Which means "Happy Easter!" There is certainly a greatness to my lateness. But this is a post that is worthy, despite its lack of appropriate seasonality. In part because it is a rare thing in these parts: a cultural post. As in, I am going to share a bit of the Czech culture.
Now, y'all are already acquainted with the Vinoteka, a truly brilliant shining star on the Czech horizon. Although anyone who knows anything about the actual Czech cultural is all, like, hello, Czech's are about their beer! Are you ever going to do a post about the brilliant Czech beer? The answer is 'probably not,' because Jeff is gluten intolerant and I am not a huge beer drinker. Frankly, the two of us living in the Czech Republic is a bit like a couple of Mormon's settling in Napa Valley. But I have digressed wildly.
Easter. We were talking about Easter. Easter in the Czech Republic is a cozy, traditional series of events.
The Easter celebration begins on "Green Thursday," a day on which Czech's eat mostly vegetables, such spinach, pubs serve green beer. For Czechs green symbolizes the birth of nature and coming spring.
Friday is called Great Friday (Velký pátek), and on this day faithful Catholic Czechs do not eat meat.
For religious Czechs (all eight or ten of 'em; hey twenty years of communism typically has a pretty high toll on religion) the most important day is Sunday, whereupon the faithful head to church. After church there is gorgeous Easter egg painting ...
...and the boys begin making their braided, be-ribboned pomlázkas for Easter Monday.
Which bring us to the big day in the admittedly pretty secular Czech Republic: Easter Monday. It is a day when men take up their braided whips (those are the pomlázka) and spank woman for beer. Sometimes the whipped woman then get thrown into a stream, but that's a regional twist.
To go along with the whipping, men often sing one of the traditional songs created specially for Easter Monday. Here's a sample:
Hody hody doprovody, dejte vejce malovaný.
(Nonsense rhyme!, give me painted eggs!)
Nedáte-li malovaný, dejte radši bílý.
(If you won’t give me painted eggs, give me a white one!
Slepička vám snese jiný.
(The hen will give you another one)
You can actually find photographs of this activity, most of which show jolly people having a ripping good time. But, I thought this was probably a more accurate representation. Note the look of vague concern on the face of the young lady turning the corner. I think that's probably about right.
Wiki does assure us that "The spanking is not painful or intended to cause suffering. A legend says that women should be spanked in order to keep their health and beauty during whole next year. An additional purpose can be for men to exhibit their attraction to women; unvisited women can even feel offended." So there you have it; it's all about good self esteem for the woman.
One of the mums at school is originally from Australia and is married to a Czech fellow. They've landed here for a spell and she is generally quite happy that her children are learning the Czech language and culture. "Generally," I should say, until we ran up against the pomlázka. Whereupon she mentioned that perhaps not all Czech practices should be handed down from generation to generation.
Every egg is a piece of art!
Very interesting culture!
Posted by: Monica | May 19, 2011 at 06:34 PM