SOME MODERN GREEK CUSTOMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3102, 27 August 1913, Page 79

SOME MODERN GREEK CUSTOMS.

By Edith Seaele Ghossmaxn

A good many customs I have referred to' in earlier sketches, especially when describing a day in Athens and Athenian houses—e.g., the goats being brought to each person’s door to be , milked and the procession of street merchants. Except at the morning cafe, milk never appears, though the goats go the rounds regularly twice a day, and I have often wondered what became of the afternoon milk, for 1 have more than once created consternation by asking for milk in my coffee in the afternoon. There are cafes all over Greece, in Athens, and in the smallest village. When there is nothing except a railway station, there the cafe is in the station. The cafe is the open-air club of the Continental man. Men of all classes congregate at the small tables in front of some hotel or restaurant, under plane trees or under some rustic pergola, or in one of the squares at Athens when the sun has lost its fierceness. Here they sit by the hour together. Sometimes friends go together, or else they meet by accident or arrangement, and there they drink resined wine, generally in very moderate quantities, or else thick, black coffee, always with a glass of water afterwards. If they are peasants, they may talk or sit ruminating as the lit takes them; if they are Athenians they will probably be talking French in an excited dialogue; but in either case they are apt to make orations. Part of the time at least they will be discussing politics—the fiery politics of the Ea c t. Or a man may sit alone at his table ar 1 read his “Empros” (“Forwards’’ —i.e.. “Progress’ ) or whichever Athenian journal suits his tastes. There are in quiet corners old-fashioned cafes, where meai in Albanian costume sit solemnly sucking their long water pipes, and looking ludicrously like overgrown infants with very large feeding bottles. Shoivdng is a much more rare and serious performance with Greek ladies than it is with their British sisters. Even in Athens they would not dream of blocking up the streets and gazing in at the shop windows until they found what they wanted, and Athenian shops are not arranged so that the only chance of choosing is by gazing in at the windows. There is verv little display outside, hut once inside the customer is free to choose and examine and to bargain over the price and take up more time than a British tradesman would allow. Many quite valuable goods are sold -on l the streets accord ■ ing to ancient custom in the East by travelling merchants from Cyprus or from Syria maybe—glorified pedlars or rather pedlars who have never fallen from their immemorial estate. These merchants come to Athens especially at the tourist season —i.e.. spring and early summer, — but also at other times. Each has his special corner or place where .he stands or leans against some wall in the shade; but he moves about, a little,” too. At a word or sign they unwrap their cotton bundles and displav bracelets, rings, trinkets, embroidered and hand-wrought silks, and netted scarves or stoles. And by the way, those black or white scarves worked with glittering fragments of metal came originally from the East. and. 1 believe, were 'introduced partly by these merchants. Hellenic ladies rarely seem to go to the fascinating “bazaar” —i.e., the open market. where everything quaint and curious is sold, from Albanian pointed shoes to clay water-jugs in a pattern that goes back to Troy In the country-the wool from the sheep is still wound round the'distaff and spun, and the peasant women still make strong material for clothing with their own hands. In Athens there ar e modern dressmakers, and the fashion of the dresses is almost entirely mod era. but the materials used arc not flimsy or shoddy. A lady does not have three or two or even one dross a year. It is an important event having a new dress made, and the arrival of the dress is celebrated with a little ceremony. The dress is sprinkled or “ImpUsed’’ with a few r drops of water, and the dressmaker or family friends wish the wearer health and happiness as long as she wears it.

One curious custom among men is carrying strings of beads and fingering them from time to time. These are not

rosaries at all; men carry them only to keep their fingers from doing nothing. In ■walking through the residential streets of Athens you might notice withered wreaths hanging on the exterior walls of the houses. On the i,st of May each year every family gets a wreath of flowers and fixes it up outside the walk where it remains until May comes round again, when a new one takes its place. There is one superstition that you find all over the South of Europe, the strong belief in the “evil eye"—that is, a belief that certain people have the power to “overlook” anyone at their will and to do them injury by a mere glance of the eye. In Greece people seem to be more anxious to protect their mules and horses than themselves or their children ; but amongst the poorer class of Hindus it is the babies that they are in dread of having “overlooked.” Greek horses and mules wear round their necks strings of beads with some charm at the end to keep off the “evil eye.’’ One common design for these charms as that of a heart worked with coloured wool and with shells.