Kukeri

Kukeri (Bulgarian: кукери; singular: kuker, кукер) are elaborately costumed Bulgarian men, who perform traditional rituals intended to scare away evil spirits.
Closely related traditions are found throughout the Balkans and Greece (including Romania and the Pontus). The costumes cover most of the body and include decorated wooden masks of animals (sometimes double-faced) and large bells attached to the belt. Around New Year and before Lent, the Kukeri walk and dance through villages to scare away evil spirits with their costumes and the sound of their bells. They are also believed to provide a good harvest, health, and happiness to the village for the year ahead. The Kukeri traditionally visit people's houses at night so that "the sun would not catch them on the road." After parading around the village, they usually gather at the village square to dance wildly and amuse the people. Kukeri rituals vary by region, but remain largely the same in essence.
19th century scholars considered the Kukeri to have a pre-Christian Thracian origin, and theorised that they were a remnant of a Thracian cult of the god Dionysus; this view was encouraged by Bulgarian nationalists and folklorists who wished to lend Bulgarian cultural practices a sense of prestige via association with the classical world. However, modern scholarship generally rejects this view, and the Kukeri are now considered to be part of a general Balkan mumming tradition that emerged sometime in the early modern period, influenced by Greek, Slavic, Albanian, and Turkish practices.
The precise origin of the word "Kukeri" is unclear. The term could be derived from Proto-Slavic *kuka ("evil spirit") with the agentive suffix *-ařь (i.e. literally meaning a "chaser of evil spirits"), or from a pre-Slavic divinity named Kuk.
Another theory suggests the name kuker derived from Latin cuculla meaning "hood, cowl" or cucurum, "quiver" (i.e. in the sense of a container; an abbreviation of koukouros geros), though the practice pre-dates Roman rule by several centuries.
The corresponding figure in Greek-speaking Thrace is known as Kalogeros ("monk" or literally the "good-old" one), also shortened to cuci, in former Yugoslavia known as didi, didici, in Bulgaria as kuker or babushar, as momogeros in Pontic Anatolia, in North Macedonia it is known as babari or mechkari ("bear-man"). In Romania, this figure mostly appears together with a goat, known as capra, turca or brezaia.
Kukeri is a divinity personifying fecundity. Sometimes in Bulgaria and Serbia it is a plural divinity. In Bulgaria, a ritual spectacle of spring (a sort of carnival) takes place after a scenario of folk theatre, in which Kuker's role is interpreted by a man attired in a sheep- or goat-pelt, wearing a horned mask and girded with a large wooden phallus. During the ritual, various physiological acts are interpreted, including the sexual act, as a symbol of the god's sacred marriage, while the symbolical wife, appearing pregnant, mimes the pains of giving birth. This ritual inaugurates the labors of the fields (ploughing, sowing) and is carried out with the participation of numerous allegorical personages, among which is the Emperor and his entourage.
Capra comes from the Latin word "Capra," meaning goat. A halo like head piece was worn as a crown to symbolize the spiritual divine realm, while fur, feathers and other external body-parts of an animal attached to represent the natural world. The fact that nature has good and evil, and that humans are the intermediary between spirit and nature, it was a made-time to pay homage to the Spieth gods. Some cultures imbibed in human flesh to satiate the god's thirst for blood, as an act of solidarity for the gods.
Kukeri or Kuker Warriors are some of the main characters in the epic fantasy animated series The Golden Apple, which is currently being developed by Studio Zmei. In it, young brothers Bran and Vlad have been trained as Kuker Warriors to fight evil spirits, but they have to question what they have been taught when they are forced to team up with half-spirit Vihra and Samodiva-spirit Tina in order to protect their world.
Kukeri are featured in the music video for the song "Fish on", by the industrial metal band Lindemann, and in the film Toni Erdmann, directed by Maren Ade.
Kukeri are the subject of a 2023 New Yorker documentary short by filmmaker Killian Lassabliére titled "Kukeri".