User:Kravk/WIP

DYK: ...that during Pontic Greek Easter celebrations, a feathered potato keeps an "eye" on the children? ...that the ideal wife in Pontic Greek folklore has a mouth but no voice? ...that in a traditional Pontic Greek folktale, a girl with teeth the size of hatchets indiscriminately killed and ate people?

Still have to do

1. Language (finish)
2. Art
3. Theatre
4. Religion
5. Architecture
6. Clothing

Pontic Greek culture includes the traditional music, dance, architecture, clothing, artwork, and religious practices of the Pontic Greeks, also called Pontian Greeks (Pontic: Romaioi). Although Pontians speak many different languages, the Pontic Greek language, Romeika, is especially important to the culture. Most religious Pontian Greeks practice Greek Orthodoxy, but a minority adhere to Sunni Islam or other religions.

Pontians are an ethnic group indigenous to the Pontos in modern-day Turkey. Although their culture has been heavily influenced by Greek culture, Turkish culture, and the cultures of various minorities in Turkey, Pontian culture contains unique aspects.

May be useful - PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION IN A MOVING CULTURAL CONTEXT. THE PONTIC GREEKS AND THEIR JOURNEY TO THE ORIGINS by SEBASTIAN ȘTEFĂNUCĂ

Pontos

Main article: Pontus (region)

Pontos on a map of Europe

Pontos (Romeika: Bondon) is a historical region in what is now northeastern Turkey and southern coastal Georgia. It overlaps with Turkey's Black Sea Region, Western Armenia, and Lazica. This is the area where Romeika is traditionally spoken, along with Laz, Armenian, and more recently Turkish since the 1200s; it is also the Pontic Greek homeland. The area was originally inhabited by Ancient Anatolian peoples during the Bronze Age. Greeks from Ionia, the Aegean coast of Anatolia, began to colonize the Pontic coast in the 700s BCE.

To the north of the region is the Black Sea; the Pontic Alps form a rough southern border. Most of the area is forested, being part of the Euxine–Colchic deciduous forests. Large cities in the region which historically had large Pontic Greek populations include Sinope, Trapezounta, Kotyora, Kerasunda, Sampsunta, and Rizunda along the coast. Cities further inland include Gümüşhane, Amasya, and Niksar. Agricultural products include nuts, vegetables, and fruits along the coast; grain in the valleys of the Pontic Alps; and livestock in the mountains and valleys. Fish is also plentiful along the coast.

Many different civilizations and empires have existed in the region. The Kingdom of Pontus and Empire of Trebizond both had territories that largely overlapped with Pontos. The region has been colonized by many different peoples, including the Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Turks. Toward the end of WWI, some notable Pontians, including Chrysanthos, advocated for an independent Pontic state at the Paris Peace Conference. This proposed state was called the Republic of Pontus.

The region's geography has historically isolated Pontians from other cultures. Remote mountain villages were often isolated from one another as well, leading to differences in language and culture from area to area. The culture of coastal cities was very different from that of rural mountain villages.

Language

Main article: Pontic Greek

• revitalization & teaching efforts
• aspects of the language
  • verb tenses: imperfect, aorist, present
• comparison chart with Greek?

Name and status

Pontians traditionally speak Romeika, known in English as Pontic Greek. Pontians in Greece might call their dialect Pontiaka to highlight their Pontic identity. Due to extended contact with the Laz language, some speakers even refer to their dialect as Lazika. Speakers in Turkey might refer to their dialect as Rumca. Although Romeika is, linguistically, a variety of modern Greek, it is not mutually intelligible with other Greek varieties, such as Demotic Greek. For this reason, some scholars view Romeika as its own Hellenic language. Other researchers recognize it as a dialect, but one that is incredibly far removed from other Greek varieties. British archaeologist Richard MacGillivray Dawkins said, "The position of Pontic is at the end of a long chain of [Greek] dialects, though it is the last link which has very nearly entirely detached itself."

Romeika, like all other modern Greek varieties except for Tsakonian, is descended from ancient Attic-Ionic Greek. Beginning in the 11th century, dialects of medieval Greek began to diverge from one another. Romeika is also very distinct from other varieties because the Pontos has historically been isolated from other parts of the Greek-speaking world. Other languages, such as Laz, Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish, and Russian, have influenced Romeika. Many loanwords feature in Romeika vocabulary.

Romeika differs from region to region. The dialect of the coast differs from the dialect of rural mountain communities. However, there are also many differences from village to village. The dialects of Of, Turkey and Çaykara are also markedly different from other Pontic Greek varieties. The modern Romeika spoken by Pontians living in Greece is mostly based on the dialect spoken in Chaldia (Gümüşhane and southern Trapezounta).

Endangerment of Romeika

Romeika is an endangered language. According to Ethnologue, 778,000 spoke Romeika as of 2015. 400,000 of these speakers lived in Greece. Most of these speakers live in Greece. Some small rural communities in Turkey still speak the Ophitic dialect of Romeika (Oflidika). Only 4,000-8,000 people still speak Ophitic. Most speakers are older; very few children speak it. Ophitic is the last Greek variety spoken in eastern Turkey in the 21st century.

Romeika faces many threats to its continued existence. Children do not learn Romeika in school; instead, they are taught in the language of the country (standard Greek, Turkish, Russian, etc.). In some cases, parents have been encouraged not to speak to their children in Romeika to facilitate the children's understanding of the dominant language.

In Greece and Turkey, Romeika is experiencing language attrition as speakers use the dominant language of the country—Greek and Turkish, respectively—more frequently and with greater ease than they use Romeika.

Grammar and vocabulary

Romeika is of interest to linguists because it contains many archaisms reminiscent of Ancient Greek varieties. The Ophitic dialect (Oflidika), which has been heavily researched by linguist Ioanna Sitaridou, contains archaisms found in no other form or variety of Greek. However, Romeika is a modern, living language distinct from ancient Koine Greek.

Romeika has many differences from standard modern Greek. Romeika differs from standard Greek in vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. For example, in Romeika, as in English, it is possible to collapse the sentence "I'll go and see" into "I'll go see." In standard Greek, one must say "I'll go and see." Romeika also has discourse markers such as kja and ja; standard Greek lacks discourse markers.

Romeika also features sounds which are not present in standard Greek. For example, Romeika has the sound "sh" (IPA: [ ʃ ]), while standard Greek does not. One Romeika word with this sound is ra'shopon (small crest). To accommodate for these differences, Romeika may be written using a modified Greek alphabet.

Romeika has six vowels and nineteen consonants; some of the vowels only appear in Turkish loanwords. The language has three grammatical genders: feminine, masculine, and neuter. The gender of the noun does not always have to agree with the gender of the adjective; feminine nouns may have feminine or neuter adjectives. Grammatical cases include accusative, genitive, and nominative. Romeika is left-branching, similar to nearby Laz and Turkish.

Vocabulary differences between Romeika and Greek

English	Romeika	Greek
grandmother	kalomána, kalimána, kalýma	giagiá
carcass	lásha	koufári
Example	Example	Example

Cultural role

Traditionally, Romeika was not used in schools, churches, or written records. Standard Greek was used instead. Romeika was spoken at home. As such, there is a paucity of historical writing in Romeika. The Greek publisher Αρχειον Ποντου (Pontic Archive) has published texts in Romeika since 1928. A Romeika translation of the Asterix comic series was published in 2000.

Cuisine

Main article: Pontic Greek cuisine

Koulourakia and traditional Pontic noodles for sale at a food stall in Athens

Pontian cuisine, which evolved separately from Greece for thousands of years, has many differences from Greek cuisine. It shares many similarities with Laz, Hemshin, Armenian, and Turkish cuisine. Owing to the large Pontic Greek community in the former Soviet Union, modern Pontian cuisine also incorporates aspects of Russian cuisine and Ukrainian cuisine.

Pontians traditionally employed both agriculture and foraging. Women are the primary foragers, although men might also forage for food. Some Pontians, especially older people living in rural areas, still forage in the 21st century.

Grains, dairy products, vegetables, seafood, and meat are all integral to Pontian cuisine. Milk, cheese, and yogurt are important dairy products. Grains include rice, oats, and wheat. The majority of Pontians, up until the creation of the diaspora, were farmers who produced their own food. They ate whatever was available. The Pontos has a distinct winter and summer; Pontians enjoyed different seasonal crops and stored fruit, fish, cured meat, cheese, and dried pasta for the winter.

Traditional cooking implements include the satz, a convex metal pan for cooking flatbreads over open fire, the shahan, and many others.

Dishes

Food stall displaying a variety of Pontic Greek cheeses including gais and goat cheeses

Pontians have a number of traditional breakfast dishes: foustoron (similar to an omelette), lalánggia, havitz, and more. Breakfast dishes typically include eggs, bread, or porridge.

For lunch and dinner, Pontians traditionally eat a number of soups, savory pies, rice pilav, pasta dishes, flatbreads, and dumplings. Some soups include kintéata, a type of nettle soup, cabbage soup, and malez, a grain soup. Pilav dishes include rice and a variety of meats, including chicken, anchovies, and mussels. Some pilav varieties include wild greens and nuts. Pasta dishes are less common and include siron, a type of pasta made of phyllo dough. Savory pies include perek, made with layers of phyllo dough and cheese filling. Another, diamesia, has a vegetable filling. Meat dishes include kebabs, kioftedes (meatballs), and peynirli. They also traditionally make dolmades, which may or may have a meat or vegetarian filling. Dumplings include varénika, mantía, peréskia, and chebureki, all dumplings with meat, cheese, or vegetable fillings. Vegetable dishes include pickled, slow-cooked, sautéed, and stuffed vegetables. They also use a variety of condiments like adjika and tsatsoupel, which are vegetable-based, and paskitan, which is yogurt-based.

Some sweets, like tsirichtá (lokma) and otía, are made of fried dough. Others, like tsorek' pourma and sousamópita, are baked in the oven. Some sweets, like tsirichtá (lokma) and otía, are made of fried dough. Others, like tsorek' pourma and sousamópita, are baked in the oven.

Yogurt forms the basis for many traditional Pontian dishes, including soups and tan, a fermented drink. Pontians also traditionally drink tea and coffee.

Special foods are traditionally prepared for holidays, weddings, and funerals. For example, kollyva is traditionally eaten at funerals and memorial services.

Dance

Main article: Pontic Greek folk dance

Pontians performing a dance, probably serra, during a Christmas celebration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Greece

Dance has been a central element of Pontian culture since ancient times. Some modern Pontian dances can be traced back to Ancient Greek dances. For example, the serra is related to the ancient pyrrhichios, a war dance. Pontian dance has evolved over the centuries. Other traditions in the region, such as Armenian, Turkish, and Laz dances, have influenced Pontian Greek dance.

Dance serves an important cultural role. Pontians dance at almost all major events: dinners, weddings, birthdays, wedding receptions, religious festivals, Greek festivals, and commemorative events.

Pontian dance is a distinct style characterized by "nervous energy", trembling of the shoulders and torso, knee bends, arm swings, and small, precise steps. Dances are always performed in groups. Although some paired dances exist, line dances and circle dances make up the majority of the Pontian repertoire. Dances are accompanied by traditional Pontic Greek music. Some dances are only performed by women, others only by men; many are mixed dances.

In the diaspora, performances of Pontian dance allow Pontians to experience a sense of group and cultural identity. Many Pontian dance clubs exist for this same reason. Anthropologist Valerie Liddle argues that Pontians also dance to commemorate their former home in Pontos. Some dances were lost because the people who practiced them were killed during the Greek genocide.

Dances vary from region to region. For example, there are a variety of tik dances from various cities and regions in Pontos. Dances may be performed in even or odd meters. Dancers typically link hands or rest their arms on each other's shoulders while in a line or circle dance. The tempo may be slow or energetic. For example, the dance varyn tik from Akdağmadeni is relatively slow, while the tria ti kotsari is fast-paced and energetic.

There are some different classes of Pontian dance. The tik dances are performed by mixed groups. Tik means "brave" or "upright.". Omal ("smooth, regular") is another class of mixed dances; they have simple steps. There are also many war dances, related to the serra, also called the horon in Turkish. These are typically male dances, although women also perform them in some regions. Other war dances include the syrtos and atsiapat. Still others include the kotsari, which is shared with Armenians; karsilamas, letsina,, and podaraki.

Music

Main article: Pontic Greek music

Boy in Trapezounta playing the lyra, on a 1910 postcard.

The Pontian musical tradition is centuries old. It is closely associated with Pontic Greek dance, as music typically accompanies the dances. Pontian music has been influenced by various musical traditions in the Pontos region, especially Laz music. Pontian music typically incorporates polyphony; multiple independent melodies overlap each other at the same time. Music is structured in hexachords and usually has a rapid tempo.

Traditional instruments include the lyra, daouli, touloum, dankiyo, oud, and zurna. The lyra, or Black Sea kemençe, is a three-stringed instrument in the lute family. It has an important role in Pontian cultural heritage; many Pontian organizations abroad feature the lyra as part of their logo. The lyra is also an important part of traditional Laz and Turkish music.

The singing employs heavy use of vibrato as well as call-and-response, usually with a lead singer and a chorus. Some songs are performed as duets between a woman and a man.

Some of the oldest known songs in Romeika are Acritic songs. This genre of music focuses on Byzantine soldiers who defended the borders from invaders. Not all Acritic songs are in Romeika, but some are, such as T'íl' to kástron ("The castle of the sun") and Aitén'ts eperipétanen ("An eagle flew high"). Romeika-language Acritic songs tend to focus on warfare, conquest, and folk heroes.

Many folk songs also emerged during Ottoman times. Subjects included romantic love, historical events, fantastic situations, and war. Two Pontian love songs are Serranda mila kokkina ("Forty red apples") and Kortsopon lal'me ("Girl, call me"). Both are traditionally duets between a female and male singer. One song focusing on historical events is Τσιάμπασιν, romanized as Tsambasin, which discusses a fire in the town of Çambaşı, Çaykara. Folk songs served as entertainment and ways to tell stories. There were also songs for certain situations and times, such as wedding songs and mirologoi (mourning songs).

Other songs emerged in the early 1900s in response to the Greek genocide and the Greek-Turkish population exchange. Some examples are Tim batrída'm éxasa ("I lost my homeland"), written by Kostas Siamidis and Christos Antoniadis, and Palikária a son Pónton ("Courageous men from Pontos"), which discusses legendary folk heroes who fought against the çetes.

Musicians, both Pontian Greek and Turkish, continue to create new songs in Romeika. For example, Giannis Vasiliadis, who comes from a Soviet Greek family, wrote the song "Kavkaz" in Romeika. Apolas Lermi, a singer and guitarist from Trapezounta, has released two albums with Romeika-language songs: "Kalandar" in 2011, and "Romeika" in 2016. Merve Tanrıkulu, a Turkish singer from Trapezounta, released an original Romeika-language song in 2019 called Romeika ninni ("Romeika lullaby").

Some Pontians in the diaspora also participate in parakathi singing, where two singers exchange couplets in Romeika. The couplets may be original or traditional. The exchange may be a form of banter, grief, lighthearted argument, or flirting.

Clothing

Pontian women in traditional clothes, early 1900s.

Pontian men in traditional clothes, early 1900s.

An aristocratic lady dressed in a traditional costume from Pontus, 1859 painting by Aristide Oeconomo, depicts the painter's perception of Pontic clothing.

Citations

Overlap with local Turkish clothing tradition

Gender

Pontian Greek society is traditionally male-dominated. The home and village are traditionally the woman's sphere, while areas outside the village are the man's sphere.

The rugged mountain terrain of inland Pontos does not lend itself to year-round farming and cultivation. As such, many rural Pontians practiced transhumance, moving between summer pastures and winter villages. In rural villages, families also relied on the wages of emigrant workers, who found employment in other parts of the Ottoman Empire and Russia. These workers were usually men; they often spent a long portion of the year away from home. As such, women often maintained the households and villages.

Pontians traditionally practiced patrilocal marriage: a newly married woman went to live in her husband's family home. If a family had multiple married sons, there might be many families living in the same house. The mas or strimnoman tradition likely evolved to maintain a hierarchy within the household and to reduce discord. According to this tradition, a woman who married into the family was expected to keep completely silent, only communicating through gestures, until the family allowed her to speak. The tradition varied from region to region. In some areas, the new woman must keep silent until she bore a son. In others, she was expected to be silent for two years. Women without husbands had even less autonomy; widows were marginalized.

Patricia Fann Bouteneff, an academic who focuses on Pontian Greek culture and folklore, described the ideal Pontian wife: "She had a mouth, but she didn't have a voice." In folktales, Pontian women and girls are stereotyped as disloyal; they cuckold their husbands and betray their fathers.

Folktales

Pontian folktales fall into multiple categories. Fables are short stories with anthropomorphized characters used to teach a lesson. Simple tales, called mythoi, are similarly didactic. Longer, more complex tales typically exist for entertainment. Many are violent compared to other Greek folktales. One such violent tale is "The Girl Whose Teeth Looked Like Hatchets" (Romeika: To koritsi pou eiche dontia san skeparnia), told in Amisos. This story follows a young girl with teeth the size and shape of hatchets who indiscriminately kills and eats people. Other Pontian folktales are humorous, such as O pilitsánon ("The Short Man"), whose protagonist believes that his pocketwatch has come to life. The tale is from Gümüșhane.

Pontian folktales have much in common with other Greek folktales, European folktales, and folktales of the Middle East. Many date to antiquity and include Ancient Greek monsters such as the cyclops. Others have medieval origins and religious themes. Still others are more recent.

While English-language fairy tales often begin with the phrase "Once upon a time," Pontian folktales typically begin with "In the first times and in the silver years..." Clever, industrious, and morally upright characters are rewarded. The heroes of Pontian folktales are often socially disadvantaged: they may be very young, weak, or poor. Divine helpers appear in disguise, rewarding the righteous and punishing the immoral. Disguises are common; courageous heroines may disguise themselves as men to achieve their goals. In European folktales, great detail is given to the punishment of a villain. In Pontian folktales, on the other hand, villains are often left to be punished by God.

The tellers of tales are members of the community; Pontian communities did not have professional storytellers. People told folktales while doing work and at community gatherings. Tales were often told around the hearth at home. Families participated in parakath, where family and friends gathered in a house in the evening to eat and talk. Often, housewives told tales at these parakathi while preparing coffee and serving food for the guests. The narrator prefaced her story by saying, "Anyone who is inside, stay in; and whoever is outside, stay out; and whoever needs to piss, let him go piss and come back," according to Xenophon Akoglous, who wrote about the folklore of Kotyora in the 20th century.

Folktales told by women differ in many ways from them told by men. For example, female villains in stories told by women tend to be in-laws or witches; those in stories told by men tend to be direct female relatives or wives. Female narrators also tend to tell tales with female heroes, while male narrators tend to tell tales with male heroes. The heroines in women's folktales often struggle with going to live in their husbands' homes. They are more resourceful, morally righteous, and intelligent than heroines in men's folktales. Folktales often end in marriage celebrations. Also, folktales differ from region to region of Pontos. Those from Kotyora are typically elaborate and include more features of Middle Eastern folktales, while those from Santa are typically violent and give female characters greater equality with males. While most folktales are set in the Pontos, some are set in faraway locations such as England, Germany, and Austria.

Folktales were used to express beliefs about other ethnic groups and even teach these beliefs to children. One such tale is Xotlák ("Vampires") from Matzouka. According to superstition, an unbaptized person, especially a Turk, could turn into a xotlák (vampire) after their death. In this tale, a dead Turkish man climed out of his grave and became a large dog. The dog followed a Pontian man all night; in the morning, the dog turned back into a human. The tale reflects biased beliefs against all Muslims, but especially Turks.

While some folktales exist to teach a moral lesson, some exist to teach other lessons. For example, the Pontian version of "The Twelve Months" can teach children the names of the months in Romeika.

Muslim speakers of Romeika do not typically tell Pontian folktales. Instead, they tell Turkish folktales, such as stories of Nasreddin Hodja.

Architecture

File:Sümela Manastiri - panoramio (6).jpg File:Άγιος Ευγένιος, Τραπεζούντα..jpg File:Kizkalesi4.jpg File:Trabzonhouse.jpg

Religion

File:Hagia Sophia In trabzon.png

Pontians traditionally practice Greek Orthodoxy. Some practice Sunni Islam, many of whom still live in Turkey. A small minority are Protestant.

• Early religious history?
• Crypto-Christians
• Tanzimat reforms
• Protestant missions
• Modern Sunni communities & their history

Theatre

Citation

Holidays

Lent and Easter

Easter is traditionally the most important holiday for Greek Orthodox Pontians. Pontians fasted for the first three days of Lent (Sarakosti) then attended church and broke their fast. This tradition was called Aethodorizo. They also fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent. Parents hung a potato with seven feathers stuck in it from the ceiling. This potato, called a koukara, supposedly watched over the children. Adults told children that the koukara would notice if they did anything forbidden, such as breaking their fast or dancing. The family pulled out one feather each week. On the Saturday before Palm Sunday, which Pontians call St. Lazarus, women made kerkele, Easter cookies, to give to the local children.

On Palm Sunday, the children received palm fronds in church. They went door to door performing traditional chants. They received Easter cookies called kerkele, candy, money, and eggs. Throughout Holy Week, the women of the community prepared for Easter Sunday by cleaning their homes, cleaning the local church, and making new clothes to be worn during the Easter service. They made tsourekia, a type of sweet bread, on Maundy Thursday. They also made colored eggs on this day. The village priest anointed the faithful with holy oil. On Good Friday, young women in the community prepared the epitaphios in the church and decorated it with wildflowers.

Easter Sunday was a joyous holiday. People attended church services at four in the morning for the liturgy. Rifles were fired and dances performed to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. The priest began the first dance. Then, they went home to sing, dance, feast, and play games. People made Easter eggs in different colors and competed with egg tapping, called tsougrisma. They had a large Easter meal, usually meat or fish. A second church service was held later in the day. Afterward, people gathered in a public place to dance to the music of the touloum. Dancing lasted all night. Children also rolled their eggs down hills, a variant on egg tapping.

On the Second Sunday of Easter, or St. Thomas Sunday, people took food and wine to the cemetery and dined on the graves of deceased relatives. This is a way to honor the dead. Some Pontians living in Greece and the Caucasus still practice this tradition.

Celebration of Mary

Pontians celebrated the Virgin Mary on August 15. People gathered at Soumela Monastery and held icons of Mary.

Momogeri

Momogeri performance in Komotini, Greece, 2011

Momogeri is a lighthearted winter tradition, typically held between mid-December and mid-January. The satirical tradition is named for Momus, the Greek deity of mockery. It has its roots in ancient Greek folk performances. Momogeri is a public performance that blends folk dance and theatre. Twelve dancers perform, while others dress in costumes which represent different aspects of Pontian folklore: a bear, horse, goat, bride, old woman, old man soldier, doctor, and Father Christmas. Performers are typically male, including those playing female roles. Modern Pontic folk dance groups in the diaspora, especially in Greece, perform Momogeri yearly. The performance usually tells a story: often, the kidnapping of the bride by the old man. Sometimes the dancers pretend to fight with one another.

Christmas and New Year's Eve

On Christmas Eve, school-age children went from door to door singing Christmas carols. When the church bells rang at four in the morning, families placed a great log, called a christokour in the fire to keep the fire burning all Christmas day. Then they went to church service. People visited their relatives and friends for three days of dancing and feasting. Children received small gifts. These were the three days of Christmas, called christoimera.

Between December 25, Christmas, and January 6, the Epiphany, Pontians believed that evil spirits called piziala roamed the Earth. This period was called dodekaimeron. The piziala were believed to encourage sin, so people avoided holding weddings and tried to avoid traveling at night.

On New Year's Eve, Pontian families cleaned the house. Children went from home to home singing carols to St. Basil of Caesarea. They received candy, nuts, dried fruit, and money. At home, families ate nuts and pie. The household stayed up late to tell tales and riddles until almost midnight. St. Basil supposedly passed over during the night to leave New Year's gifts for the children.

Art

File:61750 Altındere-Maçka-Trabzon, Turkey - panoramio (6).jpg File:Trabzon Hagia Sophia Feeding of the thousands 4840.jpg (detail)

Marriage and family

Urban Pontian family poses for a photograph in Trapezounta, early 1900s. Most wear Western clothes.

Pontian marriages were typically arranged. Matchmakers played an important role in arranging marriage between young people. Age at marriage differed from region to region. In crypo-Christian communities in Kromni, near Gümüşhane, girls married between the ages of 12 and 14, the same as Muslim girls did in the region. Boys also married young, but were typically slightly older than their brides. In others, such as the village of Iondone (Agios Antonios) near Fatsa, neither sex married until age 21, according to a woman who grew up there.

The family of the bride gave a large dowry to the family of the groom. Pontic Greek society is patrilineal: the bride traditionally took the name of the groom, and her children would take the father's name. Additionally, Pontians traditionally practiced patrilocal marriage. The sons stayed home with their parents, while the daughters married and went to live with their husbands' families. The opposite occasionally occurred if a family had no sons. The daughters stayed at home; the daughter's husbands would moved into the home and took the family name. In either case, households were multigenerational, with a couple, their sons, their daughters-in-law, and their grandchildren living in the same home. The grandparents, especially the grandmothers, traditionally play an important role in raising children and running the household. The grandmother traditionally held authority over other women in the household. She assigned housework, mediated conflict, and intervened when male householders abused their authority over the women.

The actual wedding ceremony and preparations differed depending on the location. Traditionally, weddings occurred on Sundays. Wedding preparations, dancing, and feasting happened in the days leading up to the wedding. People received gifts as wedding invitations. One tradition leading up to the wedding is the shaving and beautifying of the groom. The bride's clothing differed from region to region, but she traditionally wore a veil, fine clothes, two headdresses, and golden jewelry. In most regions, the groom and his family went to get the best man from his house; then they both went together to get the bride and bridesmaids from the bride's house. The tradition of picking up the bride, which may have involved elaborate musical performances and gift exchanges, is called nyfeparman. Then, the whole group went to the church. Dances differed between villages, but in many areas, the newlyweds performed the Isaiah dance around a table during the church ceremony. The wedding ended with further dancing.

Death and funerals

Funeral traditions differ from region to region. As most Pontians are Greek Orthodox, funeral traditions typically follow Eastern Orthodox memorial services. In many parts, for example Kotyora, the dead were dressed in fine clothes. Deceased newlyweds were buried in their wedding clothes. In Kromni and nearby villages, it was common to mark the grave with a gravestone in the shape of a church.

Funeral and memorial

While a person was dying, they gave relatives their blessing. They also received communion. The person was supposed to die surrounded by family; if they were apart from family, their soul would be at risk. After death, the neighbors would gather in the house to pay their respects. Relatives washed the dead person and dressed them in a shroud. The deceased was then placed in bed until the local carpenter could make a casket. The family dressed in black and sat around the bed with the dead person. The family stayed with the dead person until the casket was complete and the priest arrived, usually within a day. Upon the arrival of the priest, the women of the household wailed. One common lament was "Nto tha inoumes, nto tha ftame" ("What has happened to us? What are we going to do?")

The deceased (Pontic: apothaméno) was placed in the casket with wildflowers and a pillow for their head. During the funeral procession, the women wailed. Someone carried kollyva, a wheat dish made specifically for funerals. The kollyva contained raisins, sugar, pomegranate seeds, and nuts. The other villagers joined the funeral procession. The people sang laments. The funeral procession went to the church for a funeral service. Then, they went outside to the graveyard. Volunteers dug the grave, and the pillow beneath the deceased's head was replaced with a pillow of dirt. The priest threw dirt on the grave first, followed by the other mourners. A candle was placed on the grave; the candle stayed lit for forty days. On the fortieth day, the person's soul was believed to ascend to Heaven. During this time, women wore black, and men did not shave or cut their hair.

In small crypo-Christian communities, families buried their dead in secret with Orthodox rites on their own property. In larger communities, they immediately sewed the dead person into a shroud and delivered them to the local mosque.

Superstitions around death

Owls are traditionally viewed as bad luck in Asia Minor. According to local superstitions in Santa, an owl on the roof was a sign that someone would die. Other superstitions around death also existed: for example, a dream about losing teeth indicated the death of a relative. Superstitions varied between regions. In Santa, after a death, the family would empty all the water jugs in the house, chase the cats outside, and open the windows. After a murder, the mother of the murdered individual would not eat meat from any animal killed during a hunt. It was also believed that a person could rise from the dead as a hortlak if they left unpaid debts.

Bibliography

• Berikashvili, Svetlana (2022). "Contact-Induced Change in the Domain of Grammatical Gender in Pontic Greek Spoken in Georgia". Languages. 7 (79): 1–23. doi:10.3390/languages7020079.
• Drettas, Georges (1997). Aspects pontiques (in French). Association de recherches pluridisciplinaires. ISBN 2951034903.
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• Liddle, Valerie (2013). Exile and migration of Pontic Greeks: the experience of loss as the presence of absence (PhD). University of Adelaide.
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• Michailidis, Nikos (2016). Soundscapes of Trabzon: Music, Memory, and Power in Turkey (PhD). Princeton University.
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• Şentürk, Onur (June 2020). "Karadeniz Kemençesinin Yunanistan'daki İcra Geleneği" [Traditional Playing of the Black Sea Fiddle in Greece]. Erdem (in Turkish) (78): 189–212. doi:10.32704/erdem.749159. ISSN 1010-867X.
• Tsekouras, Ioannis (2016). Nostalgia, Emotionality, and Ethno-Regionalism in Pontic Parakathi Singing (PhD). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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External links

• CyberPontos, a blog which focuses on Pontian folktales

Category:Pontic Greek culture Category:Culture of West Asia Category:Culture of Greece Category:Culture of Turkey