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Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Stavridi-Patrikiou ; Tziovas and purists were offering potentially hegemonic visions, which through imple- mentation in education and language, would create a unified nation. The apparatus of hegemony inculcates a sense of participation and belonging among subordinate classes and is reinforced by the impression that there is social mobility.
In Greece, education is both a means and a marker of social ascent. Beginning in the late 19th century, learning, especially higher education, became a value for the society at large Tsoukalas At school one studied, among other things, ancient Greek literature and philosophy. This reinforced the sense that the quest for knowledge was a quintessentially hellenic occupation. Although embraced as a neutral aesthetic preference, the aspiration on the part of the rural peasantry to see their children educated amounted to a move towards incorporation into the middle class.
On present-day Naxos, for example, it is the commonly ex- pressed wish of parents who have made their living from the land that their children should have a better life than themselves.
By this they mean that their children will not be forced to exhaust themselves through manual labor. They describe their existence as one which "thoroughly tired us.
As the program of "national education" proceeded, the margin of difference between the bourgeoisie and peasantry narrowed in certain respects. But it was not until the period after World War II, with rapidly increasing urbanization and the expansion of educational facilities including the opening of three new universities and now a fourth, the University of the Aegean that the gap began to close rapidly and the boundary between the two groups began to blur.
It is perhaps now the case that this earlier contrast between the peasantry and bourgeoise has been transformed more into a struggle for identity which is largely internal to the middle class.
Education offers models for viewing the world which can displace certain other models. In so doing it may define these other models as naive or simply sub-standard. Before the spread of education and foreign travel there was probably no developed conception of the supernatural in Greece.
At least the lines were differently drawn. Through education distinctive social groups with differing access to power are founded. In this regard the will to knowledge reveals an aggressive and even violent aspect precisely because it raises one to a dominant position over those who remain ignorant Foucault In any case, by the end of the 19th century the vexed question of Greece's hellenic pedigree was no longer an issue; the Greeks were Hellenes.
This left the peasantry in the contradictory position of being ignorant Hellenes cf. Lenormant cited by Politis , a position they could not be expected to tolerate for long since achievement in education was a prime hellenic quality. In addition to education there are other means of claiming higher status, such as patterns of consumption.
The recent popularity of whisky may be taken as an example. In the past whisky has been a relatively expensive drink consumed mainly by the elite who could afford it. The recent increase in the quantity of whisky imported into Greece , litres in to more than four million litres in could not possibly be interpreted as an indication of increased con- sumption by this elite; nor is it possible that the elite has radically expanded in number proportionate with the increase in the volume of imported whisky.
Rather, these statistics suggest that the drink has been adopted everywhere, and this evidence of the degree to which elite style and taste have penetrated the society at large. Signs of modernity or middle class-ness are often established precisely in op- position to, or at the expense of, objects, in this case ouzo and retsina, which have historically been prominent elements of the culture. Supernatural in Modern Greece 87 Such changes in "taste" elicit responses from the elite who may alter their own style in order to retain a distinct identity.
One elderly Athenian woman, whose fluency in several European languages sig- nalled her high degree of cultivation, took evident glee in parodying the pronunciation of the masses clamouring for whisky. Granted that whisky is no longer an effective marker of elite style, those who would claim elite status are opting for new patterns of consumption. This may mean searching out other kinds of imported spirits or perhaps certain brands of whisky which are prohibitively expensive and only available abroad.
It may even be the case that they have turned back to ouzo as the increasing number of chic, tastefully decorated ouzeri seems to indicate. These traditional-style drinking establishments also attract a great number of foreign patrons and may often be found in areas catering to tourists. Thus the return to ouzo and other locally-distilled drinks has been supported by European participation.
The appropriation of whisky by the broad population, therefore, stimulated a two-fold response on the part of the elite: 1 movement forward and outward to new types of spirits available abroad and as yet little-known; 2 movement backward and inward to beverages formerly associated with humble farmers and fishermen.
As will be demonstrated below, a similar dual response was also followed in attitudes toward supernatural beings. Changes in this sphere were precipitated by the widespread availability of education in this century as well as by the trend toward urbanization. They have attempted to account, in intellectual terms, for how individuals can support seemingly obvious contradictions in their own thought. By formulating the problem as one of "rationality," many of these works seem to miss the degree to which individual cognition is socially influenced, if not determined.
Indeed one cognitive anthro- pologist recently asked doubtfully if social dynamics play any role whatever in cognition Holland I approach the issue of supernatural accounts rather more from a social than a cognitive perspective. I do not mean to deny the role of cognition, but to highlight the degree to which social forces impinge on the individual. In the case under study here, the divide between scientific and supernatural forms of explanation is only in part a question of logic.
Rather, reference to supernatural beings is suppressed or eliminated altogether as a means of asserting membership in a particular social group. For the peasantry super- natural beliefs are an embarrassing sign of inferiority; one must be rid of them or risk ridicule. If education alone entailed the logical exclusion of supernatural forms of explanation then we would have difficulty accounting for the situation to be examined below, namely, why is it that in Greece, practices appealing to supernatural forces are now prominent among the educated elite?
Examination of the case of the island of Naxos may help to answer this question. The village of Apeiranthos, for example, had more than inhabitants on the eve of World War II, in it had fewer than permanent residents. According to villagers' estimates there are five times as many Aperathites currently living Athens. Em- igration began in earnest in the s and may have been a reaction to overpopulation and scarcity. Perhaps this seemingly hyperbolic statement should be taken at face value in view of the grain shortages plaguing Greece at that time.
The steady ebb of labor force away from the island spelled the end of its relatively self-sufficient agricultural economy, and marked the beginning of its integration into the national money econ- omy.
In this same period the first high school opened in Khora the port town enabling more pupils to attend and continue on to uni- versity or civil service posts in Athens.
Surely the ideas of the Ath- enian demoticists were now coming to the attention of the islanders. Between writing verses lamenting the absence of her two brothers who had joined the merchant navy, she collected some 10, pages of folklore and lin- guistic material as a correspondent of the Lexicographical Archives in Athens Litsas Eventually she herself moved to the capital. Increasing contact with national institutions alerted the Naxiotes to the uniqueness of their island customs and perhaps also to the fact that this way of life was perceived by outsiders to be "backward.
One well-known story tells of a man who went to Athens and could not find a public lavatory and so relieved himself in a vacant lot in the middle of the city. The force of these lines extended beyond the description of an isolated event and was sorely felt by all Naxiotes to exemplify the Athenian derision of their collective uncouthness. On the island many traditions began to disappear in the face of contact with the national culture.
In mountain villages, for example, many attempted to retain the traditional costume featuring a waistcoat and breeches and would ridicule their co-villagers who returned from sojourns abroad or in Athens wearing European-style suits which they labelled "Frankish. Numerous other traditions such as the singing of ballads and "akritic" songs Zevgolis ; Oikonomidis and divination by water, mirrors or lead Oikonomidis 29 which once attracted the attention of folk- lorists have all now vanished.
A symptom of the distance from former customs and rituals is the current local tendency to objectify these phenomena as "folklore. As part of the undergraduate degree in folklore students are expected to present a substantial collection of folklore data, usually from their native villages. The activity of such students collecting this material in villages on Naxos has heightened everyone's sensitivity to which practices and forms of knowledge are and which are not of folkloric interest.
Gramsci noted that part of the course of training for school teachers in Italy as in Greece were lessons in folklore. Knowledge of this subject meant a better ability to identify and extirpate the mistaken concepts which may otherwise have held sway over the young children. While in Greece the extermination of folklore was never the expressed inten- tion of the discipline of folklore it cannot be denied that this has sometimes been an undesired side effect Alexiou , cf.
Gramsci In this ritual the participants, who should be unmarried boys and girls, each place a token in a large vase of water. A child, usually a girl, then pulls these items out. As she does, one of the assembled improvises a rhyming couplet which applies to whoever is identified by the token. These distichs may praise or mock the person. In preparation for the celebration in Philoti the head of the cultural organization since elected mayor recorded and transcribed a number of distichs from oldtimers who could remember them.
He also requested that I give a summary of the klidonas ceremony to the audience, which I did, discussing its similarity to divinatory practices in ancient and medieval Greece. Then, as each token was held up, he read off one of the distichs. The rite was thus reenacted. It provoked a great deal of laughter and eventually the spontaneous participation of the audience in composing distichs.
If the cultural organization continues to support the rite for a few more years it is possible that it may become self-perpetuating once again. However, it seems most probable that, like the carnival in Apeiranthos, it will remain linked to the cultural organization if it continues to exist at all.
Such a relationship demonstrates the community's control over these rites as "folklore" and serves to establish the community's unique identity in relation to neighboring villages which lack such rituals. At the same time the participation of the cultural organization ensures that the village will not be criticized as backward or as a haven for ignorant people.
On the contrary, such rituals indicate an intelligent communal identity, one established through the village's own members who have received university training. Highly performative forms of folklore such as the klidonas and carnival celebration are more suitable for revival than the forms of knowledge which once supported them.
Indeed, the very process of objectification involves stripping away the interior dimension of conviction from outward practice. Thus the exotika have been particularly vulnerable and are no longer required in rituals which once appealed to them. On Naxos one learns from one's children or from the television or radio that stories about demons and fairies are signs of backward- ness.
In the course of my research I grew accustomed to disclaimers accompanying the information which I could collect about the exotika: "Some people say. All these were common narrative devices in the transmission of accounts of the supernatural. The villagers, in this case not the anthropologist , denied their own coevalness cf. Hastrup Others averred that the stories were simply lies, and it is worth noting that the word for 'fairy tale,' paramythi, may also mean 'lie' in modern Greek.
I was therefore surprised when a young man, born and raised in Athens although of Naxiote parentage, approached me in the village and asked if I knew anything about the mandrake plant. I was caught by surprise. That was the kind of question I was supposed to be asking them. I thought of referring him to Anna Papamikhael's excellent book , but ironically, this was published only in English.
The young man went on to say that certain people in Athens had told him that this plant was bound up with his astrological sign and that he would like to find out more. On another occasion, a young woman, a literature student at Athens University asked me about island tra- ditions regarding a certain bird, the koutdedes, said to be a man trans- formed into a bird as punishment for denying Christ.
She said she was generally interested in the use of birds in divinatory practice. These interests in astrology, meditation, symbolism, para-psychology and so on were typical of young people from the village who had grown up in Athens. I subsequently observed in Athens, among young people as well as among the educated and professional elite, that practices and specu- lations relating to the supernatural were much more vital and apparent than in the village.
Jackson: One may also note the popularity of books dealing with mysticism and the supernatural. Of course this imported and commercialized supernatural is dif- ferent from the stories of exotika. They are not traditional, not the result of a long historical development within Greece. People in Athens do tell stories in abundance about exotika, but for different reasons. Members of the lower middle class and urban proletariat with whom I spoke were often recent migrants from the countryside.
For the most part they were not pursuing any active interest in the supernatural as part of their everyday lives. I infer that they told these stories with a greater readiness than they would have in the village where they feel themselves to be closely allied to and responsible for the moral reputation of the local community.
It should be noted that these stories often contain private information bearing on the moral and sexual lives of co-villagers Stewart a. In the village it would be traitorous to betray this knowledge to an outsider. It is not the case, however, that these people wholly abnegate their village identities when they come to the city, although many do actively disparage their natal villages as being hopelessly backward.
Weet je wat voor een niet Grieks spreker een mooie oefening is? Luister naar een Grieks liedje en tracht aan de hand van de gevoelens die de zanger in de song legt, te raden waarover het gaat.
Zoek daarna de vertaling op. Meestal zit je er stukken naast. Spoedig zou hij volgen wegens ontroostbaar. Schitterend lied. Bij nadere beschouwing gaat het over een verliefde zot die bij zijn lief aandringt om zo snel mogelijk haar raam te openen.
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