DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9841#0146
XXXII.]
SFAKIAN WOMEN.
127
maiden's features were certainly more heavenly than I
had ever seen in any " mortal mixture of earth's mould."
She professed ignorance on the subject of my inquiries,
and at the same time drew her veil half over her face.
So strange an event as her being addressed by a
European traveller at once called up
The embarrassed look of shy distress
And maidenly shamefacedness.
Very few moments elapsed before several other more
matronly persons approached, and, in a few minutes,
all the female population of the village was congregated
around us. Their language at once told me that they
were all from Sfakia, and I learnt that they come down
here during the winter to gather olives, and that they
have been so employed for five or six months. They,
however, return to their mountain-village Haghio Yanni
to celebrate Easter Sunday, a day on which all Greeks
think it almost a sin not to be at their homes. I ob-
served to some of them, that the olive-trees, which vary
greatly in size in different parts of Crete, are very fine
m Selino : the most talkative old dame of the group,
whose tongue scarcely rests for an instant during my
stay with them, and whose language, like that of all her
companions, was uniformly characterized by the most
strongly marked peculiarities of her native dialect, re-
plied, " Yes, yes! and the oil too is excellent, and
abounds in the whole district of Selino, little as we
have of it in Sfakia1." It is natural that the women,
who dwell so much at home, and associate so little with
any one except the inhabitants of their respective villages,
should preserve more purely than the men the idiomatic
peculiarities of their native mountains. One of the
women began by observing, " You are only two men,
and therefore we dont fear you, for we are many.'" Had
we, the travellers, been a more numerous party, or had
1 The oil, \dSt, was called pdti, and was said to be icapo (xaXo).
I 2
SFAKIAN WOMEN.
127
maiden's features were certainly more heavenly than I
had ever seen in any " mortal mixture of earth's mould."
She professed ignorance on the subject of my inquiries,
and at the same time drew her veil half over her face.
So strange an event as her being addressed by a
European traveller at once called up
The embarrassed look of shy distress
And maidenly shamefacedness.
Very few moments elapsed before several other more
matronly persons approached, and, in a few minutes,
all the female population of the village was congregated
around us. Their language at once told me that they
were all from Sfakia, and I learnt that they come down
here during the winter to gather olives, and that they
have been so employed for five or six months. They,
however, return to their mountain-village Haghio Yanni
to celebrate Easter Sunday, a day on which all Greeks
think it almost a sin not to be at their homes. I ob-
served to some of them, that the olive-trees, which vary
greatly in size in different parts of Crete, are very fine
m Selino : the most talkative old dame of the group,
whose tongue scarcely rests for an instant during my
stay with them, and whose language, like that of all her
companions, was uniformly characterized by the most
strongly marked peculiarities of her native dialect, re-
plied, " Yes, yes! and the oil too is excellent, and
abounds in the whole district of Selino, little as we
have of it in Sfakia1." It is natural that the women,
who dwell so much at home, and associate so little with
any one except the inhabitants of their respective villages,
should preserve more purely than the men the idiomatic
peculiarities of their native mountains. One of the
women began by observing, " You are only two men,
and therefore we dont fear you, for we are many.'" Had
we, the travellers, been a more numerous party, or had
1 The oil, \dSt, was called pdti, and was said to be icapo (xaXo).
I 2