DISTOMO, Greece (AP) — Feeling overwhelmed by on a regular basis obligations or doom-scrolling? The traditional Greeks had a treatment for burnout nonetheless practiced yearly by their rural descendants.
Within the mountain village of Distomo, the “Koudounaraioi” — actually, the “Bell People” — rework themselves into half-human, half-beast revelers in a ritual relationship again to pre-Christian instances.
Clad in sheep and goatskins with heavy hand-forged bronze bells chained to their waists, the Bell Folks danced by means of the streets Monday of this red-roofed village, a two-hour drive northwest of Athens.
The deafening clatter the dancers make and their profanity-filled chants as they sure round a hearth in the primary sq. are a wine-fueled sonic assault. And that’s the purpose.
Hedonistic carnival traditions throughout the Greek heartland and islands hint again to the ecstatic processions in historic instances honoring Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility and revelry and had been then, as now, a cultural stress valve.
“We give society a jolt … and try to take away their misfortunes, their problems, to lift their spirits so they can feel something,” stated Giorgos Papaioannou, a 29-year-old aluminum plant employee recognized throughout carnival as president of Distomo’s Bell Folks.
“We even visit cemeteries, making noise to ‘wake up’ the souls of those who have passed, reminding them and the living alike that we are here, celebrating life,” he stated.
The traditional custom practiced by farming communities to usher in spring was ultimately integrated into the Christian calendar. Monday marks the tip of carnival and the beginning of Lent, a interval of dietary restrictions and elevated non secular observance earlier than Easter, which this 12 months falls on April 20.
Distomo is understood to Greeks as an emblem of wartime hardship. In June 1944, occupying Nazi forces slaughtered 230 civilian villagers, together with greater than 50 youngsters in reprisals for assaults by resistance fighters.
An austerely-styled World Battle II mausoleum overlooks the village.
“After the massacre, we managed to keep the tradition alive. It’s to awaken the spring,” Distomo Mayor Ioannis Stathas stated. “This is a tradition that is many centuries old, a pre-Christian tradition, and it has been carried from generation to generation.”
This 12 months’s Bell Folks, lots of them schoolchildren, held up flares and olive-wood staffs as they entered the village, trailed by laughing youngsters and their mother and father dressed up as dinosaurs, law enforcement officials and different carnival costumes.
Revelers had been handed plastic cups stuffed with wine and parts of bean soup, as youngsters danced to a mixture of Greek folks music, Western chart hits and Ok-pop.
Amalia Papaioannou, a historian and curator of the Distomo Museum, stated that the as soon as male-dominated celebrations have remained related by incorporating items of modernity however stay rooted in rural traditions.
Agrarian societies, traditionally reliant on favorable situations in nature for his or her survival, created these rituals to keep at bay evil and misfortune, she stated. Carnival revelry has for hundreds of years served as a sanctioned interval of chaos earlier than returning to construction and restraint.
“It allows a brief period of social inversion: People wear disguises, and speech, including crude jokes, is temporarily liberated. Even the Church historically tolerated such festivities, recognizing their deep-rooted cultural and communal significance,” she stated.
“You could call it a reset.”
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Lefteris Pitarakis contributed to this report.
