THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE z/y ^HAS.E THE NOMADS OF THE BALKANS fJ^AlJ^ I ^^>-^i^-- V IX CAi' AMI ni-.l.l.S. A \I.A('H M A.S( )l ' I.RA I il-.R A'l' VKKKIA THE NOMADS OF THE BALKANS AN ACCOUNT OF LIFE AND CUSTOMS AMONG THE VLACHS OF NORTHERN PINDUS y BY A V, > At J? Bif y^AGE, M.A. FORMERLY FliLLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE AND M. S. THOMPSON, M.A. FORMERLY CRAVEN FELLOW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD WITH FORTY-TWO ILLUSTRATION.S AND TWO MAPS METHUEN & GO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.G. LONDON First Published in igi4 — PREFACE writing Vlach phonetically we have used as simple an INalphabet as possible and endeavoured to avoid the use of diacritical marks. The symbols used are to be pronounced as follows : a, e, i and u as in German, as a closed o as in the French cote, oa as an open sound as in the French bois, ea to resemble the Italian ia in words such as pianta, ai as in the English i as in mice, ei as the English ay in play, ao and au as the German au, t and u as whispered sounds, the latter like a half uttered English w, a like the English er in better, while ^ is a vowel sound peculiar to Roumanian and its dialects which cannot be described, p and b as in English, t and d as in Enghsh, g as the hard English g as in gape, k as the hard English c in care, y as in yacht, gh (the Greek 7) like the g in North German words such as Tage, h like the Scottish ch in loch, m and n as in English and ri as the English n in finger, 1 as in English and ;' as in Scottish, / and V as in English, th (the Greek 6) as the th in thorough, dh (the Greek I) as th in then, s and z as in English, sh as in English and zh as the z in azure, tsh like the English ch in church, and dzh like the English j. 3 vi THE NOMADS OF THE BALKANS g' as in ague or in argument, k' as in Kcw or the c in cue, h' as in hew or huge, n' like the Italian gn and I' like the Italian gl. Although the name Sdmdrina is in Vlach pronounced as the spelling indicates we have written throughout Samarina, and this, if spoken so as to rhyme with semolina, is sufficiently accurate for practical purposes. As regards Modern Greek we have attempted to trans- literate the language phonetically, but in the case of well- known names and places we have retained the conventional spelling. We have to thank Professor E. G. Browne, Dr. Braunholtz, Mr. E. H. Minns and Mr. E. C, Quiggin for help and advice on many linguistic questions. Of the literature on the Vlachs we have consulted all that was accessible to us. The notes at the end are intended to indicate only the chief sources where further information can be obtained. Sifurim shi eu ka tine vream si mi duk Sdmdrina. A. J. B. W. M. S. T. Cambridge, August isth, 19 1 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. Mainly Introductory I II. From Tirnavos to Samarina II III. Life at Samarina .... 39 IV. The Costumes of Samarina 60 V. Government and Trade, Churches and Houses 69 VI. Birth, Baptism, Betrothal, Marriage and Burial Customs 100 VII. Festivals and Folklore . 129 VIII. The History of Samarina 144 IX. The Vlach Villages near Samarina 172 X. The Distribution of the Vlachs 206 XI. The Vlach Language 226 XII. The History and Origin of the Balkan Vlachs 256 Appendices— I. The Greek Texts of the Inscriptions in the Churches at Samarina . 275 II. Betrothal, Wedding and other Festival Songs . 277 III. The Greek Klephtic Songs used to illustrate the History of Samarina . 281 IV. Select Texts to illustrate the Vlach Language 285 Notes and Bibliography ..... 297 Vocabulary ...... 305 Index ....... 325 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I N Cap and Bells : A Vlach Masquerader at Verria Frontispiece FACING PAGE Vlach Families on the Road . .12 Vlach Muleteers . .12 Vlach Families Encamping . .16 A Vlach Camp at Midday . .16 Ghrevena : Corner Towers of the House of Mehmed Agha ON THE Left . .26 Samarina : The Dance at the Festival of the Assumption 26 Samarina from the East . • 3^ Samarina : The Market-Place . .42 Samarina : Men's Costumes . .60 Samarina : Men's Costumes . .62 Samarina : Women's Costumes . .64 Samarina : Women in SarkA, Duluma, Palto, and SarkA . 68 Watchman in Brigand Costume with his Pet Lamb . 78 Boy in Andri and MalliotC . -7^ Samarina : Milking Time at a Sheepfold . • 7^ Samarina : Women working Wool . .80 Samarina : A Beetling Mill . .84 Samarina : A Saw Mill . • .84 Samarina : Great St. Mary's . .86 Samarina : The Monastery from the South . 94 i ix X THE NOMADS OF THE BALKANS FACING PAGE Samarina : Group of Houses, showing Oven, Gardens, and K'ipeng'i . .94 108 Samarina : The House of Pagatsa .... Samarina : Taking the Bride on Horseback from her Home ..... 108 Samarina : Bride and Bridegroom dancing outside the Bridegroom's House ..... 120 Samarina : Wedding Ceremonies . .124 Samarina : Priest and his Family at a Festival . .128 Samarina : St. John's Day, Arumana at the Conduit of Papazisi . -134 Elassona : Vlach Quarter on the Left, with the Monas- tery ON THE Hill above . •134 Elassona : Vlach and Greek Masqueraders at Epiphany 140 Map of Northern Pindus and the Territory of Samarina . 160 Baieasa : Bridge over the Aous .... 198 Verria : The Ghetto .... 198 Sketch Map of the Southern Balkans 206 Verria : Vlachs from Samarina and Avdhela 210 Neveska from the South-East 214 THE NOMADS OF THE BALKANS THE NOMADS OF THE BALKANS CHAPTER I MAINLY INTRODUCTORY Vinira di t alte lokuri Tra z veada anoastre tropuri. They came from other places to see our customs. Vlach Song the various races that inhabit the Balkan peninsula OFthe Vlachs are in many ways one of the least known. Though at one time of sufficient importance to give their name to the greater part of Northern Greece, during the last few centuries their existence as a separate people has almost been forgotten. At the present day they are to be found widely scattered over the more mountainous and remote parts of the peninsula from Acarnania in the south to as far north as the mountains of Bulgaria and Servia. Their settlements are all small, there is no such thing as an exclusively Vlach town and nowhere do they occupy any large continuous tract of country. One of their chief districts in the south is along the wooded slopes of Northern Pindus between Epirus and Southwestern Macedonia. The higher of the villages on Pindus are under snow each winter and each year as soon as summer ends most of the inhabitants move down to the plains with their flocks and herds, taking with them whatever is needed to carry on their trade. Thus for the six winter months there is a large Vlach population living in the plains of Thessaly and Macedonia ; Velestinos for the time being becomes almost a Vlach town, and numerous Vlach families take up their abode in Trikkala, Larissa, Elassona 2 THE NOMADS OF THE BALKANS and the other towns and villages near by. The villages in the hills however are always regarded by the Vlachs as being their real home ; they are essentially a mountain people and as soon as they begin to settle permanently in the plains, as many have done in the past, far away from their native hills and woods and streams they lose their national characteristics and rapidly become merged into the surrounding races. Their language both in its vocabulary and structure is clearly de- scended from Latin—so much so that a Latin grammar solves many of the difficulties—and is closely allied to Roumanian, of which it is in fact a dialect. But like all the Balkan lan- guages in their common spoken forms Vlach contains a large number of foreign words and phrases, borrowed from Greek, Slavonic, Turkish and Albanian, the proportion from each varying in the different districts. The earliest record of spoken Vlach goes back to the sixth century a.d., but it seems not to have been written till the eighteenth century when a Greek script was employed. Since the beginning of the national movement about the middle of last century the Roumanian alphabet has been adopted. Excepting some of the women in certain of the more remote villages all the Vlachs of both sexes know in addition to their native language at least one other tongue, either Greek, Bulgarian, Albanian or Serb. In the case of the women how- ever this is largely a modern development for only fifty years ago in an accessible village like Metsovo few knew any other language but Vlach ; the men on the other hand owing to the necessities of trade have almost certainly been bihngual for many generations. The Vlachs call themselves ' Romans,' or in their own dialect Arumani, which is really the same word, just as the Greeks still commonly call themselves ' Romei' and their language ' Romeika.' By the Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians the Vlachs are known as Tsintsars which is a nickname derived from the numerous hissing sounds in Vlach suggestive of mosquitoes. Thus the Roumanian cinci (five) is in Vlach tsintsi. By the Greeks the Vlachs are known as Vlakhi or more accurately as Kutsovlakhi.