Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/42

24 A boy (or sometimes, it is said, a girl ) is stripped naked and then dressed up in wreaths and festoons of leafage, grass, and flowers, and, escorted by a troop of children of his own age, goes the round of the neighbourhood. He is known as the [Greek: perpería], and his companions sing as they go,

and so forth in such simple strain. At each doorway and more particularly at every spring and well, which it is the special duty of the Perpería to visit, anyone who will may empty a vessel of water over the boy, to whom some compensation for his drenching is usually made in the form of sweetmeats or coppers.

The word [Greek: perpería] has been the subject of considerable discussion. By-forms [Greek: perperítsa], [Greek: perperoûna], and [Greek: papparoûna] also occur. The first two are of the nature of diminutives; the last-named is a corrupt form used only, so far as I know, in one district of Epirus, and means a 'garden-poppy.' The perversion of the word has in this district (Zagorion) affected the rite itself; for it is considered necessary for this flower to be used largely in dressing up the chief actor in the ceremony. But the most general, and, as I think, most correct form is [Greek: perpería] (or [Greek: perpereía]). With the ancient word [Greek: perpereía], derived from the Latin perperus and used in the sense of 'boasting' or 'ostentation,' it can, I feel, have no connexion; and I suggest that it stands for [Greek: periporeía], with the same abbreviation as in [Greek: perpatô] for [Greek: peripatô], 'walk,' and subsequent assimilation of the first two syllables. If my conjecture is right, the word originally meant nothing more than a 'procession round' the village; next it became confined in usage to a procession for the particular purpose of procuring rain; and finally, the words [Greek: poreía] and [Greek: poreúomai] having been lost from popular