Gaik, the Polish/Slavic “May tree”

Gaik in Lublin, eastern Poland. Photography by Fotograf Lublin – NAPC Studio

This custom was a part of Slavic spring celebrations, appearing during various festivals and rituals throughout the spring season in Poland and in many other Slavic countries. Gaik usually appears as a small tree or a branch (most often a local type of a conifer tree, or a birch tree) decorated with colorful ribbons and other adornments, depending on the occasion (for example trinkets, flowers and bells, or colorful pisanki made on emptied eggshells hanging from the branches). Gaik is known under many different regional names in Poland, and you can find it under numerous names such as: gaj, goik, gaiczek, maj, maik, mojik, sad, nowe lato, nowe latko, turzyce.

Traditional trance music and dance – Mazurek, the ‘Wild Music from the Heart of Poland’

There’re certain modern connotations and a definition of what a ‘trance music’ is – but here I want to use that term in its traditional/native meaning, and to introduce the traditional type of music coming from the heart of Poland: the rural mazurkas. I’ve been thinking long how should I call this type of music in the English language (I might not know a better term for it because it isn’t my native language) but eventually I decided that ‘trance music’ fits the most after all. The music I want to show you was putting the dancers into an almost hypnotic state, it comprised of [relatively] fast beats, and was played for various types of rural festivities and social events set in the old Polish countryside. In a way, I think that some elements of the definition of ‘trance music’ still fits with this old music – anyways, let’s jump to the introduction.

Folk rites and beliefs associated with Corpus Christi (Boże Ciało) in Poland

Out of all religious holidays in Poland the Corpus Christi, movable feast that falls in June on 11th day after Pentecost (called Green Week in Poland), remains one of the most important and colorful feasts celebrated by the Polish people during the late spring. Outside of the religious (Catholic) sphere that day has also deep undertones coming entirely from rural customs and rites of pagan roots that survived in the Polish countryside over past centuries almost unchanged. Just as in the case of the Pentecost, the rural traditions link both of these holidays to pre-Christian celebrations of full-spring, and are connected to many other customs of old-Slavic origins.