Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/61

 occasionally small lumps of cheese. All kinds of pită are good, but perhaps the best is that made with leeks, nettles or some similar vegetable. For some obscure reason this dish is practically confined to the Vlachs, and is rarely to be seen in any Greek village. A variety of pită is known in Roumania, but pită to be really good must be made of freshly rolled pastry and must be baked in its special dish and not in an oven. Other foods to be met with are various kinds of vegetables, and the usual kinds made from milk such as cheeses and yiaiirti which the Vlachs call marcaţii. But these latter are not peculiarly Vlach, and are common to all Balkan peoples who are shepherds.

An invitation to dinner in a Vlach house always means that the guest is expected to stay the night. For instance one of the writers during a few days’ stay at Elassona in the winter spent each night in a different house owing to the hospitable invitations of friends from Samarina who were wintering there. This system of sleeping where one dines has given rise to a custom peculiar to the women. On Saturday nights after the week’s work is over—for the women of the family do all the household work—the mother or one of the daughters will often be invited to go and spend the night with a cousin, married sister or friend. Such invitations may also be giv^en on Sunday nights, but in all cases the person so invited must return to her own home at dawn the next morning. This custom is commoner amongst the unmarried than the married women. It is perhaps due to the desire of the girls to see something of one another, for being kept in comparative seclusion and being engaged in the work of the house they have few opportunities of meeting on ordinary days. The custom is known as going azboru.

The Vlachs have a reputation for heavy drinking and of all Pindus villages Samarina is generally considered to drink more than the others. Our experience hardly bears this out, and as far as we could see a Vlach village as regards drinking is much like any other Christian village in the Balkans. Apparently in recent years a succession of bad seasons has