Sarakatsani
Encyclopedia
The Sarakatsani are a group of Greek
transhumant
shepherds inhabiting chiefly Greece
, with a smaller presence in neighbouring Bulgaria
, southern Albania
and the Republic of Macedonia
. Historically centered around the Pindus
mountains, they have been currently urbanised to a significant degree. Most of them now reside throughout Thrace
and Northern Greece and are of Greek Orthodox
faith.
and medieval
writers, most scholars argue that the Sarakatsani have ancient origins, descended from pre-classical indigenous pastoralists, citing linguistic evidence and certain aspects of their traditional culture and socioeconomic organization. The anthropological characteristics of the Sarakatsani also classify them as one of the earliest populations on the Balkans
and Europe
. Their origins have been the subject of broad and permanent interest.
, who are of Latin
origin. In many instances the Sarakatsani were simplifyingly described as Vlachs. In his Monograph on Koutsovlachs (Μονογραφία περι Κουτσόβλαχων, 1865, reprinted in 1905), an Epirote Greek named Aravantinos discussed how the Arvanitovlachs were erroneously called Sarakatsani although the latter were of clearly Greek origin.
In another work of the same author titled Chronography (Χρονογραφία), he elaborates more on the Sarakatsani and discusses the existence of the Sarakatsani. He also states that the Arvanitovlachs were called Garagounides or Korakounides, increasing the differences between Arvanitovlachs and Sarakatsani, who, according to one theory, originated in the Greek village of Saraketsi.
According to the Aromanian scholar Theodor Capidan, the Sarakatsani originate from the Aromanian village of Syrrako
situated S-E of Ioannina
in Epirus
.
There were other names the Sarakatsani were referred to such as Roumeliotes (by authors such as Georges Kavadias), even though the Sarakatsani did not use that name themselves, or Moraites (according to Fotakos) when they migrated to Thessaly
from Morea
after 1881.
Otto
, the first king of modern Greece, was well-known to be a great admirer of the Sarakatsani, and is said to have early in his reign fathered an illegitimate child with a woman from a Sarakatsani clan named "Tangas". This child, named Manoli Tangas, was brought to Athens and remained there after Otto's 1862 departure, living as a merchant trader with children of his own. The descendants of Manoli still reside in Athens today.
Among these, the Danish scholar Carsten Høeg
, who traveled twice to Greece between 1920 and 1925, is arguably the most influential. He visited the Sarakatsani in Epirus and began studying their dialect and narrations. Høeg published his findings in 1926 in his book entitled The Sarakatsani.
In his work, he stated that there are no significant traces of foreign loan words in the Sarakatsani dialect, such foreign linguistic elements being found neither phonetically nor are in the overall grammatical structure of the dialect. (These conclusions, however, were disputed by later researchers who did locate loan words in the Sarakatsani dialect). In addition to this, Høeg writes that the Sarakatsani material culture shows the trace of sedentary origins.
There were groups of Sarakatsani in the 20th century with no fixed villages, whether in summer time or in winter, traced as such by Høeg. He also found the Sarakatsani in several parts of Greece, Thessaly
, Macedonia
, Pelagonia
, Thrace
, around Lake Copais
in Boeotia, and on mountain ranges like Pindus
, Rhodope
and Vermion
.
Høeg attempted to find examples of nomadism in Classical Greece
as an equation for that of the Sarakatsani. Høeg was criticized by Georges Kavadias for exaggerating the link between the 20th century Sarakatsani population and the ancient Greeks. Ultimately, Høeg's background of Classical Greek scholarship was thought as having influenced - sometimes in a biased way - the conclusions he outlined as to the origins of Sarakatsani.
A German
scholar, Beuermann, rejects Høeg's rationalizations of these facts, which is relevant to the claim frequently put forward that the Sarakatsani are the "purest of the Ancient Greek population". There appears to be no written mention of the Sarakatsani previous to the 18th century. That does not neccesarily imply that bthey did not exist earlier - one can also conclude that the term Sarakatsani is a relatively new generic name given to a quite an old population that lived for centuries in isolation from the other inhabitants of what is today Greece.
Georgakas (1949) and Kavadias (1965) believe that either the Sarakatsani are descendants of ancient nomads who inhabited the mountain regions of Greece in the pre-Classical times, or they are descended from sedentary Greek peasants forced to leave their original settlements around the 14th century and to become nomadic shepherds.
Angeliki Chatzimichali, a Greek ethnographer
who spent a lifetime among them and published her work in 1957, remarks the prototypical elements of Greek culture
that can be found throughout the pastoral way of life, social organization, and art of the Sarakatsani, pointing to the similarity between the Sarakatsan decorative art and the geometric art of pre-classical Greece.
In 1964 the English researcher J.K. Campbell arrived at the conclusion that Sarakatsani must always have lived in more or less the same conditions and areas as they were found in his day - they were very endogamic and they should be considered an isolate group. E. Makris (1990) believes that they are a pre-Neolithic
people.
Nicholas Hammond, a British
historian
, after his treatment concentrated on the Sarakatsani populations of Epirus
, in his work Migrations and Invasions in Greece and Adjacent Areas (1976), considers them descendants of Greek pastoralists who herded their sheep on the central range of Gramos
and Pindus in the early Byzantine period
and were dispossessed of their pastures by the Vlachs at the latest by the 12th century.
In 1987 the London
-based scholar John Nandris, who observed the Sarakatsani "on the ground" continuously since the 1950s, summarized his account of this tribe by inserting them in a more complex context of nomadic people interacting with one another. He alludes to the Yörük
connection though he is keen not to jump to any definitive conclusion. This theory was also supported by Arnold van Gennep
.
and Aromanian scholars have tried to prove the supposed common origin of the Sarakatsani and the Aromanians
; the latter are speakers of a Romance language and the other major transhumant
tribe in Greece
. The Aromanians speak Aromanian
, an eastern Romance language
, while the Sarakatsani speak a clearly northern dialect
of Greek
.
The Sarakatsani Greek dialect does, however, include a few base vocabulary Vlach words. A recent study focuses on Aromanian elements in Sarakatsan Greek states that most Aromanian influences in Sarakatsan Greek are not old borrowing but were incorporated into Greek as a result of recent contacts and economical dependencies of the groups.
The Sarakatsani partially share the geographic distribution of Vlachs in Greece
although they extend farther to the south. However the presumption that a nomadic society such as the Sarkatsani would abandon its language, then translate all of its verbal tradition into Greek and create within a few generations a separate Greek dialect, has to be examined with caution.
Despite the differences between the Sarakatsani and the Aromanians, Sarakatsani themselves often use the ethnonym Vlach in their Greek dialect. However, the term "Vlach" in Greece has been used since Byzantine times to indiscriminately refer to all transhumant pastoralists, irrespective of ethnic background.
John Campbell, social anthropologist
, states, after his own field work among the Sarakatsani in the 1950s, that the Sarakatsani are in a different position from the Vlachs, meaning the Aromanians and the Arvanitovlachs, who both speak an eastern Romance language along with Greek, while the Sarakatsani communities were always Greek-speaking and knew no other language.
Campbell also asserts that the increasing pressure on the limited areas available for winter grazing in the coastal plains had resulted in a competitive dispute between the two groups on the use of the pastures. In addition, during the time of his research Vlach groups often lived in substantial villages where shepherding was not among their occupations, while their cultural elements such as art forms, values and institutions, are different from those of the Sarakatsani. The latter, for instance, differ from the Vlachs in that they dower
their daughters, assign a lower position to women and adhere to even stricter patriarchal
structure.
The Sarakatsani themselves have always stressed their Greek identity and deny having any relationship with the Vlachs. The Vlachs also regard the Sarakatsani as a distinct ethnic group, calling them Graikoi (i.e. Greeks
), a name used by Aromanians to distinguish the Greek-speaking populations from themselves, the Armâni/Rămăni.
word karakaçan (kara = 'black' + kaçan = 'fugitive') meaning 'those who flee to uncultivated lands'. As noted above, the Aromanian scholar Theodor Capidan proposed the theory that the name is derived from the Aromanian village of Syrrako
situated S-E of Ioanina in Epirus
.
Greek
dialect, Sarakatsanika, which contains many archaic Greek
elements that have not survived in other variants of modern Greek
, and loanwords from neighboring non-Greek languages.
Almost all Sarakatsani in Greece have abandoned their nomadic way of life and assimilated to mainstream modern Greek life. According to John Campbell, their settlements, dress and costumes make them a distinct social and cultural group as part of the collective Greek heritage, but they do not constitute an ethnic minority.
Their folk art consists of song, dance, poetry, and some decorative sculpture in wood, as well as elaborate embroidery such as that which adorns their traditional costume. Principal motives used in sculpture and embroidery are geometrical shapes and human and plant representations.
As far as their medicine is concerned, the Sarakatsani use a number of folk remedies that make use of herbs, honey, lamb's blood or a combination thereof.
bias, and when reckoning descent — as opposed to determining contemporary family relationships — lineage membership is calculated along the paternal line alone. Contemporary kin relationships are not counted beyond the degree of the second cousin.
Within the kindred
, the family constitutes the significant unit and is, unlike the larger network of personal relations of the kindred, a corporate group. The descendants of a man's maternal and paternal grandparents provide the field from which his recognized kin are drawn.
The extended family has at its core a conjugal pair, and includes their unmarried offspring, and, often, their young married sons and their wives. The Sarakatsani kindred constitutes a network of shared obligations and, to a degree, cooperation in situations concerning the honor of its members.
Sarakatsani marriages are arranged, with the initiative in such arrangements taken by the family of the prospective husband in consultation with members of the kindred. There can be no marriage between two members of the same kindred.
The bride must bring with her into the marriage a dowry
of household furnishings, clothing, and, more recently, sheep or their cash equivalent. The husband's contribution to the wealth of the new household is his share in the flocks held by his father, but these remain held in common by his paternal joint household until some years after his marriage.
The newly established couple initially takes up residence near the husband's family of origin. Divorce is unknown and remarriage after widowhood is unthinkable.
Men have as their duty the protection of the family's honor, and are therefore watchful of the behavior of the rest of the household. In the wider field of village and national interests, the Sarakatsani are subject to local statutes and Greek law.
Christians and associated with the Church of Greece
. Despite the fact that their participation in the institutional forms of the church is not particularly marked, they believe strongly in the concepts of God the Father
, Jesus Christ
and the Virgin Mary
.
God
is seen in strongly paternalistic terms, as protector and provider, as judge and as punisher of evil deeds. They have interwoven Christian
with folk beliefs like the evil eye
. Each hut shelters an icon or icons upon which family devotions focused.
The Sarakatsani honor the feast days of Saint George
and Saint Demetrius, which fall just before the seasonal migrations in spring and early winter, respectively.
Especially for the Saint George's feast day, a family kills a lamb
in the saint's honor, a ritual that also marks Christmas
and the Resurrection of Christ
. Easter
week is the most important ritual period in Sarakatsani religious life.
Other ceremonial events, outside the formal Christian calendar, are weddings and funerals. Funerals are ritual occasions that involve not only the immediate family of the deceased but also the members of the larger kindred. Funerary practice is consistent with that of the church. Mourning
is most marked among the women, and most of all by the widow. Beliefs in the afterlife are conditioned by the teachings of the church, though flavored to some degree by traditions deriving from pre-Christian folk religion.
The family is thought to be a reflection of the relationship expressed among God the Father, the Virgin Mary and Christ, where the father is the family head, responsible for the spiritual life of the family. Each household constitutes an autonomous religious community. Superstitious
beliefs and practices, such as the casting of the evil eye, have traditionally been prevalent among the Sarakatsani, however there are no formally recognised magical specialists among them.
's Day in April and the return migration would start on Saint Demetrius
' Day, on October 26. However, according to a theory, the Sarakatsani were not always nomad
s but only turned to harsh nomadic mountain life to escape
Ottoman rule
. Yet many of the Sarakatsani residing in Epirus
, Macedonia
and Thrace
, provinces that remained under Ottoman control until 1913, developed subsequently amiable relationships with the Turkish officials who were among the purchasers of their dairy products as well as of lamb and mutton.
As national states appeared in the former domain of the Ottoman Empire, new state borders came to separate the summer and winter habitats of many of the Sarakatsani groups. However, until the middle of the 20th century the crossing of borders between Greece
, Albania
, Bulgaria
and Yugoslavia
was relatively unobstructed. In the summer, some groups went as far north as the Balkan mountains
while the winter they would spend in the warmer plains in vicinity of the Aegean Sea
. After 1947, as inter-state borders were sealed with the beginning of the Cold War
, some Sarakatsani were not able to migrate anymore and were subsequently settled down outside Greece.
Traditional Sarakatsani settlements were located on or near grazing lands both during summers and winters. The most characteristic type of dwelling was that with a domed hut, framed of branches and covered with thatch. A second type was a wood-beamed, thatched, rectangular structure. In both types, the centerpiece of the dwelling was a stone hearth. The floors and walls were plastered with mud and mule dung. Since the late 1930s, national requirements for the registration of citizens has led many if not most Sarakatsani to adopt as legal residence the villages associated with summer grazing lands, and many Sarakatsani have since built houses in such villages.
During the winter, however, their settlement patterns still follow the more traditional configuration: a group of cooperating households, generally linked by ties of kinship or marriage, build their houses in a cluster on flat land close to the pasturage, with supporting structures (for the cheese merchant and cheese maker) nearby. Pens for goats and folds for newborn lambs and nursing ewes are built close to the settlement. This complex is called stani (στάνη), a term also used to refer to the cooperative group sharing the leased land.
Their life centers year-round on the needs of their flocks. Men and boys are usually responsible for the protection and general care of the flocks, like shearing and milking, while the women occupy with the building of the dwellings, sheepfolds and goat pens, child care, the domestic tasks, preparing, spinning and dying the shorn wool, and additionally they try to keep chickens, the eggs of which provide them with their only personal source of income. Women also keep household vegetable gardens, with some wild herbs used to supplement the family diet. When children are very young, child care is the province of the mother. When boys are old enough to help with the flocks, they accompany their fathers and are taught the skills they will someday need. Similarly, girls learn through observing and assisting their mothers.
The pasturage used by a stani is leased, with the head of each participating family paying a share at the end of each season to tselingas, the stani leader, in whose name the lease was originally taken. Inheritance of an individual's property and wealth at the time of his death is largely passed through males: sons inherit a share of the flocks and property owned by their fathers and mothers. However, household goods may pass to daughters, and prestige of the family is visited on all surviving offspring, regardless of gender.
, Greece
, Bulgaria
, Turkey
, Yugoslavia
, but today they live mainly in Greece, with only some populations left in Bulgaria. It is difficult to establish the exact number of the Sarakatsani over the years, since they were dispersed and migrated in summer and winter, while they were not considered a discreet group in order that census data specify figures for them. Besides, they are often confused with other population groups, especially with the Vlachs
, who are also nomadic shepherds. However, in the mid-1950s their number was estimated to be approximately 80,000 throughout Greece, when the process of urbanization had already started for large masses of Greeks.
In Greece, the Sarakatsani populations can be primarily found in Central Greece
on the mountain ranges of Giona
, Parnassus
and Panaitoliko
, in Epirus
on Pindus
mountains, on Rhodope
in Thrace
, in Central Euboea
, on the mountains Olympus
and Ossa, and in other parts of Thessaly
and Macedonia
. The great percentage of them have abandoned the nomadic way of life and live in their villages, while their descendants have largely populated the principal Greek cities.
, according to the 2001 census, 4,107 individuals identified as Sarakatsani . In the census, this identification is considered separate from the identity of the Greeks in Bulgaria
. Local organizations, however, estimate the number of Sarakatsani at up to 20,000. An alternative Bulgarian theory claims that the Sarakatsani are descendants of Hellenized
Thracians
who, because of their isolation in the mountains, were not Slavicised
. A 2006 Bulgarian government publication regards them as a distinct group of possible Vlach
or Slavic
origin, which later adopted the Greek language. Most live in the vicinity of Sliven
where their headquarters are located, but also along the Stara Planina range.
Contrary to these views, the Sarakatsani self-identify as Greeks
because Greek
is their mother tongue and they consider themselves "the purest of Greeks". Finally, they add that they are Bulgarian Karakachans because they live in Bulgaria where they, their children and, in quite a few cases, their ancestors were born. The Federation of the Cultural and Educational Associations of Karakachans in Bulgaria maintains that the Karakachans are descended from sedentary Greeks, forced to switch to a nomadic lifestyle around the 14th century.
. They can also be found in the island of Poros
. She writes:
Elected officials
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
transhumant
Transhumance
Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and to lower valleys in winter. Herders have a permanent home, typically in valleys. Only the herds travel, with...
shepherds inhabiting chiefly Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, with a smaller presence in neighbouring Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, southern Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
. Historically centered around the Pindus
Pindus
The Pindus mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m . Because it runs along the border of Thessaly and Epirus, the Pindus range is often called the "spine of Greece"...
mountains, they have been currently urbanised to a significant degree. Most of them now reside throughout Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
and Northern Greece and are of Greek Orthodox
Greek Orthodox Church
The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...
faith.
History and origin
Despite the silence of the classicalClassical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
and medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
writers, most scholars argue that the Sarakatsani have ancient origins, descended from pre-classical indigenous pastoralists, citing linguistic evidence and certain aspects of their traditional culture and socioeconomic organization. The anthropological characteristics of the Sarakatsani also classify them as one of the earliest populations on the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Their origins have been the subject of broad and permanent interest.
19th-century accounts
Many of the 19th century descriptions of the Sarakatsani do not differentiate between them and the other great shepherd tribe of Greece, the VlachsVlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
, who are of Latin
Latins
"Latins" refers to different groups of people and the meaning of the word changes for where and when it is used.The original Latins were an Italian tribe inhabiting central and south-central Italy. Through conquest by their most populous city-state, Rome, the original Latins culturally "Romanized"...
origin. In many instances the Sarakatsani were simplifyingly described as Vlachs. In his Monograph on Koutsovlachs (Μονογραφία περι Κουτσόβλαχων, 1865, reprinted in 1905), an Epirote Greek named Aravantinos discussed how the Arvanitovlachs were erroneously called Sarakatsani although the latter were of clearly Greek origin.
In another work of the same author titled Chronography (Χρονογραφία), he elaborates more on the Sarakatsani and discusses the existence of the Sarakatsani. He also states that the Arvanitovlachs were called Garagounides or Korakounides, increasing the differences between Arvanitovlachs and Sarakatsani, who, according to one theory, originated in the Greek village of Saraketsi.
According to the Aromanian scholar Theodor Capidan, the Sarakatsani originate from the Aromanian village of Syrrako
Syrrako
Syrrako or Sirako is a village and a former community in the Ioannina peripheral unit, Epirus, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality North Tzoumerka, of which it is a municipal unit. It has a predominantly Aromanian population, and is located 52 km...
situated S-E of Ioannina
Ioannina
Ioannina , often called Jannena within Greece, is the largest city of Epirus, north-western Greece, with a population of 70,203 . It lies at an elevation of approximately 500 meters above sea level, on the western shore of lake Pamvotis . It is located within the Ioannina municipality, and is the...
in Epirus
Epirus (region)
Epirus is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay of Vlorë in the north to the Ambracian Gulf in the south...
.
There were other names the Sarakatsani were referred to such as Roumeliotes (by authors such as Georges Kavadias), even though the Sarakatsani did not use that name themselves, or Moraites (according to Fotakos) when they migrated to Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
from Morea
Morea
The Morea was the name of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. It also referred to a Byzantine province in the region, known as the Despotate of Morea.-Origins of the name:...
after 1881.
Otto
Otto of Greece
Otto, Prince of Bavaria, then Othon, King of Greece was made the first modern King of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the Great Powers .The second son of the philhellene King Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto ascended...
, the first king of modern Greece, was well-known to be a great admirer of the Sarakatsani, and is said to have early in his reign fathered an illegitimate child with a woman from a Sarakatsani clan named "Tangas". This child, named Manoli Tangas, was brought to Athens and remained there after Otto's 1862 departure, living as a merchant trader with children of his own. The descendants of Manoli still reside in Athens today.
20th-century accounts
A multitude of 20th century scholars have studied the linguistic, cultural, and racial background of the Sarakatsani. By now, they have clearly distinguished the Sarakatsani as a distinct entity, and the linguistic, cultural, and racial background of the Sarakatsani have started to be meticulously researched.Among these, the Danish scholar Carsten Høeg
Carsten Høeg
Carsten Høeg was a Danish professor of classic philology and a Juris Doctor at the University of Copenhagen from 1926. He earned his Ph. D with an ethnographic study of the Sarakatsani Greeks. He later published studies on classical Greek and Latin literature and on Byzantine music...
, who traveled twice to Greece between 1920 and 1925, is arguably the most influential. He visited the Sarakatsani in Epirus and began studying their dialect and narrations. Høeg published his findings in 1926 in his book entitled The Sarakatsani.
In his work, he stated that there are no significant traces of foreign loan words in the Sarakatsani dialect, such foreign linguistic elements being found neither phonetically nor are in the overall grammatical structure of the dialect. (These conclusions, however, were disputed by later researchers who did locate loan words in the Sarakatsani dialect). In addition to this, Høeg writes that the Sarakatsani material culture shows the trace of sedentary origins.
There were groups of Sarakatsani in the 20th century with no fixed villages, whether in summer time or in winter, traced as such by Høeg. He also found the Sarakatsani in several parts of Greece, Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
, Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
, Pelagonia
Pelagonia
This is about the geographical plain between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia. For the political unit in Macedonia, go to Pelagonia Statistical Region....
, Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
, around Lake Copais
Lake Copais
Lake Copais, Kopais, or Kopaida used to be in the centre of Boeotia, Greece, west of Thebes until the late 19th century. The area where it was located, though now a plain, is still known as Kopaida.- Drainage :...
in Boeotia, and on mountain ranges like Pindus
Pindus
The Pindus mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m . Because it runs along the border of Thessaly and Epirus, the Pindus range is often called the "spine of Greece"...
, Rhodope
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...
and Vermion
Vermion Mountains
The Vermio Mountains is a mountain range between Imathia and Kozani Prefecture in west-central Macedonia. The range is west of the plain of Kambania. The town of Veria, which is the capital of Imathia prefecture, is built οn the foot of these mountains...
.
Høeg attempted to find examples of nomadism in Classical Greece
Classical Greece
Classical Greece was a 200 year period in Greek culture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC. This classical period had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and greatly influenced the foundation of Western civilizations. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, such as...
as an equation for that of the Sarakatsani. Høeg was criticized by Georges Kavadias for exaggerating the link between the 20th century Sarakatsani population and the ancient Greeks. Ultimately, Høeg's background of Classical Greek scholarship was thought as having influenced - sometimes in a biased way - the conclusions he outlined as to the origins of Sarakatsani.
A German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
scholar, Beuermann, rejects Høeg's rationalizations of these facts, which is relevant to the claim frequently put forward that the Sarakatsani are the "purest of the Ancient Greek population". There appears to be no written mention of the Sarakatsani previous to the 18th century. That does not neccesarily imply that bthey did not exist earlier - one can also conclude that the term Sarakatsani is a relatively new generic name given to a quite an old population that lived for centuries in isolation from the other inhabitants of what is today Greece.
Georgakas (1949) and Kavadias (1965) believe that either the Sarakatsani are descendants of ancient nomads who inhabited the mountain regions of Greece in the pre-Classical times, or they are descended from sedentary Greek peasants forced to leave their original settlements around the 14th century and to become nomadic shepherds.
Angeliki Chatzimichali, a Greek ethnographer
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
who spent a lifetime among them and published her work in 1957, remarks the prototypical elements of Greek culture
Culture of Greece
The culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, beginning in Mycenaean Greece, continuing most notably into Classical Greece, through the influence of the Roman Empire and its Greek Eastern successor the Byzantine Empire...
that can be found throughout the pastoral way of life, social organization, and art of the Sarakatsani, pointing to the similarity between the Sarakatsan decorative art and the geometric art of pre-classical Greece.
In 1964 the English researcher J.K. Campbell arrived at the conclusion that Sarakatsani must always have lived in more or less the same conditions and areas as they were found in his day - they were very endogamic and they should be considered an isolate group. E. Makris (1990) believes that they are a pre-Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
people.
Nicholas Hammond, a British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
historian
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, after his treatment concentrated on the Sarakatsani populations of Epirus
Epirus (region)
Epirus is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay of Vlorë in the north to the Ambracian Gulf in the south...
, in his work Migrations and Invasions in Greece and Adjacent Areas (1976), considers them descendants of Greek pastoralists who herded their sheep on the central range of Gramos
Gramos
Gramos is a village and a former community in Kastoria peripheral unit, West Macedonia, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Nestorio, of which it is a municipal unit. Population 28 . The village is an old Aromanian settlement, named after the nearby...
and Pindus in the early Byzantine period
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
and were dispossessed of their pastures by the Vlachs at the latest by the 12th century.
In 1987 the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
-based scholar John Nandris, who observed the Sarakatsani "on the ground" continuously since the 1950s, summarized his account of this tribe by inserting them in a more complex context of nomadic people interacting with one another. He alludes to the Yörük
Yörük
The Yorouks, also Yuruks or Yörüks are immigrants, ultimately of Thracian descent,some of whom are still nomadic, primarily inhabiting the mountains of Anatolia and partly Balkan peninsula...
connection though he is keen not to jump to any definitive conclusion. This theory was also supported by Arnold van Gennep
Arnold van Gennep
Arnold van Gennep was a noted French ethnographer and folklorist.-Biography:He was born in Ludwigsburg, Kingdom of Württemberg...
.
Sarakatsani and Vlachs
During the 20th century and up to the present day, RomanianRomanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
and Aromanian scholars have tried to prove the supposed common origin of the Sarakatsani and the Aromanians
Aromanians
Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...
; the latter are speakers of a Romance language and the other major transhumant
Transhumance
Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and to lower valleys in winter. Herders have a permanent home, typically in valleys. Only the herds travel, with...
tribe in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. The Aromanians speak Aromanian
Aromanian language
Aromanian , also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe...
, an eastern Romance language
Eastern Romance languages
The Eastern Romance languages in their narrow conception, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe from the local eastern variant of Vulgar Latin. Some classifications include the Italo-Dalmatian languages; when Italian is...
, while the Sarakatsani speak a clearly northern dialect
Varieties of Modern Greek
The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written forms on the other. Second, there is regional variation...
of Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
.
The Sarakatsani Greek dialect does, however, include a few base vocabulary Vlach words. A recent study focuses on Aromanian elements in Sarakatsan Greek states that most Aromanian influences in Sarakatsan Greek are not old borrowing but were incorporated into Greek as a result of recent contacts and economical dependencies of the groups.
The Sarakatsani partially share the geographic distribution of Vlachs in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
although they extend farther to the south. However the presumption that a nomadic society such as the Sarkatsani would abandon its language, then translate all of its verbal tradition into Greek and create within a few generations a separate Greek dialect, has to be examined with caution.
Despite the differences between the Sarakatsani and the Aromanians, Sarakatsani themselves often use the ethnonym Vlach in their Greek dialect. However, the term "Vlach" in Greece has been used since Byzantine times to indiscriminately refer to all transhumant pastoralists, irrespective of ethnic background.
John Campbell, social anthropologist
Social anthropology
Social Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
, states, after his own field work among the Sarakatsani in the 1950s, that the Sarakatsani are in a different position from the Vlachs, meaning the Aromanians and the Arvanitovlachs, who both speak an eastern Romance language along with Greek, while the Sarakatsani communities were always Greek-speaking and knew no other language.
Campbell also asserts that the increasing pressure on the limited areas available for winter grazing in the coastal plains had resulted in a competitive dispute between the two groups on the use of the pastures. In addition, during the time of his research Vlach groups often lived in substantial villages where shepherding was not among their occupations, while their cultural elements such as art forms, values and institutions, are different from those of the Sarakatsani. The latter, for instance, differ from the Vlachs in that they dower
Dower
Dower or morning gift was a provision accorded by law to a wife for her support in the event that she should survive her husband...
their daughters, assign a lower position to women and adhere to even stricter patriarchal
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
structure.
The Sarakatsani themselves have always stressed their Greek identity and deny having any relationship with the Vlachs. The Vlachs also regard the Sarakatsani as a distinct ethnic group, calling them Graikoi (i.e. Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
), a name used by Aromanians to distinguish the Greek-speaking populations from themselves, the Armâni/Rămăni.
Name
The most popular theory about the origin of the name Sarakatsani or Karakatsani, is that it probably derives from the TurkishTurkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
word karakaçan (kara = 'black' + kaçan = 'fugitive') meaning 'those who flee to uncultivated lands'. As noted above, the Aromanian scholar Theodor Capidan proposed the theory that the name is derived from the Aromanian village of Syrrako
Syrrako
Syrrako or Sirako is a village and a former community in the Ioannina peripheral unit, Epirus, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality North Tzoumerka, of which it is a municipal unit. It has a predominantly Aromanian population, and is located 52 km...
situated S-E of Ioanina in Epirus
Epirus (region)
Epirus is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay of Vlorë in the north to the Ambracian Gulf in the south...
.
Culture
The Sarakatsani speak a northernVarieties of Modern Greek
The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written forms on the other. Second, there is regional variation...
Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
dialect, Sarakatsanika, which contains many archaic Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
elements that have not survived in other variants of modern Greek
Modern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
, and loanwords from neighboring non-Greek languages.
Almost all Sarakatsani in Greece have abandoned their nomadic way of life and assimilated to mainstream modern Greek life. According to John Campbell, their settlements, dress and costumes make them a distinct social and cultural group as part of the collective Greek heritage, but they do not constitute an ethnic minority.
Their folk art consists of song, dance, poetry, and some decorative sculpture in wood, as well as elaborate embroidery such as that which adorns their traditional costume. Principal motives used in sculpture and embroidery are geometrical shapes and human and plant representations.
As far as their medicine is concerned, the Sarakatsani use a number of folk remedies that make use of herbs, honey, lamb's blood or a combination thereof.
Kinship
Among the Sarakatsani there is a strong patrilinealPatrilineality
Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well....
bias, and when reckoning descent — as opposed to determining contemporary family relationships — lineage membership is calculated along the paternal line alone. Contemporary kin relationships are not counted beyond the degree of the second cousin.
Within the kindred
Kinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
, the family constitutes the significant unit and is, unlike the larger network of personal relations of the kindred, a corporate group. The descendants of a man's maternal and paternal grandparents provide the field from which his recognized kin are drawn.
The extended family has at its core a conjugal pair, and includes their unmarried offspring, and, often, their young married sons and their wives. The Sarakatsani kindred constitutes a network of shared obligations and, to a degree, cooperation in situations concerning the honor of its members.
Sarakatsani marriages are arranged, with the initiative in such arrangements taken by the family of the prospective husband in consultation with members of the kindred. There can be no marriage between two members of the same kindred.
The bride must bring with her into the marriage a dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
of household furnishings, clothing, and, more recently, sheep or their cash equivalent. The husband's contribution to the wealth of the new household is his share in the flocks held by his father, but these remain held in common by his paternal joint household until some years after his marriage.
The newly established couple initially takes up residence near the husband's family of origin. Divorce is unknown and remarriage after widowhood is unthinkable.
Honor of the kindred
The concept of honor is of great importance to the Sarakatsani. The behavior of any member of a family reflects back upon all its members, therefore the avoidance of negative public opinion, particularly as expressed in gossip, provides a strong incentive to live up to the values and standards of propriety held by the community as a whole.Men have as their duty the protection of the family's honor, and are therefore watchful of the behavior of the rest of the household. In the wider field of village and national interests, the Sarakatsani are subject to local statutes and Greek law.
Religion
The Sarakatsani are Greek OrthodoxEastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
Christians and associated with the Church of Greece
Church of Greece
The Church of Greece , part of the wider Greek Orthodox Church, is one of the autocephalous churches which make up the communion of Orthodox Christianity...
. Despite the fact that their participation in the institutional forms of the church is not particularly marked, they believe strongly in the concepts of God the Father
God the Father
God the Father is a gendered title given to God in many monotheistic religions, particularly patriarchal, Abrahamic ones. In Judaism, God is called Father because he is the creator, life-giver, law-giver, and protector...
, Jesus Christ
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
and the Virgin Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
.
God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
is seen in strongly paternalistic terms, as protector and provider, as judge and as punisher of evil deeds. They have interwoven Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
with folk beliefs like the evil eye
Evil eye
The evil eye is a look that is believed by many cultures to be able to cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike...
. Each hut shelters an icon or icons upon which family devotions focused.
The Sarakatsani honor the feast days of Saint George
Saint George
Saint George was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier from Syria Palaestina and a priest in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic , Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox...
and Saint Demetrius, which fall just before the seasonal migrations in spring and early winter, respectively.
Especially for the Saint George's feast day, a family kills a lamb
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
in the saint's honor, a ritual that also marks Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and the Resurrection of Christ
Resurrection appearances of Jesus
The major Resurrection appearances of Jesus in the Canonical gospels are reported to have occurred after his death, burial and resurrection, but prior to his Ascension. Among these primary sources, most scholars believe First Corinthians was written first, authored by Paul of Tarsus along with...
. Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
week is the most important ritual period in Sarakatsani religious life.
Other ceremonial events, outside the formal Christian calendar, are weddings and funerals. Funerals are ritual occasions that involve not only the immediate family of the deceased but also the members of the larger kindred. Funerary practice is consistent with that of the church. Mourning
Mourning
Mourning is, in the simplest sense, synonymous with grief over the death of someone. The word is also used to describe a cultural complex of behaviours in which the bereaved participate or are expected to participate...
is most marked among the women, and most of all by the widow. Beliefs in the afterlife are conditioned by the teachings of the church, though flavored to some degree by traditions deriving from pre-Christian folk religion.
The family is thought to be a reflection of the relationship expressed among God the Father, the Virgin Mary and Christ, where the father is the family head, responsible for the spiritual life of the family. Each household constitutes an autonomous religious community. Superstitious
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
beliefs and practices, such as the casting of the evil eye, have traditionally been prevalent among the Sarakatsani, however there are no formally recognised magical specialists among them.
Pastoralism
The Sarakatsani traditionally spent the summer months on the mountains and returned to the lower plains in the winter. The migration would start on the eve of Saint GeorgeSaint George
Saint George was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier from Syria Palaestina and a priest in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic , Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox...
's Day in April and the return migration would start on Saint Demetrius
Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki
Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki was a Christian martyr, who lived in the early 4th century.During the Middle Ages, he came to be revered as one of the most important Orthodox military saints, often paired with Saint George...
' Day, on October 26. However, according to a theory, the Sarakatsani were not always nomad
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
s but only turned to harsh nomadic mountain life to escape
Ottoman rule
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Yet many of the Sarakatsani residing in Epirus
Epirus (region)
Epirus is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay of Vlorë in the north to the Ambracian Gulf in the south...
, Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
and Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
, provinces that remained under Ottoman control until 1913, developed subsequently amiable relationships with the Turkish officials who were among the purchasers of their dairy products as well as of lamb and mutton.
As national states appeared in the former domain of the Ottoman Empire, new state borders came to separate the summer and winter habitats of many of the Sarakatsani groups. However, until the middle of the 20th century the crossing of borders between Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
and Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
was relatively unobstructed. In the summer, some groups went as far north as the Balkan mountains
Balkan Mountains
The Balkan mountain range is a mountain range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. The Balkan range runs 560 km from the Vrashka Chuka Peak on the border between Bulgaria and eastern Serbia eastward through central Bulgaria to Cape Emine on the Black Sea...
while the winter they would spend in the warmer plains in vicinity of the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
. After 1947, as inter-state borders were sealed with the beginning of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, some Sarakatsani were not able to migrate anymore and were subsequently settled down outside Greece.
Traditional Sarakatsani settlements were located on or near grazing lands both during summers and winters. The most characteristic type of dwelling was that with a domed hut, framed of branches and covered with thatch. A second type was a wood-beamed, thatched, rectangular structure. In both types, the centerpiece of the dwelling was a stone hearth. The floors and walls were plastered with mud and mule dung. Since the late 1930s, national requirements for the registration of citizens has led many if not most Sarakatsani to adopt as legal residence the villages associated with summer grazing lands, and many Sarakatsani have since built houses in such villages.
During the winter, however, their settlement patterns still follow the more traditional configuration: a group of cooperating households, generally linked by ties of kinship or marriage, build their houses in a cluster on flat land close to the pasturage, with supporting structures (for the cheese merchant and cheese maker) nearby. Pens for goats and folds for newborn lambs and nursing ewes are built close to the settlement. This complex is called stani (στάνη), a term also used to refer to the cooperative group sharing the leased land.
Their life centers year-round on the needs of their flocks. Men and boys are usually responsible for the protection and general care of the flocks, like shearing and milking, while the women occupy with the building of the dwellings, sheepfolds and goat pens, child care, the domestic tasks, preparing, spinning and dying the shorn wool, and additionally they try to keep chickens, the eggs of which provide them with their only personal source of income. Women also keep household vegetable gardens, with some wild herbs used to supplement the family diet. When children are very young, child care is the province of the mother. When boys are old enough to help with the flocks, they accompany their fathers and are taught the skills they will someday need. Similarly, girls learn through observing and assisting their mothers.
The pasturage used by a stani is leased, with the head of each participating family paying a share at the end of each season to tselingas, the stani leader, in whose name the lease was originally taken. Inheritance of an individual's property and wealth at the time of his death is largely passed through males: sons inherit a share of the flocks and property owned by their fathers and mothers. However, household goods may pass to daughters, and prestige of the family is visited on all surviving offspring, regardless of gender.
Demographics
Until the mid-20th century, the Sarakatsani were scattered in many parts of the Balkan PeninsulaBalkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, but today they live mainly in Greece, with only some populations left in Bulgaria. It is difficult to establish the exact number of the Sarakatsani over the years, since they were dispersed and migrated in summer and winter, while they were not considered a discreet group in order that census data specify figures for them. Besides, they are often confused with other population groups, especially with the Vlachs
Vlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
, who are also nomadic shepherds. However, in the mid-1950s their number was estimated to be approximately 80,000 throughout Greece, when the process of urbanization had already started for large masses of Greeks.
In Greece, the Sarakatsani populations can be primarily found in Central Greece
Central Greece
Continental Greece or Central Greece , colloquially known as Roúmeli , is a geographical region of Greece. Its territory is divided into the administrative regions of Central Greece, Attica, and part of West Greece...
on the mountain ranges of Giona
Mount Giona
Mount Giona is a mountain in Central Greece, in the prefecture of Phocis, located between the mountains of Parnassus and Vardousia. Known in classical antiquity as the Aselinon Oros , it is the highest mountain south of Olympus and the fifth overall in Greece...
, Parnassus
Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus, also Parnassos , is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs,...
and Panaitoliko
Panaitoliko (mountain range)
The Panaitoliko or Panetoliko Mountains is a mountain range that dominates the northeastern part of the Aitolia-Akarnania as well as the southwestern Evrytania prefectures in western Greece. The mountain is the prefecture's highest summit at 1,924 m and the location is at Katelanos...
, in Epirus
Epirus (region)
Epirus is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay of Vlorë in the north to the Ambracian Gulf in the south...
on Pindus
Pindus
The Pindus mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m . Because it runs along the border of Thessaly and Epirus, the Pindus range is often called the "spine of Greece"...
mountains, on Rhodope
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...
in Thrace
Western Thrace
Western Thrace or simply Thrace is a geographic and historical region of Greece, located between the Nestos and Evros rivers in the northeast of the country. Together with the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, it is often referred to informally as northern Greece...
, in Central Euboea
Euboea
Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...
, on the mountains Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
and Ossa, and in other parts of Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
and Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
. The great percentage of them have abandoned the nomadic way of life and live in their villages, while their descendants have largely populated the principal Greek cities.
Bulgaria
In BulgariaBulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, according to the 2001 census, 4,107 individuals identified as Sarakatsani . In the census, this identification is considered separate from the identity of the Greeks in Bulgaria
Greeks in Bulgaria
Greeks in Bulgaria constitute the eighth-largest ethnic minority in Bulgaria . They number 1,356 according to the 2011 census, but are estimated at around 25,000 by Greek organizations and around 28,500, including the Sarakatsani, officially by Greece...
. Local organizations, however, estimate the number of Sarakatsani at up to 20,000. An alternative Bulgarian theory claims that the Sarakatsani are descendants of Hellenized
Hellenization
Hellenization is a term used to describe the spread of ancient Greek culture, and, to a lesser extent, language. It is mainly used to describe the spread of Hellenistic civilization during the Hellenistic period following the campaigns of Alexander the Great of Macedon...
Thracians
Thracians
The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...
who, because of their isolation in the mountains, were not Slavicised
Slavicisation
Slavicisation is a term used to describe a cultural change in which something non-Slavic becomes Slavic. The process can either be voluntary, or applied with varying degrees of force.* Bulgarisation* Croatisation* Czechification* Polonization...
. A 2006 Bulgarian government publication regards them as a distinct group of possible Vlach
Vlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
or Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
origin, which later adopted the Greek language. Most live in the vicinity of Sliven
Sliven
Sliven is the eighth-largest city in Bulgaria and the administrative and industrial centre of Sliven Province and municipality. It is a relatively large town with 89,848 inhabitants, as of February 2011....
where their headquarters are located, but also along the Stara Planina range.
Contrary to these views, the Sarakatsani self-identify as Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
because Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
is their mother tongue and they consider themselves "the purest of Greeks". Finally, they add that they are Bulgarian Karakachans because they live in Bulgaria where they, their children and, in quite a few cases, their ancestors were born. The Federation of the Cultural and Educational Associations of Karakachans in Bulgaria maintains that the Karakachans are descended from sedentary Greeks, forced to switch to a nomadic lifestyle around the 14th century.
Rootlesness and ritualization
In her book An Island Apart, the travel writer Sarah Wheeler traces scions of the Sarakatsani in EuboeaEuboea
Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...
. They can also be found in the island of Poros
Poros
Poros is a small Greek island-pair in the southern part of the Saronic Gulf, at a distance about 58 km south from Piraeus and separated from the Peloponnese by a 200-metre wide sea channel, with the town of Galatas on the mainland across the strait. Its surface is about and it has 4,117...
. She writes:
Notable Sarakatsani
Military figures- Antonis KatsantonisAntonis KatsantonisAntonis Katsantonis was a notable Greek klepht who lived in the era before the Greek War of Independence.-Early life:According to the local historical tradition of the Evrytania Prefecture, he was a Sarakatsanos klepht leader born in the village of Marathos, Agrafa...
(1775–1809), famous klephtKlephtKlephts were self-appointed armatoloi, anti-Ottoman insurgents, and warlike mountain-folk who lived in the countryside when Greece was a part of the Ottoman Empire...
leader in the pre-revolutionaryGreek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
period. - Kostas Lepeniotis, Antonis Katsantonis' brother, also a klepht.
- Georgios KaraiskakisGeorgios KaraiskakisGeorgios Karaiskakis born Georgios Iskos was a famous Greek klepht, armatolos, military commander, and a hero of the Greek War of Independence.- Early life :...
, famous klepht of the Greek War of IndependenceGreek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between... - Anastasios KaratasosAnastasios KaratasosAnastasios Karatasos was a Greek military commander during the Greek War of Independence was born in the village of Dovras, Imathia Prefecture and is considered to be the most important revolutionary from Macedonia....
, famous klepht of the Greek War of IndependenceGreek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between... - Dimitrios KaratasosDimitrios KaratasosDimitrios Tsamis Karatasos , was a Greek armatolos, the son of Anastasios Karatasos who had proclaimed the Greek Revolution in the Naoussa area in 1821....
, famous klepht of the Greek War of IndependenceGreek War of IndependenceThe Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
Elected officials
- Alexandros KarathodorosAlexandros KarathodorosAlexandros Karathodoros was a Greek politician and minister. He was born in Trikala in 1908 to a Sarakatsani family. In 1920 his family moved near Polykastro, in village Latomi, Kilkis prefecture because it was closer to mount Vermio, where they were going the sheep in summers. He studied law in...
, (1908–1981), member of parliament (1946–1967), Minister for Transport and Communications (1952–1954) - Lefteris ZagoritisLefteris ZagoritisLefteris Zagoritis is a Greek politician and the former New Democracy party secretary. He was born in Zagorohoria of Epirus, and is of Sarakatsani origin....
, Member of Parliament since 2004, Secretary of the New DemocracyNew Democracy (Greece)New Democracy is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. It was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic...
party. - Georgios SoufliasGeorgios SoufliasGeorgios Ath. Souflias is a Greek politician. He is a member of the New Democracy political party and was Minister for the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works for the duration of the Karamanlis administration....
, Member of Parliament 1974-2000 and 2004–2009, minister in various cabinets since 1977. - Georgios Sourlas, Member of Parliament 1981-2000 and since 2004, formerly Minister for Health, currently Vice-President of the Parliament.
- Nikolaos Katsaros - Member of Parliament 1981-2004, formerly Vice-President of the Parliament (1989–2000), author of the book «Αρχαιοελληνικές ρίζες του Σαρακατσιάνικου λόγου» ("Ancient Greek roots of the speech of the Sarakatsani").
- Ioannis Printzos, Prefect of Magnisia 2002-2006.
- Loukas Katsaros, Prefect of Larisa since 2002, formerly appointed Prefect of Kozani.