Coal Region Customs

COAL REGION CUSTOMS Queer Traditions of Slavs, Russians, Poles and Italians. MUCH HOLIDAY MERRYMAKING. There Are Twenty-nine Feast Days For Greeks and Twenty-six Among Certain Roman Catholics, to the Despair of Miners Wishing to Work-Strange Marriage Rites.

Nowhere else in all the United States are such odd customs observed as in the anthracite coal regions by the Slav, Lithuanian, Russian, Pole, Italian and Hungarian inhabitants, says a Wilkesbarre correspondent of the New York Tribune. They have been brought from the only country and represent hundreds of years of tradition. The observance of them is as regular as the holidays. The oddity is interesting at first, but when they are so consistent as to celebrate all the various feast days of their church, both Greek and Roman Catholic, with the customs of the old country, it is decidedly annoying to the English speaking miners. The Greek Catholics have twenty-nine feast days and the Roman Catholics, among the Poles, Huns and Italians, have twenty-six, and nearly all are celebrated. The result is that many mines have to be idle because half the force remains away from work, to the despair of the operators and the disgust of the men who want to work. 

About Easter especially there is much time spent in merrymaking. Good Friday is first observed with a great deal of ceremony. In the Russian Catholic churches there are built tombs representing the one in which Christ was laid, and these are watched for twenty-four hours by guards in elaborate uniforms, usually red, with gold bands and braids, a big shako and glittering sword. They are members of military societies connected with the churches. Four men form the detail on duty each hour. They stand at each corner of the tomb, rigid as statues, never moving in all the hour they stand on guard. During the twenty-four hours the members of the congregation enter the church on their knees and so proceed all the way to the altar.

On the Saturday before Easter the congregations take to the churches great baskets of food to be blessed for the Sunday feasting. The priest sprinkles holy water over it and it is borne away in triumph ready for the morrow.

On Easter Sunday the first thing eaten is a piece of egg. However many or few there are in a family- and in some of the boarding houses there are twenty or thirty - only one egg, specially blessed, may be used. It is hard boiled, and each gets a piece to break his fast, delicate and skillful carving being needed where the family is large. All Easter is spent in feasting and merrymaking, which frequently lasts all night.

On Easter Monday the women are privileged to throw water on the men, and they do this with such eagerness that the poor fellow who escapes without a cold is lucky. It is a form of wishing good luck and is also believed to show partiality. Thus if a young woman empties a bucket of water down the back of a young man she is supposed to indicate her affection for him, and if on Easter Tuesday, when the men have their turn, a young man throws a girl into the creek and drags her out by the hair he is presumed to be much In love with her. The custom arose from the habit of wishing a little extra joy at the conclusion of Lent to one's friends, this being expressed among the higher classes with a delicate spray of perfume on a friend's coat or dress. The poorer classes, unable to buy perfume, used water, and gradually became more and more practical jokers in the use of it. The Easter jollity lasts all through the week following Easter.

Christmas time is another period of merriment. One of the most picturesque customs then is for several men, known as "Kosa" and somewhat similar to the mummers of England, to go about from house to house. Their mission is to tell of the birth of Christ, and the performance is carried on with considerable dignity and also much fun. There are three "Brothers of the Church" (Starsy Bracia) to represent the three wise men of the east. One carries on the end of a stick a miniature house to represent the church, to which all must look up. The other two walk by his side and with songs tell the story of the Nativity. They are accompanied by grotesque figures dressed to represent the devil, heathen and unbelievers of all types, and these dance and grimace and indulge in ludicrous performances to furnish the fun tor the occasion. The brothers of the church play at trying to persuade these unbelievers to worship, and their efforts are rewarded with money or cakes. The money is placed in a box and is all turned in to the priest, it being a Christmas gift for him.

The week between Christmas and New Year's day the Kolenda, as it is called, sees all sorts of fun and polity. During this time, instead of sending presents to each other, friends distribute "piroge," little cakes containing plums, apples, onions, cabbages, etc, all told some seventeen different vegetables and fruits, and there is also mixed in each household an enormous pie, usually about thirty inches in diameter and several inches in thickness, which contains all the seventeen different things selected and of which each member of the family must eat. Barley mixed with honey is a dainty for this period. When first made, the householder throws a spoonful of it against the ceiling. If it sticks, it is a sign of prosperity and happiness throughout the year and the festivities continue. If it fails, it means bad luck; and all the funmaking in that house ends.

On New Year's it is the custom for his fellow countrymen to troop into the home of the wealthiest of their class in the village and throw handfuls of wheat, corn or rye upon him, the significance being that they wish it to grow on good ground and continued prosperity to the lucky recipient of the favor. He must lose money at first, however, for he is expected to give them some or furnish drinks and cakes. They consider it one of the luckiest of happenings if a Hebrew is the first to cross their threshold on New Year's day.

The marriage customs are singular. Among the Russians there are certain days of the week when the girls are privileged to approach a group of young men and shout at them until the shouting is supposed to become unbearable. Then the young men start In pursuit, and each one tries to catch a girl. If he does, he may make love to her for the rest of the evening.

The girls keep their hair down until after they are married, and then, on the second day after the service, it is put up with a great deal of ceremony. The bride is seated in the middle of a circle of married women, who dance and sing for hours while each takes turns at putting up the bride's hair until the task is ended.

After the wedding ceremony the bride is put in a room with a lot of other girls, each with a sheet over her head, and the groom is expected to go in and discover at first choice which is his bride. If he selects her at once, she, it is believed, will lead a happy life. Usually she is clever enough to make some sign to attract his attention and so take no chance with fickle fortune.

On the day of a wedding the orchestra at the house is supposed to play as long as the bride and bridegroom are within hearing. This invariably results in the musicians being bribed to stop or getting filled so full of "polinky" that they cannot proceed.

Among the very poor classes a bride gets a pair of boots on her wedding day, and they delight in those with red tops. They do not wear these after the wedding, fearing to wear them out, but often to church or to festivals a woman may be seen carrying her boots on her shoulder as an American girl might wear a bit of jewelry in which she takes special pride- to show that she had a pair. Many of the women save these boots to be buried in.

A Polish girl cuts off bits of her veil and throws them to her girl friends, who sleep upon them to dream of the man they are to marry as an American girl desires a bit of wedding cake. The Italians, when desiring to be especially generous, empty flour bags full of candy over the heads of the bridal party so all the spectators may scramble for it.