Through the Land of the SerbDurham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
History
Through the Land of the Serb
Durham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
Montenegro -- Description and travel; Serbia -- Description and travel
Of all the old-world things in the town--older than the neatly cut
flints for the flintlocks that are still in use, older than the tight
mediæval leg-gear--the loose tunic bound round the waist by a sash and
the full drawers tied round the ankle, as worn by the common Mohammedan
men and boys of the town (a very ordinary dress throughout the East) is
the oldest. It is the dress of the men on the early Greek vases; of the
Dacians on Trajan's column; of the captive Gauls in the Louvre; the
dress, in short, of all the "barbarians," the "braccati" of the Romans.
The Romans and the toga and the chlamys are all gone, and here, in the
same old place, the barbarians are cutting their skirts and trousers on
the same old pattern, and are very fairly barbarous still. But they have
learned to shave their heads and to wear a white fez, and with this
modification we at once recognise them as our old friend Pierrot, whose
history points to the fact that he really did come from the Near East.
Venice held all the Dalmatian coast and part of Albania. Venice was the
home of masques and pantomimes, and among the existing prints of the
pantomime characters is one "Zanne" in the familiar "Pierrot" dress.
What more likely than that the fool of the piece should be represented
as a boor from a conquered province? To this day, in so-called civilised
towns, an unhappy foreigner is still apt to be considered a fair butt by
the lower classes. Zanne came to England, and figures among the sketches
for one of Ben Jonson's masques.
Skirts with us are purely feminine garments, but the skirt of the
barbarian has grown in Albania into a vast unwieldy kilt, and the
Mohammedan Bey swaggers about in a cumbrous fustanella which reaches
down to his ankle and sticks out like an old-fashioned ballet-girl's
skirt. He cannot work because he wears the fustanella, and it is said
that he wears the fustanella in order to be unable to work. Forty 1
metres of material go to this colossal and ridiculous garment. The
greater part of the fulness is worn in front, and sways clumsily from
side to side as the wearer walks. The Greeks adopted it in a modified
form, but it must be seen on an Albanian to realise its possibilities.
The Albanians have rarely, as yet, succeeded in doing anything in
moderation. After seeing what the men were capable of in the skirt line,
I was not surprised that the shepherd-folk out on the plains began by
asking my guide with great interest if I were a man or a woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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