestige of the snake. We see it repeated along the edges of ritual cloths. At times, the snake survives as merely a wavy line, a protective device that is visible on the border of the goddess riding a large bird (Figure 9.3b). The Fertility Goddess Motif

Symbolic birth or fertility goddesses were first painted on walls in the Neolithic town of Çatal Hüyük. Each figure, painted in red, is a body with upraised arms and outstretched legs (Figure 9.3c). In the Ukraine, in the Neolithic town of Tripolye (4000–3000 BCE) female figures are also found, almost exclusively in ritual contexts. Temples survive to tell us what the places of worship looked like. Statues of goddesses “frequently stood on a raised cult place near the oven” (Kubijovyc 1963: 535). Fertility goddesses from this site are connected with grain and baking bread. Often their bodies are impressed with wheat grains. Close to the Ukraine, birth-giving goddesses are incised on pots from Bohemia and Yugoslavia (Gimbutas 1974: 176–7). In the nineteenth century, women who used this symbol on their embroideries had no knowledge of the Neolithic images. Rather, the symbols may have been passed down, woman to woman, by memory, as part of traditions and rituals associated with cloth. A similar occurrence is documented by Mellaart and others in Anatolia (1989, Vol.1: 92). The symbols that they discovered on the walls of Çatal Hüyük were still being woven in the countryside surrounding that Neolithic site by contemporary village women. A system of careful tuition coupled with an urgent need for the protection and fertility believed to reside in the Birth Goddess image prolonged its use into the twentieth century. By the nineteenth century, in the Ukraine, the fertility goddess was known as Berehinia (or Perehinia), bringer of fertile power. She was a central figure in agricultural rituals from the early twentieth century, as documented by Kurylo (Wolynetz 1981:12). For example, in the Perehinia ritual, a woman chosen to personify the goddess was carried from the village to the fields, wrapped in ritual cloths. The ritual was believed to bring fertility to the newly sown fields. On contemporary Ukrainian textiles, the fertility goddess is shown as a geometric figure with upraised arms (Figure 9.3d). She is still

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referred to as the Berehinia, or the Protectress. Lubow Wolynetz, textile curator at the Ukrainian Museum, New York describes the design as “the mother-goddess of earth-Berehinia. Berehinia is the goddess of wealth, harvest and fertility. On ritual cloths she is portrayed with her hands upraised. She usually holds flowers on which roosters and other birds perch” (1981: 12). The image of Berehinia on ritual cloths stresses both her protective function (the name is derived from the Ukrainian word “to protect”) and her ability to bring fertility and blessing. On cloths from the Chernigov region the image is tripled, one goddess above the other. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cloths like these, some almost nine feet long, were used in rites of passage; to wrap the newborn, to protect the bride, to lower the coffin into the grave. Single goddess figures, with upraised hands, can also be found on coats and vests from the Carpathians and from Russia (Figure 9.3e). As an example, on a beautiful red wool coat from Javoriv, the front corner is embroidered with a goddess stitched in colorful wool embroidery.

Symbols on Nineteenth-century Dress In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, ethnographers began collecting folk music, art and textiles of the Carpathians. Researchers noticed symbols on ritual objects, such as eggs made for spring fertility rituals, that resembled symbols seen on embroidered towels and ritual clothing. From their usage, ethnographers associated the symbols with fertility and protection. The ritual egg functioned like an amulet, and had curative powers. It was believed to bring health, wealth and protection to the owner (Tkachuk et al. 1977: 16). Images on eggs, such as the “Grand Goddess” Berehinia, indicated the reverence for the female principle of birth and renewal. These images also appeared on woven rugs and embroidery (Tkachuk et al. 1977: 19). We see the fertile field symbol in Macedonia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania and Moldova, as well as in the Ukraine. On folk aprons and ritual cloths from these same countries, the fertile field symbol is often woven or embroidered over the stomach or pubic area. Figure 9.4 shows a contemporary Hutsul bride draped in such a ritual cloth. Whether in the Ukraine or Romania, mountain women protected themselves and their families with sacred motifs on dress. The placement of the motifs on clothing was of particular importance. Kara-Vasylieva noted that: “The embroidered design acquired magical powers and was executed in strictly designated areas on the garment” (1995: 28). The sleeves of both men’s and women’s garments were banded with designs over the pectoral 167

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Figure 9.4. Contemporary bride draped in a ritual cloth embroidered with large fertile field motifs. Kryvorivnia, Ukraine. 1992. Photo credit: Hélène Cincebeaux.

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muscle that emphasized strength for the arm. The openings of the neck, sleeve and hem, the areas where evil could enter and harm the body, were similarly protected. Positioning of motifs on the chest area of men’s shirts, and over women’s breasts, emphasized power for the men and good milk for the women. Other vulnerable places were especially guarded. Women’s fertility was signaled by special motifs – the fertile field or a Birth Goddess – woven or embroidered on their aprons. Thus, the motif was worn directly over their reproductive organs, both calling attention to their sexuality and symbolically protecting their fertility from evil. Decorated head kerchiefs and headdresses for women protected the allimportant head. According to long-held beliefs, the headdress mediated between the human world and the spiritual one. Tall headdresses in the Bukovina area symbolically joined heaven and earth (Kara-Vasylieva 1995: 28). Protective designs, particularly on the back of headdresses, also shielded the wearer from the evil eye and other harmful forces. Scholars advanced theories concerning the use of symbols as a kind of writing. Field researchers interviewed women who described their embroidery as “writing.” Even up until the twentieth century, women claimed to know the ancient meaning of the motifs they embroidered (Interview, V. M. Vasilenko, Moscow State University, 6 February 1980). Further to the south, in the Balkans, women expressed their feelings about textiles to researchers Veleva and Blagoeva, much like their Romanian neighbors to the north: Experienced old embroideresses in the Balkan range . . . tell us that in their youth they were mistresses of their craft to the same extent as the literate were masters of letters: “Just as you write letters so we embroider stitches, or what writing is to you embroidery is to us” they would say, and they did not mean simply to explain their skill in the technology of embroidery but also the part it played as the means of expressing creative emotions, a world outlook and attitude to the community etc. For them it was, what words are, for poets and writers (1983: 57).

Clothing communicated multiple meanings in the nineteenth century. Women in villages recognized women from other villages by their embroidered clothing; they used cloth to express good wishes in rituals such as welcoming the new baby or greeting guests; and they embroidered cloth to ratify contracts and to define ritual space. The clothing of the nineteenth-century Carpathian woman was made from scratch. She sowed, reaped, retted and scutched the flax, and then spun it into thread. She strung her loom with this linen, and wove the cloth from which her linen shift was to be made. She cut and sewed it and then embroidered the precious fabric with even more costly threads, outlining the

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symbols of her culture. The motifs she sewed placed her within her group and identified her to others in her culture (Kara-Vasylieva 1995: 30). When a woman from the Hutsul village of Kosmach dressed for daily work, she wore a shift she had made. It was surrounded at neck, sleeve edges and hem with small green and gold embroidery using protective motifs such as the ram’s horns. But when she was finished dressing, it was hardly seen, because it was covered with other clothing. Over the shift she tied two woven front and back aprons, each striped with golden and silver threads. Around her waist, a woven belt, whose designs showed fertility motifs (see Figure 9.2c), ended in a series of red pompons. She wore a highly decorated vest made of leather and fur, appliquéed with motifs of the sun, ram’s horns and the goddess. These were embroidered with wool and embellished with grommets, pompons and braids. On her feet were the leather moccasins of mountain people, or boots if it was cold. Her knitted socks were as colorful as her sleeves, ornamented with protective designs in orange and gold that harmonized with her apron and shift. Her daily headdress was usually a purchased red scarf, the only item of her attire which she did not make or have made. For ritual occasions, however, such as the spring Rusália festivals, the summer reaping festivals or the autumn harvest rites as well as church on Sunday or attendance at weddings, she made herself even more glorious. Around her neck she hung beaded necklaces, or strung corals. If she were a participant in the ceremony, she tied a ritual cloth around her shoulders. The ultimate item sat on her head: the vinok. To begin creating this headdress, she tied long bunches of brilliant red hand-spun yarns over her own long braids, covering them, but replacing them with startling, wild strands of yarn. Over this red “hair” she placed the glittering headdress. Made to harmonize with the orange and gold of her apron, it included flowers, shining metal beads and gold and silver tinsel. The effect made the woman look “sun-headed,” her face surrounded by the red and gold contrasts. Like the goddess, who is also portrayed as “sun-headed” on the vests, and whose headdress is also ablaze with metal grommets and pompons, the woman appeared to her village thus arrayed, as a powerful, even holy figure; the embodiment of the goddess.

Living Textile Traditions of the Twentieth Century During the early years of this century the folk way of life gradually ended in the more industrialized areas of the Ukraine. It began to decline during the First World War, and then continued after the Russian Revolution with the 170

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collectivization of farmland. During the periods of famine that followed, many people migrated westward and settled in North America. But in the Carpathian mountains, collectivization was impossible. Plots of land were too small, too remote and difficult to reach in winter. The people retained their old ways, their small gardens and domestic animals, and women continued the custom of hand-made textile production that stretched back for generations. Not only were the techniques of production saved, but the old motifs. In contrast, much of the rest of the former Soviet Union has no living textile traditions. During the twentieth century, large areas were collectivized, and socialist theory required that all people should leave home to work. Women worked in factories or on collective farms, leaving them no time for textile production. In most of the lands controlled by the Soviet Union, home textile production disappeared, replaced by huge textile mills that produced brightly-colored dress and upholstery fabrics. In the early twentieth century, collections of folk art and embroidery, such as the Shevshenko Scientific Society in Lvov/L’viv, were consolidated and placed in Soviet museums. The works of such famous ethnographers as Ivan Franko, head of the Ethnographic Commission, became widely known. The Soviets controlled academic publishing. Classification of material objects and their conservation gained importance, and several museums were founded in Kiev and Lvov, as well as regional museums in Ivano-Frankivsk and Kolomiya. In their work, Soviet ethnographers emphasized pre-Christian material in the rituals they studied, as they were philosophically opposed to organized Christian religion. Much new information became available as a result of these efforts, which helps us to understand the meaning of some folk customs and the textiles that accompany them. After the Second World War, large collections of folk textiles were assembled in major cities in the Ukraine and in Moscow. This was due to the efforts of museum personnel, who went regularly into the countryside to purchase folk items for study and display. The study of ethnography was dominated by Soviet institutes. When I arrived for the first time in Moscow (1980), Moscow State University awarded me a research trip that included travel, interpreters, housing and a stipend. Permissions were arranged for me to see the collections in Kiev and Lvov, but I was denied a visa to go further into the Carpathians. Foreigners were excluded from the area by the Soviets. Maps of the Carpathians were sometimes altered to delete whole cities. Ten years later, the situation changed. Borders opened as the Ukraine gained its freedom, and travel was possible. When I was allowed to visit Carpathian villages in 1992, I found that, despite years of Communist indoctrination, 171

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women still handed down a living textile tradition. This tradition included the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

women produced textiles with the same techniques as their ancestors had used in the nineteenth century; people wore clothing with woven or embroidered motifs – sometimes daily, sometimes only on festive occasions; women continued to place motifs in strategically important locations on the clothing, following nineteenth-century practice; women continued to pass down information on technique, motif selection and use to their children; and people still used clothing and towels decorated with motifs in rituals such as weddings.

In this final section, I draw on first-hand information given me by informants in interviews I conducted in the Carpathians on two occasions. These interviews took place in Carpathian Ukraine in 1992, centering on the town of Kolomyia and the Hutsul villages of Kosmach and Javoriv. My assistant, Anna Ribchuk, the librarian of the village of Kosmach, grew up there. She introduced me to the informants and translated for me. In 1994, I spent several weeks in northern Romanian villages working on a collaborative project with Maria Olenici, textile curator of the Museum of Bukovina, Suceava, Romania. She also introduced me to informants.

Textile Production Just south of the village of Javoriv in summer, 1992 we stumbled into a kind of working party. Six women sat at tables under the apple trees. They were preparing wool in the old way, first carding it, then spinning it on drop spindles, winding it on a huge niddy-noddy, and finally taking it to a large pot to be dyed. We saw hanks of already-dyed wool hanging from the lower apple tree branches. In a nearby shed, another woman was already weaving the spun wool into a kilim coverlet of Hutsul geometric design on a large wooden loom. We were invited to join the party and spent the afternoon listening to the women singing their plaintive Hutsul songs and describing their lives. This was our first introduction to textile making, and we were fortunate to see the entire process in one afternoon. We later saw many hand looms in barns, sheds or houses. Some women had two looms with different projects on each loom. We also saw flax grown and spun, linen woven, and many women and girls embroidering cloth. 172

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In the Romanian Carpathians, women sat in front of their houses along the roadsides, spinning together. At one house in Sapinta, four generations of women, all related, sat on the roadside bench. The oldest women spun flax, and a middle-aged woman spun wool for rugs, while her daughter wound it on a large niddy-noddy and tended her one-month-old daughter. We saw and photographed several women who had moved their looms outside and sat under the trees weaving in the warm weather. While some looms were old, others had been newly made by male relatives. The textiles created by the women looked to be similar to those in the local museums. Their preparation of yarn and the use of natural as well as commercial dyes and textile patterns was no different from what it would have been in the nineteenth century. Several women told us that their looms had belonged to mothers or grandmothers, and some were over a hundred years old.

Folk Dress Worn Today In the village of Kosmach, on a weekday, we saw women working in the fields in folk dress. Their ensembles consisted of a white shift with embroidered motifs around the sleeve and neck openings, the front and back apron, and a headscarf. This is the same clothing described in the earlier section on nineteenth-century dress. Anna, our interpreter, said that older women in the village wore this clothing on a daily basis, but in the evening, when they went to church, they put on their vests and beads. Anna, a librarian and a professional woman, dressed in modern style. When we visited her house, however, she brought out her own folk dress to show us. She had made it herself, and told us that all the women and many girls in the village knew how to embroider the tiny cross-stitched motifs that decorated the shift. We noticed, however, that the shift was made of purchased, not hand-woven linen. Anna told us that she could also weave, and had made her aprons decorated with Hutsul motifs. The next time we saw Anna, on the day of a local festival, she had donned her Hutsul finery along with most of the other women in the village. In the local museum in Kosmach, one can easily compare pieces from fifty or sixty years ago. They are kept there as a kind of library of stitches and motifs for women in the community. A library of a different sort was hung in the church; rows of embroidered ritual cloths, many with motifs of the fertile field and the goddess, protected each of the painted icons (A. Ribchuk, interview, 6 August 1993). We saw a similar display of embroidery motifs in Javoriv. There the male curator of the local museum, Vasili Kopchuk, introduced us to his wife. Her 173

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folk dress was quite different from that of Kosmach, only a few miles away. Instead of orange and green, its embroidery colors were deep red and purple. The curator then opened the textile collection to us. We noted that the motifs on his wife’s shirt and vest were indeed similar to those used in the early part of the century when the museum exhibits were collected (V. I. Kopchuk, interview, 8 August 1992).

Placement of Motifs While at the museum in Javoriv, we discussed the placement of motifs and decoration, both on the contemporary and on the museum pieces. The Javoriv vest decoration included large red pompons made of fringe, black fur edging on black leather, studs and buttons, heavy red embroidery and couching. In contrast, the Kosmach vests are white leather, with a hooked bird’s heads motif, orange and green trim, grey fur, orange and white pompons and light lace-like embroidery. On the front corners of each vest, we observed the image of the goddess Berehinia, a characteristic motif on all Hutsul vests regardless of village. Figure 9.1 illustrates this motif on the vests of the Hutsul village of Yasinia. In each case, the placement of motifs and organization of materials duplicates those found in the older museum pieces. Although these vests are newly made, they look very similar to vests preserved in local museums.

Motif and Technique Transmission In Romania, Maria Olenici suggested that we visit Hutsul weavers in the nearby Romanian Carpathians. These Ukrainian Hutsuls emigrated across the mountains in the seventeenth century and have remained in the highest mountains since that time. There were no roads, so we walked up steep paths for at least an hour before coming to the beginning of the village of Hepa. Here, in one of the weathered wooden houses characteristic of Hutsuls, I saw an 8 × 10 foot vertical loom on which the fluffy wool blankets of the region were made. Standing at the loom were Paraskieva Trifon and her children, Anca and Niko, aged 11 and 9. Together, they worked the design across the warp, using butterflies of different colored yarns. The weft was packed down with the help of a large wooden comb and eventually, when complete, the nap was raised with hand carders. Paraskieva told us that she was teaching the children to weave correctly and to use the designs from their Hutsul heritage. The motif they were weaving was a large geometric goddess figure. Paraskieva stressed that she used only traditional designs from 174

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her Ukrainian heritage. She told me that she had learned to weave the motifs from an older woman in the neighboring village, and she insisted on producing only these designs. This older woman also assisted her in setting up the vertical loom, as others in her village used only horizontal ones (P. Trifon, interview, 14 July 1994). In Humor, another Romanian village, an eighty-year-old woman wove on her grandmother’s loom. Dressed in black skirt, white shift and headscarf, Floarea Corlateanu showed us the shuttles and her other weaving utensils, which she had also inherited. She stressed to us that she was carrying out the same designs, colors and motifs as her female ancestors. Indeed, samples of her mother’s and grandmother’s work hung just above her loom so that she could look at them daily as she wove (F. Corlateanu, interview, 18 July 1994). In these two examples, we see how important the transmission of motif was to Carpathian women. In the Ukraine also, almost all the women we questioned had learned their textile skills at home from an older female relative. Tuition of textile knowledge takes place in mountain homes to this day. While village women do not refer to most of the motifs they create by ethnographic names (fertile-field, goddess, Tree-of-Life), they do speak of one motif by name, “Berehinia.” M. Selivachov, a curator at the Ivan Honchar Museum in Kiev, has systematically collected names for motifs on embroidery and ceramics for his forthcoming Dictionary of Symbolic Images in Ukrainian Ornament. He documents, among local women, the use of words like “snakes,” “ram’s horns,” and “rhombs” to describe other motifs. The Berehinia motif has been published in both dictionaries and ethnographic literature as “Berehynia,” “goddess,” “princess,” or “Grand Goddess.” Erast Binashevsky in I. Bugaenko (1968) states: “In Slavic mythology this motif was a symbol of rejuvenation and fertility, the mother of all things living and existing on the earth” (1968: 12). The name “Berehinia” is used not only by Carpathian Ukrainians, but by Ukrainian folk artists and researchers in the United States and Canada to refer to the specific motif.

Cloths and Clothing Used Today in Rituals of Protection and Fertility In the Carpathians, the motifs of protection and fertility were placed on cloth and clothing used in ritual, both Christian and pre-Christian. These ritual uses include: the making of ritual cloths for covering baskets of food to be blessed in the church at the Easter ritual, the tying of embroidered ritual cloths onto grave crosses as a sign of blessing, and covering the holy icons in 175

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churches. In wedding rituals, the cloths are used as clothing. The prospective bride ties one around her waist as she invites the villagers to the ceremony. At the ceremony, males who are acting as best men have ritual cloths tied around their shoulders. The bride herself is frequently draped with a ritual cloth (see Figure 9.4). While she is being married, she and her new husband stand on a ritual cloth that defines the space as holy. During the ceremony, a ritual cloth is wound around the joined hands of the bride and groom, ritually binding them together. In speaking with women in Carpathian villages today, it is clear that they still recognize women from far-away villages by their dress. One is usually welcomed officially as well as privately with an embroidered cloth on which bread and salt has been placed. Thus, even today, the embroidered ritual cloth signals identity, welcome, holiness and ratification of contractual arrangements. While these traditions can be seen in mountain villages, they are also fairly common among Ukrainians in North America. Museums such as the Ukrainian Museum of Canada in Saskatoon and the Ukrainian Museum in New York City have documented these practices, and a recent Public Broadcasting System video “Threads to the Past” (1998: WSKG, Binghamton, NY) records the making of embroidery for ritual use, ritual cloths used at weddings and funerals, and tuition of children in textile and embroidery customs by Ukrainian, Polish, Carpatho-Rusyn and Hungarian immigrants. In conclusion, ritual cloths and clothing covered with symbolic designs were made for specific occasions and for specific effects. Even today, some women in the Carpathians and in the United States use the motifs ritually. For example, egg decoration at Easter routinely uses the “fertile field” symbol as a sign of spring fertility and renewal, and Berehinia, the goddess figure, is still placed on the ritual cloths made to guard the family in both Carpathian homes and those of their descendants abroad. Embroidery and weaving preserve motifs from the past in isolated areas of the world, such as the Carpathian mountains. Some of these motifs resemble those found on artefacts of the Neolithic period. Carpathian women handed down these motifs from grandmother to mother to daughter, thereby preserving the motifs, which they believed provided protection and promoted fertility. They may also have used the motifs as a kind of symbolic language, communicating spiritual or ritual messages. Today, some Carpathian women and their descendants still identify and use the motifs as ritual symbols to promote family traditions and well-being. They continue their work, handing down a living tradition in their families, and ultimately, to us. The brilliant, patterned ritual cloths and clothing command our appreciation for the expertise required to make them. And 176

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the motifs, which still bear symbolic meaning, compel our respect for these preserved embroidery traditions.

Acknowledgments Some of the ideas expressed in this article have appeared in the following publications: “The Changeless Carpathians” pp.16–25 in The Changeless Carpathians; Living Traditions of the Hutsul People (Kelly 1995) and “The Ritual Fabrics of Russian Village Women,” in Russia, Women, Culture (ed. Helena Goscilo and Beth Holmgren pp.152–76). (Permission has been granted by the Ukrainian Museum, which holds the copyright, for the portions included in this article.) The author would like to acknowledge the research assistance provided by the State University of New York, the International Research and Exchanges Board, Washington, DC, and the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Award), Washington, DC.

References Bugaenko, I. H. (ed.) (1968), Ukrainskii Pysanky, Kiev: Mistetztvo Press. Gimbutas, M. (1974), Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. —— (1989), Language of the Goddess, San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco. —— (1991), Civilization of the Goddess, San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco. Goddesses and Their Offspring, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Eastern European Embroideries (1986), Exhibition catalog (M. Kelly, N. Moyle, C. Schoeffermann, L. Wolynetz, contributors). Binghamton, NY: Roberson Museum of the Arts and Sciences. Gorodtzov, V. A. (1926), Trud Istorichki Muzei, Moscow: History Museum Press. Hubbs, J. (1988), Mother Russia, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Kara-Vasylieva, T. V. (1995), “The Hutsul Embroidery: Its Traditions and Current State,” in The Changeless Carpathians, Living Traditions of the Hutsul People, New York: The Ukrainian Museum. Kelly, M. B. (1995), “The Changeless Carpathians,” in L. Wolynetz (ed.), The Changeless Carpathians, Living Traditions of the Hutsul People, pp. 16–27, New York: The Ukrainian Museum. —— (1996), “The Ritual Fabrics of Russian Village Women,” in Helena Goscilo and Beth Holmgren (eds), Russia, Women, Culture, pp. 152–76, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 177

Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia Kubijovyc, V. (ed.) (1963), Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia, Vol. 1. Toronto: Ukrainian National Association. Maslova, G. S. (1978), The Ornamentation of Russian Folk Embroidery, Moscow: Nauka Press. Mellaart, J., with U. Hirsch and B. Balpinar (1989), The Goddess from Anatolia, Milan: Eskanazi. Moyle, N. K. (1983), “East Slavic Fertility Goddesses,” unpublished manuscript. Paper given at Ukrainian conference, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. —— (1986), “The Goddess, Prehistoric and Modern,” in Goddesses and Their Offspring, Binghamton, NY: The Roberson Museum of Arts and Sciences. Paine, S. (1990), Embroidered Textiles. New York: Rizzoli. Petrescu, P. (1969), Imaginea Omului in Arta Populara Romaneascu, Bucharest: Editura Meridiane. Rybakov, B. A. (1965), “Cosmogony and Mythology of the Agriculturists of the Eneolithic,” Soviet Anthropology and Archeology 4.#2: 16–36. Stahl, P. (1968), Folclorul si Arta Populara Romaneasca, Bucharest: Editura Meridiane. Stasov, V. V. (1872) Russki Narodnyi Ornament, Vol. 1, St Petersburg: Tipografiya Tovarishchestva Obshchestvennaya Polza. Tkachuk M., Kishchuk, M. and Nicholaichuk, A. (1977), Pysanka: Icon of the Universe, Saskatoon, Sask: The Ukrainian Museum. Vasilenko, V. (1977), Russkoye Prikladnoe Izkusstvo, Moscow: Izdatelstvo Izkusstvo. Veleva, M. and Blagoeva, S. D. (1983), Bulgarian National Costumes and Folk Jewellery, Sofia: Septemvri Press. Wolynetz, L. (1981), Rushnyky, Ukrainian Ritual Cloths, New York: Ukrainian Museum. —— (ed.) (1995), The Changeless Carpathians, Living Traditions of the Hutsul People, New York: Ukrainian Museum.

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The Cultural Significance of Belts in Latvian Dress

10

The Cultural Significance of Belts in Latvian Dress Linda Welters and Îra Kuhn-Bolšaitis

Belts have long been recognized as having both a utilitarian and decorative function in Latvian culture. The term jostas,1 Latvian for “belt,” includes a variety of long, narrow-band textiles such as sashes, ties and cords. Latvian belts exhibit a wide range of colors, patterns, and methods of manufacture, each typical of a specific geographic locale. Latvians used belts throughout their lives for a number of purposes. Belts constituted an essential part of rural garb until the second half of the nineteenth century, when outside influences brought rapid change to Latvian dress. In a few remote districts such as Alsunga, Rucava, and Nîca, the wearing of traditional dress for festive occasions continued until the 1940s (Rozenberga 1995: 281). Because ornamented belts were especially significant, scholars theorize that they may have once carried symbolic meaning (Karlsone 1993: 30–1). In this chapter we attempt to connect the utilitarian and decorative aspects of belts to their symbolic role. We argue that belts functioned in non-material ways as devices believed to protect and bring fertility to the body. To support our argument, we first present a brief historical and cultural background of Latvia, followed by a description of the materials, manufacture and design of belts. Then we discuss the various functions of belts as evidenced in folklore. Finally, we link the material characteristics of the belts to their role as signs and symbols. The chapter is based on three types of primary sources: (1) material culture in the Latvian History Museum in Rîga, specifically archaeological and ethnographic examples of belts and related dress artefacts; (2) Latvian folk songs called dainas;2 and (3) survey interviews gathered by ethnographers between the two world wars.3 Selected secondary sources, particularly the work of the early ethnographers, provide additional information.

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Historical and Cultural Background Latvia is located on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Estonia. To the east lies Russia. Latvia is divided into the four provinces of Kurzeme, Vidzeme, Zemgale and Latgale. The indigenous people speak Latvian which, along with Lithuanian, is one of the oldest Indo-European languages still spoken today. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are known as the Baltic countries. The protoBaltic peoples living in this region had a fully developed Neolithic culture known as the Narva culture by the fourth millennium BC. Archaeological finds reveal that the Narva populations lived in timber houses in village settlements; practiced agriculture, fishing, pottery and textile crafts; and worshipped an earth mother. The arrival of the warlike Indo-Europeans around 2200 BC brought a new culture with a pantheon of gods and goddesses that fused with the Old European culture of the proto-Baltic peoples (Gimbutas 1991: 144–53). The Baltic peoples first appeared in recorded history when the Roman historian Tacitus wrote about them in Germania in 98 AD. He described the Aistii as amber-gathering agriculturists who lived on the shore of the Baltic Sea and worshipped a mater deum, a mother goddess. The sea voyager Wulfstan in 880–90 AD is the next to mention the Balts; he described their large territory as containing numerous settlements, each with their own leader (Gimbutas 1963: 25). Missionaries arrived in the eleventh century to convert the Latvians to Christianity. Although the Latvians nominally became Christian, they stubbornly resisted efforts to give up their pre-Christian beliefs in the power of natural forces such as the sun, moon and stars; the veneration of holy places like streams and groves of trees; and their reverence towards certain animals like snakes, toads and birds (Gimbutas 1963: 179). Around 1200 AD Pope Innocent III sent the Order of the Teutonic Knights on a crusade to the region. Their arrival began a series of occupations by European powers, including Germans, Swedes, Poles, Danes, Russians and Lithuanians. Eventually the Germans dominated the various tribes by establishing themselves as land barons who utilized the Latvians to work their farms. The Latvians became peasant-serfs who lived in rural communities under the protection of the German barons. During this period landholders encouraged attendance at local churches, where peasants received just enough education to participate in religious services. Local folk dress functioned to distinguish peasants from the ruling class who wore fashionable European attire, and even served to identify and capture fleeing peasant serfs (Rozenberga 1995: 281). Czarist Russia captured Latvia in 1721, but left the Germans in control. Serfdom was finally abolished in 1815, leading to 180

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numerous changes in Latvian culture. Land reform allowed the peasants to own property and to dress as they pleased. Latvia became an independent country in 1918, only to lose its freedom when the country was occupied by the Soviet Union during the Second World War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Latvians once again regained their independence. During the second half of the nineteenth century Latvia underwent a cultural renaissance. As education increased, Latvians began to search for their cultural heritage. Ethnographic expeditions to the countryside resulted in the collection of both folklore and material culture (Rozenberga 1995: 283). One of the most important efforts was that of Krišjânis Barons, who collected folk songs. Barons amassed over 200,000 by the time of his death in 1923 (Vîíis-Freibergs 1989: ix). These folk songs, or dainas, go back at least to the twelfth or thirteenth century, and express aspects of traditional life (Biezais 1955: 56). Written mainly as quatrains, they are an important source for the study of Latvian culture. As expressed in the dainas, Latvian mythology incorporates three main deities and numerous minor ones (Kokare 1992; Vîíis-Freibergs 1989). Dievs, or god, is the universal being. Laima and Mâra are the major goddesses. Whereas Laima determined an individual’s fate, Mâra’s domain was the material world. Laima is addressed often by young women who are pondering marriage. Mâra is linked to fertility and regeneration, and is invoked during childbirth. She is the protectress of women of childbearing age, as well as of cows and sheep. Other fertility deities are Ûsiòš, the god of horses; Mâršava, the goddess of cows; and Jumis, the god of agriculture. Jumis personifies fertility and is associated with grain, plentiful harvests and the notion of pairs or doubles (Kraukle 1992: 40). Fairies and sprites are connected with the house, hearth and yard and with the general prosperity of the household. These unnamed deities often appear as snakes or toads and dwell in various places in the house, outbuildings and yard. Latvia provides a valuable resource for the study of beliefs about protection and fertility in relationship to dress because of the survival of a unique combination of evidence. Archaeological finds of clothing and jewelry, the ethnographic collections of folk songs and folk dress, and the persistence of Latvian mythological beliefs afford scholars the opportunity to uncover the hidden meanings of folk dress.

Materials, Manufacture, and Design of Belts Evidence from archaeological sites dating from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries informs us about the precursors to belts of the modern period 181

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(Zariòa 1970). The archaeological record is a blank slate after the thirteenth century, when burial practices changed (Arv. Dzçrvîtis and Ginters 1936: 26). The earliest ethnographic belts date from the seventeenth century, leaving a gap in the artefactual evidence of four centuries. Artefacts excavated from burial sites allow scholars to associate gender with specific belt types. In the late Iron Age (800–1200 AD), men’s belts were made from either linked rings or tooled leather strips with decorated metal plaques. Spirals sometimes embellished the ends. Men also wore braided and knitted belts. Women wore ornamented woolen belts or metal belts (Rozenberga 1995: 281). Women’s graves contained tools for spinning and card weaving, implying that belt-making was women’s work in Bronze Age Latvia (Arv. Dzçrvîtis and Ginters 1936: 24–5). Archaeological fragments of shawls provide additional information about materials, techniques and motifs. Shawl fragments dating from the eleventh and twelfth centuries are made from wool twill weave decorated with bronze rings (Figure 10.1). Sewn to the edges are card-woven strips called celaines. These wool strips exhibit geometric motifs set against a background of

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Figure 10.1. Fragment of a woman’s shawl from Vidzeme, eleventh–twelfth century. Bronze rings in Jumis motif on woolen twill. Card-woven border with firecross motif. Latvian History Museum (58755).

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alternating colors. The archaeological celaines are very similar to ethnographic examples dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. These functioned as edgings for skirts, shawls and men’s jackets in addition to belts. Ethnographic belts are divided into two categories based on width: jostas and prievîtes. Jostas measure from twelve to fifteen centimeters in width. The prievîtes are narrower, measuring less than two centimeters in width. Both jostas and prievîtes range from two-and-one-half to four meters in length. Most Latvian belts are fabricated from wool and linen, although metal belts continued to be worn in Kurzeme. Both fibers have a long history in Latvia, dating back to the late Iron Age (800–1200 AD). While the bulk of the archaeological textiles are wool, linen also survives in some burials (Arv. Dzçrvîtis and Ginters 1936: 22). Ethnographic belts are either all wool or a wool–linen mixture. The use of two-ply wool yarns instead of single yarns gave the belts a solid, sturdy appearance. Belts are made by one of three techniques: braiding, card weaving or loom weaving (Figure 10.2). Braiding and card weaving are older techniques than loom weaving for belts (Al. Dzçrvîtis and Treimanis 1982: 100). Braiding is the interlacing of one set of elements to form a narrow strip. Closely related to braiding is the technique of sprang (see Chapter 4, this volume), which involves the use of a frame to construct narrow textiles from a single set of yarns. Using both braiding and sprang, Latvians made belts out of wool, as evidenced in archaeological and ethnographic examples. Braided and sprang belts are typically men’s belts. Although the technique does not allow for the incorporation of intricate motifs, the use of different colored yarns creates plaid or chevron effects (Figure 10.2). Weaving is the interlacing of two sets of yarns – warps and wefts – with some sort of weaving apparatus. Card weaving, also called tablet weaving, incorporates the use of pierced cards or tablets to create a shed during the weaving process. Detailed patterns are possible with card weaving. According to Barber (1991: 119) card weaving is one of the oldest techniques of producing narrow-band textiles in northern Europe, predating looms. As previously discussed, the archaeological celaines are card woven. Belts from Latgale, the most conservative of Latvia’s four provinces, are often card woven. Latvians also constructed belts by weaving on narrow looms. One type of loom had warps stretched between the ends of a curved branch. It had string heddles. The portability of this loom allowed women to weave while tending cows. A second type of loom consisted of a wooden board with alternating slots and holes for the warp yarns. By raising or lowering the yarns, the weaver created sheds for the weft (Arv. Dzçrvîtis 1929: 157). 183

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Figure 10.2. The three main techniques for making belts. Left: woman’s loomwoven belt from Alšvangas. Center: man’s braided belt from Vanagi. Right: woman’s card-woven belt from Krustpils. Latvian History Museum (27152, 2652, 1482).

The ends of the belts in ethnographic collections were finished in various ways. The warp ends of woven belts sometimes were knotted and left as fringe. The loose ends could also be braided or divided into sections and wrapped. Braided belts often had ends twisted in pairs, then knotted. If a belt was cut from a longer piece of weaving, tassels or pompons were added (Niedre 1930: 16). According to informants from the survey interviews, belts should have colorful, well-finished ends. Fringes and tassels were especially admired. 184

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In the majority of the belts in ethnographic collections, the linen yarns are left undyed while the wool yarns are colored. The preferred colors for wool are red, yellow, blue, green and brown. Belts dyed with natural materials display a brick-red color obtained from the roots of Ladies’ Bedstraw, Galium verum, a member of the madder family. Yellows came from daisies (Golden Marguerite, Anthemis tinctoria), apple-tree bark, leaves, heather and other plant materials. Blue came from woad, while green was obtained by overdyeing yellow with blue or by using a mordant with a yellow dye. Black alder bark gave brown (Al. Dzçrvîtis and Treimanis 1982: 89–90). One informant from Lazdonas in Vidzeme recalled that yellow was obtained from dandelions and green from birch leaves (DVK REG.149, Ethnographic Archives, Latvian History Museum). Logwood and Brazilwood came to Latvia in the mid-nineteenth century, followed by commercial aniline dyes in the 1860s.4 By manipulating the colored yarns in card-woven or loom-woven belts, the weaver could obtain complex patterns. Among the most intricately patterned belts are those from Lielvârde, Krustpils and Koknese (Arv. Dzçrvîtis and Ginters 1936: 156). The high-quality weaving in Lielvârdes belts renders them true works of art. Lielvârdes belts are typically red and white, measure from three to seven centimeters wide, and contain from five to twenty-two individual designs (Bièka 1991: 251-2). Woven belts incorporate an established repertoire of geometric designs that appear in other decorative arts and at one time may have constituted a sign system understood by all Latvians. Some scholars link certain motifs with major deities in Latvian mythology on the basis of old calendrical rites (Al. Dzçrvîtis 1973; Grîns and Grîna 1990). Others, drawing on the survey interviews, give the motifs idiomatic names (Klçtnieks 1984; Niedre 1930; Slava 1990). These scholars argue that the motifs may once have held symbolic meanings, but that the meanings have been lost. Rozenberga points out the contradictory history of the naming of the signs while acknowledging their archaic nature (1997: 345). Dzçrvîtis (1973), who has written extensively on Latvian design, identifies twelve major motifs: God and heaven, sun, moon, cross-hatch star, Austra’s tree, cross, firecross, serpent, Jumis symbol, Ûsiòš symbol, zig-zag (Mâra’s symbol) and fir twig (Laima’s symbol). Other scholars categorize the designs differently, which reflects the disagreement in the literature over the naming of the signs. The most prevalent motifs in belts are the sun, moon, cross-hatch star, cross, firecross, serpent, zig-zag and Jumis symbol. According to Rozenberga (1997), Latvians at one time may have believed that these motifs brought protection and fertility. The precise symbolism of the motifs is open to 185

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interpretation: when ethnographers began collecting information about the motifs in the nineteenth century, their meaning had already faded from memory. Today Latvians associate the motifs with good luck. The cosmic signs of sun, moon and stars are common in Latvian design. As the omnipotent preserver of nature, the sun is seen as a promoter of fertility. The sun is represented as a wheel-shaped design, concentric circles, or a quadrangle. The quadrangle motif is well-suited to textiles; in belts the sun is depicted as a diamond shape divided into quarters, sometimes with dots in the centers. Sun signs once were thought to have supernatural power to guard against evil forces. The moon, represented by an angled crescent, was usually doubled. As a satellite of the sun, the moon formerly represented fertility and was associated with agricultural cults. Cross-hatched stars are seen in many variations in belts. This motif and its predecessor, the simple cross, guarded against evil spirits (Rozenberga 1997: 343–4). Other important designs in belts include the firecross, the serpent and the zig-zag. The firecross, known to us as the swastika, is a symbol of happiness, fertility, infinity, the eternal cycle of life and prosperity (Rozenberga 1997: 342). A very old symbol, it appears often in the archaeological artefacts and in belts. The serpent is an angled S-shaped motif. Also called a grass-snake, it was thought to promote fertility in nature. The grass-snake cult was associated with Laima (Rozenberga 1997: 344). This symbol possibly derived from the zig-zag, one of the oldest motifs in Latvian art (Welters and Kuhn 1993: 5). The zig-zag represents water, life and the regenerative power of nature, and appears in belts as a boundary line. Two motifs are associated with deities by most authorities. An angled design representing crossed stalks of grain symbolizes Jumis, the god of agriculture. This motif and its variants appear often in archaeological material (Figure 10.1); it is interpreted as a fertility symbol. A motif resembling the letter E back-to-back represents the Latvian god Ûsiòš who drives the sun across the sky (Al. Dzçrvîtis 1973: 118). It does not appear as often as the Jumis symbol in belts. Each district had its own characteristic way of combining colors and motifs for its belts. The motifs are arranged in square, rectangular, triangular or diamond shapes. If a square or rectangular arrangement is used, then the color of the background alternates from dark to light. This arrangement is common in the older card-woven belts. The motifs in this type of arrangement are distinctly separate, accentuating the significance of each one. If triangular or diamond shapes are employed, the motifs reverse direction. Some belts exhibit alternating motifs throughout the length of the belt. Others employ a single motif in a single color. According to Anete Karlsone (1993: 21), weavers typically use only two or three motifs of the twenty-three types she 186

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identified in belts at the Latvian History Museum. The more complicated belts from Krustpils and Lielvârde incorporate a greater number of motifs. We examined a belt from Krustpils in the Latvian History Museum that contained forty-five motifs, only a few of which repeat (Figure 10.3).

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Figure 10.3. Card-woven belt from the district of Krustpils. Identifiable motifs include firecross, serpent, moon, sun and crosshatch star. Latvian History Museum (27550).

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The Functions of Belts The utilitarian, decorative and symbolic functions of belts overlap each other. Although highly ornamental as objects, jostas were an essential part of Latvian daily life. They were used for everything that needed to be secured. The narrow bands, prievîtes, held up socks, pants and skirts, tied coats and jackets, and also served as reins for horses, as apron strings and as a means for carrying parcels on one’s back (Alsupe 1982: 156). They even bound the feet of animals, for example during sheep shearing (Al. Dzçrvîtis and Treimanis 1982: 88). Both men and women wrapped jostas around their waists on the outside of clothing. A belt around the stomach helped people to carry more things or work harder without pain. Belts are important for ritual-laden ceremonies like christenings, weddings and funerals (Latviešu Konversâcijas Vârdnîca VIII 1932–3: 14519). The main participants in the ceremonies gave prievîtes and jostas as gifts and tributes. The many uses of belts have been amply described in the dainas. Their utility can be experienced across all the major stages of a person’s life, from the cradle to the grave. Several dainas, or folk songs, refer to this long journey by describing the preparations for the birth of a child that takes place in the pirts,5 or bath-house. Reference is never made to pregnancy itself or to childbearing, only to the fact that a belt that previously went around the waist three times now expands all of its nine folds. As the ninth fold is loosened, the woman rushes to the pirts to give birth. This is described in the following daina: 10616 Manim bija raiba josta Deviòiem ielokiem. Kad paspruka devîtâ, Tad uz pirti: vai, vai, vai! I had a colorful belt With nine folds. When the ninth popped, Then off to the pirts: ouch, ouch, ouch! (see also dainas 48425, 1062) To assure a successful delivery, the mother-to-be handed out mittens and jostas to the other women in the pirts. She tied birch tree branches together with a jostas and beat herself to chase out any evil spirits and to ensure lucky childbearing (Slava 1990: 165). The jostas were needed again right after the birth to swaddle the newborn 188

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(see dainas 44029, 1755, 1896, 1501). The young mother handed out additional belts when visiting the pirts for the first time following childbirth, and then again at the christening (Niedre 1930: 9). When the baby grew up, he or she needed to have belts for courting. A young man had to wear a belt that showed him to be a worthy suitor. For a girl, the task was more difficult. She had to make jostas not only for herself, but also to fill her dowry chest. The following daina attests to this important task: 7492 Trîcçt trîc, skançt skan Jaunu meitu istabiòa: Auþ jostiòas, apaudiòas, Auþ baltâs villainîtes. Rattling and resounding Is the young maidens’ room: They are weaving belts, leggings, And white shawls. The two items that were absolutely necessary in a dowry were a blanket and belts (dainas 7870, 7761). The importance of the jostas to courting can be seen in the following daina, where the suitor is turned away because the girl’s dowry is not ready: 7761 Nelûdz velt, tautas dçls, Vçl nevaru tautâs iet: Nei man austas pûra jostas, Nei guïamas villânîtes. Don’t ask in vain, young man, for my hand, I cannot marry you: I don’t have a woven belt for my dowry chest, Nor blankets for sleeping (see also daina 7870). In this instance the woman is not ready to be courted since she has not finished filling her dowry chest. A bride needed many jostas, since they had to be given as presents before and during the wedding. One person that she must not forget was her motherin-law (dainas 48024, 46750). 189

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The survey interviews taken in the 1920s and 1930s, now kept in the archives of the Latvian History Museum, tell of interesting ways in which belts were used during weddings. For example, during the wedding feast, the bride and groom had their chairs tied together with jostas. Others were given to those who came to wake up the newlyweds in the morning. But most of the jostas were given by the bride. In Alšvanga county in Kurzeme the bride threw a belt to the first person she saw after the wedding. This was done also when she and her groom went in and out of the granary (klçts) where they were going to sleep. Going into the guest room the next morning, she left a prievîte on the candlestick holder. And again when getting up she left a prievîte on the bench. In Lutrîna county in Latgale the bride and groom gave not just jostas as presents, but also mittens and socks. In addition to weddings, funerals required a great number of belts. Survey interviews in Latgale tell of prievîtes being used as armbands to show that one was in mourning. Prievîtes were even braided into the manes of the horses that pulled the carts carrying the mourners. They were given to the pallbearers, to those who washed the body and prepared it for burial, and to those who dug the grave, and to those who lowered the coffin in the grave. The poor were also given belts, in the belief that their good wishes would come true. As regards the relationship between the belt and the person wearing it, the belt is unquestionably an important sign of the social status of the wearer. Although belts can be made from many different materials, the rich wanted them from gold or silver. When the wealthy suitor went courting, he wore either a gold or silver belt, the same as his future bride (dainas 43011, 50535). In the following daina a woman expresses the wish that she should make a good match and end up wearing a gold belt, despite the poverty of her parents: 52509 Ubags mans tçtis bija, Ubadzîte mâmuliòa. Dievs dod man, bçrniòam, Zeltu jostu apjozties. My father was a beggar, My mother too. God grant me, the little child, The wearing of a golden belt. The lyrics to another daina express another difference between the wellto-do and the poor maiden: their footwear and the sound it makes. The rich 190

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farmer’s daughter wears shoes, but the poor daughter wore footwear called vizes, woven of willow or linden bark. Vizes together with the belt make a snapping sound. The end of the belt goes “sipu sepu” and the shoes “knipu knapu’’ (daina 5726). These are comic, onomatopoeic renderings of these sounds. For a young girl to wear a belt is a sign to everyone that she is ready to be courted (dainas 8971,7452, 10527, 1179). The same is true for the crown she dons (Welters and Kuhn 1993: 10). Although the belt is worn everywhere, to work as well as to church, it is during a dance that the belt together with the crown can show off to the best advantage the person who wears them. 24046 Danco, mâsiò, Gan skaiški pieder: Spîd tava jostiòa, Viz vaiòadziòš. Dance, sister, It becomes you: Your belt is shining, And your crown is shimmering (see also dainas 24198, 1488). The manner in which these items are worn is of paramount importance. How a belt is tied or where on the head a crown is placed sends a very important message. On the one hand, if a young woman ties the belt just right, three times tightly around the waist, she is described as being diþa, meaning stately and majestic. On the other hand, the slovenly woman lets her belt droop and allows her crown to slide to the back of her head (dainas 38871, 12715). The belt, along with the crown, are two components of a woman’s dress that may reveal the difference between a virtuous and a not so virtuous woman. The manner in which the crown and belt are worn should make the difference obvious to everyone. If the suitor cannot read the signs that identify the woman of easy virtue, then that is his fault alone. In the following daina, the woman herself reprimands the young man for being blind to the obvious: 41339 Vai, tautieti, neredzçji, Kad es augu netikusi? Slâbi jostiò’i [jostu es] valkâju, Uz pakauša vainadziò(u.). 191

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Didn’t you see, young man, That I grew up lacking virtue? I was wearing my belt loose, And my crown on the back of my head. This kind of woman admits frankly to loosening her belt and losing her virtue behind the tavern in a field of hemp (daina 35782). The importance of belts goes beyond their decorative and utilitarian functions and even their role as social signifiers. A closer look at the customs and rituals described in the dainas and the survey interviews shows that belts have another role: to protect and aid the wearer. Instances when protection is needed include every major life event. Protection is sought at the very beginning of a child’s life in the pirts. The mother-to-be went to the pirts to chase away evil spirits and to ask Laima and Mâra for a successful delivery. Once the child grew up and was ready to enter the adult world, the goddesses implored superior divine forces by tying the belt three times around the waist of young maidens to signify strength and protection from outside malevolent forces (Kursîte 1996: 106, daina 1221). In European culture, the number three has special power, as does three times three and the number nine. These numbers invoke good spirits and help fight against evil ones. The number nine was also associated with fertility. In addition, protection was sought for the farmer to have healthy animals. In the Kuldiga region, when a farmer bought a calf he gave the seller a prievîte so that the animal would thrive. The protective function of signs, such as the cross, is confirmed by their presence on houses and furniture in addition to belts. A cross drawn or painted on a house or on a bed brought protection and blessing. It protected the occupants from the devil and other evil forces. The same held true for the devil’s cross, called lietuvçns, which protected against the souls of murdered children who, until they were buried, lived on earth and tortured people (Šmits 1926: 61). Belts are also associated with fertility. As was previously explained, they are often mentioned in the dainas in connection with young women. The following daina connects wide belts with fields, linking the fertility of a woman with that of the soil: 5708 Pirc, brâlîti, platu jostu Lai mâsiòa tieva aug. Kâ niedrîte lîgojâs Tautu dçla druviòâ. 192

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Buy, brother, a wide belt, So that your sister will grow up slender: And sway like a reed, In the fields of a worthy young man. Just as crosses on doors protected against evil, a Jumis sign brought prosperity and fertility. The Jumis sign is commonly found on the gable of a house. Latvians still believe that this motif brings prosperity and good luck. Through the customs and rituals expressed in folklore, we have seen that articles of dress worn on the body were once believed to have held special supernatural powers. They both protected the body against evil, and helped bring fertility and prosperity. The characteristics of belts that inspired these beliefs will now briefly be examined.

Belts as Signs and Symbols The physical characteristics of belts fall into three categories: structure, color and motif. When any or all of these characteristics took on cultural meaning, the belts as a whole become signs and/or symbols. A sign is not synonymous with a symbol, however. Thus a discussion of the distinctions between a sign and symbol is necessary. A sign is something that represents or stands for something else. It is factual, informational and easily recognized. The viewer who understands the sign code gets the message. Symbols, on the other hand, are material objects that represent something immaterial, often abstract. Symbols are more complex than signs, and convey meanings about deep-seated beliefs. They are likely to carry many levels of unstated associations. As signs, the belts signify status within the peasantry through the materials used and the quality of the construction. Gold and silver are held in high esteem, as are wide belts. The act of wearing a belt and the manner in which it was worn signified facts about a woman. By donning a belt for the first time, a young woman indicated that she was available for marriage. By wearing the belt correctly, she showed that she was virtuous and honorable. Symbols have deeper, more ambiguous associations. As an object alone, a belt was a symbol of life, with a beginning, middle and end. It represented the life line, and consisted of signs that could be read like a text (Kursite 1996: 213). The importance of belts at births, weddings and funerals attests to this interpretation. For women, belts contained several levels of symbolism, particularly for fertility. The fringes, tassels and pompons on the ends of belts can be 193

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interpreted as a metaphor for the pubic area. The following is just one daina of many that allude to the “bushy ends’’ of a maiden’s belts: 14687 Griez muguru, tautas meitas (?), Vai bûs kupli jostas gali: Ja bûs kupli jostas gali, Bûsi mana lîgaviòa. Turn your back young maiden so that I can see if the ends of your belt are bushy: If they are, You will be my bride (see also dainas 7452, 17007, 22913, 22913v1.). Other dainas refer to “bushy ends” on belts as being the best part of an already-good belt (dainas 22913, 22913v1.). The color green is another indicator of fertility (see Chapter 8, this volume). In the following daina it appears with the number nine in connection with young wives: 1109 Laima vilka zaïu jostu Deviòiem kamoïiem; To apjoza sieviòâm, Laimas pirtî peºoties. Laima was pulling a green belt With nine balls of yarn; she tied it around young wives who came to her pirts. We already have seen that a belt that is expanded to the ninth fold implies that the delivery of a child is near. The motifs on the belts worn by women can be interpreted as symbols meant to protect them and to insure fertility. The dainas do not mention the ornaments specifically. Neither do they allude to whether or not women past menopause continued to wear the ornamented belts. However, through the association of belts in the dainas with women of childbearing age, it is implied that people believed that wearing such symbols around one’s mid-section brought fertility and protection. As we have seen, belts are often mentioned in connection with childbirth when the risk of death is great for both mother 194

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and child. Those motifs associated by some scholars with particular deities in Latvian mythology, especially Laima and Mâra, were placed on clothing to invoke the assistance of that particular deity. Similarly, the Jumis sign and the serpent motif could be viewed as appealing to fertility deities for prosperity. These geometric designs are still prevalent in Latvian folk art. Ethnographers say there is no absolute proof that the symbols on the belts are connected to the old mythological beliefs, because people no longer remember the meanings behind the designs. This is true even for the survey interviews completed in the 1920s and 1930s; however, in a few cases informants from sixty or seventy years ago associated the designs with protection. For example, informants in Krustpils said that belts with cross designs may have protected the person who wore them against evil spirits (Niedre 1930: 16). Anete Karlsone (1993), who has investigated the ornaments in belts, concluded that it is not possible to state when the belts lost their symbolism and became simply decorative. She recognizes, however, that the belts are bearers of some information, and calls for additional research to establish when the names were assigned. A belt from Krustpils (Figure 10.4) illustrates three characteristics that might have been thought to bring protection and fertility. First, the color of fertility, green, is present in this naturally-dyed belt. The borders are predominantly green tinged with yellow and blue; they edge a brick-red central section. Second, the fringes are long, measuring approximately ten centimeters. When worn, the fringes accentuated sexual readiness. Third, the belt has six different ornamental motifs that are accepted symbols of protection and fertility. Sun, cross-hatch star and Jumis symbols are repeated along the length of the belt. Karlsone postulates that the makers of Krustpils belts experienced fear of undecorated spaces. She suggests that, besides their decorative role, these motifs had a protective or similar function from the very beginning (Karlsone 1993: 24).

Summary Belts have been an important part of Latvian culture for at least twelve centuries, as is evidenced by archaeological finds. Confirmation of the cultural significance of belts is seen through folklore, particularly the dainas. Belts functioned to signify a woman’s virtue and her availability for marriage. Along with other components of dress, such as headgear, shawls and mittens, belts exhibited distinctive features that were believed to protect and aid the wearer. 195

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Figure 10.4. Loom-woven belt from the district of Krustpils. The colors, motifs and fringes served to aid and protect a woman who wore such a belt. Latvian History Museum (175813).

The old pre-Christian beliefs and myths that lie just under the surface in Latvian culture allow scholars to study the hidden meanings of folk dress. The belt, a most noticeable part of Latvian folk dress, is not only richly designed and technically advanced, but also represents the former spiritual beliefs of one of the oldest Indo-European cultures. 196

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Notes 1. The Latvian word for all narrow-band textiles is jostas, which translates as either “belts” or “sashes.” In this chapter, we use the word “belt” to refer to all narrow-band textiles. 2. A corpus of these folk songs has been computerized in The Boston/Montreal Data Base of Latvian Folk Songs (Bçrziòš et al. 1982) for easy reference by scholars of Latvian culture. 3. Surveys collected from 1924 to 1944 are preserved in the Ethnographic Archives of the Latvian History Museum. 4. Approximately 90 per cent of the 7,000 belts in the Latvian History Museum were dyed with synthetic dyes, so the collection as a whole does not represent the subtleties of colors obtained with natural dyes; but it does help to date them. 5. The pirts is a separate wooden structure similar to a sauna, but having cultural importance as a clean, holy place where women gave birth. 6. Dainas and their variants are identifed by numbers. All translations are our own. The emphasis is on content.

References Alsupe, A. (1982), Audçji Vidzemç, Rîga: Zinâtne. Barber, E. J. W. (1991), Prehistoric Textiles, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bçrziòš, V., Freibergs, I., Konrâde, K., Strazds, G., and Vîíis-Freibergs, V. (1982), The Boston/Montreal Data Base of Latvian Folk Songs, Montreal: Helios. Bièka, A. (1991), “Vçlreiz . . . un no Jauna par Lielvârdes Jostâm,” in Dabas un Vçstures Kalendârs, Rîga: Zinâtne, pp. 251–6. Biezais, H. (1955), Die Hauptgšttinen der alten Letten, Uppsala: Almquist and Wiksell. Dzçrvîtis, Al. (1973), Latvju Raksti (Latvian Design), Toronto: Latvian Federation in Canada. Dzçrvîtis, Al. and Treimanis, L. (1982), Latviešu Jostas, Toronto: Daugavas Vanadzes. Dzçrvîtis, Arv. (1929), “Jostas un Prievîtes,” Latvju Tautas Dainas, Vol. 3, Rîga. Dzçrvîtis, Arv. and Ginters, D.V. (1936), Ievads Latviešu Tautas Tçrpu Vçsturç, Rîga: Grînbergs. Gimbutas, M. (1963), The Balts, New York: Frederick A. Praeger. Gimbutas, M. (1991), The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe, New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Grîns, M. and Grîna, M. (1990), Latviešu Lietišíâ Daiïrade, 2nd edn, Latviešu daiïamatnieku savienîba ASV. Karlsone, A. (1993), “Ieskats Latviešu Jostu Ornamenta Izpçtes Problçmâs,” Latvijas Vçstures Institûta Þurnâls, no. 2, pp. 19–31. Klçtnieks, V. (1984), Senèu Raksti, Canada: Greenwood Printers. Kokare, E. (1992), “Mitoloìiskie Tçli Latviešu Folkloras Poçtiskajâ Sistçmâ,” in Latviešu Folklora: Tradicionâlais un Mainîgais, Rîga: Zinâtne, pp. 9–91. 197

Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia Kraukle, D. (1992), “Tautas Ornamenti Mûsu Saskaòas Simboli,” in Dabas un Vçstures Kalendârs, Rîga: Zinâtne, pp. 272–4. Kursîte, J. (1996), Latviešu Folklora Mîtu Spogulî, Rîga: Zinâtne. Latviešu Konversâcijas Vârdnîca VIII (1932–3), Rîga: A. Gulbja Apgâdiba. Niedre, J. (1930), “Krustpils Apvidus Jostas,” in Valsts Vçsturiskâ Muzeja Krâjumi, Rîga: Latvijas Vçstures Muzejs, pp. 1–17. Rozenberga, V. (1995), Latviešu Tautas Tçrpi I Vidzeme (Latvian National Costumes), Rîga: Latvijas Vçstures Muzejs. —— (1997), Latviešu Tautas Tçrpi II Kurzeme (Latvian National Costumes), Rîga: Latvijas Vçstures Muzejs. Slava, M. (1990), Latviešu Rakstainie Cimdi, Rîga: Zinâtne. Šmits, P. (1926), Latviešu Mîtoloìija, Rîga: Valters un Rapa. Vîíis-Freibergs, V. (ed.) (1989), Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs, Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Welters, L. and Kuhn, I. (1993), “Mâra and the Zig-Zag: Mythological Signs in Latvian Women’s Headgear,” Dress, vol. 20, pp. 4–18. Zariòa, A. (1970), Seno Latgaïu Apìçrbs 7–13 gs, Rîga: Zinâtne.

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11

To Ward Off Evil: Metal on Norwegian Folk Dress Laurann Gilbertson

In eighteenth-century rural Norway, metal played important functional and spiritual roles in folk dress. Metal was used for lace, woven ribbon, fasteners and jewelry. A brooch, called a sølje, was the most commonly worn piece of jewelry. These brooches were both utilitarian and decorative. Simple styles were worn daily as the only fastener on a shirt or blouse. Women wore as many as three elaborate brooches for decoration on festive occasions. According to custom, brooches and other metal ornamentation also provided valuable protection from evil spirits (Fossberg 1991: 190). In this chapter, I will discuss the utilitarian and spiritual functions of jewelry and metal trim on the dress worn in rural Norway. After fashionable dress began to replace folk dress, women in Norway wore traditional brooches to communicate feelings of nationalism. The chapter will follow the brooches to America, where Norwegian immigrants used them to identify their ethnic heritage. During the eighteenth century Norwegians believed in the supernatural beings that populated their oral tradition, and they dressed in ways to protect themselves from near-constant danger. Norway had a rich oral tradition that flourished because few rural Norwegians had a formal education until the 1800s. Particularly important in this oral tradition are what folklorists call legends. Folk tales are told for amusement, but legends are told as truth (Kvideland and Sehmsdorf 1988: 18–19). They usually contain prescriptive information: what to do or else, and why. In the early 1800s, about the time the traditional belief system was fading, urban Norwegians went into the countryside to collect and publish rural legends.1 Published collections are readily available, and many of the legends have been translated into English. Rural Norwegians believed that danger existed from many sources, including foreigners, the devil, witches, spirits of the dead, the supernatural beings inhabiting waterfalls and rivers, trolls, giants, gnomes and huldrefolk. 199

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Huldrefolk were perhaps the primary reason for wearing metal. Also known as underworld creatures, huldrefolk tried to strengthen their gene pool by marrying humans and stealing children. They were, to the Norwegian mind, always lurking. The word huldre means hidden, and can refer to many otherworldly beings; but in this chapter huldrefolk will be used only for those invisible creatures who lived inside mountains and were believed to capture adults and steal babies. In the folklore these same creatures also are sometimes called underjordiske (underworld creatures), haugefolk (mound people), bergfolk (hill people) and tusser.2 Huldrefolk were usually invisible; but when they did show themselves they looked much like humans. Because huldrefolk lived beneath farm buildings and inside hills, their lives overlapped with those of humans. Norwegians were especially likely to encounter huldrefolk at the remote summer pastures located high in the mountains (Figure 11.1). Occasionally huldrefolk and humans might seek out each other’s help in

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Figure 11.1. Huldrefolk lived inside the mountains. They were a definite threat to their human neighbors, who are shown here at their summer cabin, 1890s (courtesy: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, Decorah, Iowa).

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matters of farming and midwifery; but it was important that contact remain within certain limits, because the underworld creatures were powerful and dangerous. Legends about huldrefolk and other supernatural beings explain cultural attributes of the surviving jewelry and garments. Norwegians never knew when or where they would encounter denizens of the underworld, so they always wore silver, which was considered to be a powerful metal. Silver obviously showed the wealth and prosperity of a family; but Norwegians also believed it cured sickness in humans and animals, improved crops, and protected against storms and evil spirits. The metal itself was strong, and dangling ornaments added protection by reflecting evil away from the wearer. Each time jewelry or metal-trimmed garments were worn in church or were handed down to the next generation, they became even more powerful. People could also protect themselves with steel and with crosses made from metal or other materials. Men’s silver took the form of collar pins, vest and coat buttons and shoe buckles. Men wore knives every day. The knives were utilitarian, sometimes decorative and always powerful, because the blades were made of steel, a metal that equaled silver in its protective ability. Knives are mentioned often in folklore as valuable tools for breaking spells. Like men, women wore a variety of decorative fasteners. They also wore some metal that was purely ornamental, like the trim on garments. Metal lace, called knipling, and woven ribbon, known as blonder, appeared often on clothing worn for festive occasions. The metal trims were not made in Norway, but were imported from Europe, probably Germany.3 Children wore metal too. After the age of four or five, children dressed as adults. Younger boys and girls wore dresses with decorative and protective brooches.

Norwegian Brooches Most Norwegian jewelry is made from an alloy containing 843 out of 1000 parts fine silver (Fossberg 1991: 190). Occasionally the silver was gilded, but gold jewelry was rarely worn by rural people. Filigree, a decorative technique used on many brooches, is a Norwegian specialty. The technique originated in the Far East and came through Europe, first appearing in Norway in the fourteenth century. Filigree eventually fell out of use, but became popular again in the eighteenth century. Rural Norwegians were especially fond of this technique, and elevated it to an art form. Perhaps the most magnificent of the filigree brooches is the bolesølje of southern Norway. Floral motifs decorate round platforms that rise from a solid back plate. 201

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These women’s brooches are large, as much as 9 cm in diameter. The slangesølje or snake brooch that is common in southern and central Norway has loops between an inner and outer ring. It is medieval in origin, as is the rosesølje, a flower brooch that has six kidney-shaped petals joined and arranged with their backs to a center ring. One brooch that did not originate in the Middle Ages is the Erlandssølje, named for its creator, Søren Erland (Figure 11.2). The inspiration for this filigree brooch came from the lace ruffs that were fashionable in Europe in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Erland worked from the 1740s until the 1790s in Telemark, but his brooch has been popular throughout Norway for centuries.

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Figure 11.2. Erlandssølje with round pendants for additional protection. From Valdres, mid-nineteenth century, 5.5 cm long, #79.46.4 (courtesy: Vesterheim Museum).

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On a style of men’s collar pins called glibbring, human or animal faces provided the protection. The use of grotesque masks on storehouses to protect against evil dates to the Middle Ages, the time this brooch first appeared (Christie 1993: 25). Another way to make brooches more powerful was by adding dangling ornaments. While the pendants reflected the light, they also reflected away the evil forces of the underworld creatures. Though most commonly round, pendants can take the shape of even-sided crosses, cut-out sun wheels, or diamonds that are left plain or engraved to look like leaves. The number of pendants on brooches varies. Some brooches have just three pendants, while others literally drip with hangings, like the brooches called byggkornring or “barley-kernel rings,” which are worn primarily by women in the district of Telemark. These brooches are believed to have been made by huldrefolk, who were said to be expert silversmiths and able to create pieces more beautiful than anything that could be made by humans. How did the Norwegians get such a brooch from the huldrefolk, considering they spent so much time and effort to ward off the underworld creatures? An answer to that question can be found in the folklore.

Legends of Huldrefolk The legend of “The Interrupted Wedding” describes the possible origin of huldre brooches. In one variation of the tale from eastern Norway (Christiansen 1964: 115–17), a young maiden named Elli Bakken was alone up in the summer mountain cabin weaving (Figure 11.3) when her sweetheart rushed in and said he wanted to get married right away. When she saw her dog glaring and growling at him, Elli became suspicious. Then a crowd of people came inside the cabin. Two sad-looking women stood a little apart from the others. “Your dog doesn’t seem to like people,” one of the women said with a wink. “It might be best to let him out.” Elli suspected that these people might really be huldrefolk. She took the dog out to the edge of the woods, tied a red ribbon around his neck as a signal for help, and sent him home. She went back into the cabin to prepare for the wedding. As one of the women pinned a large filigree brooch at her neck she whispered, “Stay calm, help will come.” Then Elli remembered that years ago two girls had disappeared from that very cabin, and she knew that it was those girls who were trying to help her now, so she cooperated. Down at the home farm, Elli’s mother saw the dog racing up with the ribbon fluttering and knew that something was wrong at the mountain cabin. The dog came into the house and barked with all his might at the gun that 203

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was hanging on the wall. Elli’s father saddled his horse as fast as he could, then rode up to the farm of Lars, Elli’s real sweetheart. When the two men arrived at the cabin, they saw a long row of saddled horses. They looked inside to see a table piled high with food for a party, and Elli dressed as a bride. The men fired a shot over the top of the cabin. “In Jesus’ name!” Elli exclaimed, and crossed her hands over her throat. The huldrefolk quickly tore off Elli’s bridal finery, but they could not take the big silver brooch because her hands were crossed over it. The huldrefolk rushed out of the door like balls of gray wool, and Elli was saved.

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Figure 11.3. Woman in Telemark weaving, c.1900 (image originally published by the Keystone View Company, courtesy: Vesterheim Museum).

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In other versions of the legend, a Norwegian man goes up to the mountain pastures to visit his fiancée, who is there tending her cows. He arrives to find her draped in huldre silver and being forced to marry a huldre man. The Norwegian saves his betrothed by throwing his steel knife over her head to break the spell. In these variants, the woman keeps all the fine huldre silver that she is wearing. Underworld creatures took advantage of situations in which humans were alone and isolated, such as when men were hunting, or women were tending the cows in the summer pastures. Holidays like Christmas, Easter and Midsummer were dangerous, because the spiritual doors would open and let the supernatural beings out. Rites of passage, especially baptism and marriage, also were times when huldrefolk commonly attacked, because humans were vulnerable as they changed status. A new baby was a time for joy and fear. The fear was that a beautiful child could be stolen or swapped for an ugly huldre baby. Until infants were baptized they were in constant danger from huldrefolk. Parents watched their babies carefully, and often placed metal in the cradle until baptism provided more permanent protection. The metal might be a brooch, or a knife, or a pair of shears or scissors. Putting a knife or scissors in bed with a baby was dangerous; but the Norwegians apparently considered the supernatural threat to be much greater than the physical risk to the child. It was important for parents to take precautions, because it was difficult to get babies back after they had been exchanged with huldre babies. Psychologically, these stories helped to explain congenital abnormalities or childhood illnesses. The legends offer several solutions for getting babies back. One mother feared that her baby had been traded with a huldre baby, called a changeling, even though she had taken many precautions, including putting a beaver’s castor gland in the cradle, making the sign of the cross over the baby, pinning a sølje to his shirt, and placing a knife over the door. Finally, she asked the help of a signekjerring, a woman she hoped could cure the child by supernatural means (Asbjørnsen and Moe 1953: 269). Folklore offers another option for dealing with a changeling – feigned mistreatment. When one mother put the changeling on the garbage heap, her child suddenly appeared in its place. As another mother threatened to burn the changeling in the oven, a huldre woman rushed in saying, “Here is your baby. I never treated it as badly as you’ve treated mine” (Kvideland and Sehmsdorf 1988: 208–9). Legends provide useful information for the study of earlier Norwegian rural dress. By recording historical beliefs and meanings, legends help us understand the socio-cultural context that surrounded objects of material culture. 205

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Baptismal Dress Infants were considered heathens until they were baptized, so it was important that the christening ceremony be held quickly. In the cities, this took place within four days of the child’s birth, and within eight days in rural areas (Christie 1990: 10). The risk was strong for the child even during the christening ceremony, because it was the huldrefolk’s last chance to swap the human baby for one of their own. Clothing provided much of the necessary protection on the way to church and during baptism. Metal lace on caps and tiny brooches on garments showed the huldrefolk that the child had been claimed by the human world and reflected away their evil. Crosses, formed from pieces of metal lace or ribbon, appeared on caps and decorative bibs. Cross symbols also were woven into colorful wool christening blankets or swaddling bands. Even something as simple as a coin tucked into the hem of a swaddling band or a straight pin on a blanket could protect the child (Christie 1979–80: 149). In the mid1800s, a pastor in the remote district of Telemark found a darning needle poking a baby in the scalp after examining the child, who had screamed throughout the christening service. The baby’s parents had stuck the needle into the cap, and it had come loose (K. Stokker, interview, 23 April 1998). In the 1700s, it was customary to swaddle babies. In addition to the bands and blankets, three other important garments offered protection: bibs, buntings and caps. Infants in southern and western Norway wore decorative smekker, or bibs. These stiffened garments were placed on swaddled children when they were held over the baptismal font (Christie 1990: 52). The bibs were made of red woolen homespun or damask, and then covered with silk ribbon and tulle rosettes, buttons, beads, white lace, metal lace and metal trim. Even-sided and diagonal crosses often appear in many places on the rectangular or triangular bibs. Kirsten Nøklebye (1988: 80) suggests a parallel between baptismal bibs and the chasubles worn by Catholic priests in Norway in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The visual connection is especially apparent in the district of Agder, where the bibs are curved at the bottom. Norway was declared Lutheran in 1537, but a royal ordinance allowed Catholic priests to stay in the churches until they died, so chasubles remained in use until the late 1500s. The chasuble form was retained in baptismal bibs until almost 1900 (Christie 1990: 54). The baptismal bibs combined costly fabrics for a festive appearance, the color red to symbolize life and good fortune (Nøklebye 1988: 78), the shape of a chasuble for a consecrating effect, and metal for protection. Black was used sparingly, because it was the color of sorcery and trolls. Blue was more 206

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common; it symbolized the Virgin Mary (Sundbø 1994: 170). The Norwegian traditional folk beliefs coexisted with Christianity, so the combination of Christian symbols and imagery with metal made these bibs powerful garments. Common in Sweden and Denmark as well as in Norway, beautiful buntings or poser held the swaddled children. The damask and embroidered silk may have been recycled from fashionable dress fabric that made its way into the rural areas (Nøklebye 1988: 77). Metal lace and ribbon ran the length of some buntings. The same metal trim might form rosettes on the hoods. Buntings were used until white christening gowns became popular in the mid-1800s. Caps or luer vary widely in cut, material and decoration.4 Caps are the only baptismal garment that differed depending on the sex of the child (Christie 1990: 69). Boys’ caps were made of five or six pieces of fabric. Girls’ caps were constructed from three pieces of fabric. Like the bibs and buntings, caps are made of fine material. Gold and silver lace and ribbon form rosettes, even-sided crosses and diagonal crosses.

Wedding Dress Marriage was a less dangerous time than baptism for Norwegians, but extra metal was still needed for protection, especially for women. At the precise moment a woman went from being single to married, she risked being taken into the mountain by huldrefolk. To prevent this, grooms wore crosses on long chains. Women throughout Norway wore special headdresses. Brides in central Norway wore flat or cap-like headdresses decorated with beads and dangles. In western and northern Norway, brides wore metal crowns with hanging decorations shaped like circles, crosses, leaves and birds. Metal lace appears on many of these crowns as trim and streamers. A crown from northwest Norway, now at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, is made of layers of silver and gold lace over a simple wire form.5 The few crowns that existed in a church parish were often available for rent. The cost was set by the owner, usually a minister or wealthy farmer (Noss 1991: 243). Many years of use in church added power to the metal’s ability to keep the wearers safe from becoming huldre brides. Brides wore the most and the finest jewelry, including several large brooches, finger rings and bridal necklaces. They wore religious medals, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century coins, or large lockets suspended from thick chains. Women on the west coast of Norway wore bridal bibs that 207

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resemble larger versions of the baptismal bibs, with metal lace and ribbon crosses. Oval mirror ornaments reflected evil away from the wearers.

Fashionable Dress By the mid-nineteenth century, most Norwegians had stopped believing in huldrefolk and no longer needed silver for protection. As fashionable European dress replaced rural dress, it eliminated the need for customary fasteners. Women continued to wear their brooches, but now pinned them on stylish bodices and shirtwaists. Metal began to play a role in a nationwide cultural revival. After four hundred years under Danish and Swedish rule, Norway was excitedly anticipating her independence in 1905. Norwegians wanted to be more Norwegian, and looked to rural culture for inspiration. When wearing a silver heirloom, or a new brooch that was made in the old style, a woman could show her feelings of nationalism. Norwegian women who immigrated to the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought their brooches and wore them with fashionable dress. Immigrant women wanted to look like American women, but they also liked to wear a memento of home. Carol Colburn (1994: 138) found that jewelry was the accessory most often retained from Norwegian dress. In the New World, brooches symbolized cultural identity. When an immigrant woman wore a Norwegian sølje, she announced her ethnic heritage.

Summary In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, rural Norwegians believed that they were in almost constant danger from supernatural beings, especially huldrefolk. Infants and lone adults were particularly at risk. To ensure their safety, men, women and children wore silver jewelry daily. Metal lace and ribbon adorned the garments worn at rites of passage. After the midnineteenth century, rural Norwegians stopped believing in huldrefolk and replaced their dress with European fashions. Silver’s protective and utilitarian functions were lost. But on the fashionable dress of Norwegian and NorwegianAmerican women, metal jewelry remained powerful as symbols of national pride and cultural identity.

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Notes This chapter began as a paper presented at the Costume Society of America National Symposium in Pasadena, California, on 28 May 1998. The goal of this research was to investigate the historical and cultural contexts surrounding Norwegian jewelry and metal-trimmed garments now in the collection of Vesterheim NorwegianAmerican Museum in Decorah, Iowa. 1. Reimund Kvideland and Henning K. Sehmsdorf (1988: 24) state that many early legend collectors, like Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, wanted to both preserve and share the folklore. So although they translated the texts from the original dialect into more standard Norwegian, they left the overall sentence structure and many vernacular expressions. 2. I am indebted to Kathleen Stokker, Professor of Norwegian at Luther College, for clarifying the Norwegian names of the various supernatural creatures. 3. Although metal trim was made in several European countries historically, both Brit Bauge (1985:28) and Kari-Anne Pedersen of the Norwegian Folk Museum (interview, 5 July 1997), think that it is most likely that the lace used in Norway was imported from Germany, a close trading partner. 4. The caps, luer, that are described here are often the outermost of several layers of headcoverings worn at baptism. According to Inger Lise Christie (1990: 64–6), as many as four or five pieces were commonly worn, including a triangular cloth to cover the fontanelle, an under cap and a kerchief. 5. Vesterheim Museum #225.

References Asbjørnsen, P. C., and Moe, J. (1953), Samlede Eventyr, vol. 1, Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. Bauge, B. (1985), “Sølvkniplinger,” Norsk Husflid, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 27–8. Christiansen, R. T. (1964), Folktales of Norway, trans. P. S. Iversen, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Christie, I. L. (1979–80), “Dåpslinder fra Østerdalen,” By og Bygd, vol. 28, pp. 115–49. —— (1990), Dåpsdrakter, Oslo: C. Huitfeldt Forlag. —— (1993), “Religion og Folketro i Bondens Stue,” in E. Rudeng (ed.), Med Egin Hand: Håndverk og Kunst på Bygdene, pp. 23–8. Oslo: Norsk Folkemuseum. Colburn, C. (1994), “‘Well, I Wondered When I Saw You What All These New Clothes Meant:’ Interpreting the Dress of Norwegian-American Immigrants,” in M. J. Nelson (ed.), Material Culture and People’s Art Among the Norwegians in America, pp. 118–55. Northfield, MN: Norwegian-American Historical Association. Fossberg, J. (1991), Drakt Sølv, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

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Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia Kvideland, R., and Sehmsdorf, H. K. (eds) (1988), Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Noss, A. (1991), Lad og Krone: Fra Jente til Brur, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Nøklebye, K. K. (1988), “Dåpspraksis og Dåpsklær i Vest-Agder på 1800-tallet,” Vest-Agder Fylkesmuseum Årbok, pp. 35–86. Sundbø, A. (1994), Kvardagsstrikk, Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget.

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12

The Dynamic Relationship Between Lithuanian National Costumes and Folk Dress Ruta Saliklis

In the late nineteenth century, before Lithuania gained its independence from Russia in 1918, the Lithuanian national costume was invented and worn by the educated classes for folk cultural performances.1 “Invented traditions” are those that emerged “within a brief and datable period . . . establishing themselves with great rapidity” (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: 1). In this chapter I show that the invention of a Lithuanian national costume is a manifestation of a national awakening. I have labeled key historical figures in the early twentieth century as activist/teachers, and it is they who adopted the holiday attire of the peasants, making it even more colorful and ornate than the prototype. Images of young women in Lithuanian costume brought to the minds of writers and artists of the early twentieth century romantic notions of the goodness and stability of village life in a rapidly changing world. The myth of an idyllic peasant past was encompassed by the costume. The meaning of the costume was immediately and intuitively apparent to Lithuanians as symbolizing the spirit of Lithuanian culture. The viewer made immediate associations without any stylistic analysis of the costume. The association is often a “gut-reaction.” In the decades that followed, the changing political climate of Lithuania greatly affected the process of defining what constituted a national costume. A central tenet of my study is that the ideal of an agreed-upon national costume is constantly in flux, and is shaped by a number of factors – the political fortunes experienced by members of a nation and by their economic circumstances, to name two. I will show that several divergent branches emerged in the development of Lithuanian national costume. For instance,

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after Lithuania was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1944, the expression of national or regional identity through costume was a sign of anti-Soviet sentiment, endangering the wearer’s job and family. At state-sponsored parades and festivals the Soviet style of costume was worn. All the members of a particular group wore identical costumes, and the lack of regional characteristics made the identification of the wearer’s origin impossible. After the late 1960s, less repressive political conditions allowed Lithuanians to express their national and regional identities through national costume once again. This chapter documents the development of a new style of national costume, a “reinvented” tradition. The analysis of the costume is approached in a number of ways. First, the aforementioned historic and cultural forces leading to the invention and subsequent reinvention of national costumes are explored. Second, the “reinvented” costume is compared with other styles of costume vying for the designation of “the national costume.” Finally, an analysis is made of how the costume functions as a symbol of national identity. In particular, I explain how vastly different styles of costume can be interpreted as being the sole “authentic” style in the eyes of different groups of people. The study focuses on the performers in folklore ensembles, who are the main proponents of the “reinvented” style of national costume. Many of the data were collected in the course of fieldwork with folklore ensembles in Lithuania. In 1993, I spent six months studying and traveling with a number of these ensembles, and conducted a number of personal interviews with the ensemble members as well as with their leaders. A survey distributed to ensemble members yielded a high return, and the responses elucidated the complex meanings associated with folk costumes. Combining this invaluable source of data with my interviews of weavers, ethnographers and museum professionals, I was able to develop a composite picture of the forces leading to the development of a national costume.

Historic and Cultural Forces National costumes are a window into the cultural values of a given people at a given time, and are shaped and altered by the historic events of that time. The popularity of national costumes rises and falls in accordance with political events, socio-economic conditions, and the people’s self-image. There have been two high points in the waves of popularity of national costumes in recent Lithuanian history, each of which occurred immediately preceding a declaration of independence – first at the turn of this century, and again in the 1980s. An examination of the historic and cultural forces that directly 212

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or indirectly impacted on the development of national costumes during each of these independence movements will help to explain this phenomenon.

The Invention of National Costumes in the Nineteenth Century The Lithuanian national costume was first invented in the late nineteenth century during a period of national rebirth. At that time, the upper, educated classes of Lithuania, who had long since abandoned traditional clothing, began wearing costumes for special occasions loosely based upon the folk costumes worn by peasants in the rural regions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Change in socio-economic conditions in the nineteenth century directly impacted on the rural folk costume tradition. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Baltic region gradually moved from a feudal system to a capitalist economy. In Lithuania, the feudal system was abolished in 1861, leading to the emancipation of the serfs. The availability of commercial goods such as cotton fabrics, woolen and silk cloth and manufactured scarves meant that home production of textiles for clothing was no longer a necessity. Women continued to produce domestic linens like bedspreads and tablecloths, but in general the peasants valued commercially-produced fabrics much more highly than their own handmade products.2 Throughout Europe in the late nineteenth century, intellectuals began to document and collect the most artistic folk art products (Viires 1985: 544). This came at precisely the time when intellectuals perceived the rapid disappearance of “traditional” folk culture. This process of documentation became more important during the drive for independence, as nations began to seek autonomy. Analysis of the collected material generally did not occur at the time it was collected; rather, the collected material itself became proof of the uniqueness of the folk culture of the given nationality or ethnic group and justified its existence as a separate nationality. For the same reason, the native language took on greater importance, as did the history of the people and their historical and mythological heroes. In Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia this awareness came in the 1850s and 1860s. In Lithuania, publications in the vernacular became illegal after 1865, owing to the ban imposed by Tsarist Russia as a consequence of Lithuania’s involvement in the Polish uprising against Russia in 1863. However, this ban only made the language more important, and publications in Lithuanian were published by the Lithuanians in Eastern Prussia (also known as Lithuania Minor), where there was no ban. They were secretly smuggled into Lithuania 213

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through the dense forests. It is important to understand that at this time the Lithuanian language was only spoken by the peasants; the upper, educated classes and the clergy all spoke Polish. The late nineteenth century ultimately saw the birth of a nationalistic movement, which involved standardizing the written Lithuanian language, and, in the process, breaking free of the Polish cultural influence in Lithuania as well. A need for a national costume that would unify Lithuania as a nation arose concurrently. During the ban on the native language, folk theater productions in country barns became a form of protest. In these productions, folk songs and dances and the writings of contemporary Lithuanian authors were performed. The performers wore costumes they made themselves, based upon their recollections of what their parents and grandparents had worn. Parts of the costume were also taken from dowry chests (Jurkuviene 1993: 2). Choral groups, which performed patriotic and folk songs heavily influenced by a certain German style (characterized by harmonized singing), were very popular in Lithuania and elsewhere in the Baltics at this time. The first formal Lithuanian choral groups were formed in the late nineteenth century in Lithuania Minor by, among others, the Lithuanian philosopher Vydunas (Vilhelmas Storasta), and the choral movement spread to the rest of the country. The style of folk costume worn in Lithuania Minor spread along with the songs. After the ban on publications in the Lithuanian language was lifted in 1904, there was an explosion of newspaper articles calling for a national costume. In the reviews of choral performances, female performers wearing national costumes were praised, while those without them were chastised. The costumes worn by women in choral groups were the first Lithuanian national costumes, even though there was no consensus on the exact style of the costume at the time. Near the end of the century, collectors and ethnographers began accumulating the most decorative parts of folk dress, particularly the aprons and sashes. Aprons from the region of Suvalkija were ornately woven with stylized tulip motifs, and consequently they were valued more highly than those from other regions. The most decorative sashes were also produced in Suvalkija and neighboring Dzukija, both regions in the southern portion of Lithuania. The ornamentation on folk dress from the northern portion of Lithuania was considered more archaic, but also less interesting, because it tended to consist of simple geometric forms. The Lithuanian Art Society organized semi-annual exhibitions of folk dress. In 1908, artist-composer M. K. Ciurlionis curated the second such exhibition. Asking for contributions, he wrote in the local newspaper:

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Lithuanian National Costumes and Folk Dress Appealing particularly to our respected peasants . . . I request . . . that you send us your beautiful handworks . . . sashes, aprons . . . ornamented in the traditional old Lithuanian patterns . . . We do not request works which are identical in all nations and have nothing to do with folk art or particularly with Lithuanian art, instead send us more sashes, aprons (Tamosaitis and Tamosaitis 1979: 16).

Ciurlionis, highly regarded as an abstract artist by the Lithuanian people and later by non-Lithuanian art historians, “discovered” this folk art of the peasants at about the same time that Picasso and Braque “discovered” primitive art. Ciurlionis was interested only in those articles ornamented with motifs considered uniquely Lithuanian. These could be exhibited in the museum and thus be elevated to the level of “high art.” Another candidate for the Lithuanian national costume of the early twentieth century was the artistic creation known as Birutes kostiumas (“costume of the Birute society”). Birute was a famous historical figure, the daughter of a Grand Duke of Zemaitija, who married Kestutis, fourteenthcentury ruler of Lithuania. The society was a women’s organization, which began in Tilze (Lithuania Minor) in 1885 (Poskaitis 1985: 11). This style of costume spread to the rest of Lithuania and remained popular for several decades. Textile historian Ausra Kargaudiene documents how another woman in Kaunas acquired her Birutes kostiumas in 1930: “I saw my beautiful Birute costume in the window of a seamstress’ shop in Kaunas. In 1934, I was married in that costume. The blouse was made of white silk, and the vest was made from red material. I had a thin string of amber, just like a real Birute” (1989: 17). Another woman living in Lithuania Minor ordered a Birute costume from a seamstress in Aukstaitija in 1930. She described it as having a black velvet vest and a dark red skirt with thin vertical bands of yellow. The hem of the underskirt was decorated, and the shirt had whitework embroidery. The apron was embroidered with yellow, green and red tulips. I wore a thin sash on my head, and a beautiful amber necklace and bracelet. My shoes were closed (Kargaudiene 1989: 17).

This is another example of the creation of a national costume that was not made by the wearer, but rather reflected the prevailing fashion. The yellow, red and green tulips on the apron were seen as extremely patriotic, since these are the colors of the national flag. Costumes in the same style had been worn by many of the performers in the first Lithuanian song festival in 1924.

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Soon after Lithuania gained independence in 1918, many of the young women in choral groups wore national costumes based on romantic notions of a fourteenth-century Lithuanian princess. The popularity of the costume spread quickly, as we would expect of fashion, rather than folk costume (Kargaudiene 1989: 17). Even though all of the pieces that we would expect in a folk dress ensemble were present, they were extremely stylized, and were not based on actual historic clothing. The costumes were worn by young, upper-class women. Despite the fact that there was no firm agreement on the “correct” style of the national costume, its popularity grew during the 1920s and 1930s, particularly among women in choral groups. Until approximately 1940, folk dress was still worn by women in some of the rural regions of Lithuania, primarily in the southern region, Dzukija. The women in this region wove their own skirts and embellished their everyday white cotton aprons with whitework embroidery and edgings of filet crochet. For special occasions, they wore dark cotton aprons with a wide band of flowers and winding tendrils embroidered near the bottom. Interestingly, a similar apron was worn with the aforementioned Birute costume. It is uncertain whether the aprons of women in the rural region influenced the designers of national costumes, or if perhaps the women in rural regions saw the national costumes and created their own aprons based upon those.

The Organized National Costume Movement of the Independence Era This historic overview sets the stage for the entrance of Antanas Tamosaitis in 1926. Tamosaitis had been studying at the art academy in Kaunas. Paulius Galaune, a Lithuanian art historian who had been his mentor, hired him to collect ethnographic material for the purpose of creating national costumes in Kaunas. The most decorative parts of folk dress had already been “discovered” and exhibited by artists such as M. K. Ciurlionis twenty years earlier, but now there was a need to produce national costumes, and Galaune, among others, wanted to model them on actual folk dress of the late nineteenth century. Tamosaitis collected very valuable ethnographic material for the purpose of determining regional variation in folk dress. However, he was very selective, and would not collect articles of clothing unless they were made from handwoven cloth. His method of collecting relates to the way in which the most decorative parts of folk dress were collected in 1907 for the first folk art exhibitions. Tamosaitis was searching for the most “characteristically 216

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Lithuanian” textiles, and for the most beautiful examples of these, which could later serve as models for new creations. In 1930, the first Lithuanian museum acquired a complete set of old Lithuanian dress ensembles from Tamosaitis’ fieldwork. Up until that time, only collections of aprons and sashes were known. At this time many rural women still had complete sets of folk dress stored away in their dowry chests. Tamosaitis’ mentor Paulius Galaune published a book on Lithuanian Folk Art (1930). Many of the examples of weaving illustrated in this book were items that Tamosaitis collected. Illustrations of architectural details were also based on his photographs. The book was introduced with a statement that Ciurlionis made in 1908 on the occasion of the opening of the second Lithuanian art exhibition: “Folk art must be the foundation of our art, and from it must rise a uniquely Lithuanian style. It is the source of great pride, since the beauty contained within it is purely, uniquely and without exception Lithuanian” (1930: 5). Thus it is clear that Ciurlionis’ approach and criteria for selecting folk art were still viable in 1930. Although Antanas Tamosaitis was born in 1906 and did not experience the early exhibitions firsthand, he was strongly affected by the spirit of the earlier collectors. The influence may have come through his mentor Paulius Galaune. In 1930 Tamosaitis was hired to work in the newly-formed Home Economics Division of the Lithuanian Farm Bureau (Zemes Ukio Rumai), and under its auspices, he was able to publish several books on Lithuanian textiles. From 1931 until 1939 he worked on an eight-volume series entitled Sodziaus Menas (“Village Art”). There were volumes on knitting, and sashes, and a two-volume treatise on women’s national costume (1938–39). This was the time when national folk dress ensembles were divided into ethnographic regions, and Tamosaitis delineated seven: Aukstaitija, Zemaitija, Suvalkija (further subdivided into Zanavykija, Dzukija, and Kapsai), Mazoji Lietuva (Lithuania Minor) and the Vilnius region. Tamosaitis’ 1938 treatise proved to be very influential in the history of national costumes; it set the course for their production for many decades. Weavers trained by Tamosaitis and other instructors through the courses offered by the Farm Bureau used it as their sourcebook and copied the recommended costumes as best as they could. Even though the thirty-two color illustrations of the women of various regions were the author’s own creations, they came to be accepted as “traditional” and “authentic.” I have chosen to call these costumes an invented tradition, because they emerged “within a brief and datable period . . . establishing themselves with great rapidity” (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983: 1). Another important author of the independence era, Mikalina Glemzaite, was a weaving instructor at the Farm Bureau and a follower of the creative 217

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principles espoused by Tamosaitis. In 1939, her Lietuviu Moteru Tautiniai Drabuziai (“National Costume of Lithuanian Women”) was published by the women’s division of the Lithuanian National Guard, an organization instrumental in promoting the wearing of national costume. The book describes how Lithuanian costumes should be made and worn, and includes numerous photographs of balls at which the women wearing the “best” Lithuanian national costumes were awarded prizes. Notably, only women are seen wearing Lithuanian national costumes; the men in the photographs wear either tuxedos or military uniforms. The need for a male national costume arose for the performance of folk dances. The creation of national costumes for men proved to be extremely problematic for Tamosaitis, since there were so few examples of handwoven clothing in the ethnographic material. Nevertheless, Tamosaitis designed a costume based on the everyday clothing of peasants in the nineteenth century, consisting of handwoven linen shirts and wool or linen pants. Newspaper accounts of the late 1930s did not acknowledge the new men’s costumes as “national;” as one put it, “. . . the arena was filled with men in shirt sleeves and straw hats and women in national costumes” (Poskaitis 1985: 43). Another account described the men as “farm boys dressed for harvesting hay” (1985: 44). Tamosaitis added handwoven vests and thin sashes worn as neckties to the outfit to make the costumes more decorative and acceptable to the Lithuanian public (Jurkuviene 1993: 8). After the Second World War, thousands of Lithuanians emigrated to the United States and Canada. Emigré weavers created the same types of costumes as they had in Lithuania, and these were worn in North America on Lithuanian holidays, for folk dancing and by choral groups. Figure 12.1 shows a costume woven in Chicago circa 1960 by Emilija Tutlys, who was born in 1911 in Lithuania. The Lithuanian-American woman in the photograph has worn that costume to folk dancing festivals and independence rallies for over twenty years. Lithuanian-Americans interpret the costumes made in Lithuania from the past several decades as degenerate, and see them as representing the unfortunate destruction of their culture caused by the years of Soviet occupation. They consider the “authentic” national costumes to be the ones prescribed by Antanas Tamosaitis and made by the weavers of the Lithuanian Folk Art Institute chapters in North America, and see any deviation from this established style as incorrect. Lithuanian-Americans believe they have preserved Lithuanian culture in pristine form, and whenever there is interaction between the cultural arbiters of Lithuania and Lithuanian émigrés, the latter feel it is their duty to educate the Lithuanians on “correct” culture.

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Figure 12.1. Folk costume by Emilija Tutlys circa 1960. Photograph from the author’s collection.

The Reinvention of National Costumes Postwar Lithuania

During the Soviet era, official costume designers took the national costumes of the previous era and removed the Lithuanian national characteristics, such as the characteristic colors and weaving motifs, leaving a carcass, which at a glance slightly resembled a Lithuanian national costume, but actually was forced to fit the new Soviet ideology. Most important, class and ethnic distinctions were erased, so that all inhabitants of the Soviet territory were equal and inseparable. National culture gave way to Soviet culture, which by virtue of having been created during the Soviet era, was “inherently superior” to all forms from previous eras. All cultural expressions were under tight control, and any expressions to the contrary were punishable by force. During this time, anyone wearing any combination of the national colors (the yellow, green and red of the Lithuanian flag) was liable to be arrested

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(Thomson 1992: 9). This did not prevent individuals from taking risks. Ethnographers from the Institute of Lithuanian History described finding an elderly woman in a rural region who had made herself a yellow, green and red national costume during the postwar period. Song festivals continued during this time, but the repertoire became a strange blend of well-known folk songs and dances and new compositions, such as dances praising the leader of the collective farm. At the 1955 festival, the youth groups danced a newly choreographed dance honoring the leader of the collective farm, and the entire spectacle ended with the well-known Lithuanian dance, suktinis, at the end of which a chain of dancers spelled “Soviet Lithuania XV.” The purpose of the spectacle was to disseminate Soviet propaganda: loyalty to the new regime, brotherhood, friendship among Soviet states. The costumes made for these spectacles were poorly mass-produced, and were given to the performers at no charge. Terese Jurkuviene referred to these costumes as “carnival clothing,” a disposable, degenerate form of costume far removed from its historical roots (T. Jurkuviene, personal interview, 4 May 1993). After the war, weavers trained by Tamosaitis and other instructors at the Farm Bureau turned mainly to weaving fabric for men’s suits and overcoats and interior textiles (bedspreads, tablecloths and decorative towels). Fabrics for national costumes in the style proposed by Tamosaitis continued to be woven, but these were pushed to the periphery (church collections) and were replaced with new designs by officially-sanctioned designers, who took the national costumes of the previous era and transformed them further, so that they were even more stylized than before. Mikalina Glemzaite remained in Lithuania throughout the postwar years. In 1955, she was called upon to write a book on national costumes that would disseminate the official designs for that year’s song festival (Glemzaite 1955). The first half of the book contains interesting ethnographic material, but the designs by V. Palaima in the second half of the book bear no resemblance to the ethnographic clothing. The fabric for these costumes was mass-produced, and, through errors in distribution, the cloth for the costumes of Dzukija was sent to Zemaitija, whereas others received only vest or skirt material. Thus the actual costumes created from these designs were further transformed by poor production and faulty distribution (Balcikonis 1989: 138). Every five years thereafter, new designs for national costumes were issued to coincide with song festivals. These drifted further and further from their perceived, original folk dress prototypes, with the nadir of transformation in 1965. The designer V. Palaima proposed having all of the women in one style of costume in six different color schemes in imitation of the colors of the rainbow – red, yellow, blue, orange, violet and green (Palaima and 220

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Gudynas 1964). These particular costumes and the ones worn in the same year by the official state ensemble Lietuva caused the ethnographers and museum professionals finally to speak out and to call for the reinvention of national costumes. The Conference on Folk Costume, 1968

In 1968, the ethnographers working at the Institute of Lithuanian History called for a conference on folk costume, which they entitled “Tradition and Modernity in Lithuanian National Costumes.” In collaboration with the curator of textiles at the Museum of History and Ethnography in Vilnius, they concurrently presented an exhibition of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century folk dress from all ethnographic regions. The purpose of the exhibition was to shock the conference participants, including designers of national costumes, by showing them how greatly contemporary national costumes differed from actual historic clothing (Jurkuviene 1993: 15). The conference immediately changed the course of costume design. After the conference, according to the weaver Monika Kriukeliene, the creations of professional designers took a 180-degree turn – from the free-form artistic fantasies worn by Lietuva to accurate copies of clothing in museums for a newly-formed folk theatrical group. Kriukeliene was one of the weavers hired to weave the new designs for the Liaudies Muzikos Teatro Trupe (“folk music theatrical group”) of the Open Air Museum (personal interview, 10 June 1993). This professional troupe’s début concert was on 13 April 1968. The ethnomusicologist Danute Vabalaite considered this “a cultural event of national importance. It was the first step made in recreating the authentic folk songs, the manner of singing and playing, the dance, the oral folklore . . .” (1982 album cover). Regarding that same troupe, Jadvyga Ciurlionyte wrote: At long last we have seen the recreation of the folk art of our past. We have beheld it not in books, not in printed music, we have heard it not in the stylized performances of trained choirs. It has come to life thanks to the efforts of a handful of enthusiasts . . . It is not easy to recapture the spirit of the ancient folk art of our people (1982).

The costumes worn by the Folk Music Theatre Company were based on the type of clothing that would have been worn by individuals attending a festival or village wedding at the turn of the century. The most striking quality is the individualistic appearance of each of the performers. I have chosen to label this recreated costume too as “reinvented national costume,” again the basis of Hobsbawm’s definition of “invented tradition,” since the reinvention also occurred in a “brief and datable period” (1983: 1). 221

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Even designers of official song festival costumes slowly began to incorporate more regional characteristics in their outfits. Interestingly, regional characteristics were first incorporated into the costumes for the elderly dancers. In 1970, the designers R. Balcikoniene-Songailaite and J. Balcikonis published a book of costume illustrations specifically for groups of older dancers. They assumed that these dancers would simply incorporate their own clothing from dowry chests or make a costume based on memory. They encouraged the elderly people to be creative and not to copy the illustrations in the book. Costumes for other dance groups continued to be mass-produced, but, under the leadership of Balcikonis and Balcikoniene-Songailaite, more and more regional characteristics were also incorporated into these designs. By 1985, the ethnographic origin of a female dancer was clearly evident. It was less discernible in male costume. The new designs for men were closer to holiday wear of the nineteenth century, incorporating such items as greatcoats, tall boots and felt hats. Herein lies another distinction from “invented” costume. Contemporary Ethnographic and Folklore Ensembles

For approximately the last thirty years, Lithuanians have renewed their interest in native traditions such as folk dances, folk songs, wedding and funerary rituals and other celebrations. In My Lithuania, Czech photographers Daniela Mrazkova and Vladimir Remes describe the 1960s as a time when the Soviet Baltic Republics – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – were emerging from the years of rigid repression initiated by Stalin. As they began to take a new interest in the richness of their native traditions, a sense of national identity and cultural self-determination started to flourish (1991: 137).

The reinvention of national costumes is closely tied to this national awakening. This was an era of cultural and religious rebirth. The folklore ensembles arose as informal organizations opposed to official national culture. Their activities were a subtle form of protest that escaped censorship. The performance of folk songs and dances in their natural, unaltered form energized a public hungry for the truthful representation of folk culture. The newly-established solidarity among performers caused them to extend their activities into the private celebration of calendric festivals and religious holidays, secretly at first, since public religious practice was forbidden in the Soviet Union. The search for a deeper understanding of ancient Baltic religion and mythology gave birth to yet another style of costume, the “pagan style,” which is loosely based upon archaeological findings.

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The celebration of Jonines (“St John’s Day”), otherwise known as Midsummer, was one of the most important calendric festivals in Lithuania. The Soviets transformed this festival into a communist youth celebration (Ambrazevicius 1994). A photograph in a tourist brochure from 1985 shows children in national costumes lined up on Jonines facing the statue of Lenin in Vilnius. The Ramuva Society reclaimed the festival in 1967 as Rasos svente (“festival in honor of the goddess Rasa”), with a traditional celebration on the Kernave castlemound, a historic holy place (1994). Young unmarried women wore wreaths made from nine different flowers, using them to perform folk rituals, which would predict if they would wed in the coming year (Dunduliene 1991: 281). Before the peak of the national awakening circa 1988, there was a striking difference between officially-sanctioned celebrations and the secretive revival of ancient religious traditions. Jonines/Rasa is a good example of this. Another important calendric festival is Uzgavenes (“Shrovetide or Shrove Tuesday”). The people in Zemaitija have celebrated this festival continuously since at least the eighteenth century. In the 1970s, folklore ensembles associated with universities and technical colleges of Lithuania revived the celebration in the major cities of Lithuania. Gradually, the celebration spread to all parts of Lithuania. The largest celebration takes place at the Open Air Museum. Although it is celebrated on the day before Ash Wednesday, the ritual is filled with pre-Christian symbolism. The young people of the village dress up as devils, beggars, goats, horses or cranes. Their masks are meant to be frightening, yet funny. A straw effigy of a woman symbolizing winter (More), mounted on a sled, is ceremonially burned at the end of the day. In 1988, costume suggestions for the amateur performer were published in Kulturinis Svietimas (“Cultural Education”). Two types of performance ensembles actively propagate the “reinvented” style of costume.3 Ethnographic ensembles are composed of the people from a particular village or several villages, who perform the songs and dances characteristic of their village and wear their interpretation of their region’s clothing. The transmission of folk culture goes directly from one generation to the next. Folklore ensembles, on the other hand, are urban-based and represent a more diversified group. Typically, the performers are young people who learn presumed folk traditions from ensemble leaders. Thus the transmission of folk culture is indirect. The first folklore ensemble was Vilnius University’s Ratilio, formed in 1968. The largest concentration of ensembles was in Vilnius, and the movement spread to other cities and eventually to more rural regions. In 1989, the total number of ensembles was estimated at about 800. Figure 12.2 shows the members of the Ratilio folklore ensemble performing in the courtyard of Vilnius University in 1993. 223

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Figure 12.2. Ratilio folklore ensemble of Vilnius performing at the Skamba, Skamba Kankliai folklore festival, which has been held yearly since 1975. Photograph from the author’s collection.

In reaction to the highly stylized, highly choreographed type of performance common during the earlier independence era (1918–1940) in Lithuania, many of the folklore and ethnographic ensembles have revived the social dances and songs that were once common at harvesting and planting time, which could be sung or performed by anyone. They take pride in performing these as they believe they were performed in the rural regions in earlier times. The emphasis in these performances is on regional specificity. When Ratilio performed in Chicago in the summer of 1989, Zita Kelmickaite, its director, introduced each of the performers and explained the distinctive, regional characteristics of his or her costume. At the inaugural conference of the Society of Lithuanian Ethnic Culture in 1989, Vacys Milius stated that one cannot speak of “Lithuanian” culture, traditions, food and folk architecture. One has to say that something is characteristic of a specific region of Lithuania. He praised folklore ensembles for going down this route (1989: 83).

Complex Emotions Associated with the Wearing of “Reinvented” Costumes In order to get a full and in-depth view of the contemporary folk costume phenomenon, I questioned the members of folklore ensembles about their 224

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costumes.4 When asked how they feel when they are wearing their costumes, respondents described the effect of the costume on the body. Interestingly, a spiritual aspect to the wearing of folk costume emerged, which was previously unknown to me. Many respondents used the term pakiliai, which means “uplifted.” Others used the term pasitempes, which literally means “stretched,” but refers to carriage, posture and a sense of reverence towards the costume. It is the way one would feel when walking in a solemn procession. The following respondent described such emotions: I feel very elegant. The wearing of folk costumes clarifies my concentration, it allows me to get in touch with the very essence of all the good and noble aspects of my country, it requires that I behave properly. To me they [folk costumes] are as dear as my own homeland’s, Zemaitija’s, ancient folk songs, they have an inexplicable healing power, it is as if they uncover some indescribable source of energy, the energy of life itself that ties together heaven and earth. When I wear my costume, I feel as if I’m in church. At home, I hang my folk costume in my room [my studio] as if it were an object of art, and it infuses me with energy with its noble colors, heartening me in these difficult times of economic crisis, the cold winter, in times of shortages. I wish to be buried wearing my folk costume (female, b. 1933).

Several respondents expressed feeling a great sense of responsibility, because they were acutely aware that they were representing their country, and that all eyes were upon them: “. . . I am overcome by strong emotions. We will be stared at and questions will arise among the onlookers . . . In that hour we feel a strong sense of responsibility and wealth. We are sharing with others the things that warm our souls . . .” (female, b. 1968). Some described the effect of an “authentic” costume on perceivers. Since this style of costume was not well known among the general populace, the feeling stemmed from a sense of obligation to educate fellow Lithuanians and hopefully instill a deeper sense of national culture in them. The sense of being a “cultural ambassador” was also expressed by those performing beyond Lithuania’s borders: I feel that all eyes are upon me, and that I have to behave properly, because I look so different than other people. I am particularly aware of my self-worth when we are outside the borders of Lithuania, because in such cases, not only do I differ from everyone else, I represent my country. Basically I feel very comfortable in my costume, even if it’s not an everyday sort of feeling (male, b. 1948).

Certainly, not all respondents described positive emotions. Some described feeling comfortable in a physical sense, but uncomfortable in a psychological sense. The latter often depended on the context of the performance: 225

Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia I feel comfortable at folklore festivals, if it isn’t raining. Also, I enjoy wearing my costume when the members of my ensemble gather privately to celebrate calendric holidays or weddings. I do not feel comfortable wearing the costume during national holidays, because the city is filled with incorrectly dressed women (who call their costumes “national”) (female, b. 1960).

The insistence on not appearing in costume during national holidays and political gatherings was corroborated by my direct observations at such events. These respondents held strong opinions regarding the authenticity of their costumes, and they expressed displeasure at appearing at events dominated by individuals in another style of dress, specifically folk costumes of the independence era, which they considered “incorrect.” Others were equally uncomfortable walking alone in the city dressed in folk costume, which can be attributed to being in a minority and a feeling of being scoffed at by peers: I do not feel very comfortable wearing a folk costume in public, i.e. walking down the street. The feeling is such that you are dressed quite dramatically, and that everyone is staring at you. Actually, this is probably an overreaction, but I can’t quite shake that uncomfortable feeling. However, when I am wearing a folk costume within my circle of friends, then I feel very comfortable. In fact, I experience moments of jealousy, if I notice that someone’s skirt is prettier, or if their shirt sleeves are beautifully decorated (female b. 1956). It depends on where and when. If I walk around the city in my costume, I feel as if people consider me strange. Everyone stares at me as if I were on exhibit. But at festivals, I feel great (male b. 1960).

Rarely did respondents mention feeling uncomfortable when performing abroad, since the authenticity of their costumes was not questioned outside Lithuania, and they did not have to share the stage with “incorrectly dressed women.” Figure 12.3 shows the members of a Belarus ethnographic ensemble greeting the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences folklore ensemble on the border of Belarus in 1988. Another reason for negative feelings was voiced by those who were dissatisfied with their costumes and were aware of their shortcomings. This was most common among those who had made their own costumes: My costume creates a sense of scorn in me, because I know that it is a cheap imitation of the real thing, so I don’t feel comfortable wearing it. With a “real” costume, I know that I would feel much better – the direct link with our ancestors’ culture creates a sense of dignity in a person (female b. 1965).

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Figure 12.3. At the height of the national rebirth, members of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences folklore ensemble traveled to Belarus, another region struggling with issues of national identity. Photograph courtesy of Regina Merkiene.

Such feelings can also result from wanting to wear a different style of costume: When wearing my folk costume I have a strangely pleasant sense, as if I have somehow returned to those olden times when people dressed in them. Yet I am not really pleased with the way my costume looks, because it is so shabby compared to the clothes of the ninth to eleventh centuries. I would like to wear such clothes, because then I would be representing a “real” Lithuanian, a “real” man of Zemaitija5 (male b. 1976).

These narratives give a sense of the complex emotions associated with the wearing of folk costumes in 1993. I was most surprised to hear that they were uncomfortable at political gatherings and national holidays, because my personal experience with folk costumes is strongly associated with such events.

Neo-pagans The neo-pagans represent yet another group searching for new traditions and more appropriate symbols of identity in Lithuania. The development of this style of costume surprised the cultural authorities, because it arose among 227

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the proponents of this religion. I have labeled it a “spontaneous development” and a new invention, since it did not exist previously. It was by nature more stylized and impressionistic, being based on very scanty archaeological evidence. I was told that it was more “Lithuanian” because, in the words of one proponent, it reflected the only truly Lithuanian religion (T. Sidiskis, personal interview, 23 April 1993). The display of creativity allowed the makers to get in touch with a more “archaic truth.” A wide variety of interpretations was evidenced, and the overlay of what the adherents believe to be ancient religious elements on the “reinvented” costume worn by folklore ensemble members was common in 1993. Surprisingly, neo-pagan costumes are based on the drawings of a student in the Art Academy in Vilnius. There is very little actual knowledge of the clothing of the original, pre-Christian era in Lithuania, which lasted until approximately 1400.6 The makers of new costumes in this style are attempting to reconstruct costumes from the first half of the first century AD, but the archaeological evidence from this era is limited to bronze ornaments and cardweaving tools. In order to complete the costume, the makers have to improvise enormously, and they also have to borrow from textile evidence of the thirteenth through to the nineteenth centuries. In Figure 12.4, the neopagans conduct a wedding ceremony in full costume. Drawings of neo-pagan costumes appeared in the newsletter of the Gediminaiciai (“followers of the grand duke Gediminas”) (Samboraite-Giedraitiene 1990). This was the publication of an informal youth organization formed in 1989. Many of its members are interested in the restoration of ancient pre-Christian beliefs. The author emphasized that the costume is not primitive and that unbleached linen should not be worn. Pure white has an important symbolic role; i.e., to protect and decorate the wearer, but also to display the important virtues of decency and cleanliness. Other costume prescriptions are given, including the types of bronze ornaments that may be worn. The main feature of the costume is its unconstructed nature. Neck openings and wide sleeve ends are held in place with bronze jewelry – pins and wrist bands. Skirts are not sewn. The slit in the front is covered by a plain white apron. The typical colors of the neo-pagan costume are white, moss-green and beige, and sashes are typically red and white. The costume is made from manufactured cloth, except for the sash, which is likely to be woven by the wearer. The bronze ornaments worn with the costume are also typically made by someone in the group. The adherents of this movement consciously choose not to wear amber jewelry, even though there is historical evidence pointing to the use of amber jewelry in the pre-Christian era, which their followers are attempting to replicate. This rejection is most probably due to the association of amber with other styles of national costume. 228

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Figure 12.4. A neo-pagan wedding celebration at a Lithuanian farmstead in 1993. The priestess blesses the bride’s rue wreath with smoke from the sacred fire. Photograph from the author’s collection.

Those unable to create an entirely new neo-pagan costume choose elements of the reinvented costume and embellish them with bronze jewelry. At a neopagan spring festival, many of the female participants wore vertically-striped woolen skirts, plain white shirts, and card-woven sashes, along with their bronze clasps, necklaces and bracelets. The reasoning behind such attire is that the wearer feels justified in combining elements of simple-weave fabrics, because the simpler weaves seem more archaic. 229

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Another “spontaneous development” was the incorporation of perceived folk and pre-Christian costume elements into everyday dress. A further invention, its main proponents in 1993 were folklorists and neo-pagan groups. Before the reinstatement of independence, the wearing of folk costume elements indicated allegiance to the grass-roots political movement. Kaiser refers to these as “appearance cues,” and stresses their importance at “rites of intensification” that are meant to unify a group (1985: 431). In 1993, folk-style clothing was worn mainly at informal cultural gatherings and for the celebration of neo-pagan rituals. Lithuanian national consciousness has gone through several upheavals since the mid-nineteenth century. It can be argued that the history of Lithuania repeated itself. The occupation, national awakening, cultural rebirth and first era of independence (1918–1940) was followed by several more occupations, another era of cultural rebirth and the reinstatement of independence in 1990. However, the national culture was not reborn, but rather, it was formed anew each time. Folk costumes, now serving the function of symbolizing national identity, “found themselves in an entirely new socio-economic land as qualitatively new historical expressions” (Vebra 1992: 21). They took on new associations and meanings for the people based on the shared history and experiences of this unique group. At moments of historical upheaval, such as those immediately before a declaration of independence, the form of the costume per se does not matter as much as the people’s associations with certain cultural, religious and national values. Once the turmoil is over, the form of the costume is solidified and crystallized into an agreed-upon set of stylistic elements, which becomes the symbol of national identity. This symbol is contested and renegotiated when it no longer carries culturally meaningful associations. Reinvention of the tradition is the likely outcome. That is what happened following the liberation from the Soviet Union in 1990.

“Reinvented” Costume as a Contested Symbol of Identity Opposition to the manipulation of folk traditions by the Soviets was the driving force for the drastic rehabilitation of folk costume during the second national awakening. A search for authenticity in folk culture shaped the way the tradition-seekers constructed new traditions in contemporary Lithuania. The new authorities on folk culture – the curators of ethnographic artefacts at Lithuanian museums, the ethnographers, folklorists and ethnomusicologists – transmitted the past through their authoritative voices. When the public cried out for “historical truth,” these authorities were able to satisfy that 230

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thirst with their scholarly knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century peasant culture.7 Lithuanians perceived the artefacts of that culture to be “real” and “authentic,” because they were validated by the new cultural authorities. By wearing such items, Lithuanians visibly expressed their disdain for a government that had manipulated Lithuania’s history for over four decades. The uniqueness of this reinvention process is that the link to the original source was forcibly broken by the Soviet occupation, and therefore needed to be re-established. The expression of Lithuanian identity through the reenactment of nineteenth-century peasant feasts and rituals did not fit Soviet ideology, and was condemned. The resurrection of old peasant rituals became a form of protest against the Soviet occupation, and these performances became very popular in the years prior to the reinstatement of independence. The construction of national identity as it occurred among Lithuanians during the second national awakening was not static or fixed, and differences of opinion regarding “Lithuanian-ness” emerged among competing groups. The new authorities described above were surprised to find that other groups were reaching even further back into Lithuania’s past in order to find an identity that they could call their own. The conflict centered on religion. Once religious expression became permissible, certain groups expressed their identity through the symbols resurrected from Lithuania’s pre-Christian past. An entirely new style of Lithuanian costume was created for their rituals and performances. It arose “from the streets,” but it quickly spread among this new peer group. The reinvention of the national costume can also be seen as the expression of identity from a grass-roots political movement. The Sajudis, or Reformation movement, was Lithuania’s reaction to Gorbachev’s call for glasnost. Allegiance to the movement was shown by wearing elements of folk costume – a woven sash, amber jewelry, a linen blouse or a straw hat. These are subtle indicators. Worn with everyday clothing, the message would not be apparent to anyone outside the culture, and most importantly not to the Soviet authorities. Items of clothing made from linen became an important symbol of Lithuanian identity to a wide segment of the population in the years preceding the reinstatement of independence. Much as homespun cotton fabric symbolized independence in India during Gandhi’s rule, coarse, unbleached linen thread, either knitted into garments or woven and sewn into clothing, was valued in Lithuania because the raw material came from native soil. Unbleached linen cloth even found its way into national costumes, a trend that ethnographers quickly negated. In its unbleached state, there is no mistaking linen for any other fabric, which could be the reason why 231

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Lithuanians preferred it. As Annette Weiner and Jane Schneider acknowledge, a simple, colorless textile makes reference to the oldest and most humble traditions of a nation (1989: 19). A member of a folklore ensemble informed me that her peer group donned “linen sacks” as a statement against the glitter and falseness of the official Lithuanian national ensemble, Lietuva (Eugenija Venskauskaite, personal interview, 18 June 1993). The use of national costume is selective: wearers deem it appropriate for certain occasions but not for others, and the appropriate style is also negotiated. The symbolic value is not apparent merely through the presence of the costume. Associations accrue over time, based on the unique history and experiences of the group. A group of the same ethnic origin consequently may have entirely different associations and stylistic expectations than another group, because of their divergent histories. Confrontations between the two are rarely amicable, because reactions are purely emotional. The passionate defense of one’s own interpretation and denunciation of those of others become issues of national importance. The raison d’être of the nation’s being seems to be at stake. If the proponents of the different styles of national costume only realized that their interpretations are constructions (inventions and reinventions of tradition), perhaps they would relax their hold on specific details, and more calmly consider the motivations of other groups. The interpretation of what national costume means is truly fluid and dynamic.

Notes 1. I contend that the concept of a single national costume, as opposed to nineteenthcentury folk dress (the prototype for this national costume), is an artificial construct, which is why I use the terms “invented” and “reinvented.” Throughout this chapter, I use the term “costume” for the clothing that symbolizes Lithuanian identity (or Soviet identity during the Soviet era), which is worn mainly for performances, and I use the term “dress” for the everyday and festive wear of Lithuanians past and present. 2. As Viires points out, the value placed on commercial goods is observable in other parts of the Baltics at this time, and is a typical phenomenon in other parts of the world as well (1985: 543). 3. Lithuanian ensembles perform folk songs and dances. They demonstrate wedding, harvest and Shrovetide rituals, recite humorous folk anecdotes and involve the audience in traditional games. 4. In 1993, 200 surveys were distributed (100 women and 100 men) to ten folklore ensembles, so that each ensemble received 20 surveys. I received responses from 9 of the 10 ensembles and a total of 153 completed surveys. 5. He is referring to the neo-pagan style of clothing. 6. The official date for the acceptance of Christianity in Lithuania is 1387, even though earlier religious traditions continued for many years following that date. 232

Lithuanian National Costumes and Folk Dress 7. Lithuanians calling for the “true” history of Lithuania were calling for a revision of official Soviet historiography, which diminished the importance of kings, grand dukes, and duchesses of medieval times and excised historical and literary figures of the independence era. In the late 1980s, for the first time, Lithuanians were able publicly to discuss historical matters that had been censured from history books, such as the Soviet deportations of Lithuanians to Siberia.

References Ambrazevicius, R. (1994), “The Present Day, Folklore and Folklore Studies,” in Lithuanian Roots: An Overview of Lithuanian Traditional Culture, Vilnius: Lietuvos Liaudies Kulturos Centras. Balcikonis, J. (1989), “Dainu Svenciu Kostiumai [Song Festival Costumes],” in Liaudies Kurybos Palikimas Dabarties Kulturoje [The Remnants of Folk Culture in Contemporary Culture], ed. V. Satkauskiene and T. Jurkuviene, pp. 138–43. Kaunas: Sviesa. Ciurlionyte, J. (1982), album cover notes, Liaudies Muzikos Teatro Trupe [Folk Music Theater Company], Via Zydek, Zydek [Oh, Blossom, Blossom], LP. Dunduliene, P. (1991), Lietuviu Etnologija [Lithuanian Ethnology], 2nd edn, Vilnius: Mokslas. Galaune, P. (1930), Lietuviu Liaudies Menas [Lithuanian Folk Art], Kaunas: L.U. Humanitariniu Mokslu Fakulteto Leidinys. Glemzaite, M. (1939), Lietuviu Moteru Tautiniai Drabuziai [National Costumes of Lithuanian Women], Kaunas: Moteru Sauliu Tarybos Jubiliejiniu Metu Leidinys. —— (1955), Lietuviu Tautiniai Drabuziai [Lithuanian National Costumes], Vilnius: Valstybine politines ir mokslines literaturos leidykla. Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds) (1983), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jurkuviene, T. (1993), “Tautinio Kostiumo Raidos Bruozai [An outline of the Evolution of the Lithuanian National Costume],” Unpublished essay. Kaiser, S. B. (1985), The Social Psychology of Clothing, New York: Macmillan. Kargaudiene, A. (1989), “Tautinio Drabuzio Istorijos Keliai [The History of Lithuanian National Costumes],” Liaudies Kultura [Folk Culture], July–August, pp.15–8. Milius, V. (1989), Untitled Address at the Society of Ethnic Culture Conference, Lietuviu Etnines Kulturos Draugija [Society of Lithuanian Ethnic Culture], Vilnius, pp.83–5. Mrazkova, D. and Remes, V. (1991), Afterword, in My Lithuania: Photographs by Aleksandras Macijauskas, New York: Thames and Hudson. Palaima, V. and Gudynas, P. (1964), Dainu Sventei [For the Song Festival], Vilnius: Mintis. Poskaitis, K. (1985), Lietuviu Sokio Kelias I Scena [The Road Taken by Lithuanian Dance to the Stage], Vilnius: Vaga.

233

Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia Samboraite-Giedraitiene, D. (1990), “Senieji Baltu Drabuziai [Ancient Baltic Clothing],” Gelezinis Vilkas [The Iron Wolf], vol.10, pp. 1–4. Tamosaitis, A. (1938–39), Lietuviu Moteru Tautiniai Drabuziai [National Costumes of Lithuanian Women] Sodziaus Menas [Village Art], vols. 7–8, Kaunas: n.p. Tamosaitis, A. and Tamosaitis, A. (1979), Lithuanian National Costume, Toronto: Lithuanian Folk Art Institute. Thomson, C. (1992), The Singing Revolution: A Political Journey through the Baltic States, London: Michael Joseph. Vebra, R. (1992), Lietuviu Tautinis Atgimimas 19 Amziuje [Lithuanian National Rebirth in the 19th Century], Kaunas: Sviesa. Viires, A. (1985), “A great change in Estonian folk culture,” in National Movements in the Baltic Countries During the 19th Century, ed. A. Loit, pp. 543–56. University of Stockholm: Centre for Baltic Studies. Weiner, A. B. and Schneider, J. (eds) (1989), Cloth and Human Experience, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

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Index

Index acculturation, 74 adoption, of children, 79 Aegina, 126–7 amber, 180, 215, 228 amulets Easter eggs, 167 first used on cloth, 7, 147 on headdress, 40 protection against supernatural forces, 65–6, 98, 102–3, 137 Anatolia, 34, see also Turkey animals cured by silver, 201 protected by belts, 192 anthropology, 1, 6, 72, 79 aprons, 55, 127–8, 167–70, 173 East European, 13–28 passim Greek, 60, 82–4, 86, 89 Lithuanian, 214–17, 228 Macedonian, 2, 8–9, 23–24, 98–109 passim Turkish, 42 see also, back-aprons, string skirts archaeological finds, 136 clothing and/or jewelry, 19, 25–6 Kievan bracelets, 117–23, 130–32 Latvian, 179–83, 186, 195 Lithuanian, 10, 222, 228 sprang, 57 Ukrainian, 120 evidence for design motifs birth-giving figures, 159–60 poppy heads, 150–1 Argolidocorinthia (Greece), 59 Arvanites (Greeks of Albanian ancestry), 59–60, 83, 94n9 back-aprons, 2, 13–23, 27, 170, 173

Baltic countries, 28n4, 180, 213, 222 baptism, and dress, 143, 206–7 Barons, Krisjanis (Latvian ethnographer), 181 basil sprigs, 103–4 bath-house (pirts), 188, 197n5 beliefs, pre-Christian mixed with Christian, 152, 160, 207 supernatural, 1–10 agricultural communities and, 4 Czech and Slovak rites of passage, 141–5 embroidery motifs, about, 176 Greek, 54, 61–5, 73–4 headdresses, about, 169 Latvian, 180–1, 193–5 Macedonian, 97–105 passim Norwegian, 199–201, 208 Socialist policy towards, 146 willies (víly), 115–125 see also demons, devil, evil eye, evil spirits, fairies, huldrefolk, supernatural beings, witches belt decorative aspects, 179 fertility associations, 7, 185–7, 192 fringes, 53, 58–9, 184 functional aspects, 61, 188–93 Greek, 9, 53–68 passim, 82 Latvian, 179–197 passim sign of gender, 182 marriagability, 191, 193 marriage, 66–7, 84 strengthening human power, 139 structural aspects, 56–8, 65, 181–7 Turkish, with tassels, 8, 42

235

Index see also girdle, string skirt, sash Ben-Amos, Dan, on tradition, 3 Beowulf, 120 Berehinia, fertility goddess, 155, 157, 166–7, 174, 176 Beyene, Yewoubdar, on fertility in Greece, 63–4, 72 Bilibin, Ivan (artist), 111 bird maidens see víly birds embroidery motifs, 151, 161, 165–7 images of bird women, 127, 160 on bracelets, 130–1 worship of, 180 birth see childbirth Birute society, 215 black aprons, 16, 21, 105 belts, 58 color of sorcery and trolls, 206 protective color, 66–7 symbolic meanings, 9, 30 widows and mourning, 79, 89 blood color symbolism, 9, 146 pollution beliefs, 63 blouses, 128, 163, 199 blue belt color, 58 glass “eye” beads, 5, 42, 50n3, 65 symbolism, 206 body after childbirth, 64 dress and, 1, 6–10, 33, 45–9 products of, 9, 63–4, 143 books folk art, 217–18, 221 history of Lithuania, 233n7 pattern 147, 150 bracelets, 8, 111–132 passim braids, women’s, 30, 82, 116, 170 brides Lithuanian marti, 29 see also weddings, capping, *search more bridal clothes, 71, 84 bridesmaids, 138–40

Bronze Age figurines, 19, 54 Bukovina, 158 buntings, 206–7 burial customs, 91, 144–6, 182 caftan, Turkish, 41 cap baptismal, 206–7 married woman’s, 2, 29–30, 116, 135–153 passim, 209n4 capping brides, 8, 138–9 chair, 153n3 Carpathians, 157–8 chemise basic woman’s garment, 28n9 Greek, 59, 81 age-specific, 83–4, 89, 92 making of, 92 proof of virginity, 78 Hutsul, 170, 173 supernatural powers, 7, 142 Turkish, 41 víly, 116 childbirth belts as aids, 2, 53, 24–5, 61–7passim, 188, 194 confinement after, 61, 64–5, 67, 141–3 corner cloth, 141–4 Latvian mythology, 181 Macedonian beliefs, 102 children, 75, 78–80, 87, 89, 101, 200–1 China, 124–5 chiton, 126 christenings, belts and, 189 Christianity clergy against pre-Christian rituals, 112, 116, 135, 137 Europe, 4, 160, 180, 232n6 rites merged with pre-Christian, 143, 146, 151–2, 175–6, 207 Socialist policy towards, 146 symbols, 151 church ceremonies, 64 baptism, 143 clothing for, 81, 191, 201, 206–7 cloths, 147, 173 Easter, 175–6

236

Index purification of women after childbirth, 64, 143–4, 153n5 wedding, 77, 138, 140 cloth factory-made, 15–16, 82, 213, 228 handwoven, 216–17, 220, 231 clothing Byzantine-inspired, 59 factory-made, 44 fashionable, 59–60, 81, 208 selling by elderly women, 146 Turkish-influenced, 59 see also costume, dress, folk dress coat, 60, 120, 125, 128n2, 130 coins, 23, 41, 48, 87 color alternating, 142, 183 baptismal bibs, 206 belts, 58, 185, 195 headscarf, 89 Hutsul costumes, 174 Lithuanian costumes, 215, 219–20, 228 multi-colored, 43 symbolic meanings, 2, 9, 86 see also black, blue, green, red, white coral, 170 Corinthia, see Argolidocorinthia costume, definition, 3, 232n1 courting, 189 cowrie shells, 21 crosses, 175, 192, 201, 203, 207 crowns, 191, 207 curses, 102 customs, 98, 141, 144, 158 Czechs, 135 dancing China, in, 124, 129n4 Greek village, in, 77, 87 Latvian folk song about, 191 Lithuanian folk, 212, 218, 220, 222–4, 232n3 movement and dress, 9, 111–16, 126, 129n4 daughter-in-law, 75, 89 daughters, 74, 89 demons, 64, 101–2, 137 devil, 102, 135, 192, 199

Diktynna, fertility deity, 126–7 divination, 123–4, 126 doubles/pairs, 123, 181 Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger, 6 dowries, 61, 74, 76–7, 94n7 dowry chests, 78, 189, 214, 217, 222 dreams, 123 dress communicative aspects, 34, 71 economic status, 84 female respectability, 191 identity, 60, 71, 100, 169, 208 life cycle, 19, 39–41, 45–9, 81, 83 social status, 60, 190 definition, 3 layering of, 39, 44 neo-pagan, 10, 227–30 protection function, 101 “traditional,” 44 “village,” 44 see also clothing, folk costume, folk dress du Boulay, Juliet, Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village, 72, 74, 93, 93n2 dyes aniline (synthetic) 104, 146, 185, 197n4 natural, 58, 103, 185, 197n4 Easter, 61, 124 eggs, 155, 157, 159, 163, 167 rituals, 175–6 education illiteracy, 76 Latvia, 180–1 Norway, 199 schooling of girls, 74 elopement, 77, 87 embroideries, 89, 91, 147, 159–170 passim engagements, 74, 76 Erland, Soren (Norwegian brooch maker), 202 ethnographic collections Carpathian, 167, 174 Latvian, 179, 181, 185 Lithuanian, 213–14. 216–17 Norwegian, 199, 209n1 Soviet, 171 see also museums ethnographers

237

Index Lithuanian, 216–21, 230 Macedonian, 98 Soviet, 171 ethnology, regional, 3 evil eye, 4–5, 7, 153n5 Czech and Slovak, 137, 141–2, 146, Greece, 64–7, Macedonia, 97, 101, 109 Romania and Ukraine, 169 Turkey, 42–3 evil spirits, 1–2 Czech and Slovak, 136–7, 146–7 Latvia, 186, 188, 192, 195 see also demons, devil, evil eye, fairies, huldrefolk, sprites, supernatural beings, witches fairies, 64, 101, 181 fairy tale, Russian, The Frog Princess, 111, 116 feathers, 125, 141 fertility agrarian societies, importance in, 5, 137 animals, 164 biology of, 63 crops and fields, 115, 161, 164, 166, 181, 201 deities, 159, 161, 166–7, 186, 195 numbers and, 192 rituals fathers, 144 magical thinking and, 4–5 Roman, 135 symbols, 161–7 cowrie shells, 21 fertile field, 159, 167, 173, 176 keys, 21 on clothing, 84, 91–2, 103, 139 women and, 1, 26, 71, 101, 192 see also motifs, aprons, belts, caps, chemise, hair, marriage, Rusálii festival, string skirts, weddings fez, 39, 41, 47 folk, definition, 3 folk art, 158, 195, 215, 217, 221 folk costume see folk dress, national costume folk culture, 147, 213, 230

folk dress aesthetic appreciation for, 98 class distinctions, 138, 180, 219 cultural aspects, 1–2 definition, 3 Lithuanian, 10 national identity, 1, 10, , 208 Norwegian, 8 regional variations, 1, 179, 216 Turkish, 41, 44 folk songs, examples of, 66–7, 188–94 Latvian, 8, 179, 181, 197n6 Lithuanian, 214, 221–2, 232n3 folk tales, 199 folklore, definition, 3 see also folk art, folk songs, legends, fairy tales food during confinement, 142 weddings, 77, 151 footwear, 82–3, 170, 191 forty days, 9 period after wedding, 78, 87, 102 seclusion of women after childbirth, 61, 64, 67, 141, 143 soul after death, 102 Frazer, Sir James, The Magic Bough, 5 Friedl, Ernestine,Vasilika, 72, 74 fringes garments, 8, 24, 86, 98, 104–9 aprons and string skirts, 21, 23, 54–6 belts, 184 sleeves of Karagouna, 24 pubic hair association, 30, 193–5 sign of fertility, 48, 91 see also string skirts, tassels funerals evil spirits, 144 cloth and clothing, 89, 167, 188, 190 Galaune, Paulius, Lithuanian Folk Art, 216–17 Germans Carpathian mountains, 158 Latvia, 180 Germany lace manufacture, 201, 209n3

238

Index Hubbs, Joanna, on Russian earth mother cults, 160 huldrefolk, 5, 8, 199–208, passim Hutsuls, 157–8, 163, 170, 174

style influence, 214 Gimbutas, Marija, on Old European symbols, 150, 159 girdle, 25, 105, 109, see also belt, sash Giselle, 115 glasnost, 2, 231 Glassie, Henry, on tradition, 45 Glemzaite, Mikalina (Lithuanian weaver), 217, 220 goats, symbolic association and sexuality, 48 goddess figures, 150–1, 160, 163 –6, 170, 174 goddesses classical, 25, 55 Latvian, 192 see also Berehinia, Diktynna, pantheon godmother, customs involving, 140, 143, 144 gold Kievan Rus’ kurgans, 120 Greek bridal dress, 84 Gorodtsov, V. A. (Russian archaeologist), 159 grandmothers, 80 green, 9, 147, 194–5

immigrants, to America, 171, 176, 199, 208, 218 impurity, 137 Indo-European culture, 159, 180, 196 interviews Carpathian women, 172 Greek women, 54, 75, 79 Latvians, 179, 190, 195 Lithuanian folk ensembles, 212 Macedonian women, 97 Turks, 33 invented tradition definition, 4, 211 Lithuanian folk costume, 10, 217, 221, 232n1 Welsh, 4–5 see also reinvented tradition

hair, women’s, 7–8, 47, 115, 139, 58 fertility and, 13, 29–30 see also braids Hammer of the Witches, 137 headdresses Hutsul vinok, 170 Macedonian, 105 Kievan Rus’ kurgans, 120 scarves, 47, 82–3, 89, 169 Turkish, 39–41 veils, 7, 138 wedding, 13, 207 see also caps, crowns, wreaths henna, 8, 40, 50n2, 77 Hera, girdle of, 25 Herodotus, 120 Hirschon, Renee, on Greek women, 73–4, 93 Homer, Iliad, 25, 120 honor and shame, women, 49, 73–4, 83, 91, 93

jewelry Greek, 82–3 Lithuanian neo-pagan, 228 Macedonian, 98, 103 Norwegian, 199, 201–3, 205–7 Ukrainian fibulae, 165 see also amber, bracelets, coral Kaiser, Susan, on appearance cues, 230 Karlsone, Anete, on symbolism in Latvian belts, 195 Knauer, Elfriede, on sleeved coats, 125 kurgan, 120–121, 123 lace corner cloths, 142 Norwegian metal, 199, 201, 207 Turkish oya, 47 Latvia, historical and cultural background, 180–1 legends, 3, 199, 201, 205 Cretan, 126–7 “The Interrupted Wedding,” 203–5 linen Latvian belts, 183, 185

239

Index symbol of Lithuanian identity, 231 linguistic analysis clothing terms, 17, 19–20, 25, 55 word reconstruction and mapping, 27–8 Lithuania flag colors, 215, 219 historical and cultural background, 212–16 Lithuanian Art Society, 214 looms, 20, 57, 172–3, 175, 183 luck, 10, 152, 186, 188, 193 Macedonia cultural background, 98–100 ethnic groups, in Macedonia, 97 ethnographic divisions, 109n2 magic cap and shawl, and 139, 141, 152 church and, 137 embroidered motifs and 167 plants and, 98, 146 protection and fertility, 4–6, 10 rites, 104, 136–7 see also Frazer, Malinowski marriage age in Greece, 75 clothing customs, 13–29, 46–9, 84–9, 137–41, 207 matchmaking, 73–4, 76–7 see also brides, capping, weddings material culture, 2, 179, 181, 205 men belts, 183 dress, 9, 128n2 folk costume, 218, 222, 227 jewelry, 201 ritual cloth, 176 shirts, 167 wedding customs, 139 menopause, 75, 89, 194 metals belts, 183 reflectance as protection, 2, 8, 199, 201 see also jewelry Midsummer festivals (St John’s Eve), 135, 159, 223 period of danger, 205 mirrors, 120, 123–4, 126, 208

Mongolia, 124 Mongols, 117. 129 mordants, 146 mother-in-law, 75, 189 motif types/designs acorns, 86 anthropomorphic, 8, 86 carnations, 86 clock, 151 crayfish, 150–1 cross, 192 fertile field, 155 firecross, 186 four-fold design, 86 frogs, 86 geometric, 103, 185, 195 grain stalks, 186 lozenges, 8, 16, 21, 151, 159 mermaids, 151 mother and daughter images, 161, 164 ram’s horns, 139, 148, 163–4, 170, 175 rhombs, 8, 161–3 serpent. 186 sown field, 16, 147, 151–2 spirals, 163–5 star, 152, 186 sun, 170, 186, 203 teeth, 139, 142 tree of life, 139, 147–50, 155, 157, 161 tulips, 214 vines, 150 zigzag, 160, 185–6 naming of, 152, 175, 185 placement on garments, 7, 86, 167–9, 172, 174 on belts, 186 pre-Christian beliefs and, 8–9 symbolism, 86, 139, 185, 195 visibility of design motifs concept of “showing,” 86, 91 covered, 170 see also birds, goddess figures, fertility symbols mourning, 80, 84, 89, 144, 146, 190 Moyle, Natalia Kononenko, on goddess figures, 160, 164 museums,

240

Index curators, 158, 230 exhibitions, 214–15, 221 see also ethnographic collections mythology classical, 25, 55 Latvian, 181, 185 myths and oral culture, 3 nationalism cultural movement, 181, 211, 214 folk dress and, 10, 199, 208, 211–32 passim national costume Lithuanian, 211–32 passim, 232n1 Ukrainian, 13–15 Welsh, 4 nature worship, 4, 100, 180 Neolithic Baltic culture, 180 Çatal Hüyük, 151, 164 figurines, 19, 54 symbols, 16, 159, 163–6, 176 Norwegians, 199–201 numbers, and magical thinking, 9, 87, 102, 192, 194 Olearius, Adam (ambassador to Russia), 125, 129 Ottoman Empire, 35–8 Ovid, 135 Paine, Sheila, on symbolism of embroidery motifs, 160 Palaeolithic fertility symbols, 159 string skirts, 21, 54 “Venus” figures, 54 pantheon of deities, 4, 180 papal decrees, 137, 143, 180 patterning, of textiles, 8, 185 see also color, alternating peasants definition, 3 Greek, 59 Latvian, 180 Lithuanian, 211, 213–15, 231 Polish influence in Lithuania, 214

pollution beliefs, see purification rituals pomegranate, 77 pompons, 164, 170, 174, 193 poppies, 151 pregnancy, 29, 61–7 passim, 75–8, 87, 91, 188 promiscuity, 73, 83, 191–2 proof of virginity, 77–8 protection clothing and, 54, 128, 136, 179 from evil eye, 65, 97, 141 from evil spirits, 21, 61, 148, 199 metals and, 199–208 passim motifs and, 91, 139, 152, 170, 185 needles, pins and, 142, 206, 203 scarring and tattooing, 7 puberty dress as a sign, 13, 29, 55, 60, 83, 105 physiological vs. social, 141 pubic hair, and fertility, 8, 30, 194 pulling cloth, see shawl, plachta purification rituals, 6, 63–4, 143 Radziwell Chronicle, 112, 115, 117 red aprons and string skirts, 16, 21 embroidery, 86, 139, 143, 146, 163 fringes, 30 Greek zonari, 58, 66–8 Macedonian, 23–4, 98, 103–5, 109n6 symbolic meaning, 9 reinvented tradition, 212, 221–3 religion, 4, 35, 206, 228, 231 see also Christianity ribbon, 201, 207 rites calendrical, 185 of passage, 5–6, 136–7, 205 ritual cloths, Eastern European, 129n6, 146, 153n4, 159, 163, 167, 176 rituals, as magic practice, 6 Romania, 157–8 rosemary sprigs, 146–7 rugs, 167, 173 Rusálii festival, 115–16, 124, 160, 170 rusálki, rusalka, 151 see also víly Russian costume publications, 129

241

Index Russia, Czarist, 180, 213 see also Soviet Union Rybakov, B. A. (Russian ethnographer), 147–8, 150, 161 “S” symbol, 166 sarafán, Russian, 15, 111 Sarakatsani (Balkan ethnic group), 60 sash Greek zóstra, 24–5 Lithuanian, 214–15, 217 see also belt, girdle scarring, 7 Scythians, 118– 20 seclusion of unmarried girls, 74 see also childbirth confinement serfdom, 180, 213 sexuality, women’s, 73–4 shawls, Czech and Slovak, 135–153 Turkish, 41 sheep ancient, 19 symbolic association and sexuality, 48 shepherds, 38, 100, 158 shift, see chemise Shrove Tuesday, 223 signs belts as, 193–5, cosmic, 186 Silk Road, 124–5 silver, 170, 201 Simargyl, 16, 130–1 simnel cake, 151 skirt length and social rank, 138 skull-cap, 39, 41 Slavic groups, 20, 28n4, 100, 135 sleeves bands for strength, 167 Chinese opera, 124 fringed, 24, 89 Iranian coats, 125–6 ultra-long, 2, 9, 111–130 passim Slovaks, 135 snakes black color and, 9 fertility and, 165–6, 180–1

grass-snake cult, 186 social control, through ridicule, 91–2 song festivals, 215, 220 songs, 3, 138 see also folk songs Soviet Union breakup of, 2, 157–8, 181 folk costumes and, 10, 218–20, 222, 230–31 occupation of Baltic countries, 181, 212 religious repression, 141, 171 sprang, 9, 24, 56–8 68, 183 sprites, 181 St John’s Night, see Midsummer festivals string skirts, 2, 21–8, 53–5 Bronze Age and Iron Age finds, 25–6 strings, 48, 54–5 see also fringes sumptuary laws, 147 supernatural beings, 64, 115, 199–201 superstition, 4–5, 140, 143, 146 swans, 115–16 symbols belts as, 66, 179, 185, 193–5 birth, 148 Carpathian dress and, 167–70 embroidery as language, 169, 176 Lithuanian neo-pagan, 231 nature, 112, 186 protective, 142, 194 see also Christianity, fertility symbols, Gimbutas, Neolithic, Palaeolithic taboos, 137 Tacitus (Germania), 180 Tamosaitis, Antanas (Lithuanian ethnographer), 216–20 passim tassels, 8 Turkish shawls and belts, 41–2, 46–8, 50n7 Greek garments, 86 Greek zonari, 53–4, 58, 61, 65–6, 68 Latvian belts, 184, 193 see also fringes tattooing, 7 textiles dyeing, 103 hand-made today, 155, 172 spinning, 57, 92

242

Index structural techniques braiding, 60, 183–4 weaving, 27, 92, 175, 183, 228 see also sprang tie-dye, 58–9, 66 women’s work, 74 Carpathian clothing, 169–70 embroidery, 92, 103 Greek zonari, 59 pride, 97–8 tools in women’s graves, 182 see also dyes, looms Theodore of Tarsus, 143 toads black color, 9 fertility and, 150–1, 160, 180–1 tradition, 135–6, 150, 155 magic and, 6 definition, 3, 44–5 see also invented tradition travelers’ accounts, 79–81 tree worship, 146 tree, birch, 161, 188 Turkey history and people, 34–8 village of Kocakovacýk, 38–9 see also Anatolia Turkish occupation of Greece, 59, 72 Turner, Bryan, on the body, 6 Ukraine, 118, 121, 157–8 underwear, 83 unwed mothers, 138 Václavik, Antonin (Czech ethnographer), 141, 146–7, 150–2 vampires, 100, 142, 144, 152 van Gennep, Arnold, The Rites of Passage, 5–6, 136, 142, 152 Vatican Council, 144 vests, 158, 170, 173–4 víly, 9, 112, 115, 117, 124–6 see also Rusálii festival, 115–16, 124, 160, 170 virginity, 71, 73, 77–8 votive offerings, 151 water

dishes of, 123, 159 holy, 143 source of life, 104 village fountain, 77, 116 wedding customs Greek, 87, 75, 77 Latvian, 189–90 ritual cloths, , 176 Slavic, 29–30, 117, 152n2 Slovakian, 139–41 dress, 13, 40, 207–8 see also brides, marriage white color of víly tunics, 115–16, 125 linen tunic, 127 Lithuanian costumes, 215, 228 mourning, 89 symbolic meanings, 9 widowers, 79 widows, 73, 75, 79, 89 willow tree, 116 witchcraft, 4, 137, 146 witches, 101, 115, 135, 152, 199 Wolynetz, Lubow, on Hutsul embroidery motifs, 158–9, 167 women life course, 45–6, 74, 81–91 divorced, 55 2 engaged, 84 new mother, 61–4, 141–4 unmarried girls, 73, 75–6, 191–3 see also menopause, widows roles family responsibilities, 101 in Greek village society, 67, 72–3 procreation, 2, 19, 72, 81 wool, 19, 98, 182–3 worry beads, 80 wreaths, floral, 138, 223 Wulfstan, 180 Xenophon, 125 Yoder, Don, on folklife studies, 3 Zakro sealings, 127–8

243