A scene of the same sort was formerly enacted in Athens also during the carnival, and was known by the expressive name τὰ ταράματα (i.e. ταράγματα), ‘The Riotings.’ A man dressed up as a bear used to rush through the streets followed by a crowd of youths howling and clashing any noisy instruments that came to hand. That this ceremony was originally of a religious character is shown not only by its association with the season of Lent, but by an accessory rite performed on the same occasion. Wooden statues, actually called ξόανα as late as the time of the Greek War of Independence, were carried out in procession; and the well-being of the people was believed to be so bound up with the due performance of these rites, that even during the Revolution, when Athens was in the hands of the Turks, a native of the place is said to have returned from Aegina, whither he had fled for safety, in order to play the part of the bear and to carry out the xoana for the general good[605].
The close connexion of these several modern customs, whether the occasion of them is the Twelve Days or Carnival-time, cannot be doubted. The variation of date is of old standing; for the canon of the Church, on which Balsamon[606] comments, condemns certain pagan festivals on March 1st (approximately the carnival time) along with the Kalandae and Brumalia; and the similarity of the dresses, masks, bells, and other accoutrements proper to both occasions proves the substantial identity of the festivals.
A comparison of these allied modern customs can only lead to one conclusion. The use of the same word to denote the mummers in Crete and the Callicantzari in Achaia; the name ῥουκατζιάρια for these mummers at Palaeogratsana; the custom of blackening the face, which is clearly indicated by the employment of the name ‘Arab’ in this connexion; the monstrous and half-animal appearance produced by masks, foxes’ brushes, goat-skins, and suchlike adornments; the attempted rape of the bride by the ‘Arab’ in the play at Pharsala—all furnish contributory evidence that the mummers themselves represent Callicantzari. Only at Portariá is the significance of the custom somewhat confused; there the ‘Arab’ in his old cloak and bells has long ceased to represent a Callicantzaros, and has actually been provided with a lantern with which to scare the Callicantzari away.
The mummers then represent Callicantzari; the question which remains to be answered is whether the mumming was the cause or the effect of the belief in Callicantzari.
Polites, in support of his theory that the name Callicantzari, in its earliest form, meant either ‘wearers of nice boots’ or ‘possessors of hoofs instead of boots,’ claims that the mummers first suggested to the Greek imagination the conception of the Callicantzari (it is not indeed anywhere mentioned in the above traditions that the feet or the footgear of the mummers were in any way remarkable, but we may let that pass), and that the fear which their riotous conduct inspired in earlier times gradually elevated them in men’s minds to the rank of demons. This, he urges, is the reason why these demons are feared only during the Twelve Days, the period when such mumming was in vogue.
In confirmation of his view Polites cites some of the evidence concerning the human origin of the Callicantzari, mentioning both the fairly common belief that men turn into Callicantzari, and the rarer traditions that a Callicantzaros resumes his human shape if a torch be thrust in his face and that the transformation of men into Callicantzari can be prevented by certain means. With this evidence I have already dealt, and I agree with Polites that in it there survives a genuine record of the human origin of the Callicantzari. But of course on the further question, whether the particular men thus elevated to the dignity of demons were the mummers of Christmastide, it has no immediate bearing.
As a second piece of corroboration, he adduces another derivation hardly more felicitous than those with which I have already dealt. The word on which he tries his hand this time is καμπουχέροι or κατσιμπουχέροι—the name of the mummers in Crete and of the Callicantzari in Achaia. Here again, with a certain perversity, he selects the worse form of the two, καμπουχέροι, which is evidently a syncopated form of the other, and proceeds to derive it from the Spanish gambujo, ‘a mask,’ leaving the subsequent development of κατσιμπουχέροι totally inexplicable. For my own part I consider it far more probable that the word κατσιμπουχέροι is a humorously compounded name, of which the second half is the word μπουχαρί[607] (an Arabic word which has passed, probably through Turkish, into Greek) meaning ‘chimney,’ and that the whole by-name has reference simply to the common belief that Callicantzari try to extinguish the fire on the hearth and thus to gain access to the house by the chimney. As to the meaning of κατσι-, the first half of the compound, I can only hazard the conjecture that it is connected with the verb κατσιάζω, which ordinarily means to blight, to wither, to dry up, and so forth, though its passive participle, κατσιασμένος, is said by Skarlatos[608] to be applied to clothes which are ‘difficult to wash.’ If then the compound κατσιμπουχέροι is a descriptive title of the Callicantzari, meaning those who render the chimney difficult to wash, the coarse and eminently rustic humour of the allusion to their habits needs no further explanation; and it is the mummers of Crete who owe their name to the Callicantzari, not vice versa.
While therefore I acknowledge and appreciate to the full the value of Polites’ researches into the history of the Twelve Days, the inferences which he draws from the material collected seem to me no more sound than the derivations which they are designed to corroborate. My own interpretation of the historical facts which Polites has brought together is as follows.
The superstitions and customs connected by the modern folk with the Twelve Days are undoubtedly an inheritance from ancestors who celebrated the Brumalia and other pagan festivals at the same season of the year. These ancient festivals, though Roman in name, probably differed very little in the manner of their observance from certain old Greek festivals, chief among which was some festival of Dionysus. This is rendered probable both by the date of these festivals and by the manner of their celebration. For the worship of Dionysus was practically confined to the winter-time; at Delphi his cult superseded that of Apollo during the three winter months[609]; and at Athens the four festivals of Dionysus fell within about the same period—the rural Dionysia at the end of November or beginning of December, the Lenaea about a month later, the Anthesteria at the end of January, and the Great Dionysia at the end of February. As for the manner of conducting the Latin-named festivals, Asterios’ description of the Kalándae in the fifth century plainly attests the Dionysiac character of the orgies, and Balsamon, in the twelfth, was so convinced, from what he himself witnessed, of their Bacchanalian origin, that he actually proposed to derive the name Brumalia from Βροῦμος[610] (by which he meant Βρόμιος) a surname of Dionysus.
The mumming then, which is still customary in some parts of Greece during the Twelve Days, is a survival apparently of festivals in honour of Dionysus. Further the mummers dress themselves up to resemble Callicantzari. But the worship of Dionysus presented a similar scene; ‘those who made processions in honour of Dionysus,’ says Ulpian, ‘used to dress themselves up for that purpose to resemble his companions, some in the guise of Satyrs, others as Bacchae, and others as Sileni[611].’ The mummers therefore of the present day have, it appears, inherited the custom of dressing up from the ancient worshippers of Dionysus and are their modern representatives; and from this it follows that the Callicantzari whom the modern mummers strive to resemble are to be identified with those motley companions of Dionysus whom his worshippers imitated of old.