"PUTNIKOVIĆI" (CROATIA, DALMATIA)

WHITE CARNIVAL DANCERS AND POLKA

The "White Carnival Dancers" and the Polka are traditional Carnival dances of Putnikovići village, which performed by bagpipe and lyra accompaniment (lyra is a local string instrument), and which are unique in the Pelješac peninsula. By the legend these dances come from that ancient times, when conquerors dragged away many people in captivity and, among them there was a young man, who had a fiance'e in the village. The young man expected faith from the girl. The time passed, days, months and years and the unhappy girl did not know anything about her fiance'. She refused many suitors and she was waiting for the comeback of her fiance'. At the end her fiance' has escaped from the captivity and returned to Putnikovići on by-pass roads. It was just Carnival week. He did not want that anybody could identify him, for this he covered his face with mask. Believing deeply in the faith of his fiance'e, he collected wedding guests and set the date of the wedding. On the day of the wedding every guest appeared with mask and sword and they departed for the fiance'e.
From that time in Putnikovići, on the Pelješac peninsula, men gathered before Carnival to practice the dance of "White Carnival Dancers". When the week of the Carnival is coming, they put on the white dresses, from which they got their name. They process through the village like a wedding procession and stop at some places definited before. At every stop hosts wait them. Somebody from the prestigious men of the village gives the signal of their arrival with a gun shot. After the flag bearer gives his flag to a prestigious man to preserve. After that the dance is beginning, but precedes it a series of magical rites. At the end the white Carnival dancers uncover their faces and dance a Polka with the girls in folk costumes.
The "White Carnival Dancers" and the Polka are traditional, lovely Carnival dances, with which the youth of the countryside preserved the dances and traditions of their homeland up to now.