Greeks and Albanians From about 1800 - Gypsy Folk Ensemble

When the evening had set in, and the moon arose, the long Romaika was led out on the mountain’s brow.

“Their leader sung, and bounded to his song,

  With choral voice and step, the martial throng.”

For two long hours did the leaders dip and twirl, while the long tail ebbed and flowed, like a following wave, to the mellifluous air—

Πϖϛ τὸ τϱίβουν, τὸ πὶπὲϱι

῎Οι διαβὸλοι ϰαλογἓϱοι.

Soon after leaving Cardia, as we turned the crest of a hill, we suddenly came on a group of nine peasants in a circle, locked arm-in-arm, and dancing, or rather leaping together, to the sound of a bagpipe, the musician standing in the centre. On this landscape, which looked so like a study of  the old Florentine school, these gaily attired peasantry dancing on the hill-side seemed a group of Perugino’s Muses, just leapt from the canvass.

As the night darkened, the burning tree became a very beautiful and exhilarating object; and when at length it fell with a crash, and rolled downwards for many yards, supporting itslf on its reversed and flaming limbs, my guards leaped up in ecstasy, and discharged their muskets and their pistols, and called aloud for Romaika, which the sprightly monk did not disdain to lead.

She sat crouching in a corner, and when I attempted to say something encouraging to her, she replied, “Go see the fine cow I am going to sell, to buy a handkerchief, that my husband and I may dance together!”*  

* In dancing, they hold the ends of a handkerchief; the sense implied, is destitution and wretchedness.

I ought not to omit the kindness of the Aga, a negro, who, during four days that I was detained here, came daily to inquire for me, and always drew something out which he had concealed in his sleeve: one day it was a water-melon; another day it was a fowl; “for,” said he, “you are weak, and want something to strengthen you.” I was at one time able to go and sit before the door, and he immediately bethought himself of amusing me by making the peasants dance. They had little will for dancing; but,  before I was aware of it , a score of them were brought from their vintage and ordered to dance: “What could they do?” said the Primate, “dancing is Angaria (corvée) like anything else.”

 Before eleven o’clock these sports were abandoned, and the dance and its accompanying song were commenced. The cyclic chorus exhibited consisted of six women and as many men, each of whom held the hand of his neighbor. The coryphaeus favoured us by singing various poetical effusions as they danced.

 It requires no great imaginative power to regard the dance of these Cretan youths and women, as an image, which still preserves some of the chief features of the Cnossian chorus of three thousand years ago. As songs are now sung by the peasants on these occasions, so, in ancient times, there was a hyporchem, or ballad, with which the Cretans, more than all other Greeks, delighted to accompany their motions in the dance.

 The little songs thus sung, at the present day, are called Madhinádhas by the Cretans: I collected many of these during my stay in the island.

It must, however, be observed that no woman of the island ever sings: and the Sfakian women, whose seclusion and reserve is greater than that of the other female Cretans, never even dance, except on some great religious festivals, and then only with very near relations. Maniás, who thinks that the readiness, with which the women of Mylopótamo and other parts of the island join in the dance, is hardly creditable to them, was greatly horrified at the idea of any respectable female’s ever singing; and assured me that it was quite impossible for a Greek woman to disgrace herself by doing anything so disreputable.

-Ibid, Vol. 1, p. 255-256

William J. Hamilton (1805-1867) was an English geologist and member of the Geological Society of London. In 1835, he started on a geological tour of Asia Minor.

At the village of Malona on Rhodes, January, 29, 1837:

The whole population of Malona had turned out to witness the festivities in honour of a marriage. These consisted almost entirely of dancing and drinking: in the former the company danced in a ring, to the sound of a lugubrious bagpipe, encircling the more honoured of the guests.

This was the scene of one of those terrible tragedies so frequent during the Suliote war with Ali. At its summit twenty-two women of Suli took refuge after the capture of their rock by the Mohammedans, and with their children awaited the issue of a desperate combat between their husbands and brothers, and the soldiers of the Vizir of Yannina. Their cause was lost; but as the enemy scaled the rock to take the women prisoners, they dashed all their children on the crags below, and joining their hands, while they sang the songs of their own dear land, they advanced nearer and nearer to the edge of the precipice, when from the brink a victim precipitated herself into the deep below at each recurring round of the dance, until all were destroyed. When the foe arrived at the summit the heroic Suliotes were beyond his reach.

All the village was alive with the gaieties of a wedding. Like the dance L___ and I had seen at Arachova, the women joined hand-in-hand, measuredly footing it in a large semicircle, to a minor cadence played on two pipes; their dresses were most beautiful.

- Ibid, p. 219

Eustace C. Grenville Murray (1824-1881), a natural son of the Duke of Buckingham, seems to have made a career out of getting himself into trouble. He was dismissed from his foreign office job at Vienna for moonlighting as a newspaper correspondent, and was later horsewhipped by an irate Lord for a libel published in a newspaper he founded in London. For denying his authorship of the article, he was convicted of perjury but escaped to the continent and spent the rest of his life as an exile, acting as a correspondent for London papers. In between troubles he was for a period attached to the British embassy in Constantinople.

At Greek Easter at Constantinople:

The men dance together their uncouth national dances, to a rude and inharmonious music: it is the same dance that may have been danced by the companions of Leonidas and Miltiades, or in the ancient chorus; the dance we see pictured on old vases, and in the silent chambers of Pompeii. Some ten or twelve men, of ages between twenty and fifty-five, take each other by the hand, and form themselves into a semicircle; they then begin to stamp their feet slowly, and to excite themselves till the measured stamp becomes a frantic jump, the song a howl. They are headed by a dancing-master, who twirls a handkerchief, and directs their movements. One by one, as the dancers retire from sheer prostration, their places are filled up by others; and sometimes we saw some sunburnt old fellow look bashful as a maiden when asked to join the party; but he always ended by giving his consent at last, and would come scuffling along, blushing and smirking, till he warmed to the fun, after which he jumped away as lustily as the rest. I could have wished the dancers had not been so dirty and down-at-heel as they were, and I could have dispensed with the presence of a fat old lady in a great coat, and having her head bound up from the face-ache, who came to inspect the proceedings; but in spite of these drawbacks, the scene was curious and interesting.

As far as the dances, I regret to be obliged to assure the antiquaries that they are very awkward clumsy hops when actually performed. Let him fancy half a dozen heavy louts, aged between twenty-five and fifty- eight, hopping about and bumping against each other with senseless gestures, while the last man endeavours to win some burly by-stander (aged forty-two) to make a goose of himself in the same way.

- Ibid, p. 147

Henry Fanshawe Tozer (1829-1916) was an English geographer who traveled in Greece and Asia Minor. Here he is at the village of Zagora near Mount Pelion in Thessaly:

In the evening we went to see the dancing, which had been kept up, to the sound of a drum and two clarionets, ever since the morning service. The scene of it was an open space behind the church, with a circular paved area, like that of a threshing floor. The accessaries of this were admirably picturesque: all round it rose enormous plane-trees, and in front was a view of the sea and islands in contrast with the cupola of the church and one grand tapering cypress, while behind, where the ground is steep, the women were arranged all together on the slopes in a semicircle, like the spectators in an ancient theatre. The men stood round the area, and the whole assemblage was very large, multitudes having come by sea from the villages of Pelion for a long way round. It was consequently an excellent opportunity for studying the physiognomy of the people of the district: many of the men were tall of stature, and a few of the women were good looking, but the Bulgarian cast of face decidedly predominated amongst them, though a fair number had Greek features, and the dark Greek eye was far the most common. The dresses were unusually commonplace, as the men wore the dark-coloured baggy Hydriote trowsers; in fact, the only thing worth noticing in the whole multitude was the effect produced by the large number of crimson fezes. The performance, too, was disappointing; I never saw the Romaika worse danced: on this occasion it quite deserved the name Byron gives it of  “a dull roundabout,” which certainly is not applicable to it as it is performed in parts of the Morea, where a graceful serpentine movement is often introduced, and the hands of those who join in it are linked very elegantly. As a national dance, however, there is always this to be said for it, that it has the advantage of being easy, and of allowing a large number to take part. The company is formed into a ring, broken at one point, with the ends overlapping, so as to admit of indefinite extension, even to the formation of an inner coil; a step or two forward, and then a step or two backward, followed by one to the side, keeps the whole ring in movement and circulating. The largest number we saw dancing together was six-and-thirty; of these but few were women, and those of that sex who did join, performed their part in a most business-like manner, and with a sobriety of deportment worthy of a very solemn function indeed. A few of the non-residents in Frank costume took part, the most conspicuous among them being an old gentleman in a hat three sizes too big for him, and wearing a general appearance of seediness, as if he had lately turned out from Holywell Street: he danced most vigorously. For some time our host, the doctor, led the dance, which he did with grace and dignity. The men seemed thoroughly to enjoy it, and relinquished the scene unwillingly at nightfall.

- Henry Tozer (1829-1916): Researches in the Highlands of Turkey, London, 1869, p. 118-119

Wadham Peacock, educated at Cambridge, was secretary to Sir William Kirby Greene, the British Consul General in the north Albanian city of Shkodra, in the 1880s. He later published a book about the country.

The following took place at an Orthodox wedding in Shkodra:

after supper ... the Albanian wedding dance was performed. The men and women formed up in two lines opposite one another in the balcony, with their arms around each other's necks, and first the line of men danced slowly forward to meet the women, singing the monotonous marriage hymn. As the men retired the women danced forward after them singing the next verse, and so the two lines continued swaying backwards and forwards, chanting their epithalium for half an hour.

The dancing of the peasants is somewhat solemn, and well befits the semi-religious character of these occasions. There is little abandonment to the hilarity of motion, apparently little sensuous pleasure in the common rhythmic step; but the suggestion is ever recurring that some unconscious tradition of an ancient sacred significance preserves the decorum of the dancers. It has even been maintained that in the various local figure-dances traces of some former pantomimic action may be detected; and as each dance in the different localities has its own particular song of accompaniment, this has, perhaps, replaced the narrative or dramatic part, while the dance has taken the place of the mimic representation.

Four principal forms may be distinguished among the many varieties of the popular dance. That called the Levéntikos (From Λεβέντης, nimble or quick) is executed either by two men or two women, who stand side by side, a pace or two apart, looking straight in front of them. They move forward and backward, springing up and round, making long turns, and then coming back to the original position, each following the movements of the other, but always dancing apart. The men frequently accompany their steps with clapping of hands.

The Syrtos, a word signifying “drawn along,” is danced by men and women in a line; but where there are male dancers the leader is always a man. He holds with his or her left hand the right of the next dancer. The chain winds round and round rather solemnly; now one foot is lifted, now the other; and the bodies swing inwards or outwards together, according to the rhythm of the dancing song, or pipes and drum.

The Clistos (Κλειστὸς = closed) differs from the Syrtos only in the manner in which the chain is linked. The leader has the right hand free, and holds with the left the arm of the second dancer. The second, with his right hand, holds the right hand of the third, and with his left the right hand of the fourth, and so hands are linked across each alternate dancer along the whole line.

The Tsiámikos is a dance in which the leader of the line does all the dancing; the rest, who are linked to him by a handkerchief held in his left hand, only follow and keep time, generally singing in accompaniment a martial air. When the leader gets tired, he drops to the end of the line, and the second in order succeeds his. The leader, who often waves a handkerchief in his free right hand, follows the measure of the pipes or the song, moving alternately fast or slow, leaping into the air, then at regular intervals passing under his own and his companion’s linked hands, and occasionally enlivening the step by falling forward on the knee and springing up with a rebound from the floor. The great art consists in throwing the head as far back as possible without losing balance, and in this the second dancer supports him. Sometimes even, to show his suppleness and agility, he will place a glass of water on his forehead and dance a round without spilling its contents. This is the favourite dance of the soldiers, and they may often be seen engaged in it when the word is given to fall out in the intervals of the drill. It is also danced by the Albanians, and its name would seem to imply that it owes its origin to the Tzamé or Schumik tribes.

Of these dances, and especially of the last, there are numberless variations, and each one has its distinctive name; such are the Siganòs, Pediktòs, Soústa, Ankaliastòs, the Tservòs, probably of Sclavonic origin, and the Syndetòs, and Gonatistòs, which are favourite dances in the islands. In these last the dancers advance with two or three forward steps to the right and one to the left, then retire again, and wind round to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument called the lyra. The differences between these various dances are all well defined, and they are looked upon as quite distinct; but the general effect produced is much the same in all.

In Rhodes there is yet another method of forming the line. The girl immediately behind the leader, who will generally be her future bridegroom, holds fast by his girdle with her right hand. His right is free, holding the handkerchief which he waves, and with his left he takes the right hand of the third in line, the second being linked to the fourth, and so on. On ancient vases discovered in the island a dance extremely similar to this Rhoditikòs is found represented.

The famous dances at Megara, which are held on Easter Tuesday, and on every subsequent feast-day until the day of St. George (April 23, O.S.), are more elaborate in character. The dances above described may be seen there; but it is the dance of the women known as the Tratta, a word of Italian origin, but similar in etymology to Syrtos, which has excited so much curiosity. In the morning it may be seen outside the town on a little plateau of hills among the trees, and in the afternoon in the central square of the town. On these occasions the whole population gathers at the dancing place, while numbers of spectators flock in from Athens, Corinth, and all the neigbourhood.

It has been suggested, and with much probability, that this dance, as well as the Syrtos, is a rhythmic adaptation of the familiar action of drawing in the seine net. A row is formed of some twenty women, each linking her hands to the right and left across her immediate neighbour’s to those of the dancer next but one; so that here also, as in the Clistos, the line is joined together by a chain of crossing arms. The married women dance together, the unmarried women form other chains, and a particularly pretty feature in the festival are the lines of dancing children. The movement is by the right, and the leader, who with her left hand holds the right of the third dancer, and with her right the right of her neighbour, has to draw the whole line along; the work is very hard, and they often grow tired out under the hot spring sun. There is plenty of rude music of pipes, drums, and fiddles in the square; but these are chiefly engaged in playing the accompaniments of the men who are dancing the handkerchief dance, while the girls and women move to a kind of low twittering song of their own, in time with the step, which sounds like the note of a large company of swallows. The body is turned to the right, and the line advances obliquely with four long rapid steps, all the feet moving together with perfect precision, the points of their red slippers coming rhythmically forward, and all the bodies swinging as one. After the four advancing steps follow three shorter ones backward, and then the line winds round like a snake, always moving by the right, with a moments pause as the leader and the last dancer stand back to back. The step appears to be extremely simple, not to say monotonous, and yet the precision with which it is accomplished, the simultaneousness of every movement, cannot be easy to acquire; while the general effect of these serpentining chains of linked figures, in their bright dresses and floating veils, advancing, retiring, and winding round, is particularly graceful and pretty. Throughout there is no confusion nor noise; a sense of moderation and restraint prevails. It is a sight not easily forgotten this village festival—for Megara, though it covers a large area, is scarcely more than a big village—the blaze of colour in the skirts and aprons of the women, the red caps and clean white kilts of the men, the universal participation, the refined and pretty features of the young girls, the handsome bronzed faces of the pallikars—and all this in a wonderful setting of mountain, sea, and isles, under the April sun of Greece.

The peasant’s dance leads on by a natural sequence to the consideration of the peasant marriage, for not only is dancing one of the characteristic features of wedding festivities, but it is also on the dancing ground, where all the villagers assemble to make holiday, that marriages are most commonly arranged...

- Rennell Rodd: The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece, London, 1892, p. 85-90

Frontispiece

Clive Bigham (1872-1956), later Viscount Mersey, covered the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 for the London Times traveling with the Turkish army. The episode described below took place before the start of the war, at the Milona Pass separating Greece and Turkey, near the town of Elassona. The Turkish Albanian soldiers sometimes went to visit their Greek counterparts at their border blockhouse.

Often we watched the troops exercising in the plain below, or, what was much more interesting, the Euzonoi and Albanians dancing opposition dances round their blockhouses, hand in hand, to the accompaniment of a reed pipe.

- Clive Bigham: With the Turkish Army in Thessaly, London, 1897, p. 35

Lucy Mary Jane Garnett (1849-1934) was a traveler and writer who published a number of works on life in the Balkans. Here she describes a picture of Sunday village life among Macedonian Greeks:

In the afternoon the peasants resort en masse to the village green. The middle-aged and elderly men take their places in the background under the rustic vine-embowered verandah of the coffee-house, the matrons, with their little ones, gather under the trees to gossip, while their elder sons and daughters perform the syrto, the "long-drawn" classic dance. Each youth produces his handkerchief, which he holds by one corner, presenting the other to his partner; she in turn extends her own to the dancer next to her, and, the line thus formed, "Romaika's dull round" is danced to the rhythm of a song chanted in dialog form, with or without the accompaniment of pipe and viol, until the lengthening shadows of evening send the villagers home to their sunset meal.

Philip Sanford Marden (1874-1963) was editor of the Lowell (MA) Courier-Citizen from 1902 to 1941. He was the author of several travel books; this was his first.

In Canea, Crete:

From a neighboring coffeehouse there will be heard to trickle a wild and barbaric melody tortured out of a long-suffering fiddle that cannot, by any stretch of euphemism, be called a violin; or men may be seen dancing in a sedate and solemn circle, arms spread on each other's shoulders in the Greek fashion, to the minor cadences of the plaintive "bouzouki", or Greek guitar.

...less extensive than the annual Easter dances at Megara, but still of the same general type ... It may be that these dances are direct descendants of ancient rites, like so many of the features of the present Orthodox church; but whatever their significance and history, they certainly present the best opportunity to see the peasantry of the district in their richest gala array, which is something almost too gorgeous to describe. ... Outside, the square was thronged with merry-makers, some dancing in the solemn Greek fashion, in a circle with arms extended on each others' shoulders, moving slowly around and around to the monotonous wail of a clarionet. ... The dance was held on a broad level space, just east of the town, about which a crowd had already gathered. We were escorted thither and duly presented to the demarch, or mayor, who bestowed upon us the freedom of the city and the hospitality of his own home if we required it. He was a handsome man, dressed in a black cut-away coat and other garments of a decidedly civilized nature, which seemed curiosly incongruous in those surroundings, as indeed did his own face, which was pronouncedly Hibernian and won for him the sobriquet of "O'Sullivan" on the spot. His stay with us was brief, for the dance was to begin, and nothing would do but the mayor should lead the first two rounds. This he did with much grace, though we were told that he did not relish the task, and only did it because if he balked the votes at the next election would go to some other aspirant. The dance was simple enough, being a mere solemn circling around of a long procession of those gorgeous maidens, numbering perhaps a hundred or more, hand in hand and keeping time to the music of a quaint band composed of drum, clarionet, and a sort of penny whistle. The demarch danced best of all, and after two stately rounds of the green inclosure left the circle and watched the show at his leisure, his face beaming with the sweet consciousness of political security and duty faithfully performed.

- Ibid, p.139-144

Edith Durham (1863-1944) was an English artist who made her first trip to the Balkans in about 1900 and continued traveled throughout the area for the next twenty years. Her particular specialty was Albania where she was held in high regard.

A remarkable characteristic of all the mountain tribes is that they have almost no amusements; games I asked for vainly, and I never saw a dance but once. The singing of the national ballads is the only pastime.

Shala then started a wondrous dance, the only mountain dance I have seen. Four men pranced grotesquely, stepping high and waving their arms, yelling the while, but unaccompanied with any music. One old boy, in a crimson djemadan, had lost one arm and brandished a sword with the other to make up.

Among the popular amusements of the Greeks dancing holds a prominent place; the dance is of various kinds; the most usual is the somewhat inanimate round dance (συρτό or τράτα), in which a number of persons, usually of the same sex, take part in holding hands; it seems identical with the Slavonic kolo ("circle"). The more lively Albanian fling is generally danced by three or four persons, one of whom executes a series of leaps and pirouettes. The national music is primitive and monotonous.