Customs of the Holy ‘Twelve Days’
Christmas, New Year and Epiphany are known as the ‘Twelve Days’, days that include these three feast days and which are very significant as six of them belong to the year that is ending, the other six to that which begins, while all twelve together correspond to the twelve months in the year.
Christmas Customs
On the one hand, the customs of Christmas time are ones of birth; on the other, customs that concern the New Year. During the days of Christmas everyone and everything have to renew themselves (new clothes, all kinds of tidying up and putting in order, arrangement and whitewashing of the house etc). The central event at Christmas is the birth of Christ, which is looked upon by our people exactly as would be the birth of a child. During this time, bread is made and put in the oven as from the eve of the Birth, to be consumed by Epiphany. The bread is specially treated: sifted twice and sprinkled with sesame seeds. When the housewives take fresh bread out of the oven, they have the custom of giving a piece to passers-by. Among these breads one may single out Christmas bread, ‘fingers’, yennopites or poulles (the largest being the ‘Vasilopitta’ or ‘Vasilis’ (which is cut at New Year, during the Feast Day of the Saint. Until that time the ‘Vasilis’ is placed up in the ‘karelia’ or wicker rack, so that it be blessed and abundant).
During Christmas Eve it is believed that there is a visitation by goblins (which also have other names in Cypriot dialect, ‘Skalapoundari’ or ‘Planitari’). These goblins overrun everything, taking on different shapes (jet black with long tails and horns, goat-legged), but they love to frequent threshing floors, mills, fountains and wells, chimneys and smokestacks, among other places. In Cyprus it is believed that all those children who die without baptism become goblins. To protect themselves from the goblins - especially the women - people do not go out of their house at night, or draw water from the well and take care not to leave any cooking or other household utensils in the open or scattered around.
In many villages of Cyprus it is the custom on the morning of Christmas Eve, even before dawn, to light the great ‘nistia’, or cauldron, out in the yard, in order to heat up the water that will later be used in the slaughter of the domestic pig (the ‘choirosfayin’). They usually buy the pig on ‘Olive Sunday’ and fatten it up so as to slaughter it at Christmas time. This must be carried out by a specialist, who must kill it with only one blow to the neck. From the pig, which is slaughtered as a demonic and sacred animal, they offer a plate with fried pieces of meat to the poor. They cut the pork into pieces according to what they wish to prepare. They separate the salted pork, ham, the ‘karkousia’, that is, the bones with which the housewives prepare a wonderful soup, called ‘posirti’, the bacon and the lard (‘larti’) or fat, which, after soaking in wine, they hang out to dry in the sun to be used later in food generally, or in sausages.
New Year Customs
The New Year combines the two great Christological celebrations of Orthodoxy: that of Christmas, which belongs to the year that is ending; and of Epiphany, to the year that is about to begin. Even if the New Year is dedicated to the Circumcision of Christ, the attention of the faithful is on the major figure of the New Year, Saint Basil, (rather like the Father Christmas of western tradition).
On New Year’s Eve, housewives decorate the doors of their houses with olive leaves (to enjoy a good year they hang a wreath-shaped object (‘abvrossilla’) on the outside of the front door of their house), and prepare ‘kolliva’, which is boiled wheat given at memorial services. The members of the family eat this ‘kolliva’ and the supper of Saint Basil is prepared. They put the ‘kolliva’ of the Saint in a plate and on top of this they place the ‘vasilopitta’ (the New Year cake) with a lit candle, a glass of wine as well as the wallet of the master of the house. In the evening, Saint Basil will visit the house, eat and drink and will cast his saintly eye and blessing over the entire house. Thus, the bread and wine, as in those of the divine offering, will never be lacking in the house and the wallet will never be empty. People will share the ‘vasilopitta’ with the animals, the latter also tasting the blessed ‘kolliva’ mixed with hay, so that they also may eat from the fruit of their labour. In some areas of Cyprus (the village of Critou Marottou), during New Year’s morning, they light candles from the oil-lamp and stick them on the horns of the bulls. In other places, (the village of Goudi, for example) this custom is carried out on the eve of Epiphany.
As far as the ‘vasilopitta’, blessed in the evening by Saint Basil, is concerned, they cut it on New Year’s Day on their return from church. The master of the house cuts it, standing at the table, around which all the family is gathered. The first piece belongs to Christ, the second to the Virgin Mary, the next to the children (starting with the eldest), the penultimate to the housewife and the last to the master of the house. The one who finds the coin in the cake, which represents the holy bread of the family, is considered to be the luckiest throughout the year.
The other New Year customs are basically ones of blessing and of ushering in the New Year and of omens for the future. It is important during the New Year who will bring good luck to the house and thus also a blessing with it. Usually, good luck is engineered so that it is brought about by a child or by the bull of the house: a child spends the night at a relative’s house and in the morning comes to knock on the door of his house. He enters the house, always with his right foot, makes the sign of the cross and says “May all live long, and may the New Year be a Happy one”. It can be brought with the bull, which the master of the house leads from the stable into the house. The bull is blessed for having been present at the birth of Christ, but also because its labour gives bread to mankind. The New Year, however, can be welcomed with olive branches (instead of palm leaves, which are rare in Cyprus). The branches of the olive also have the function of warding off the goblins. Mainly, however, they usher in good luck. On the night of the New Year, while all are waiting for the visit of Saint Basil, they gather round the hearth or the traditional ‘foukou’ (a kind of stove), and each in turn casts an olive leaf into the burning coals. If the leaf burns with a loud crackle and turns over on the other side, this is considered good luck; if, however, the leaf burns quietly and slowly, bad luck. On New Year’s Day, the adults and mainly the grandparents give the children ‘pouloustrina’ or ‘ploumistira’, which is a small amount of money and is a good omen, since a coin is a symbol of life and immortality. The gifts given to the children are placed under the bed or their pillow so that they find them on waking up. During New Year’s Day all ‘show off’ their new clothes and put on a happy display so as to usher in a good year and carefully avoid borrowing money.
Customs of Epiphany
The main customs at Epiphany are related to water and light, which are both purgative. At Epiphany the entire village would go to church to see the Baptism of Christ (Holy water). In the middle of the church there would be a font with water and the priest would baptize the cross. Many people would give him the crosses that they wore so that they also could be baptized in the water. The Holy water of Epiphany (‘drosos’) was used by many instead of Holy Communion, while they would take the New Year holy water with them in a bottle to sprinkle houses, animals and their fields at the appropriate time. In the church, on the day of the holy water, they would baptize the old year, and also seed watermelons so that the seed may be blessed, as well as other goods of the earth, in order to achieve fertility and prosperity during the New Year.
Priests would go from house to house all through the village, singing ‘carols’ and banishing the ‘Skalapoundari’ (goblins). They were accompanied by the vergers of their church, as well as by some children that helped in the church, the latter holding the special dish with the holy water into which the priest would dip his sprinkler. The villagers used to throw into it the coins they gave as an offering. They also used to hold a lamp with the holy light and hang balls of thread from their neck which the housewives offered to wrap protectively around the church, and for making church candles. On Epiphany they used to fry the left-over ‘crusts’ and throw them onto the terrace for the goblins to eat.
Naturally, the above customs are not constant and unchanging. Many of these have fallen into disuse, while others - now of European origin - have begun to flood our culture and are continually gaining ground. However, so long as life goes on and the year’s cycle repeats itself, these customs - whether similar or ones that replace them - will live on in the society of men.
K. G. Yiangoullis