1. Trikala and Karditsa
Located on the plain of Thessaly, the largest plain of Greece, is Trikala, formerly known in antiquity as Trikke or Trikka. Being the capital of the Sancak of Trikala under the Ottomans, it evolved into a centre of produce for woollen textiles and leather products.
Only thirty minutes away is the city of Karditsa. Several theories regarding the etymology of its name have been crafted, most often linking it to the Greek word for heart: "kardia", it being "at the heart" of the plain.
2. An analysis of the women's costume
The costume of the Karangouna is found across the Karangounochoria (villages of the Karangounes) generally in the Thessalian plain, in Karditsa and to its west, northwest outside Trikala and Kalambaka, but also further north as far as Tyrnavos, Larissa. In the east it is found as far as Farsala and in the south as far as Domoko. Despite the extensive area occupied by the Karangounes who lived in the mountains, they had nothing to do with the Karangounes of the plains.
There are three different variations of the costume:
- The costume of Sofades-Palamas and the surrounding villages
- The costume of Karditsa-Trikala and their surrounding villages
- The costume of Agia Kyriaki and Megala Kalyvia of Trikala
The costume of the Karangouna of Trikala and Karditsa is of the most unique in Greece, with a bright orange palette, a characteristic headdress and abundance in jewelry. It has similar pieces to other costumes of northern Greece (sayias, flokata, yiordani), while others are unique to the costume (kephalokobtsa).
a) Fanela (φανέλλα)
a thin undershirt, usually woven by the women themselves, similar in shape to the kamis, its sleeves reaching the elbows. From there were hanged the manikoulia or cherotia, reaching the wrist.
b) Kamis (καμίσ')
( < υποκάμισον < υπό + καμίσιον) = under the kamision, a byzantine garment made of linen
a chemise worn over the fanela which was embroidered at the chest, neckline, hem (deklimes) and sleeves. It reached the knees. Its sleeves were most often detachable, as for the women to be able to change them depending on the occasion.
Their embroidery and material differed on occasion; while an every-day kamis was made of wool, the kamis meant for a wedding was made of linen.
c) Hablousayias or Kontosayias (χαμπλουσαγιάς/κοντοσαγιάς)
a white sleeveless overdress that was shorter and worn under the sayias. It was open vertically and had embroidered patterns along the opening, back, waist and hem.
The sayias were two in number, one inner and one outer, similar in shape. However, the name given to the inner sayias differs; Hablousayias in Trikala while Kontosayias ('short sayias') in Karditsa.
d) Giourdi (γκιουρντί)
a dress with a vertical opening at the neck to the waist and sleeves to the elbow. It was adorned with embroidery at the chest and ends. Worn over the hamblousayias.
e) Trakhelia (τραχηλιά)
(τράχηλος + -ια) = "of the neck" , see english words starting in trachelo-
a square of cotton fabric that was fixed with ribbons around the arms. It closed the kamis's opening and was fastened at the zonari.
In grieving, the trakhelia would be dyed black.
f) Flokata (φλοκάτα)
a sleeveless overgarment made out of felt that reached the knees.
g) (Hartzotos) Sayias (χαρτζωτός σαγιάς)
(<σαγίον < σαγός (cloak) < lat. sagus)
a light blue or white, cotton, pleated overdress without sleeves, that had orange and black embroidery around the hem (lourida), similar to the yileki.
h) Kavadomanika (καβαδομάνικα)
(< καβάδι + μανίκια) = sleeves of the kavadi
embroidered oversleeves with tassels, often dress in red velvet and decorated with red and gold embroidery that were sewn on the sayias.
i) Houftes/Manikoulia (χούφτες/μανικούλια)
worn over the kavadomanika from the elbow joint and upwards during celebrations. They were made of black scuti and had straight strips of dark red, green or blue velvet or cloth at their ends. Girls' manikoulia were embroidered with orange threads, with a little red and green, while those of the newlyweds and the bride were embroidered with gold.
j) Yileko (γιλέκο)
( < ott. yelek)
a sleeveless bolero that was embroidered with orange, green and red thread.
The vest was worn by women over the sayias to tighten and hold the chest. It was short, above the waist, with a large opening at the neck and the armholes and had elaborate embroidery sewn on it. The vest of each region had the colours of the embroidered strip of the sayias that accompanied it.
k) Podia (ποδιά)
it was set for the Karangounes to wear two or three aprons; the first (and second) were made of wool, with simplistic embroidery and fringes along the bottom. The third (the "good one"), which was worn over the others, was lavishly embroidered and trapezoidal in shape, while also made of felt.
l) Baltsouda (μπαλτσούδα)
10 chains that were intersected by a central filigree plate and ended in similar ones; one side, it ended in a tokas, while at the other, it ended in a bird-shaped hook.
m) Zonari (ζωνάρι)
n) Asemozounaro (ασημοζούναρο)
(ασήμι + ζωνάρι) = silver belt
chained rectangular metal plates with a porpe at one end.
o) Bereta (μπερέτα)
(< fr: beret)
a black headscarf that was wrapped around a hair donut (kothros) and pinned like a cap; its edges were decorated with embroidered bouquets in a variety of colours (pardaloudia).
p) Tsialmas (τσιαλμάς)
a white tape that had two black tassels at the edges.
q) Kephalokobtsa (κεφαλοκόμπτσα)
(< κεφάλι + κόπιτσα < ott: komça) = "head hook"
a chained ornament that ended in a rodakas and was hooked on the back side of the bereta.
r) Yiordani (γιορντάνι)
(< ott. gerdan) = necklace
gold filigree plates, chained together and from which hanged coins, that were hooked on the yileko.
s) Flouria (φλουριά)
("coins" < lat. florenus < Florentia < florens < floreo < flos (flower))
a string of coins worn as jewelry
t) Velonaki (βελονάκι)
(< βελόνα (needle))
engraved cross-shaped pin, adorned with jems, with three coins hanging from the bottom.
u) Tokas (τοκάς)
(< ott. toka (porpe))
an engraved gold clasp, used to close the hablousayias.
v) Skarlmatia (σκαρλμάτια)
(< σκαρλάτος + μάτια < ven. scarlato < lat. scarlatum) = "scarlet eyes", in reference to the small scarlet jems that decorated them.
v) Tserepia (τσερέπια)
hand-knitted, white, woollen socks that reached the knee and were embroidered on the toes and heels with plain, red wool and the pardaloudia (embroidered bouquets).
w) Kordelia (κορδέλια)
(< κορδέλα (ribbon))
a type of slipper. They were black, with a low, thick heel and a pressed back, while in front they were tied like a man's shoe with multi-colored ribbons.
3. The Karangounes (Καραγκούνες)
The Karangounes (sing. Karangouna, masc. Karangounēs, masc.pl.Karangounid(e)s) are an ethnic Greek subgroup, native to the western plains of Thessaly. More specifically, they are the inhabitants of the lowland farming communities of the Karditsa and Trikala regions, and the area around the city of Farsala.
Alexandros Filadelfeus and Nikolaos Georgiadis stated that the word Karangounides comes from the black dipthera or black fur (gouna < lat. gunna). According to Antonis Rizo, the origin of the name is purely Turkish. George Exarchos mentions two additional etymologies from the Turkish words kara (black) and Yunan (Greek), which evolved into Karangounis, and from the Vlach word Gerkounioi (Greeks), which evolved into Garkounis and later into Karangounis.
Pouqueville, referring to the Vlach nomads of Pindus who wintered in Thessaly, writes that the Greeks of the region called them Karangounides. Furthermore, the nickname Karangounides comes from the costume of these people; they wore loose shirts made of wool, which were usually black in colour.
W.M. Leake, referring to the Arvanito-Vlachs or Karangounid nomads of Epirus, writes that in Ioannina, they were called Karangounids (black-capped), to distinguish them from the other Vlachs who wore white capes.
The word Karangounias, which refers to all the Karangounids, can be found in a variation of a folk song about the martyrdom of the bishop of Fanari and Neochori, Seraphim, in 1601.
"…The next day, villages and towns learned about it, Agrafa and Aspropotamos, Karangounias and Hasia".
Popular theory describes the group as descendants of the ancient Thessalians and Pelasgoi, who resided in the region since around 2000bc.
Evliya Celebi, who visited Thessaly in 1668, writes that in Karditsa the inhabitants were Romioi (< Romans, here means Greeks) and spoke a language approximately the same as romaic (mediaeval Greek). It seems that these were Karangounids.
In the Rigas Charter (1797) the word CENTAURS is written in capital letters and immediately below, as if in a explanatory parenthesis, in small letters, the word Garagounides. According to D. Karamberopoulos, the identification of the Centaurs with the Karangounides, by Rigas Feraios, is reinforced by his footnote on the Centaurs and the Lapiths in the "New Anacharsis", where he lists the names "Garagounides" and "Chasiotai", adding that they were nations of Thessaly.
The life of the Karagounids
The rich plain of Thessaly allowed the inhabitants to engage mainly in the cultivation of grain, tobacco, cotton, as well as in livestock farming.
The harvesting and threshing of wheat was a laborious process, lasting from mid-June until approximately August 15th. For this reason, the months of June and July were called "The Harvester" (Θεριστής) and "The Thresher" (Αλωνάρης) respectively.
The harvest began at about six o'clock in the morning and continued until ten, when the reapers would stop to take a breath and eat a small meal, which usually consisted of bread, cheese, olives, onions and eggs. Then they continued their work, which became increasingly difficult: in addition to the fatigue caused by the constant bending, they had to deal with an unbearable heat, which became unbearable as the sun rose higher. To protect themselves, they wore a white headscarf. They also wore thick woollen socks up to the knees to protect themselves from the "stings" and small wounds caused by the reeds, but also the thorns and brambles that were scattered in the field.
During the years of Turkish occupation (1453-1881), the most intense differentiation of the inhabitants of the Thessalian plain occurred. At that time, powerful Turkish (and also Greek) landowners had at their disposal numerous landless cultivators (koligoi), who were not slaves but had some privileges; albeit often abused. With the annexation of Thessaly to Greece in 1881, the large properties simply changed hands. The Karangounids were freed from the Turkish yoke, but not from landowners.
Things changed after 1923, when the Plastiras government proceeded with the agrarian reform ( Ν.Δ 1521923 & 131123) and thus the Karangounids and other landless farmers acquired small areas of privately owned land.
4. Regarding the Costume - Versions
As there is probably not going to be a part where I detail the other variations of the costume, I will be doing so here.
The costume was mostly worn from the mid 19th century until the early 20th, and was worn in full until 1925-1930. By then, western fashion was become popular and the traditional costume was altered as to be more urban (=simplified) and then forgotten.
The girls first put on the 'karangounika' (the pieces comprising the costume of the Karangounes) on their wedding day; thus around 20 years old. Until then, in the area of Karditsa, they wear white dresses (aprofoustana). The only difference between the girls' costume and the women's, the sayia, is that the white dresses have a bodice and a skirt with twenty to forty pleats all around. At the hem they are decorated with plain dark silk threads in a variety of designs. In winter, under the white dresses, the girls wore a white, woolen chemise (kamis), decorated only a little on the sleeves with tassels and had no embroidery. Over their dress they wore a waistcoat similar to the women's costume. On the head they wore the barbuli (μπαρμπούλι), white handkerchiefs, which were fastened to the head with pins.
In the area of Sofades-Palamas, the young women wore "karelisian" dresses, similar to the white dresses in green or brown, with colourful embroidery in dark colours (karelisia).
On holidays they could wear a piece of jewelry on the chest, but not on the head.
The Sayias (or sayiades per Greek declension) all had the same shape; vertically open in front and sleeveless. The differences are rather found in their embroidery and colours.
The decoration of the kamis, the inner sayias or kontosayias (κοντοσαγιάς, Karditsa) and the hablousayias (χαμπλουσαγιάς, Trikala) also displayed differences in the stitching, colour and embroidery. In the Sofades-Palamas region, the kavadi replaced the inner sayias, while the giourdi (Karditsa and Trikala), the sigouni (Sofades-Palamas), the flokata (Karditsa and Trikala) and the flokato (Sofades-Palamas) were the pieces worn over the sayias in winter.
The headdress was formed by the cap (σκούφια) with the manaki (μανάκι) and the white tsialmas (τσιαλμάς). During the last decades that the costume was worn, until perhaps the end of the 60s, the headdress was formed by the kothros (κόθρος/μπομπάρι, a black hair donut made of wool) and a black scarf with pardaloudia (παρδαλούδια; embroidered flower bouquets), which was fixed to the head with kephalokobtsas (κεφαλόκομπτσες).
The decoration of the headdress was the arada (αράδα, chain) with the flouria (Karditsa + Trikala) or the alysos (άλυσος) with the flouria (Sofades - Palamas). The bridal headdress was completed with the kamari (καμάρι), a red finely spun headscarf (also found in Roumlouki) and the patsaura (πατσαούρα), a small piece of jewelry.
In the 1930s, they wore two kioustekia (κιουστέκια) with their costume, the asemozounaro (ασημοζούναρο) and the asemosouyia (ασημοσουγιά, see my article on the costume of Roumlouki). The jewelry they wore until the end of the 1960s, when they stopped wearing their traditional costumes, was the chest arada (αράδα), the chest kobtsa (κόμπτσα), the large kadena (καδένα) with coins, the small kadena, the skarlmatia (σκαρλμάτια, earrings), the beletzikia (μπελετζίκια, bracelets) and rings.
The Kavadomanika, the sleeves of the kavadi, were sewn vertically to the torso and reached the elbow (Sofades-Palamas). The young women had to keep the kavadomanika, with their luxurious and varied designs, covered until the day they got married. The white fabric that covered them was replaced after seven years of marriage, while all the embroidery was removed from the kavadi after twelve years of marriage and it was dyed black. After ten years of marriage, the kavadi was no longer worn in winter and its place was taken by the sigouni. Although the kavadi did not exist in the Karditsa-Trikala region, there were kavadomanika, as additional sleeves, which were worn over the sleeves of the shirt – roughly sewn onto a small bodice.
The outer sayias was made with white, cotton, woollen fabric, embroidered by the terzides (specialised tailors) of the time in Karditsa-Trikala and Sofades-Palamas. The sayias, although similar for the Karditsa and Trikala regions, differed in the designs and colours. The sayias in Megala Kalyvia and Agia Kyriaki differed greatly in shape from the above. It had a small body and forty to fifty pleats, called "bletes".
The Karangounes wore two aprons, one on top of the other. In some villages of Sofades-Palamas, they also wore a third, small, square apron. Over this, they wore a silk or velvet apron. For their festive and bridal costumes, the Karangounes had a third outer apron, the gold-embroidered cloth apron, while young girls and long-married women wore the skoundragiki (σκουντράγκικη) apron instead, an apron embroidered with zechia (straight lines). The small square apron of the Sofades-Palamas was sewn with thick, cotton, loom fabric (“matelassé” technique) so that it became like a small inner cushion. This way, the aprons “stood” better. The gold-embroidered, cloth apron is one of the most elaborate and exquisite examples of Greek embroidery and of course one of the most unique pieces of the Karangouna costume. It was placed over the silk or velvet one during celebrations, but also in their bridal costume. The gold-embroidered cloth apron was the same for all regions and only the embroidered design changed.
The belt worn by single women was woollen, green, woven. In the Karditsa-Trikala region, the belt was sewn onto the yileki, at the back, to better tighten it over the sayias. On the day they got married, they would put on the gold-embroidered belt for the first time and would take it off about ten years later. The gold-embroidered belt closed in front with a large porpe (=clasp).
The Manikoulia or Houftes were worn over the kavadomanika, from the elbow and up, during celebrations. They were sewn from black scuti and had ribbons of velvet or cloth in dark red, green or blue colours at their ends. The girls' manikoulia were embroidered with orange threads, with a little red and green, while those of the newlyweds and the bride were embroidered with gold. In the same vein as the above pieces, when the women had been married for years, they darkened their manikoulia and removed their gold-embroidered parts.
In winter in the regions of Karditsa and Trikala, the sayias was replaced by the giourdi.
Over it, in very cold weather, they would wear the flokata or flokato for the regions with the kavadi (Sofades-Palamas). The giourdi was sewn with black, thick, woollen scuti and was worn over the kontosayias. It had elaborate embroidery on the neck, body and hem made of multi-colored silk threads, in the same colours as the sayias. The giourdi was also worn by young women over their white dresses.
In the region of Sofades-Palamas, in winter, after twelve to fifteen years of marriage, women would wear their sigouni (σιγκούνι) for the first time in place of the kavadi. It had the shape of a modern dress, with a vertical opening at the neck down to the waist and sleeves down to the elbow. To cover the arm, they wore manikoulia (μανικούλια) sewn from the same fabric.
The Flokata of Karditsa-Trikala was worn by all ages, in winter, over the giourdi and was thick, woolen, and sleeveless. Its front vertical opening was lined with red cloth. It had decorated zechia similar to the sayias, on the neck, body, around the pocket and the hem.
The Flokato of Sofades-Palamas had small differences in its embroidery and fabric – here they used water-spun (can't find a translation...) fabric. We also encountered differences in when and how the Karangounes of the region wore it (depending on whether they were single or married and in the pieces they wore depending on the weather).
The Patsaura complemented the bridal costume and was a gift from the groom. It was a square piece of leather, covered with fabric and decorated with cross-shaped beads. At the bottom hung the parades (παράδες), chains with coins.
- Periellados
Sources
