Halloween-like festival celebrated in Thracians

EDİRNE

The locals of the village of Çamlıca in the northwestern province of Edirne’s Keşan district celebrated the Halloween-like horror festival of Bocuk late on Jan. 28, wearing scary dresses and make up.

The “Bocuk night,” which could not be held for two years due to the pandemic, was organized for the 16th time this year with the cooperation of Keşan Municipality and the villagers, attended by people from various cities, especially the neighboring provinces of Tekirdağ, Kırklareli and Istanbul.

Choreographies and performances bearing the traces of ancient, medieval and other cultures in which the region interacted were staged in the festival registered by the Turkish Patent Institute. Studies were also initiated for the event to be included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

Live music and DJ performances were presented on alternative stages set up in the event area. The young people wearing white or red robes and painting their faces distributed pumpkin desserts to the guests. Masked locals took to the streets and frightened the neighborhood by pounding on the windows and doors.

“I am a partner in a great night of entertainment and horror tonight,” said Murat Akgün, who came to the festival from Kırklareli’s Lüleburgaz district. “I’m calling out to those who didn’t come here, if you hear clicking noises, know that the ‘Bocuk’ has arrived. We will scare the people in the house by knocking on the windows of those who do not eat pumpkin.”

In the night, said to span back to the Middle Ages, pumpkin is cooked in every house so that the creature called “Bocuk,” imagined as donning white and resembling a human, does not come to that house.

The villagers also eat “akıtma,” a kind of thin crepe, corn boiled in snow water and oven-roasted peanuts and walnuts.

In line with the superstition, locals place water on a piece of wood during the night, and if it is frozen by the morning, then it is believed that they will have a healthy and productive year.