You can't warp in the rain, or a day in the Radomskie region

One Thursday morning my neighbour Mariza called me up.

"I'm going to the countryside on Friday, there's a huge old loom that needs setting up! And we'll be winding the thread onto the warping mill. Are you coming with?"

What a silly question. Weaving is a great tradition of almost every folklore, and woven cloth is particularly beautiful in Poland. The most recognisable traditional pattern is simply a composition of  colourful stripes, and Mariza, aside from having a loom of her own, just happens to be friends with an elderly woman who had supported herself all of her life by weaving skirts, shawls, blankets, and ceremonial rugs and throws of all sorts.

A typical Polish striped throw

So we got into the car bright and early at 6 in the morning. Even St. Christopher on the dash seemed sleepy.

Święty Krzysztof, patron of travellers

"I might stop at chapels," Mariza said, and that was all right by me. Roadside chapels are a peculiar characteristic of Poland, and they range from quaint to kitschy. It was may, and may is when the women of the villages decorate the chapels with garlands of flowers and ribbons. There is even a verb pertaining to this: 'umaić'. To make something 'May-worthy'. Something that is 'umajone' has been festively and brightly decorated.

Three chapels we stopped at. Mariza nicknamed the last one 'the road to Heaven'.

 I digress- I'll do one about chapels another time.

For now, a couple of hours later, we arrived at the weaver's house, ready and eager to set up shop.

"Pani Krysiu," Mariza called, in that manner which sounds so strange translated into English but which is the proper way to address an older person or a stranger in Polish: the Mr or Mrs honorific (Pan, Pani) plus the person's first name. "Mrs. Krysia! Pani Krysiu! Shall we get the workshop out of the shed first, or shall we warp the thread?"

As it turned out, neither. Pani Krysia gave us tea, grumbled and mumbled, and said the workshop was all gnawed on by mice, and she had no room to set it up, and her hands were old and too gnarled to go back to the craft, and it looks like rain, and you can't warp in the rain.

Slightly disillusioned but accepting that things just work differently in the countryside, we packed up the 30 km of thread Mariza had bought and went to her own cottage, a place she had inherited from her father.

"Luckily I've already been here this spring and evicted the bats from under the shutters," she said, and I disagreed, as I did not find it lucky at all that I had missed seeing bats fly out into the forest.

Mariza's loom

And I discovered exactly why we could not warp in the rain. You see, Mariza's warping mill was set up in the doorway of her barn- half exposed to the elements, and humidity would ruin the thread. The obvious solution was to move it into the house- but the central pole was too short.

The warping mill. It was raining already.

Advanced engineering and a clever pair of hands were necessary here. For lack of such, I stepped up. After some hemming and hawing, we decided to hop across the road to see Pani Tosia, who had an impressive stockpile of timber in her back yard, guarded by a ferocious dog.

Pani Tosia and her friend

Old as the world, but she picked the straightest little pine and chopped off most of the branches before we could protest. The rest was up to us. She lent us her axe. We measured, and began to chop, scrape, and carve.

Two hours and two inches of progress later...

I think I got pretty far considering the circumstances!

... we decided to call for help. Luckily, Pan Janek who lives just down the road was a carpenter. A few runs through a circular saw and then a few slices with the drawknife, and our pole was ready. Although I maintain that if I'd had eight hours to spend on it, I could have managed with just the axe.

All I needed now was to spend another hour hammering a support into the ceiling, and by late afternoon, the warping machine was set up in Mariza's cottage.

Harder than it looks- the pole has to spin smoothly and stay upright, and it also needs to be removable.
In other words,  AM OUTRAGEOUSLY PROUD OF MY HANDIWORK.

 We called up pani Krysia, proud of ourselves, ready to spin, only to hear these harsh, rhyming words:

 "Piątek zły pracy początek."

 Which means "Friday is a bad day to begin work", or more accurately translated, go away you silly city girls I've got no time for you.

That was that, the adventure was over. Friday is a bad day to begin work, and you can't work on that particular Saturday, because it just so happens to be May 3rd, a very holy day dedicated to Mary Mother of God, Queen of Poland, and of course Sunday is right out.

There was nothing for it. We heated up some pierogi on the old oven than sits in the heart of the house and heats every room, and we sighed and complained a little bit, and then I went home. I didn't see warping, and I didn't see weaving, and I didn't get to put together a weaving workshop.

Still…somehow I don't consider the day wasted.

I'll be sure to take another trip down there, maybe in the summer- and there will be a perfect warping mill with the date and my initials carved into it waiting for me. :)

(and just wait 'til I tell you about what we saw in Pan Janek's mother's house... but that's for another time.)

Consolation prize.

Palm Sunday in a country with no palms

I thought about posting a tutorial, but it would take all year.

In the Christian tradition, Palm Sunday is the last Sunday before Easter. It commemorates the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and people greeted him by waving palm fronds and crying out 'Hosanna!'. A remembrance of that day is still practiced in most Christian faiths by bringing palm fronds to houses of worship.

But there is a slight problem. We do not have palm trees in Poland.

We do, however, have extremely rich folk traditions which date back to pre-Christian times, and which have largely survived in the Catholic custom. Such a tradition has evolved from the colourful Slavic decoration of twigs and branches in anticipation of Spring to the Christian weaving of palms.

Łyse, in the Kurpie region.

Two places are particularly well worth visiting in Poland for Palm Sunday: the village of Łyse in the Northeastern region of Kurpie, and the village of Lipnica Murowana, just Southwest of Cracow.

Only there will you find such elaborate palms made out of crepe paper and dried flowers, so tall that they cannot be carried upright.


Łyse, in the Green Kurpie

The village of Łyse holds a contest for the tallest and most beautiful palm. People from all over the region work hard for the fourty days of Lent to make their entries.

Contest-winning palms set up around the old church in Łyse.

The day begins with a mass and a procession and is then occasion for a market where the locals sell their handmade wares- palms, painted eggs, lacework, pottery, carvings, as well as regional food such as honey, bread, meats and beer.

You can buy handmade palms and little dough goats and deer. For luck.

Łyse is in the Green Kurpie Forest, a lovely area.

But be not mistaken. These palms are not only a testament to the rich folklore of Kurpie, but also a sign of religious devotion. Palm Sunday does not mark the beginning of a feast, nor is it a festival, but is the first day of the week in which the Christian God was killed by the very people who first greeted him with such joy. These amazing palms are first and foremost an offering to Jesus and a hope that believers may be strong enough not to betray him again and again as his first followers did, and modern Christians have no doubt done many times in their lives.

Lipnica Murowana, Lesser Poland

A slightly different type of palm can be found in Lipnica Murowana, a small village in the southern mountains. They are less stocky than Kurpian palms, with different patterns, and show more green twigs, boxwood and dried flowers than their northern counterparts. And most of all, they are much, much taller.

These are the short ones.

This is the tall one.

Like Łyse, Lipnica Murowana has its procession, market, and festivities. And like Łyse, it holds its own contest for the best Palm Sunday palm.

There are several categories, but the one that has everyone biting their nails is the Contest for the Tallest Palm.

This gets VERY competitive. And there are rules that make it all extremely exciting. For starters, no nails or other metal elements can be used in making the palms- only wood, willow, reeds, green branches and paper flowers are allowed.

In the photo above, the second-tallest palm of 2011 is raised, with great care and caution.

Wires, ropes and lines from synthetic materials are also forbidden. In order to qualify in the contest, the palm has to stand upright without breaking, it has to be raised with no help from machines (hence the men in the trees guiding the lines, and those on the ground, pushing with special long forks), and the author must be able to wrap his hands around the trunk.

The palm in the photo above is the first prize winner of 2011, at 36.4 metres- that's almost 120 feet! I heard someone say the whole thing weighed about 600 lbs. It took about a dozen men half an hour to get it upright.

Here are some of the shorter palms, arranged around the statue of St. Szymon:

And for a height comparison, this is me with the palms I bought. They were made by local schoolchildren:

As an aside and a link to pre-Christian Poland, to which we owe a great deal of these colourful customes, it's worth taking note of the little wooden gothic church of St. Leonard which stands in Lipnica by the Uszwica river. If you go inside and walk around behind the altar, you will find that it is suspended on a worn, wooden pillar.

This pillar is supposedly a Slavic Pagan totem which once represented Svetovid, a four-faced god. Though the building as we see it now was built in the 15th century, the first church on this site was originally built in the early 12th century, in a Pagan holy grove. Instead of being destroyed, the sacred statue was used as a support for the altar. Poland had only been Christian for a few hundred years, and the old Slavic faith was still very much present. But here as everywhere, the new religion replaced the old one- albeit with an unusual amount of respect.

The old religion and the new.

Meta information:

Location of Łyse:

http://maps.google.pl/maps?q=%C5%81yse,+Mazowieckie&hl=pl&ie=UTF8&sll=52.322433,20.761276&sspn=0.171024,0.528374&oq=%C5%82yse,+mazowi&hnear=%C5%81yse,+ostro%C5%82%C4%99cki,+Mazowieckie&t=m&z=13

Location of Lipnica Murowana:

http://maps.google.pl/maps?q=Lipnica+Murowana&hl=pl&ie=UTF8&ll=49.858349,20.524864&spn=0.090193,0.264187&sll=53.364151,21.564928&sspn=0.083484,0.264187&hnear=Lipnica+Murowana,+boche%C5%84ski,+ma%C5%82opolskie&t=m&z=13

Cavalcade of the Magi

January 6th is the famous Twelfth Night, Twelfth Day of Christmas, and is traditionally celebrated as the day in which the Magi, or Three Kings, finally arrived at the manger.

In Poland, January 6th has been a public holiday since 2011, and much like on Christmas day, all the stores, banks, shops and offices are closed. In 2009, the first large-scale cavalcade (a public parade of the Three Kings and their symbolic courts) took place in Warsaw. With several hundred participants and tens of thousands of spectators, it's one of the biggest nativity plays in Europe.

Last year, it was freezing cold, but ten thousand people still showed up.
This year, there were more than three times as many!

And indeed, the whole thing is a large, open-air play. This year, more than 24 cities took part in the cavalcade, or as we call it in Polish, the Orszak Trzech Króli.

Pronounced Oar-shack Tscheh Crooley ;)

The public is encouraged to play along; paper crowns and song books are distributed to the crowd by volunteers.

Everyone gets a crown.

 The Kings Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar ride through town, in a chariot, on a horse and on a camel, respectively.

Right to left: Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar.

Their courts are color-coded: children in red capes and silver helmets for Caspar, who represents the continent of Europe, green capes and rice hats for Melchior who represents Asia, and blue capes and headscarves for Balthasar and Africa. The courts gather by Sigismund's Column in the Old Town Square in Warsaw at noon for the Angelus prayer, then set out to walk to Piłsudski Square where a family acts in a live creche.

But before they and the thousands of ordinary people following them can take their crowns off to pay respect to Jesus (who in Christian tradition is the King of Kings), they must face several obstacles.

Never fear: they are guided by the Star of Bethlehem.

This type of spinning star is traditionally used by carolers.

 Behind it come hosts of angels, traditionally played by blind and disabled children, and proper shepherds from the Southern mountains singing carols.

Among them walk the Cardinal Archbishop and clergy, mountain lifeguards, a choir, then at last the hosts of the kings.

The absolutely ADORABLE hosts of the kings.

But on their way to Betlehem, they will be sorely tempted, for they must pass through the Republic of Pleasure, where the minions of Hell will offer them fantastic, lucrative deals in exchange for their souls.

Hell's attorneys and business representatives, heckling passers-by to sign contracts for their souls.

Then, they will witness the battle of Good and Evil. On a pedestal, a choir of angels sings out virtues, while below, cloaked in clouds of sulphur, a band of devils screeches out sins.

Suspended in uncertainty between them is a man, who climbs up and down a ladder, struggling with his vices and ambitions, unable yet to ascend to Heaven, unwilling still to descend to Hell.

Poor fellow got a lot of exercise that day.

Betlehem draws near, but now the courts pass through the kingdom of Herod, who watches from his window and calls out: Where are you going? To see the newborn King?

Impostor!!!!

I am the only King, he claims, and demands to be told where the baby Jesus is, so that he may kill the usurper.

We know, of course, that the baby is in the manger, where the parade culminates with the giving of the gifts, and a blessing. Carols are sung out loud throughout the event, the public taking over in the gaps between mobile speakers.

That donkey was singing quite a lot, too.

And that's how it was this year. Additional attractions were the performances of several young childrens' choirs, a choreographed banner dance, and a beautiful Chinese-style dragon at the head of the Asian group.

Balthasar's camels, of course, were a highlight, as was the African-born King himself. Poland is a very pale-skinned country; though it is not exactly uncommon to see black people anymore, their presence in media, politics and other public events still causes interest. When you see someone who is not white in Poland, your first thought is 'a foreigner'; but the country is more diverse than many realise. King Balthasar, or rather mr. Martin Bol Deng Aleu, a native Sudanese forced to flee his country on account of his Christian faith, is a Polish citizen, and has been living here since 1996.

It looks like the Cavalcade of the Magi, new as it is to Poland, has already become a proper tradition. Check it out next year!

And here's a pro tip- if you're watching in Warsaw, and can't get a good view on account of the crowd, go up to the viewing terrace on top of St. Anna's church tower. That's how I took the first photo in this post.




Meta information


Orszak Trzech Króli website (Polish only)
http://orszak.org/


Wikipedia Entry on the Epiphany (Three Kings' Day)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)

11.11.11 was Independence Day

11.11.11- what a date! And very special in Poland. What other countries celebrate as Veteran's Day or Armistice day is our Independence Day. In 1918, after 123 years of partitions by Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia, Poland returned to the map as an independent country: the Second Polish Republic.

Where's Poland? :(

You see, though our country did not officially exist for so many years, its dispersed former leaders and elite did not sit idle. In Italy, Napoleon Bonaparte helped exiled general Jan Henryk Dąbrowski form a military group called the Polish Legions, some seven thousand strong, which initially fought alongside the French, but was ultimately destined to fight for the reinstatement of Poland. This is why our national anthem pays heed to Bonaparte, and talks about coming home from Italy and joining with our nation.

In fact, the anthem we sing to this day was written by one of the creators of the Legions, to the tune of a cheerful military march, and began with the hopeful verse:

Poland has not yet died,

So long as we still live.

What the alien power has seized from us,

We shall recapture with a sabre.

Poland has not yet died. This motto returns again and again in our history. And in 1918, with the conclusion of World War One, she was reborn again.

November 11th was chosen as the commemorative date 19 years later. We only got to celebrate it twice before WW2 broke out.

After that war, Independence Day did not return. We had become the People's Republic, a satellite of the USSR, and our communist government took the holiday out of the calendars as its celebration stirred up too many patriotic feelings which were not 'appropriate' in a country so tightly linked to Soviet Russia. In fact, attempts to honour the date were often brutally punished by the Military Police, and the participants risked arrest and investigation by the Security Service.

In 1989 when we once again regained full independence, the holiday was reinstated, amplifying its significance as a day when we celebrate our country's freedom, as it now also symbolised the triumph over communism and its brutal propaganda.

Scouts join the parade. Scouts are awesome!

That was twenty two years ago. Today, the traditional and government-organised celebration is a wonderful thing to see. It starts every year at noon at the grave of the Unknown Soldier, where government officials, the military, and renowned citizens pay their respects at the symbolic tomb.

Then begins a military parade, which is in greater part a presentation of historical reconstruction groups. You will get a chance to see all sorts of military formations from many historical periods, such as various instances of the famous Uhlan cavalry.

The song goes, uhlans, uhlans, pretty painted boys, many a girl will run after you.

...and your pretty, pretty horses.

The parade traditionally walks through the city to the Polish Army Museum, where it concludes with a historical picnic and many interesting exhibitions.

Tactical bicycles...

...with rifle mounts. 

Young soldiers from the 1944 Uprising- yet another fight for independence.

Unfortunately it just so happened that I was traveling this Independence Day, and wasn't able to make the celebrations in Warsaw, so the best I can offer you are these photos from 2009. It was a very rainy day, but that didn't keep the crowds from showing up.

A policeman and children watching the Independence Day Military Parade.

N.B. You may or may not have heard that there were riots in Warsaw this Independence Day. This bothered me so much that I did not post this on the date. It took me this long to decide whether I wanted to post it at all- I was so disappointed and upset by what happened. Independence Day should not be celebrated with violence. 


I didn't write about the two clashing marches this year, or about the shameful and misguided conduct we saw on the 11th, because that is NOT awesome. Also, this blog is not supposed to be about my political views, and I would not be able to avoid expressing them in such a post. But if you're interested in what I think about it all, or would like to know more about what prompted the fighting, shoot me an email.




Meta info:
The Polish Army Museum:
http://www.muzeumwp.pl/

Map of partitions taken from Wikipedia CC file:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Partitions_of_Poland.png

Wikipedia page for Polish Independence Day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Independence_Day

Wikipedia page for the Polish Anthem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_anthem