SKYROS CARNIVAL

SKYROS CARNIVAL

Photographs by Dick Blau

Essay by Agapi Amanatidis and Panayotis Panopoulos

Audio CD and Video DVD by Steven Feld

VOXLOX

3 DICK I I grew up in the theater, my father a director and my mother an actress. As a result, I devel - oped a lifelong fascination with the dramatic moment, the heightened gesture, the mysterious transfor - mation of self into other. I suppose it was inevitable that my abiding preoccupation with the stage would find its way into my photography. When Steve called one day a few years ago and told me that Panos had told him about Greece’s wildest and noisiest carnival, I put down the phone and began packing my bag and cameras. What I eventually discovered on Skyros was not exactly what I spent the next few months imagining. I had been dreaming of Dionysus, Pan, and the Eleusinian mysteries in a smoky grove, but I found myself instead in a small Greek island town with an Internet café. Normal life continued amidst the wildness. Performers and audience were mixed together. And then there were the cameras. Everyone, it seemed, was either taking pictures or posing for them. This was not simply an ancient ritual; it was a modern media event. In fact, the carnival was old and new at the same time. Skyros carnival is a hybrid form in which the goat dancers, dressed in their rough, rank animal skins and festooned in huge clanking bells, mix easily with other performers who look decidedly of our moment. I would be standing at dusk on the street waiting for the dancers to appear when a kid would float by wearing a cheap monkey mask from the grocery store, and I would instantly find myself swept up with him into the world of myth. This was what I had come for. It is the story my pictures try to tell.

4 AGAPI I I sailed to Skyros for the first time in 1992. I remember it well, a turbulent midwinter ferry trip across the Aegean, just a few weeks before carnival began. I had never heard of the island before seeing the yeros ’ face on the cover of a book that had been misplaced on a library shelf. I was overcome by the image of this goat-masked figure. It was a decisive moment for me as a student of the anthro - pology of ritual and performance. I came of age in a time when intellectual and social debates on multiculturalism and identity were raging. As a child of Greek migrants to Australia whose family intermittently returned to live in Greece, my understanding of such issues was not just academic but lived. Anthropology offered me a way to bring academia and experience together. I was intrigued by the way that Greek communities celebrated their sense of place. Skyros and its carnival gave me a way to explore the community-building power of ritual. Years and years of research have now culminated in a dissertation on Skyrian carnival. My ethnog - raphy explores the elusive and transformative power that first gripped me in that image of the yeros on the cover of that book. The opportunity for expanded conversations with anthropologists and artists on this project makes possible a bringing together of my textual work with more sensual forms of representation. In conjunc - tion with this book, my ethnography can be read in new ways and my pleasure of researching and know - ing the carnival can be shared anew with Skyrians.

5 PANOS I I first met Steve in January 2003 at a hilarious Balkan music festival in upper Manhattan. He was there, along with ethnomusicologist Charles Keil and writer Angeliki Vellou, to promote Bright Balkan Morning , their fascinating multimedia publication with Dick about the lives and music-making of gypsy musicians in Greek Macedonia. By that time, I was working on an ethnographic study concerning the social life and symbolism of animal bells in Greek pastoral communities, while Steve had recently inau - gurated The Time of Bells , his long-term project of soundscape compositions recording the social and cul - tural dynamics of bells in Europe and worldwide. He had brought his expertise and sensitivity acquired through years of studying and recording sound in the New Guinea tropical rainforests to bells’ sound production and perception. His move from birds to bells disclosed a new world of possibilities for con - versation and collaboration between us. From a rich source of inspiration, his work also became the field of an intimate dialogue between my ethnography and his soundscape compositions. Working together was a dream to come true next year, when Steve and Dick visited Greece and I suggested that we travel to Skyros carnival to record its spec - tacular bellscapes. There started a warm and lasting exchange of voices, sounds, images, but also of feel - ings and rich intellectual stimulation. Agapi was the ethnographic eye to complement our group. Agapi, Dick, and I went to Skyros carnival for a second time in 2006 for a second round of photographing. This time, we added color to our images. The constant flow of sounds, texts and images that has been pass - ing among us for the last five years forms the basis of this multimedia publication. We hope that this book of still and moving images, texts and sound compositions, will also convey some of our pleasure and cheerfulness in the long process of making it.

6 STEV E I I went to the Skyros carnival in 2004 with Dick and Panos. Dick and I had already collaborat - ed on Bright Balkan Morning and Bells and Winter Festivals of Greek Macedonia . Our side-by-side doc - umentary work explored the complementary voices of still photography, sound, and moving image media. Dick’s photographs evoked an acoustic presence for me very much like the way I wanted my audio soundscapes to be cinematic, to be hearable like a film soundtrack. This synaesthetic interest also brought me together with Panos, whose anthropological work shared with mine a deep fascination with the senses and particularly the social powers of sound, an arena I call acoustemology, sound as a sensuous way of knowing. We had begun a conversation about how bells figured in ritual, especially carnival, where they both create and disrupt the experience of time and space. In Skyros we three created an in-the-moment documentary experiment, with a special focus on bells and the performance of masked dancers. That initial work was now considerably expanded by a second trip that Panos and Dick made in 2006 with Agapi, whose fifteen years of ethnographic experience in Skyros created new opportunities and understandings at each and every turn. Now that we’ve all come together, I am particularly happy that this project has materialized with VoxLox, the publication series I created for new dialogues in art and anthropology.

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 A CARNIVAL IN ALL SENSES ENTER I NG I In the dim light of the quaint, one-room Skyrian home, we see elements of local life: skillfully carved wooden furniture, dozens of neatly-placed antique ceramics, copper utensils, and embroi - dery — all deeply prized objects of folk craft — set amidst the usual modern appliances. Strewn on the floor are ropes, wooden hoops, and bells, many bells, round, flat, large and small. Several senior men, seated low to the ground, are engrossed in an activity they have been waiting for since this time last year: the preparation of the bells for the carnival costumes. A gentle clanging fortells the uproar to come. Carnival, the Apokries , is near. Soon all public meeting-places will be packed with revellers, and we will be over - come by the thunder of the yeri , the goat-masked “old men” passing through the cobbled alleyways of the village. The town will be filled with the noise of their rumbling bells — a vast soundscape that extends far beyond the borders of the island’s only village. The sound will penetrate every street and home, every artery and capillary, from the town square to the monastery located on the peak of the rock that looms above the village. Thus will the town and the masquerade come into being. You can feel anticipation in the air. This is the only time of the year that some Skyrians will visit their place of origin. Excited visitors are packed in the small lounge or stand chatting on the deck of the ferry as it comes from the port of Kimi to the island. The Apokries is the most important annual event held on Skyros. It is the island’s most powerful attraction for Skyrians and tourists alike. Families and friends will reunite during this period. The whole community will be reborn in a massive over-stimulation of sentiment: a carnival in all senses. Carnival is a compelling affair. It has been celebrated unfailingly — but not unchangingly — for at least a century and continues to hold a central place in the island’s social life. On Skyros, carnival comes as a burst of life that propels us out of the dormancy of winter and into the rites of spring. Skyrian carnival is a visual spectacle, a feast of costumes, dramas, and performances. Its complexity can be viewed through multiple lenses. Social historians like Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie see carnival as a seismic movement of social forces, an uprising where class struggles and tensions can erupt into actual

45 confrontations. Social theorists like Abner Cohen place their emphasis on political and ethnic divisions and contestation, while others like Barbara Babcock and John MacAloon focus on the play of symbolic oppo - sitions and reversals. More theatrically inclined anthropologists like Victor Turner stress the ritual process of social drama. Rejuvenation, liberation, humour, excess, and an abiding focus on the body as a site for play and transformation characterize Mikhail Bakhtin’s celebrated work on carnival’s subversive pleasures. While all of these perspectives can inform a sophisticated viewing of Skyrian carnival, their incorpo - ration opens another window: carnival as a community’s way of celebrating itself, of holding a mirror to its internal and mundane affairs. Here we see how the fluid boundary of actor and audience creates carnival selves who traverse the distinction of the singular and multiple. At the center of this process is the experience of revelling, for this is the place where transformations abound, a total stage of social per - formance that takes over and generates new life. “This is what saves us and gives us joy,” said Mitsos, speaking of the way winter’s seasonal isolation yields to the sensual rebirth of spring. This seasonal motion toward fluidity underlies the social motion of rejuvenation, suggested in many local expressions linking all aspects of carnival to metamorphosis, transformation, and becoming. Engaging in this process — revelling — enlivens all the senses, from the most articulate to the most primordial, connecting vision, motion, smell, and sound. Watching or moving with the yeri is also an acoustic spectacle, consisting of powerful sound images, near and distant, old and new, real and imaginary. Hearing the sound of the yeri’s bells is the trope of anticipation for carnival. Again and again, villagers tell us that they simply cannot imagine the Apokries without this sound. The resounding bells provide an eloquent metaphor for the time and space of carni - val. Not only is the whole event locally conceptualized by reference to hearing, but its experience and remembrance are incorporated in sentiments and bodily memories of an acoustic nature. For more than a century, the Skyrian carnival has been thoroughly recorded by archaeologists, folklorists, anthropologists, photographers, and filmmakers. Recording is indeed now one of the main

46 “performances” that takes place during carnival. Although hundreds of people take photographs or shoot video of the Apokries , its crucial acoustic dimension seems to elude this rather frantic attention. Likewise, most descriptions and representations try to make sense of the noise and chaos by referring only to its visual and narrative content. In effect, we only learn to “see” the meaning behind the chaos. What remains untol d— or rather unwritte n— in these descriptions is the sound and the noise, the fuss and the fun. Bells of course prevail in all carnival descriptions. Yet all writers try to domesticate or textual - ize their wild presence and overwhelming sensory dominance. They catalogue and describe the different kinds and sizes of bells, their weights, the complex techniques by which they are tied around the waist, the difficulties of gathering enough of them to make a proper costume. For all the detail, this misses the point. The real life of bells is in their sound, and it is this sound that transforms the village into a carnival place. During carnival the whole village vibrates with the sound of bells and other celebratory shouts and noises. All villagers and visitors take part in carnival not only by watching it unfold in front of their eyes, but also by hearing it envelop them in its swelling ambience. This overwhelming listening experience, the primal sense of carnival, gives way, after Clean Monday, to a ritual silence. No more than fifty years ago, bells’ sound used to be the loudest sound in the village, not only during carnival but throughout the whole year. The Apokries was the crowning event in the sensory economy of the local community. Today, bells compete with electrically amplified loudspeaker systems. Since there are no cars in the narrow village streets, the confluence of the yeri , the ubiquitous amplified music emanat - ing from bars and restaurants, and the din of the crowd creates an idiosyncratic sound-island in the mid - dle of the village. The soundscape created during the Apokries can be better appreciated if we compare it with the soundscape of everyday life in the village. The quotidian soundscape of Skyros reveals separation between village households, while the dense celebratory sound of bells produces a deep sense of unity. In celebra - tion, the village is acoustically unified, while in everyday life it is comprised of mutually exclusive acoustic

47 units. Village roads, walls and high stone fences divide the houses from one another, marking strict boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, which are also characterized by a strong sense of visual and acoustic impenetrability. During the Apokries , the boundaries created by these barriers are broken and village spaces permeate one another, blurring the formerly strict divisions between inside and outside. In this transformation, noise becomes community. Although it is not far from the mainland, Skyros is rather isolated, not part of the major Aegean island clus - ters off the Sporades to the north or the Cyclades to the south. Its isolation has produced a distinct place with an idiosyncratic cultural history. Two contrasting landscapes define the island’s geography. The southern part, charac - terized by rugged pastures of rock and scrub, is known as to vouno , “the mountain.” The stark omnipresent moun - tain is a major feature of the Skyrian topography and a constant reminder of the island’s shepherding way of life. Pine forests sweep through the northern part of Skyros island, making it unsuitable for pastures but aptly earning its name, meroï , meaning “peaceful.” On the east coast of the island, clustered on a steep rock hill below an ancient fortress and the monastery of St. George, is the main and only township of Skyros. It is called to horio , “the village .” Skyrians came to dwell on the rock adjacent to the kastro , the “fortress,” because of the protection it provided against invasion and piracy. Besides the township, a few small settlements and the occasional single dwelling are scattered throughout the island, some on the coast and some inland. The coastal settlement

48 of Molos and the port of Linaria extend the local economy into larger commercial spheres, including fish - ing and tourism. Skyros has a long history of internal and overseas migration, but since the 1970s the island’s population has been relatively stable at about 2500 inhabitants. The island’s turbulent history of Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman conquest is held in the remnants of the fortress walls, the horio ’s clustered housing, and garrison architecture. Throughout long centuries of sociopolitical upheaval, stability, and depopulation, the horio has remained and continues to be the social center of the island. It is a space imbued with the island’s past, religious disposition, and popular art, all of which are inscribed in sites and ruins, making the past an intimate part of everyday life in the horio . Skyros has long been a shepherding island, but it was only after the establishment of the Greek nation-state in 1830 that its large pastoral families became the dominant class. From domestic production to large-scale herding, shepherding impacts all Skyrian households. It is therefore no surprise that shep - herding provides the dominant symbols for the carnival celebrations — bells, crook, and skins.

BECOM I NG I The passing of winter into spring is an enduring allegory of the regeneration of nature and life that has inspired many ceremonial expressions. Among the most significant is carnival, a special space and time where a mundus inversus playfully subverts the conventions of everyday life. Yet, carnival is also a religious festivity, a popular celebration precariously annexed to Christian practices. For revellers, carnival is a time of unfettered merriment and indulgence. But from the standpoint of the Orthodox Church, this “idolatrous” revelry is only temporary, to be followed by the forty days of fasting that pre - cede the spiritual redemption of Easter. The dramatis personae of the carnival in Skyros are a formidable trio. First, there is the yeros , a part shepherd-part goat figure strung with bells. The yeros is accompanied by the korela , a female figure who is dressed in an assortment of folk bridal and shepherd garments. Finally, there is the frangos , who cuts an outrageous figure with his bizarre appearance.

49 This is how Yiannis retold the popular tale of carnival’s origin: “As the result of a catastrophic storm, a shepherd lost all his sheep and goats. He got dressed, he put on his overcoat, and he put on his panovrak i —the breeches shepherds wear when milking. Then he strung to himself the bells from the sheep and goats, and because he was ashamed to confront the Skyrians, he placed in front of his face a mask made of the skin of a small kid goat. And so, in this way and in this form, he came to Skyros ringing the bells, sometimes with sorrow, sometimes with rage. When he arrived at his home, his wife, in order to console him, put on her best garments and started to sing a tune, which had verses dedicated to life. She then started to twirl around him, fanning him with a handkerchief. And these are the special dance steps of the korela that you can see in carnival. When the korela takes a break, the yeros gets up and thunders the bells while his wife lifts his spirit with the words, verses, and songs that she sings to him .” This story employs symbols that are intimately linked to a Skyrian sense of place. The shepherd, who comes from the isolated and arid pastures of the mountain, is a liminal figure. Both animal and man, he is a mediating symbol of the transition from the natural world to cultural life. The yeros , korela and frangos figures are the main attraction for onlookers, who gaze in awe at or wish to become part of the carnival parade that moves up and down the main street of Skyros. Appearing in a total disguise that make them part shepherd and part goat, yeri wear a shaggy black wool jacket, kapoto , white shepherd’s breeches, vrakes , and traditional leather sandals, trohadhia , as they rumble through the village shaking their bells. Loads of up to fifty kilos can be worn. Yeri also wield shepherd’s crooks that, like their bells, are an insignia of leadership. For many viewers, the yeros ’ most unsettling feature is his face-mask, m’tsouna , the hide of a miscarried kid goat. Yeri perform by shaking their bells in ritualised rhythmic steps and movements. Occasionally, they cluster in a circle and swirl the lilirisma , a competitive display of strength and endurance that finally explodes in exuberant jumping. Yeri also ram into one another in mock attacks, known as trokes , that

50 mark the carnival as a site of ritualized battle. People say that in previous times, vendettas and grievances over kin or pasturage disputes were played out to a greater degree than they are today. Dressing as a yeros is strongly connected to local notions of masculinity, collective male emotion, and sociality, prominent among which are meraki , passion and desire, and kefi , merriment and good humour. It is not only people’s dress and external features that change while “becoming .” This powerful metaphor of an ecstatic mind and heightened emotions is associated with singing and drinking, commensal revelry, and merriment. Meraki , kefi , and methi , drunkenness but also absorption, are the quintessential prereq - uisites for male cultural performance, hence their elevated position in carnival celebrations. More impor - tantly, they are the way all revellers move body and mind into an elated state of being. This typically male domain of “becoming” crosses the gender line during carnival, where female drink - ing and sociality also “become.” Such notions do much to explain the unpredictability and spontaneity of “becoming” a yeros . It is not uncommon to wake up during carnival at three in the morning to the sound of a solo yeros , or a group of friends, who, after rounds of wine and song, have decided to wear the bells and take to the empty streets. While often evaluated aesthetically by their audiences, external judgment makes little difference: yeri become for their own gusto or meraki , their passion, their desire. Another critical dimension of the yeri’s cultural performance is the ascent to the St. George monastery. Combining a paradoxical religiosity with the impulsive spontaneity of carnival, yeri and their troupes set out on an arduous ascent to the monastery where they venerate the icons and sound the churchbells in an ex voto offering, tama , to their patron, St. George. In July 2001, an earthquake caused severe damage to the thousand-year-old Byzantine monastery. That calamity has been a source of deep grief for Skyrians. Since then, yeri and their troupes occasionally make the ascent, but remain outside the monastery’s gate, sustaining the practice of veneration. The korela is the yeros ’ revelling companion. Her coquettish gestures, graceful swirling full skirt and waving kerchief re-adjust the awkwardness of her fragmented attire. In the past the korela was always a

51 young man whose role was to protect the yeros from blows and possible fights and to sing the carnival song, the sorrowful Apokriane . This song is heard less nowadays, but it is frequently referred to with nostalgia by Skyrians. Most of the carnival song repertoires, and especially the Apokriane , are slow, sorrowful tunes that echo like laments amidst the revelry, something that often perplexes newcomers to Skyros who anticipate only jovial carnival sounds. Skyrian songs are sung unaccompanied, senior Skyrian men and women being the keepers of this tradition, recalling and improvising distichs. Younger Skyrians rely on this established lyrical repertoire, but also engage in music making by “turning,” yirisma , that is, repeating the verses in antiphony. Like the wearing of bells, the responsorial “turning” of verses is a continuous learning process, enmeshed within the revelry and commensality of cultural production. While the yeros and the korela are fully stylized characters, the frangos tends to be both more elusive and idiosyncratic. Free to wear anything he likes, the frangos is fluid, whimsical, and open to all changes. His distinguishing comic style —he sometimes wears a single bell attached to his back — often parodies that of the yeros . Unlike his two companions, the frangos does not need to be dressed by an expert and can slap together an outfit in minimal time. The popular explanation Skyrians give of the frangos relates to the original appearance on Skyros of “frankish” or European clothes, which were first worn on the island by members of the professional class. Of the carnival trio, the yeros must have total control over his body movements and tread with light, precise, and self-assured steps to create a synchronous clanging. The rhythm of his body becomes the rhythm of his bells. The koreles swirl gracefully in and among the troupe. The jerky and uncoordinated movement of the frangos comes as a contrast, and herein lies his parody. Young children, from toddlers to teenagers, are the forerunners of carnival. They are the first ones out on the main street. They stride up and down the agora, imitating, following, and daringly weaving among the yeri . Becoming a yeros or a korela is a life-long process. Skyrian children learn the yeros’ rhyth - mic steps as soon as they can walk. Little toddlers are dressed with a bell around the waist, and the number

52 is gradually increased as they grow older. Doting parents show their children how to hop, beat the bells, and swirl the kerchief. Heirloom costumes are handed down. Despite the considerable cost, new costumes are purchased as well. Revelling in carnival is an embodied practice, a ritual pedagogy of mimesis. The troupes of yeri , koreles , and frangi traverse the main street, yet any place — from taverns to town square and agora —can become a carnival stage. The sound of bells creates a jovial anticipation in the more intimate spaces of the narrow streets. People gather on doorsteps to watch yeri and koreles being dressed. Interwoven with the festivity are comic happenings and freelance masquerades. Like the yeri , they can appear anywhere — on the street, in homes, bars, and tavernas. The themes of these comic sketches and verses are extemporaneous; there is no annual repetition, no continuity. Skyrians and visitors to the carni - val also dress in stylized costumes. They appear as clowns or in costume collages of various sorts that they throw together on the spur of the moment. These masqueraders roam the streets and enter venues, teas - ing and provoking the people they encounter into guessing games about their identity. I remember a particular experience well. Standing with a group of friends during carnival one year, our attention was drawn to a particularly bizarre figure. We saw a huge box running around. How could we possibly guess the identity of its contents? We couldn’t even see the feet. It was just a box. Upon closer inspection, we saw that there was an address label on it. We wondered if the addressee was the one in the box, but we couldn’t tell. Maybe he was trying to fool us and there was someone else inside. Whoever it was had discovered the ultimate disguise. Of course, there is an irony to masking as a form of concealment in a small community where the identity of the masqueraders is usually well known. Some masqueraders, including non-Skyrian visitors and spectators, may not engage in any guessing games at all; they just happily wander the streets incognito. All these forms of concealment and revelation are also a matter of “coming into being.”

53 INTERRUPTION I On Sunday afternoon there is a lull. Murmur and anticipation replace the roar of the previous night’s revelry. The crowd awaits the clarinet call that will herald the trata ’s arrival in the square. Trata , the fishermen’s celebration, is the Skyrian carnival’s quasi-staged satirical performance. A fishing boat appears, hauled into the square by a “captain” and his staggering, unkempt crew, whose grungy faces are smeared with soot. A chosen crewmember, “the poet,” o poiitis , stands on the boat, high above the dense crowd, and recites scathing verses in crude and vulgar language over the town council’s loudspeakers. Themes encompass everything: from local and state politics, to EU funding, to the mayor, tourism, the sewage works, and to current events like avian flu. In 2006 the trata took on Eurovision, a widely popular European song competition with television cov - erage on the scale of an international sports event. Elena Paparizou, the Greek singer whose recent first- prize song begins “You’re My Lover Undercove r,” was the target of the satire. As the song played in the background, a local lad dressed in a blonde fright wig, garish makeup and a pink tutu, burlesqued her television performance. As he danced, the “poet” recited a string of salacious verses that are impossible to translate in English and difficult to capture in anything but local dialect. Even the name Paparizou became an object of ridicule, rendered Kakarizou, which refers to the clucking of a hen. A rough approximation of the verses would read something like this:

All hail, Kakarizou, Eurovision superstar with tits like big headlights and an ass like a car. When you shake that booty of yours we feel it in our pricks. Just make sure not to shake it too much or else we’ll see your dick.

54 Local politics also provide plenty of ammunition for trata satirists. Problems with the sewage system were a natural topic for the “poet” in a previous trata ; facing the town council chambers and using its loudspeaker system, he eviscerated the civic authorities:

Oh mayor, oh mayor where were you when the shit started flowing out of its pen? It flowed til it reached my aunties’ place. Oh mayor, oh mayor you are a disgrace. You and your boys are a damn shitty crew. You’re stuck in the loo when there’s real work to do.

The fishermen’s trata ended with the drunken crew dancing around the boat, groping and grabbing spectators, zealously offering them wine out of a chamber pot, or a very special fish soup. Meanwhile another trata , a “gathering of donkeys,” brought a second set of drunken, bawdy, boisterous satirists to the town square. And all the while, yeri were gathering in the main street. In time, the sound of their bells would drown out the trata performances, and the revelry continuing into the commotion of night. In all these ways, the experience of carnival is intense. Add the erratic and chaotic nature of happenings, the exhausting physical and emotional states of being and becoming, the unpredictable materialization of colors and scenes, the pounding soundscape, and you have a rich sensory overload. Not to mention the commensal imbibing of the majority of the entire year’s home-made wine supply during the three-week carnival period. At the heart of carnivalesque exaggeration lies the metamorphosis of self where a person is subjected to multiple transformations. Anyone who has altered their personal appearance during carnival is said to “have become .” Even a slight change of dress or an eccentric hair-do can be enough. Costumes highlight the gaudy, ghoulish, and

55 grotesque: lurid masks, mismatched clothes, gorilla heads, bloody lab coats, plastic bags. There are bound - less possibilities for defying definability, endless ways of “becoming.” Wandering the streets we see every kind of border crossed. Selves are fractured and bodies are remade. The familiar categories of gender, age, class, profession, nature, and culture are juggled and ruptured. You see undignified royalty, noble peas - ants, lewd priests, beastly humans, ugly beauties, grown-up infants and female men. “Becoming” embraces all these eclectic metamorphoses. Observers become participants too. Making pictures during his second visit, Dick was swept up into a carnival troupe who blackened his face and gave him a sheep mask to wear as a hat. After proceeding with them to the town square for a mock wedding and ritual meal, someone grabbed his hand and deposited there a live hedgehog. It promptly peed on him. Anointed. Skyrians do not merely conceal themselves in carnival guise and buffoonery. They “become ,” they “come into being.” Yinomenos , “the one who has become ,” tha yin’s , “I shall become ,” persi den eyina , “I didn’t become last year.” These are some of the phrases you hear over and over again during the carnival. Skyrian revellers often ask each other if they have or will “become” — at times reverting playfully to local dialect, tha yinou, “will you becom e?” Often the response is simply a “yes,” tha yinoume , or “no,” since the ‘what’ or ‘who’ is indefinable, unidentifiable, or irrelevant. The emphasis is placed on the process of becoming and its fickle completion. “Becoming” is a highly evocative metaphor for how Skyrians feel and live their carnival. Equally scandalous and serious, the experience consumes the senses, body, and soul.

CODA I Can all this h ave taken place in just 72 hours? Can all this wine have been drunk, delicacies gorged, sound absorbed, steps pounded into the streets? How did this much hilarity and excess consume so many in a flash of time-out-of-time, in a space that recreates place? Whatever the answers, it is the ringing that won’t stop, so many mod es t places now made memorable, places that continue to vibrate

56 despite the absence of the actors who “became,” who animated them, who charged them with the uncanny power and presence of carnival. The shedding of bells on Sunday night announces the imminent arrival of Clean Monday, the first day of Lent. Although the ringing of the yeri ’s bells and the comic skits have ceased, the drinking, eating, and dancing contin - ues in a consummation of a different kind. The revelling village is again the main celebratory stage. Skyrians, visitors, and friends wear their prized folk dress and stroll in the main street of the agora . By noon, people gather in the town square, sit, drink wine, eat Lenten appetisers, and dance in an open circle. Of course, it is the abundant wine that transforms the day into a feast on fasting foods, blurring the purificatory and disciplinary character of Lent’s opening. Clean Monday instigates a period of Christian mourning. While there is some absolving of idolatry and the dampening of the bawdiness and the carnivalesque, the merriment continues, even intensifies on this day. An even more subversive after-shock of reverberation is felt one week later, on the Saturday after carnival. This is St. Theodoros’ celebration. Once again yeri , koreles , and frangi eagerly wear their attire and take to the streets. Once again, the human comedy of carnival performance echoes into being and then quickly fades to a close. Once again, the endless ringing-in-the-ear of bell sounds reassure Skyrians that the Apokries will return, a wish ever-crystallized in the oft-spoken greeting: “let it be next year,” kai tou hronou .

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 BIBLIO GRAPHY

SKYROS: I Amanatidis, Agapi, “Coming into Being”: Metaphors I Lambrou, Aliki, Oi Skyrianes foresies [Skyrian of Self and Becoming in Carnival on the Aegean Island Garments] . Nafplio: Ekd. Peloponnisiakou laografikou of Skyros . Ph.D. dissertation. Discipline of Anthropology, idrymatos [Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation University of Adelaide, 2005. Publications], 1994. I Antoniadis, Xenophon, Skyriana Analekta [A I Lawson, J .C., “A Beast-Dance in Scyros,” Selection of Skyrian Essays] . Athens: Ekdosi Syllogou Annual of the British School at Athens , vol. VI [6]:125- Skyrianon ,1995. 27, 189 9/1900. “Ena paradoxo apokriatiko ethimo sti Skyro [An Extra- I Papageorgiou, Dimitri S., I istoria tis Skyrou [The ordinary Carnival Custom in Skyros].” History of Skyros] . Patra: Andr. Pascha, 1909. In Skyriana Analekta , pp. 2 41 -255 ,1995. Ai Apokreo en Skyro. [Carnival in Skyro s]. “I Skyriani Apokria [Skyrian Carnival].” In Skyriana Laografia vol. B:35-47, 1910. Analekta , pp. 257-264, 1995. I Psachos, K. A., Dimodi asmata Skyrou [Demotic I Skyros stin Tourkokratia: Koinonia – doiikisi – Chants of Skyros] . Athens: Sp. Kousoulinos, 1910. dikaiosini [Skyros during Turkish Rule: Society - I Perdika, Niki, Skyriana dimotika tragoudia [Skyrian Administration – Justic e]. Athens: Etairia Evoïkon Demotic Songs] . Athens: M. Basileiou ,1937. Spoudon, 1997. 1940 Skyros (vol. 1). Athens: Pyrsos I Chianis, Sotirios, Dimotika tragoudia tis Skyrou [Folk 1943 Skyros (vol. 2). Athens: Pyrsos. Songs of Skyros, Greece] . Irakleio, Greece: Peloponnesian I Xanthouli, Nap. Epp., Toponymiko tis Skyrou Folklore Foundation & Crete University Press, 2003. [Place Names of Skyros] . Athens, 1984 I Coulentianou, Joy, The Goat Dance of Skyros . I Zarkia, Cornélia, Societé et Espace dans L’ile de Athens: Ermis, 1977. Skyros [Society and Space on the Island of Skyros] . I Dawkins, Richard, “A Visit To Skyros,” Annual of the Ph.D. dissertation. Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en British School at Athens vol. XI [9]:72-80, 190 4/05. Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1991. I Faltaïts, Manos “To karnavali tis Skyrou kai i katagogi ton apokreo [The Carnival of Skyros and the Origins of Carnival],” Elliniki Laïki Techni [Greek Folk Art] 6:2 0-29. Athens, . I Hatzimichali, Angeliki, Elliniki laïki techni: Skyros [Greek Folk Art: Skyro s]. Athens: Makris, 1925. I Konstantinidis, Michalis, I nisos Skyros [Skyros Island] . Athens, 1901.

82 ADDITIONAL SOURCES: I Anoyanakis, Fivos, Greek Popular Musical I Kiourtsakis, Yiannis, Karnavali kai karagiozis. I rizes Instruments , Christopher N. W. Klint trans. Athens: kai i metamorfosis tou laïkou geliou [Carnival and National Bank of Greece, 1979. Karagiozis: The Roots and Transformation of Popular I Babcock, Barbara. ed., The Reversible World: Laughter], (2nd edition). Athens: Kedros, 1995 [ 1985]. Symbolic Inversion in Art and Society . Ithaca: Cornell I Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, Carnival: A People’s University Press, 1978. Uprising at Romans 157 9–1580 . Mary Feeney trans. I Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and his World , Helene New York: George Braziller, 1979. Iswolsky, trans. Cambridge, Mass: Massachusetts I MacAloon, John ed., Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Institute of Technology Press, 1968. Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance , I Blau, Dick, Steven Feld, and Charles and Angeliki Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Keil, Bells and Winter Festivals of Greek Macedonia . 1984. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, I Panopoulos, Panayiotis, “Animal Bells as Symbols: 2002 Sound and Hearing in a Greek Island Village,” Journal I Cohen, Abner, Masquerade Politics: Explorations in of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 9: 639- the Structure of Urban Cultural Movements , Berkeley: 656, 2003. University of California Press, 1993. I Puchner, Walter, Laïko theatro stin Ellada kai sta I Cowan, Jane K.,“Folk Truth: When the Scholar Valkania [Popular Theatre in Greece and the Balkans.] Comes to Carnival in a Traditional Society,” Journal of Athens: Patakis Publications, 1989. Modern Greek Studies 6(2):245-263, 1988. I Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti- I Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece , structure , Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co., 1969. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. I Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in I DaMatta, Roberto, Carnivals, Rogues, and Heroes: Human Society , Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974 An Interpretation of the Brazilian Dilemma , John Drury I From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of trans. (Originally published as Carnavais, Malandros E Play , New York: PAJ Publications, 1982 Herois in 1979). London: The University of Notre Dame I The Anthropology of Performance , (preface by Press, 1991 Richard Schechner). New York: PAJ Publications, 1986 I Ehrenreich, Barbara, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy , NY: Metropolitan Books, 2007. I Kapferer, Bruce, A Celebration of Demons: Exorcism and the Aesthetics of Healing in Sri Lanka (2nd edi - tion). Washington, D.C: Berg: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991 [ 1983]

83 COLOR PLATES 22. Return 39. Gun 68. Street cleaner Frontispiece: 23. Bird 40. Singing 69. Demon Dressing donkey 24. Dionysus 41. Taverna 70. Crook 8. Self portrait in soot 25. Blue hair 42. Bar 71. Swirling 9. Wedding 27. TCOS 43. Ferry 72. Fiddler 10. Dinner 28. Monkey 73. Roaring bells 11. Chef and diners 29. Old man BLACK & WHITE PLATES 74. Priest porn 12. Dentist 30. Thundering 58. Mask and frame 75. Werewolf 13. Broadcast 31. Koreles 59. Stringing bells 76. Trio 14. Fishermen’s trata 32. Twirling korela 60. Scarf 77. Dancing 15. Captain and crew 33. Black leather 61. Dressing 78. Circle 16. Eurovision winner 34. Monster 62. Belt 79. Black mask 17. Steward 35. Priest 63. Adjusting bells 80. Blur 18. Frangos with bell 36. Kiss 64. Yeros 81. In the street 19. Shadows 37. Street 65. Korela 20. Yeros and camera 38. Elena Kakarizou 66. Black m’tsouna Pla te numbers refer 21. Yeri and sailor 67. Korela and yeros to page numbers

DICK B LAU is Professor of Film, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

AGAPI A MANA TID IS is Visiting Research Fellow and Consulting Anthropologist at LocuSAR, University of Adelaide.

PANAYOTIS PANOPOULOS is Assistant Professor of Anthropology of Music and Dance, University of the Aegean.

ST EVEN FELD is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Music, University of New Mexico.

WITH THANKS TO: The people of Skyros; Department of Film, Peck School of the Arts, and Graduate School, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Jane Gallop, Tom Bamberger, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

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