There is a number of regional variants of Latvian masked processions. Rooted in ritual traditions, by the end of the 19th century, they started losing their religious meaning turning more into an entertainment and gradually they were disappearing, kept by small groups of enthusiasts in some rural regions of Latvia. With the rise of the folklore movement by the end of the 1970s these traditions were revived, and there are several folkloric groups that are trying to reconstruct these, in cooperation with researchers.Aīda Rancāne
Revival of local masking traditions in Latvia as the result of cooperation between performers and researchers
Ķekatas (Ķekatas iešana, "stilt walking", "stilt strolling") is a Latvian folk tradition of masked processions. The participants, called Ķekatnieki (singular: Ķekatnieks) wearing various masks went from one homestead to another giving blessings and driving away evil spirits. Since the old times they happened in autumn and winter, when all farmers' work is done any time from

St. Martin's Day Saint Martin's Day or Martinmas (obsolete: Martlemas), and historically called Old Halloween or All Hallows Eve, is the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours and is celebrated in the liturgical year on 11 November. In the Middle Ages and early mod ...

to Meteņi, depending on the region.Budēļos, ķekatās, kaļadās jeb čigānos iešana no Mārtiņiem līdz Ziemas saulgriežiem
The tradition is also associated with Christmas time, similar to

mummering Mummering is a Christmas-time house-visiting tradition practiced in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ireland, Philadelphia, and parts of the United Kingdom. Also known as mumming or janneying, it typically involves a group of friends or family who dr ...

-like traditions in other places. In fact, one of the names of the mask procession tradition is kaļadas, borrowed from Slavic

Koleda Koliada or koleda (Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: коляда, коледа, колада, коледе) is the traditional Slavic languages , Slavic name for the period from Christmas to Epiphany (holiday) , Epiphany or, more generally, for Sl ...

. Other names used in other parts of Latvia include budēļi and čigānos iešana (gypsy walking). These traditions differ not only by the name, but the behavior as well. Masks represented evil beings, animals, objects (haystack, sheaf), people, often stereotyped (little man and tall woman, pauper/beggar, gypsy, Jew) The gypsy walking, mostly with gypsy masks, but also with other Ķekatas masks is also associated with festivals and wedding parties. The name of the

Zemgale Semigallia is one of the Historical Latvian Lands located to the south of the Daugava and to the north of the Saule region of Samogitia. The territory is split between Latvia and Lithuania, previously inhabited by the Semigallian Baltic trib ...

tradition "budēļi" comes from the word "budīt", "budināt" - to awaken, arouse, and the meaning of the tradition is to awaken the nature and people during the spring holiday of Meteņi to a new life cycle. Folklorist Jānis Alberts Jansons collected testimonies from rural people about masked processions during the 1920s and 1930s, which served as the basis of his doctorate, ''Die lettischen Maskenumzüge und ihre kulturhistorische Bedeutung'', some parts of which were published in German and known only by enthusiasts. Only in 2010 his findings were published in full in Latvian under the title ''Latviešu masku gājieni: eksperimentāls pētījums ar pamatojumu salīdzinošajā etnogrāfijā un etnoloģijā'' (''Latvian Masked Processions: an experimental study grounded in comparative ethnography and ethnology''). Jānis Alberts Jansons
An important contribution to the understanding of the tradition is Aīda Rancāne's 2009 volume ''Maskas un maskošanās Latvijā'' (''Masks and Masking in Latvia'').

References

{{reflist Latvian folk culture Christmas traditions Ritual masks Winter traditions Carnival

See also

References