On the last day of the old year - mainly in the Zywiec region - Jukace, or dz dziady żywieckie, was celebrated, which lasted until the afternoon hours of the New Year. This ritual involved caroling combined with New Year's wishes and playing pranks on encountered passersby. According to tradition, the impassable boundary for the Yukacs was the bridge over the River Sole, separating Zywiec from Zabloc. The payment for the caroling was sometimes a Christmas cake, a vodka treat, or a small amount of money, which was used to organize a "grandfather" party.
The Dziady of Zywiec used the most archaic type of masks, made of a piece of ram's fleece, with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth. On the head was worn a "ciaka" cap, in the form of a cone, topped with a pompom, on which was written the coming new year. Other attributes of the Jukacy were bells strapped to the waist and a whip, made of a rope tapering to the end.
"Band" Jukacs consisted of a dozen to several dozen men. A yukac could only be a bachelor. In the past, one of the strictly enforced rules was that one was not allowed to reveal oneself in public under any circumstances. A grandfather had to remain anonymous, and breaking this rule was punishable by being whipped by a chaser. All characters were played by men, and women were never allowed to participate in these rituals. This custom is disappearing from year to year. It is only kept alive in an event organized in late January and early February - the Zywiec Games.
In the past, in various regions of Poland, usually on Fat Thursday was held the so-called Comber derived from the Middle Ages folk carnival party. The most accurate accounts of this custom have survived only on the celebrations in Cracow, where female peddlers held a party with drinking and dancing in the Market Square. The custom may have found its way to Poland during the Middle Ages and was brought by German settlers. Comber in Krakow was held until 1846, when Austrian authorities banned its celebration. Today, especially in the south of Poland, a babski comber is called a meeting in a women's group. Among miners, a women's comber is the equivalent of a men's beer hall and is held around Barbórka.
Walking with a goat is another custom cultivated between Fat Thursday and Ash Wednesday, the last days when, according to Church teaching, lavish parties can be held. At that time, colorful processions of costumed people with puppets representing animals, such as a bear, horse and stork, or figures like the devil, a young couple or a chimney sweep would roll through the countryside. Walking with a goat originated from pagan rituals. The central figure of the procession was the goat. One of the participants dressed up as a goat, threw a sheepskin coat over his head and shoulders, turned upside down with his hair on top, held a stick with a wooden head perched on it, covered with goatskin and decorated with horns, and hung a bell around his neck. Scenes involving it were played out, folk songs were danced with it, and pantomimes were presented. The goat, going from house to house with great noise, collected small money, cakes or other delicacies from the hosts. After a noisy, fun-filled march through the village, a lavish party called podkoziołek was organized at the inn, which took place on Shrove Tuesday, and was attended by girls who had not married during the passing carnival. The name podkoziołek derives from the goat, an animal symbolizing vitality and sexuality in Greater Poland. The ritual has survived until modern times in Kuyavia.
One of the most theatrical Polish carnival rituals held in Jedlińsk since 1860 is the Beheading of Death. This custom is celebrated every Tuesday before Lent. On this day, costumed characters, known as kusaks, take to the streets of Jedlinsk. All the characters, including women, are played by men. The largest group of cross-dressers are devils. The show depicts the judgment of Death and her beheading, after which the procession of disguised characters goes around the village reaching the cemetery, where Death is buried.
The text of the show is based on a rhymed 19th-century description written by Jedlinsk's parish priest, Father Jan Kloczkowski. The custom of beheading Death is most likely a reminder of the law of the sword that Jedlinsk had when it was a city. Under this law, criminals were beheaded. When this law collapsed, a folk game called "Beheading Death" began to be organized. According to ethnographers, this is the only such spectacle in Poland, ending the period of the so-called "tempting days," i.e. from Fat Thursday to Ash Wednesday.
In the past, Ash Wednesday marked the celebration of a traditional folk custom - Ash Wednesday cloches. At midnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the tolling of church bells announced to residents the end of carnival and the beginning of fasting, and people would then gather in taverns to "rinse their teeth after the carnival meat" or for the so-called "cloche." This custom was popular as early as the 17th century.
Ash Wednesday cloches were also celebrated in another form. On Ash Wednesday, unmarried persons were punished by being forced to pull a cloche. This custom was accompanied by a special ceremony, which involved attaching blocks to maidens and bachelors as punishment for not marrying during the carnival. For example, in Rzeszow, the boys would draw the block to the house where the maiden lived, and if she paid the ransom the boys would drag it further, and if she didn't, she herself had to drag it to the next house of the unmarried girl. The main purpose of this game was to humorously stigmatize people who avoided marriage, which was considered a basic social obligation, and to persuade them to take more interest in this area of life. The ritual ended at the tavern, where it had to be ransomed with vodka.
Another folk custom associated with the symbolic entrance of young married women into the ranks of older women - the so-called " Wkupne do babe" - was also celebrated on Ash Wednesday. It was known in Kujawy, Kaliska and Poznañ, Mazovia, Kraków and Lublin. The custom consisted of older women coming to pick up a young married woman in a semi-carriage adorned with colorful scarves and transporting her to an inn while singing joyfully. On the way, they threatened the young woman with overturning the vehicle, from which she had to redeem herself with a monetary donation. In other regions, other vehicles, such as wheelbarrows pushed by a "bear" (i.e., a boy in disguise), were used to carry off married women. Upon arrival at the inn, the party would begin, in which at first only women participated; men were chased away with plowshares and bags of ash.
The period of revelry ended with a number of ceremonies to close the carnival, including: parodic Shrove Tuesday sermons delivered at midnight, folk hanging of herring or symbolic killing of a player (a pot of ash was smashed over his head and a cat, symbolizing his soul, was released), as well as the loss of Bacchus or the shearing of Zapust. However, it is impossible to mention all of them, which have permanently established themselves in Polish villages. Thanks to these customs, people spent time together on this last evening before the beginning of Lent, and fortunately, in many regions these customs have survived to this day.
Elaborated. Aleksandra Szymanska
Photo: polona.pl - public domain
Sources:
Z. Gloger, Encyklopedia staropolska ilustrowana, Warsaw 1978
Z. Gloger, Rok polski : w życiu, tradycyi i pieśni, Szczecin 2011
J. Kamocki, Polski rok obrzędowy, Kraków 2008
A. Karczmarzewski, Ludowe obrzędy doroczne w Polsce południowo-wschodniej, Rzeszów 2011
B. Ogrodowska, Polskie obrzędy i zwyczaje doroczne, Warsaw 2009
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