Kukeri

Kukeri (Bulgarian: кукери; singular: kuker, кукер) are elaborately costumed Bulgarian men who perform traditional rituals intended to scare away evil spirits. Closely related traditions are found throughout the Balkans and Greece (including Romania and the Pontus). The costumes cover most of the body and include decorated wooden masks of animals (sometimes double-faced) and large bells attached to the belt. Around New Year and before Lent, the Kukeri walk and dance through villages to scare away evil spirits with their costumes and the sound of their bells. They are also believed to provide a good harvest, health, and happiness to the village for the year ahead. The Kukeri traditionally visit people's houses at night so that "the sun would not catch them on the road." After parading around the village, they usually gather at the square to dance wildly and amuse people. Kukeri rituals vary by region but remain largely the same in essence. 19th-century scholars considered the Kukeri to have a pre-Christian Thracian origin and theorised that they were a remnant of a Thracian cult of the god Dionysus, a view that was encouraged by Bulgarian nationalists and folklorists who wished to lend Bulgarian cultural practices a sense of prestige via association with the classical world. However, modern scholarship generally rejects that view, and Kukeri are now considered to be part of a general Balkan mumming tradition that emerged sometime in the early modern period, influenced by Greek, Slavic, Albanian, and Turkish practices.