Photo: Vangelis Belzenitis
This is the weekend of the Trata. We’ve asked Isabel Dempsey for permission to use some lengthy excerpts from the book she researched and authored, “A Breath of Madness, on the Isle of Skopelos an Ancient Rite Endures”. The book was a donation to the Municipality to keep the Apokries traditions alive and the profit from all sales goes to the island. There is an edition in English and an edition in Greek. It is available at Pantelis Ghikas bookshop near the playground at the port.
From the Prologue…
In certain Greek villages, Carnival festivities continue to preserve elements of ancient pagan rites. On the nearby island of Skyros, shepherds dance in the streets wearing freshly killed goat skin masks; the Carnival customs of Tyrnavos, in Thessaly, include phallic effigies; the villagers of Kozani light large bonfires. The unique Carnival customs of Skopelos are among the most ancient, and yet they are little known outside this island. What are the origins of these strange ceremonies and what do they mean to the villagers who practice them?
In this book I will examine clues from island legend, ancient history, Greek mythology and the mystic rites of the wine god Dionysus. Perhaps, even more important, this book will document the extraordinary tradition of the Skopelitan Carnival while it still continues, and inspire new generations to preserve it.”
THE TRATA – THE SHIP PROCESSION OF SKOPELOS
Throughout Greece the celebration of Carnival marks the death of winter and the arrival of spring. In the main village of Skopelos, spring arrives in late February or early March with the traditional ship procession known as the Trata. The Greek word trata generally describes a fishing ship, but the celebration of the Trata has little to do with fishing.
At first sight, the Trata is both eerie and comical. A typical ship built for the event is constructed of bamboo, approximately four to five meters in length. It contains a makeshift boiler, inside of which is burning straw and sawdust. A smokestack emits clouds of sooty smoke and the mast is decorated with old tin cans. Tacked to the ship’s prow, in lieu of a figurehead, might be anything from an old automobile headlight to a ram’s skull, or photos of nude women cut from pornographic magazines. An empty olive oil tin attached to a rope or chain serves as an anchor.
Three or four Tratas are carried in procession through the village streets, each one built and manned by a crew of masquerading pirates with soot-blackened faces. They wear a curious assortment of mechanic’s overalls or odds and ends of women’s clothing all thrown together. Nearly all have adorned their cheeks and foreheads with crosses drawn with laundry bluing. The ship’s helmsman and leader of the unruly crew is the Captain, identified by his officer’s cap. Never straying far from his side, and sometimes carried aloft the ship, is his wife, the Capetanissa, a young man or boy impersonating a woman. A Capetanissa may take any female form – from a buxom blonde in a miniskirt to an old crone bent over a walking stick. Despite appearances, all the participants in the Trata are male.
Photo: Vangelis Beltzenitis
The Tratas appear in the village lanes in the early hours of the afternoon of the seventh Sunday before Easter, shattering the silence with a deafening rattle of tin cans and the shouts and chants of the pirate crew. The noisy procession winds its way through the village from one church parish to the next, following the same route year after year. At open spaces and squares the crew stops to rest the heavy ships on the ground and break into spontaneous song and dance.
One aspect of Carnival that is common in villages throughout Greece is the uninhibited singing of bawdy songs. On Skopelos, the special verses reserved for Carnival and particularly for the Trata are referred to by the villagers as the pirpaska, or more simply the lewd ones. The lyrics of these songs are shockingly obscene and often humorous. The primary subjects of these satirical verses are monks and priests with forbidden erotic desires and insatiable women, most often widows, nuns and priest’s wives.
[editor’s note –if you are offended by lewd or suggestive language, stop reading here]
One song even compares the sexual organs of the priests from the different parishes of Skopelos village:
“The priest from the Church of Saint John, has a cock that rises up like a frying pan.
The priest from the Virgin’s Church, everyone notes, has a cock as big as two billy goats.
But the priest from Christ’s Church, is the best by far, his cock is like an iron crow bar.”
Another verse addresses the priest’s wife:
“Priest’s wife with your trimmed cunt, who trimmed your cunt for you? The priest trimmed it with a scissors and with his big cock, too.”
The following verses are typical of Trata songs in which the genitals become personified and seem to act independently of the bodies that possess them:
“The poor little cunt has mastered five arts, when it walks it wiggles and when it sits it giggles, and when it tumbles onto the couch, it takes a cucumber into its mouth.”
“The cock is not a fountain or a river that flows unceasingly; leave it alone – give it time to fill and then it will fuck happily.”
Although there is an erotic element in many Greek folk songs, especially wedding songs and drinking songs, it is usually skillfully disguised. Only at Carnival do blatantly obscene verses become socially tolerated. These songs are sung on Sunday afternoon in the Trata by some of the same villagers who only hours before were chanting sacred hymns in church.
The celebration of Carnival is not sanctioned by the Church but that has not discouraged the Trata participants. Among them there is often one who dons the robes of an Orthodox priest to accompany the procession. This individual, dubbed the Igoumenos or Abbot, will chant some of the most lascivious verses. However, like many Carnival chants, the merry song of the Igoumenos, although devoid of profane words, has a subversive message. The Abbot leads the song with a question and the chorus replies, begging to hear more:
“What resembled a leek, but a leek it was not? What was it? What was it? What could it have been?
Tell us more Abbot, it’s more we want to hear, tell us and take pleasure in the cassock that you wear!
A red fez it was wearing, but a Turk it was not. “What was it? What was it? What could it have been?
Tell us more Abbot, it’s more we want to hear, tell us and take pleasure in the cassock that you wear!
What spewed forth saliva and phlegm, but a snail it was not? What was it? What was it? What could it have been?
What was it? What was it? What could it have been?
Tell us more Abbot, it’s more we want to hear, tell us and take pleasure in the cassock that you wear!”
In the context of Carnival anything is legitimate. The presence of the Abbot in the procession, mimicking the real participation of the priest in the events of village life, transforms the Trata from a parody of pirates into a parody of the value system and social structure of the village community.
Photo: Vangelis Beltzenitis
As the ships pass from one neighborhood to the next, groups of villagers, young and old, join the procession. Women forget their modesty and enjoy the proceedings from their balconies and open doorways. Some village women step out into the street offering trays filled with glasses of wine and ouzo, as well as plates full of sweet rice pudding, which they spoon-feed into the mouths of the merry pirate crew.
The mood of abandonment is infectious and soon a Captain or Capetanissa will scramble up to the heights of a church tower. From there he will hurl obscenities at the crowd or lead his fellow pirates in verses of a bawdy Dionysian song. A Capetanissa might even dress in the garb of an old grandmother and conceal under his apron an enormous mock phallus which he reveals to the hilarity of onlookers by coyly lifting his apron as he dances with the Abbot. Elderly Skopelitans explain that in the old days wearing a mock phallus was a common part of the Trata procession; soot-blackened faces served to disguise the participants who preferred to remain anonymous. The phallus continues to accompany the Trata, and recently one young pirate was inspired to sport a long carrot and two large onions attached to the front of his trousers.
After nearly three hours of chanting, dancing and drinking, the ship procession makes its way from the last stop at the courtyard of Christ’s Church, down the steep steps of the village streets to the harbor. Evening approaches and the sky turns from blue to black. The last songs are sung and the pirates, in a mood of drunken ecstasy, hurl their ships into the sea – often jumping into the chilly water themselves.
Copyright ©2010 Isabel Dempsey
Photo: Vangelis Beltzenitis
Crikey – that’ll get us banned in Boston. Thanks very much for that, Isabel. Probably no more ribald than some of Chaucer – I’m thinking here of the Miller’s Tale, particularly in its fruity Middle English original – and fascinating how what are clearly pre-Christian folkways translated into the modern day (I’m hoping Catherine might pitch in here with some of her research). Good, also, that the much-maligned “youth” maintain the tradition – even if it’s only as an excuse to run amok in a frock.
I like ‘amok in a frock’, John and I’m glad you’re not infringing any ‘coptright’ laws to bring to us this smashing piece from Isabel’s book.
“‘coptright'”? Some arcane ecumenical pun in there?
Maybe we can post something tomorrow about the Dionysian roots of the rituals. There’s a history of these springtime events, which stretch way back, as being very important and necessary to agricultural societies.
Hi John, even in Brasil I read Skopelosnews, can’t help it:-). The Trata, may it live on forever! There is deep, deep meaning to this last remnant of bygone days. In the days where psychology etc had yet to be invented, the psyche was very much alive and investigated. The Trata is a way for the individual to connect to his inner dark nature and become aware of the desires (emotions, symbol water) that rule the ego personality (the boat). The participants are men because the Yang energies of the individual are investigated (both man and women). Yang is the human energy that acts in our outer world, our ego is also a Yang energy and it does not want to surredner to our Yin pole of self, hence the mockery of the Capetenissa or the old woman. To connect to one’s dark (unconscious) motives and live them makes one aware of them. Of course somebody can also deny them but those things were not possible in the communities of old as this was a personal human task that benefitted the community as a whole. Religion was built on the fundaments of this “Know thyself” principle but due to the paternalistic energies lost the knowledge about the inner quest for balance and harrmony. The latter survives in the world as esoterism. The symbolic meaning of the Trata is that we all have to investigate on what desires and unconscious motives we are prone to react in our outer world, perpetuating behaviour patterns instead of broadening our consciousness about ourselves and making new choices that serve our and the community purpose better. For this task we need our Yin energies but our Yang energies first must make a conscious choice to re-connect (re-ligare) to our inner Yin. The blue cross on the forehead refers to the restauration of the inner Yin pole of consciousness. Blue is the color of the Panagia. Important is that the Trata is about our Yang energies of both men and woman to restore the inner balance between the Yang and Yin energies of self to become a “better” individual! HAve fun on Sunday and thanks to Isabel for a great book on the Trata of Skopelos.
We were in Skopelos for carnival when we came to sign the papers for our apartment in 2007. Was great fun to see the procession. In the UK in my town we have a bed race which is about the nearest we’d get to this but the Health & Safety nearly banned it a few years back – and that was without the rude songs and setting fire to stuff they do in Skopelos!
Thank you Isabel for researching and writing this book. This kind of information and insight in a cultural tradition should never get lost and because of you we have it all in this colorful book. It shows and keeps alive a very important tradition. Get out there this afternoon and next Sunday. It is fantastic to see it all.
No arcane ecumenical pun. It did make sense before you guys sneakily edited the earlier edition.
Lest we appear to be maligning T.O.H., who is certainly our most eagle-eyed reader, she was indeed correct that ‘coptright’ was our typo, not hers, and consequently no one’s arcane ecumenical pun. All we can say is that it wasn’t the responsibility of the usual lummox (guess).