E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSJonathan Woods writes: Each year around Easter, a handful of Hungarians take part in a tradition dating back to 2nd century AD. Donning traditional garb, boys and girls take to the streets for what they call the "watering of the girls."
It's a fertility ritual from a pre-Christian time in Hungarian tribes, where boys throw buckets of water of young girls running past them.
Attila Kisbenedek / AFP - Getty Images
School girls in traditional clothes of the 'Matyo' minority prepare for traditional Easter celebrations on April 21.
Attila Kisbenedek / AFP - Getty Images
Local school girls, wearing the traditional clothes of the 'Matyo' minority, react as boys throw water on them east of Budapest on Thursday, April 21. Locals from northeast Hungary celebrate Easter with the traditional "watering of the girls," a fertility ritual rooted in Hungary's tribal pre-Christian past, going as far back as the second century AD.
Bela Szandelszky / AP
A bucket of water is poured onto a Matyo minority girl dressed in traditional clothing in Mezokovesd, central Hungary on April 21.
Attila Kisbenedek / AFP - Getty Images
Boys throw water on girls in Mezokovesd, east of Budapest, Hungary, on April 21.
In response to a comment below from Cassandra we took time to dig up some additional information on the Matyo people.
The most in-depth information we found was via a Hungarian folk art site.
Although the "watering of the girls" celebrations don't appear to be confined to one geographic region, The Matyo are said to be located in Northern Hungary in the settlements of Mezökövesd, and two smaller villages, Szentistván and Tard.
Folk Art Hungary says "The Matyo area is united and distinguished from the other settlements of the region by the colourful costumes and famous folklore art... Their lives are tightly interwoven with tradition... Mezökövesd earned its nationwide reputation based on its unique costumes and free-hand embroidery style."
Bela Szandelszky / AP
Matyo minority boys dressed in traditional clothing prepare for a Hungarian Easter tradition, when boys pour buckets of water on girls in Mezokovesd, central Hungary.
Leave a Comment:
Judging from the title of the article, the author of the blog post is a big fan of Girls Gone Wild. What a poor showing.
I agree. The headline is in very poor taste. But, then people who write these articles are not journalists in the traditional sense and have no sense of propriety.
Very true, the title certainly lacks class. This is, by the way, NOT a fertility ritual. What an amazingly ignorant journalist... The watering of the girls is a purification ritual. Lacking any depth, the article completely misses the other half of the ritual, the girls give an egg to the boys.
girls giving an egg to boys seems like the most obvious fertility ritual I could think of.
@ Robert - do you have some link showing that this is a "purification" ritual, and has nothing to with fertility in its origins? I found this Australian Broadcasting Corporation article from 2008 that also refers to it as a fertility ritual: So, I guess there are many "amazingly ignorant journalists" out there. I agree with smt - the part where girls give boys eggs sounds like the blatantly obvious fertility ritual imaginable. What does that have to do with "purification?"
For all you people saying that the title of the article is "classless" - what is the real name of the tradition, then? My understanding was that "watering of the girls" was a rough translation of what the Matyo call this ritual. Is that mistaken? Or is everybody just being a bunch of overly sensitive complainers?
@Dec, scmathisen, & Robert,
It's not the title that's dumb, it's your perception of it that's dumb. I clicked on it knowing that it's a "centuries old tradition" as the title says. You more than likely clicked on it because you wanted to see a "centuries old wet T-shirt contest". Have a little more cultural sensitivity!
By the way, Húsvéti Locsolás literally means "Watering Easter" in Hungarian. The English title "Watering of the girls", which better describes it, is decades old. Thus is why the journalist chose the title.
Traditions and tribalism exists on every corner of the earth.
I wish they'd have gone into a bit more detail about a "Matyo minority"?? Guess I'll have to google it.
(And could someone please tell those boys their hats are just too small? Nice embroidery, tho'.)
I saw young unmarried women in the Peruvian Andes who wore very small black bowler hats at rakish angles; they looked great!
Thanks for the suggestion Cassandra - I took some time this afternoon to flush out a few details.
Don't they rock that look in A Clockwork Orange?
Cute, but that's about all......
looks like an amish wet t-shirt contest. ;)
This festival is somewhat similar to the most colorful and traditional Holi festival in India where anybody throws colored water on any other person irrespective of gender, age and religion. It is the most beautiful festival of India and it is considered a day where people get together and come closer forgetting their past differences, if any, by applying all sorts of colored powder on each other's face and then pouring buckets of colored water on each other. Everybody's mood is great on that day because everybody seems so happy, so joyous and so colorful that it seems for some moments in everbody's life the world has compelety changed as if the sun had dawned on that day with a different morning altogether. Never in my personal experience of life, in India, has ever been a Holi Day where the sun has not shone in all its glory, majesty and grandeur. Such is the beauty of this festival. When all this is over then people sit down together enjoying sweets and laughing together from each other's jokes and talk.
I wish we could have a festival like that here in the US! I'll have to start with my family & see if it catches on!
I'd like to make some of these girls wet... heehee...
It makes me wet too.
See.... wet T shirt contests started in the 2nd century AD!
Being a Slovakian, I grew up with this tradition. The girls in exchange would give you a hand-painted hollow egg, but in modern times, those have been replaced with just hard-boiled eggs, painted with onion skins, or just chocolate eggs (my preference). This article doesn't seem to go beyond sharing pictures, but as a married man living in NYC, I continue to practice this tradition by donning a bucket of water on my American wife in the backyard :-)
The girls in exchange would give you a 'painted' hollow egg??? In modern times, modern girls give it to you 'hard-boiled'!
Now if that's not a metaphor for life, I don't know what is!
Well, I can't make my American husband to pour some water on me, he afraid that neighbors will call to police. (of course we are kidding around) any way it will never feel like it was back in Ukraine.
We have the same thing in some Ukrainian villages, (I am from Western Ukraine), I loved it. I am completely forgotten all about it, since I moved to America. Its one of the greatest traditions, Easter is not Easter with out this kind of fun. I should go back to Ukraine next year to recapture those full of joy and "clean" feelings moments.
We have the same thing in some Ukrainian villages, I loved it. I completely forgot all about it, since I moved to America. Its one of the greatest traditions, Easter is not Easter with out this kind of fun. I should go back to Ukraine next year to recapture those full of joy and "clean" feelings moments.
What day of the year is Holi day? Can anyone participate? Sounds beautiful and fun!
fossafun - here's an entire slideshow of colorful images from Holi - the Indian festival of colors...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/ 35662831/
"Wet t-shirt contest"? Maybe I am blind but these people are wearing traditional garb, not t-shirts. Way to sensationalize.
Please don't refer to this centuries old Easter tradition as a wet t-shirt contest. I would expect that title from Joe Francis(Girls Gone Wild).
I agree. The headline is in very poor taste. But, then people who write these articles are not journalists in the traditional sense and have no sense of propriety.
Kate Seredy wrote two wonderful yearling award books, "The Good Master" and "The Singing Tree" that describe the tradition of sprinkling girls with water for eggs. They take place in the Hungary of the early 1900s and tell some of the great folk stories of the Magyar tribes of Hungary. A great read for both young and old alike.
I remember one of the books Lucy, you are right, but the tradition has been modified through the centuries...In neighboring Romania there's a similar ritual (Paparudele) but it is not connectid to the Easter and it has mostly agricultural conotations....different tribes...Magyar tribes came in the area in the late 7-800 AD, the king who converted them to Christianity is a saint....All criticism is not really warranted, the author just made a parallel - did not intend to write a thesis on this subject. I appreciate the information and remembering the tradition and, sorry scmatisen, I don't see any impropriety here...
I agree. The headline is in very poor taste. But, then people who write these articles are not journalists in the traditional sense and have no sense of propriety.
it looks like they are having fun to bad the world can't do the same in this ay and age.
This tradition is practiced all over eastern Europe. It's no more hungarian than is Christmas mexican. In Poland they celebrate it right after Easter and it's called Smigus Dyngus. If you do a Google search on "Dyngus Day" you will learn that it's
Those are some really, really great hats. Cool tradition, sounds like fun. Do they have traditional jello wrestling matches, too?
In Transylvania Saxon men visit neighbours and sprinkle perfume onto the heads of single females. They
are then invited into the home and given an Easter egg and a shot of tuica(plum brandy).
creepy....
Wow, really insightful comment!
Reminds me of the Chapelle show's " I wanna piss on u" skit. A bit, anyway.
Just watching the ritual ... it made me smile,unpopular questions played at the back of my mind..
What if i am one of those girls? how do i act or what's the real feeling... i just can't help but smile...
As a girl this ritual is interesting and exciting. The 'watering' part is not so good, but in modern version of this tradition they pour some drops of perfume on you (which means that you very soon start to smell horrible because of different perfumes, so many girls rafter choose watering)
This watering thing has a some kind of sexual relation. Of course as young girl you don't feel or understand that and because all your friends, relatives and neighbours come, you see this tradition as a friend and family gathering. But when girls get older it is very exciting that (often handsome) boys appear and you can invite them to your house. You make cake (or help your mother), paint Easter eggs (which you give in exchange for watering) and you are very proud if the preferred boy likes them.
Part of this tradition is the watering-poem, small funny poem in which boys ask for permission from girls to pour water on them.
This Easter tradition still lives in smaller villages but in cities lost their meaning and is even difficult for boys to visit the girls.