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Bocuk Night: A medieval Thracian version of Halloween in western Turkey - Daily Sabah
Daily SabahBocuk Night: A medieval Thracian version of Halloween in western TurkeyDaily SabahBet you didn't know that Turkey and more precisely the village of Çamlıca, located in the Thracian district of Keşan, has been celebrating Bocuk Night, an evening in which locals dress up in white sheets and paint their faces in scary make-up to spook ...
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That's interesting. I'd never heard of this before. I think the heavy emphasis on pumpkin has to be a carry over from American Halloween, since pumpkins are native to North America and wouldn't have been known in medieval Thrace. However, doing this on Jan 6 ( or close to it) reminds me that Jan 6 is Twelfth Night, the end of the Christmas season, and the kick off to carnival in some cultures. I believe it was known in some places as the Feast of Fools, when a young boy or Court jester would be made "King for a Day," thus subverting the social order. I bet this tradition ties into Twelfth Night celebrations somehow.