Cooker - a ceremony of mummers at Maslenitsa or Christmas time among the Bulgarians. In the mythology of the southern Slavs, the personification of fertility . The participants of the rite are the cookie makers , the Bulgarians. Kukeri, Kukove, Starzi, Babugeri, Baburtsi, Pesyati, Zibbutzi, Drakusi, Kalugeri, Kamilari, Jamalari, Jumali .
The rite includes game scenes designed to promote the well-being, fertility and health of others, to protect the village from evil and misfortune. Known in eastern and southern Thrace, as well as in the Rhodope Mountains, Middle Mountain, certain regions of eastern Bulgaria; has structural and functional similarities to New Year’s rounds in western Bulgaria, Macedonia, and southeastern Serbia (the presence of an extensive system of roles; the presence of mummers representing a married couple; the performance of game scenes with clearly expressed phallic symbols, etc.).
The rite is performed exclusively by men, mostly single, during the Pancake week and on the following Monday ( Kukerovenden, Kukovden, Startsovenden ). The clothes of the skins, turned out by the fur outward prevail in the outfit of the cookers; their masks are fancifully decorated with multi-colored monists, mirrors, feathers, horns. Kukers are hung with bells of various sizes, they have wooden sabers in their hands, painted at the end like a phallus in red.
Kukers portray rude, voluptuous actions with “wives”, also mummers, who, in turn, also play pregnancy and childbirth under the laughter of the crowd. Then ritual plowing is performed, grain is sown.
The purpose of the ritual action is to provide a good harvest , to call on Mother Earth to give birth.
Literature
Links
- Surva (surva-bg.com)