Miss Cellania
6 Easter Traditions You Might Not Know
by Miss Cellania - March 30, 2010 - 8:09 AM
bloghead_M.C.Files.gif

The sacred Christian holiday of Easter is celebrated in somewhat similar ways around the world, but there are some traditions from various regions that may be new to you.

1. Baranek Wielkanocny

The Baranek Wielkanocny, or Easter Butter Lamb is a hunk of butter shaped into a woolly lamb to celebrate Easter in Poland. You might find one in your Easter basket or use it as a centerpiece for the holiday feast. If the local priest is blessing baskets of Easter foods before they are laid out for the meal, the Butter Lamb is always included. They are sold in delis around the holiday or you can make your own at home.

2. The Burning of Judas

In several countries, it is customary to burn an effigy of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus, sometimes as part of a Passion play. See burnings in Mexico, Greece, Venezuela, Crete, Portugal, and Spain. The effigy is often hanged by the neck before the burning on the Friday or Saturday before Easter. For an added touch, some celebrants stuff the effigy with fireworks or give it the face of an unpopular politician.

3. Pysanky Eggs

Eggs, symbols of new life, are used in several ways to mark the Easter holiday. People in many countries decorate eggs in beautiful colors. Pysanky eggs are an example of Ukrainian folk art. They are decorated in nature motifs using a batik method. The designs are drawn in negative with wax, and colors are built up using successive dye immersions. The wax design is changed as different colors of dye are used. The results can be quite elaborate. Here’s a tutorial on making Pysanky eggs. Photograph by Luba Petrusha.

4. Crucifixion

In the Philippines, some Christians put themselves through the same punishments that Jesus endured, from self-flagellation to allowing themselves to be nailed to a cross. This “mortification of the flesh” is extremely painful, but volunteers are not left on crosses long enough to endanger their lives. Representatives of the Catholic church try to discourage these extreme re-enactments. Image by Flickr user nigel@hornchurch.

5. Maundy Money

Maundy Thursday is the Thursday before Easter, traditionally the day Jesus celebrated the Passover meal known as the last supper and was later arrested. In the United Kingdom, the day is commemorated when the reigning monarch gives away Maundy Money. In times past, the king or queen washed the feet of the poor as well to show humility. In the modern era, the giving of alms is ceremonial, with Queen Elizabeth passing out coins in an amount equal to her age. Special coins are minted for this purpose, which become collector’s items. This Thursday, she will distribute 84 pence to each recipient.

6. The Rocket War of Vrondados

In the village of Vrondados, on the Greek island of Chios, the annual war of the rockets is staged between two churches, Agios Marcos and Erithiani. Residents spend all year preparing thousands of rockets containing fireworks. On Saturday night before Orthodox Easter, the rockets are fired between the churches for hours. The custom goes back many years, and although there are plenty of stories, no one is quite sure how the tradition began.

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (33)

  1. I told my husband last night that we can’t forget the butter lamb for Easter, and he looked at me like I was crazy. Now apparently, I see that it isn’t quite to common as I thought.

    posted by Julie on 3-30-2010 at 9:01 am

  2. I’m French, originally, and friends of mine are often surprised to hear that growing up, the Easter bunny wasn’t quite as popular as it is, here in North America. Although he does exist, what brings us chocolate are actually the Easter Bells (les cloches de Paques).

    It’s a link to the church because on Easter morning, the chimes celebrate the resurection of Jesus. And, well, the church doesn’t really do the whole furry bunny that magically lays eggs thing.

    posted by J135 on 3-30-2010 at 9:02 am

  3. i’ll just be participating in the ceremonial burning of the peeps.

    posted by nikki on 3-30-2010 at 9:42 am

  4. Apparently eating brisket at Easter is a Texas thing. I remember the Easter I was living in Hawai’i, and my fellow Texan friend tried to buy a brisket to cook for dinner, but couldn’t find one. All of our friends (from Hawai’i, Ohio, Kentucky, and Oregon) thought we were crazy for needing brisket at Easter. I also asked my Kansian husband, and he said it’s not a tradition for them either. Anyone else always have brisket at Easter?

    posted by nutmeag on 3-30-2010 at 10:13 am

  5. My extended family (all 50ish of us) makes ravioli from scratch every Easter. I was about 12 when one of my friends mentioned she was having ham and I looked at her like she was insane.

    posted by Caitlin on 3-30-2010 at 10:15 am

  6. I’ve always had a butter lamb on Easter. My Italian grandmother insists on ordering one every year from a local church.

    posted by natalie on 3-30-2010 at 10:16 am

  7. Like I needed another reason to light fireworks and/or visit Greece?! Hold up, lemme pack my bags…

    posted by Steven on 3-30-2010 at 10:26 am

  8. My cousins and I always watch “Night of the Lepus” at Easter. Its a really bad movie about giant killer rabbits that they used to show on TNT every year. Possibly one of the worst movies ever, that’s what makes it so good!

    posted by Chris on 3-30-2010 at 10:48 am

  9. In Poland, the lamb’s made of sugar. I’ve never heard of the butter version.

    posted by Beth on 3-30-2010 at 10:50 am

  10. I’m in Texas, and we usually do ham, but my grandparents typically do brisket, as do a lot of other families I know. Both are typically served at Easter, as well as Christmas.

    posted by tinkerschnitzel on 3-30-2010 at 11:07 am

  11. My family always engages in “Egg Wars” on Easter! At breakfast everyone chooses a hard boiled egg (usually one they decorated) and starting with the oldest two competitors, place your elbow on the table, count to three outloud, and knock the narrow ends of the two eggs together. One will invariably crack (and get eaten) and the winner is (usually) completely intact! This continues down through the youngest competitor and the last egg standing is the house champion.

    For Easter dinner, we take our house champion over to relatives and compete against THEIR champions. It gets pretty competitive, and sometimes people use underhanded tactics (throwing matches, fake eggs, intimidation…)

    I’m pretty sure it originated with my uncle’s family, who is distantly Scottish, but the tradition is more modern than that. I’ve never heard of anyone else’s family doing this, but to me, it’s the best part of the Easter!

    posted by Lynnie on 3-30-2010 at 11:12 am

  12. @J135

    I’d taken French since grade school, so I had heard of the Easter Bell, but now it always reminds me of the short essay by David Sedaris where he and a basic French class try to explain Easter to a student from a Muslim country:

    http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Love-David-Sedaris/362795

    I called for a time-out. “But how does the bell know where you live?”

    “Well,” she said, “how does a rabbit?”

    posted by Lynnie on 3-30-2010 at 11:21 am

  13. My family’s Filipino, and this year my mom’s spending Holy Week in the Philippines. I’m not sure if she’s going to be seeing the volunteers undergoing the mortifications.

    One of the things she and several of her friends in her church group do in the States to celebrate Holy Week is sing the Passion in Tagalog on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

    (Me, I just watch either The Ten Commandments or Ben Hur.)

    ReCaptcha: the nerdiest

    posted by Steve in San Diego on 3-30-2010 at 11:50 am

  14. Peeps jousting! Stick toothpicks in 2 Peeps and microwave them till one stabs the other. Best Easter game ever!

    posted by Bunnie on 3-30-2010 at 12:01 pm

  15. @Lynnie

    My family is Greek, and we used to play the same game. It never got that out of hand though.

    Also, my Grandma used to bake a dime into one of the bread rolls. If you got it, you would have good luck for the year. Not sure how sanitary that was, but we never got sick

    posted by Joe on 3-30-2010 at 12:04 pm

  16. The pysanky eggs are so pretty they look like they are made of glass.

    posted by Kari on 3-30-2010 at 12:05 pm

  17. I had the pleasure of being in the Honduran town of Comayagua for Semana Santa, a Holy Week procession in which the streets are decorated with beautiful, intricate designs of colored sawdust. After the route is completely covered with these temporary mosaics, the art is walked upon by a procession representing the Stations of the Cross. Photos on Flickr are linked on my name. (Unfortunately I don’t have my own shots uploaded to share at the moment.)

    posted by Chicago ExPat on 3-30-2010 at 12:35 pm

  18. In Paraguay not only do we burn an effigy of Judas we also get really drunk and walk on hot coal while bare foot.

    posted by Megan on 3-30-2010 at 12:39 pm

  19. We always have a lamb CAKE as well as a lamb butter.

    Last year we put a Red Hot for it’s nose and the coloring ran, so our lamb had a bloody nose.

    posted by Katie Rose on 3-30-2010 at 12:44 pm

  20. my only comment is because of the recaptcha: pervert senate

    how true, how true!!

    posted by dee on 3-30-2010 at 2:28 pm

  21. I’ve read about all sorts of Easter traditions, but 1,2,4,5, & 6 are all new to me. I live in Alabama( hence the “in AL” in my name)but we always have ham.

    posted by Sara in Al on 3-30-2010 at 2:49 pm

  22. @Nutmeag
    I live in Colorado and we usually have a brisket. I don’t really know of anyone else that does. I think ham is usually the most traditional thing around here.
    My dad’s side of the family is of Eastern European desent and we have the same thing for Christmas and Easter: Picnic Ham, Potato Salad, kilbasa, and deviled eggs. I know a lot of people wouldn’t really care for this but I also have the traditional Christmas/Easter fare on my mom’s side of the family.
    I did think it was a bunch of crap when my younger cousins started hunting plastic eggs with coins inside. When I was little we got egg inside our eggs!
    ReCaptcha: rapacity Schuckebier–wierd

    posted by Brit on 3-30-2010 at 3:56 pm

  23. I was born in Colombia, and I remember growing up, Holy Week is a huge deal over there. On Palm Sunday, they would have a procession on the street in front of the church with people waving palm leaves in the air. On Holy Thursday, everyone would bring a basket of bread to church that night and the priest would bless it. On Holy Friday, they usually have an all-day event where they do a big re-enactment of the events leading up to Jesus’s death and the stations of the cross. They even have someone playing Jesus, and he carries a wooden cross (although much lighter than the real thing I’m sure) around the streets while a huge procession of people follow him. Easter Sunday doesn’t seem to be as big of a deal as all the other days. People usually just dressed up and went to church and had a family dinner. I had never even heard of the Easter bunny until I came to the US.

    posted by Laura on 3-30-2010 at 5:04 pm

  24. @nutmeag, from texas as well totally do the ham and brisket thing…

    I live in El Paso, Tx which is predominately hispanic and here we celebrate with cascarones (spelling maybe off), which is a mexican tradition, they are in tact egg shells that have been filled with conffetti and used for smashing on peoples heads, a bit messy but fun… =)

    posted by jgutierrez on 3-30-2010 at 5:40 pm

  25. @ all Texasn commenters.

    yeah, I’m from Texas too, (south south Texas) Mcallen, Texas to be more exact. we do the cascarones too…but I’ve always thought they did it everywhere…hmmm…anyway, It’s super fun!! unless someone doesn’t know how to crack an egg (read little boys who keep smashing your head)

    My family has never been too big on Easter, we go to church and all, but we don’t have a \traditional\ dinner, so I can’t help you with the brisket thing…though now I’m really craving it.

    capcha – intensified tanned…what you get when you spend too much time at the beach down here :)

    posted by Andrea on 3-31-2010 at 1:02 am

  26. @ all Texasn commenters.

    yeah, I’m from Texas too, (south south Texas) Mcallen, Texas to be more exact. we do the cascarones too…but I’ve always thought they did it everywhere…hmmm…anyway, It’s super fun!! unless someone doesn’t know how to crack an egg (read little boys who keep smashing your head)
    My family has never been too big on Easter, we go to church and all, but we don’t have a “traditional” dinner, so I can’t help you with the brisket thing…though now I’m really craving it.

    posted by Andrea on 3-31-2010 at 1:14 am

  27. My family is Greek and we have always played the eggs wars game as well. All of our eggs are dyed bright red.

    We were on Chios (Xios) last year for Easter and we didn’t go to watch the fireworks battle, but we got enough of a show in the village we were staying in. Even little children were lighting off fireworks and all in very close proximity. Its pretty spectacular. You could hear fireworks going off all over the island for days before and after Easter.

    I’ve never heard of the butter lamb, but we certainly eat roast lamb for Easter every year.

    posted by Kate on 3-31-2010 at 2:15 am

  28. @Lynnie and the other egg wars people:

    I have never played that, but my husband who is from Indiana says he played that growing up. He won once, which is probably the only reason it ever came up.

    As for the bells of Easter, our church here encourages people to bring bells to the Easter Vigil service to ring during the Gospel Acclamation (the priest parades around with the gospel as the first Alleluia is sung since Lent started).

    My family is both Southern and Lebanese. The Easter dinner feast with the extended family always has kibbeh, stuffed grape leaves, and fried chicken. And ham, lots of ham.

    posted by catherine ann on 3-31-2010 at 4:15 pm

  29. When I was growing up we always had lamb with mint jelly. I never really thought about it before, but that’s kinda sacrilegious, isn’t it? Perhaps my great-grandfather (also a church elder) thought we were eating part of Jesus? Either way, it was always delicious!!

    posted by Tamsyn on 4-1-2010 at 3:18 am

  30. @Lynnie

    My family also plays Egg Wars, and we’re pretty intense about it! We name and decorate all the eggs, making sure to make either 32 or 64 of them (plus a few extras). Then we make a bracket (kind of like a March Madness bracket) and do single elimination until there’s only one left. The losers get eaten on top of toast with a cheese sauce. Mmm…

    posted by Owl on 4-1-2010 at 8:20 am

  31. I’m from south texas, laredo, texas, and we celebrate easter with a “carne asada” including grilled fajitas, brisket, sausage, sirloin steaks and such. since the lenten tradition includes giving up red meat on ash wednesday, fridays, and latter part of holy week leading up to Easter. we also do the cascaron thing and i remember my grandmother telling us a story about the origin of the cascarones. she said that when jesus was on the cross the last drops of his blood that fell to the ground sprouted forth the easter lilies which have an eggshaped bulb that drops its seeds when it blossoms. the confetti filled eggshells represent the lilies and we crack them over peoples heads to sort of re-enact the symbolic gesture of new life. i don’t know if grandma was right but it made sense to me and i liked the story.

    posted by Steve Gtz on 4-1-2010 at 12:22 pm

  32. I think it should be a recognized miracle that those Greek churches have never burned down due to all those fireworks.

    posted by Andy on 4-1-2010 at 3:29 pm

  33. My family has decorated pysanky eggs since I was too young to be around the hot wax and candles–although we are not Ukrainian. Consequently, we have several books on the procedure and tradition, one of which details Ukrainian pysanky folk legends. The eggs have been decorated since long before Christianity arrived in the country, and has its roots in ancient pagan beliefs. Even today, eggs are often died a brilliant and sent floating down the river to a mythical land where it is said the souls of dead children dwell. And there is a story that the day no more pysanky are decorated, a great monster will be loosed from its chains, and the world will end.

    posted by Eglantine on 4-2-2010 at 6:11 pm

Comment

commenting policy