§ 2. The survival of Ancient Tradition.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Lawson, J. C. (John Cuthbert)
‘For megrim and headache:
‘Write on a piece of paper:—God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, loose the demon of the megrim from the head of Thy servant. I charge thee, unclean spirit which ever sittest in the head of man, take thy pain and depart from the head: from half-head, membrane, and vertebra, from the servant of God, So-and-so. Stand we fairly, stand we with fear of God. Amen[31].’
In this instance we have the formula but not, it seems, the rite which should accompany it; for the mere act of committing the words to paper is hardly likely to be deemed sufficient. Probably the paper would be laid under the pillow at night, or, as I have known in other cases, would be burnt, and its ashes taken as a sedative powder.
The various charms which we have so far considered are directed towards the hurt or the healing of man: but external nature is also responsive to magic spells. It is rumoured that there are still witches who have power to draw down the moon from the heavens by incantation; but a more useful ceremony, designed to draw down the clouds upon a parched land, may still be actually witnessed. The most recent case known to me was in the April of 1899, when the rite was carried out some few days, unfortunately, after I had left the district by the people of Larissa. The custom is known all over the north of Greece—in Epirus[32], Thessaly, and Macedonia,—and also it is said among some of the Turks, Wallachs, and Servians; to the south of those regions and in the islands of the Aegean I heard nothing of it. A boy (or sometimes, it is said, a girl[33]) is stripped naked and then dressed up in wreaths and festoons of leafage, grass, and flowers, and, escorted by a troop of children of his own age, goes the round of the neighbourhood. He is known as the περπερία, and his companions sing as they go,
Perpería goes his way
And to God above doth pray,
Rain, O God, a gentle rain,
Shed, O God, a gentle shower,
That the fields may give their grain,
And the vines may come to flower,
and so forth in such simple strain[34]. At each doorway and more particularly at every spring and well, which it is the special duty of the Perpería to visit, anyone who will may empty a vessel of water over the boy, to whom some compensation for his drenching is usually made in the form of sweetmeats or coppers.
The word περπερία has been the subject of considerable discussion. By-forms περπερίτσα, περπεροῦνα, and παππαροῦνα also occur. The first two are of the nature of diminutives; the last-named is a corrupt form used only, so far as I know, in one district of Epirus, and means a ‘garden-poppy.’ The perversion of the word has in this district (Zagorion) affected the rite itself; for it is considered necessary for this flower to be used largely in dressing up the chief actor in the ceremony[35]. But the most general, and, as I think, most correct form is περπερία (or περπερεία). With the ancient word περπερεία, derived from the Latin perperus and used in the sense of ‘boasting’ or ‘ostentation,’ it can, I feel, have no connexion; and I suggest that it stands for περιπορεία, with the same abbreviation as in περπατῶ for περιπατῶ, ‘walk,’ and subsequent assimilation of the first two syllables. If my conjecture is right, the word originally meant nothing more than a ‘procession round’ the village; next it became confined in usage to a procession for the particular purpose of procuring rain; and finally, the words πορεία[36] and πορεύομαι having been lost from popular speech, it was taken to be the name of the boy who plays the uncomfortable part of vegetation craving water.
And indeed it would seem likely that the song which forms part of the ceremony was actually first composed at a time when περπερία was still understood in the sense of ‘procession’: for in every recorded version known to me it would be still possible to interpret the word in this meaning without detriment to the context.
The rite itself as an example of sympathetic magic requires no commentary: a simpler application of the principle that like produces like could not be found.
Other examples of primitive customs and beliefs still prevalent in Greece might easily be amassed: but I have preferred to select these few for detailed treatment rather than to glance over a larger number, in order that they may the more clearly be seen to belong to certain types of superstition found the whole world over and therefore presumably dating from prehistoric ages: for if the population of Greece has proved a good vehicle for the transmission of superstitions so primaeval, it will surely follow that there is nothing extravagant in hoping to learn also from their traditions something of the religion of historic Hellas.