Kokot - The Cock

Zabijanje Kokota - Beating the cock

Lower Sorbian customs in summer have especially originated from the time around the end of harvesting. The time of the grain harvest was the most important period of the year. A good harvest did not only decide the wealth of the propertied farmers but also if the poorer people in the village, agricultural workers and country dwellers, will have enough to eat the following year.

Bad weather and storms caused great damages quite often. People were much happier and thankful when the grain was dry and had been stored without heavy losses. Our ancestors believed in spirits of fertility and vegetation in the form of an animal. It was said that the cock, Sorbian "kokot," has the power to influence the harvest. After the harvest was over the cock hid under the last sheaf to regain power for the next year since the period of vegetation was over. Reapers decorated this particular sheaf with flowers and ribbons and shouted: "źins' jo kokot - today is cock-day" this means that it was the last day of the harvest. Men got little bunches of grain to pin on the jacket. Women made harvest wreaths and a big harvest crown and took it to the estate of the landowner and announced the end of the harvest. Afterwards they all got together and celebrated happily - ate, drank, sang and danced.

An older form of the summer customs around the cock is beating the cock. After the harvest was finished the next step was threshing the grain. Reapers took a cock into the fields where they let him go and tried to catch him again to "beat him to death" with a flail. Until the 17th century people killed the cock, but today it happens in a mere symbolic way. This custom is preserved only in a few villages of Lower Lusatia. Schmogrow, a village near the small town of Burg/Spreewald, is one place where the living cock sits in a hole covered with wooden boards. A pot is placed on top of them and blindfolded young men try to hit the pot with a flail three times. The man who is successful first will become a king. He then can choose his queen from the girls dressed in their festive costumes to dance around him. He is blindfolded again and has to catch her. Afterwards he releases the cock and the other men try to catch the cock again. In the end the cock is auctioned.

Łapanje kokota - Plucking the cock

Plucking the cock is the most popular custom of Lower Lusatia. The villagers erect in the middle of the village a green gate made of beams. They decorate the gate with garlands of green leaves and attach a dead cock hanging upside down to the crossbeam. One young man after the other ride in full gallop through the gate and try to pluck the cock's head. The winner will be called "kral" (king) and he will be honored and celebrated. Men who are able to grab the wings of the cock thereafter while riding through will be second and third king. Thus the most skillful riders and their horses get big winner wreaths decorated with leaf garlands from oak trees. The blindfolded harvest kings choose their partners from a circle of women to start the evening with an honorary dance. The women crown their harvest queen after several games of skill such as frog-carting, bachelor-carting, egg and spoon race. Neither frog nor bachelor is allowed to jump off the barrow with the woman trying to cover the distance in the fastest time. The winner gets a wreath of oak tree leaves to wear. At the end of these competitive games all form a procession and march to the pub singing and dancing. In the middle some people carry the big harvest crown decorated with ribbons and flowers. A brass band plays all night long in the pub for singing and dancing.