What Regions in Macedonia Wear This Dress?

[Soldier of Macedon]

Ironic that Albanians would steal it from the Macedonians. The majority of Gheg Albanians wear those pants, and coincidentally, the Western part of Macedonia where those pants.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Despite the fact that you are already banned for being a racist (the thread you created where you revealed your blatant racism was deleted), I am going to respond to your final remarks for the sake of clarity and the benefit of the readers.

Of course the Albanians have taken it from the Macedonians, it certainly cannot have been the other way around given that the latter's history in the region predates the former's. Macedonia is a cultural goldmine and we have several variants of the local dress, several dialects, several customs, etc, and, just like how Albania and Greece have historically had Slavonic placenames scattered across their areas, so too have they adopted other customs from Macedonians, Serbs and others. Albanian influence on Macedonian culture is insignificant and irrelevant.

My parents consider themselves Torbesh. My father's side of the family tend to speak Albanian (some do speak Turkish) while my mother's side speak Macedonian. Since my father tends to be more pro-Albanian, I've been more exposed to the Albanian side growing up (I would assume that to be somewhat natural taking the identity of the father's side.) However I do value my Macedonian side and I've joined this forum to learn more about it.

After your racist (and deleted) thread, who knows what to believe about you. If you do have any Macedonian heritage in you at all, you are an absolute disgrace to both Macedonian Muslims and Macedonians in general. I take comfort in the fact that I picked you as a phoney from the beginning, refine your skills a little before the next time you decide to slime in.

[MKPrilep]

I found this topic yesterday.
I always asked me how it comes that these costumes
are so similar.
Interesting is that this costume is only in galicnik,
were mainly mijaks live.
The Mijaks have traditionally occupied the Reka region along with the Torbeš, another sub-group of Macedonians.

Maybe someone of you knows more?!

[Niko777]

Unlike the women's dress, men's dress was usually adopted from Turkish dress (except the fustanella). Wearing pants for formal occasions was something the Turks introduced, wearing the fustanella was a Macedonian custom. Each region has their own unique dress, but this particular one from Galichnik (the black and white pants) is very close to the Turkish version.

[Onur]

Niko, we already discussed about the similarities of women dress before;

In Turkey, we call this bridal jewelery as "Tepe-lik" as Makedonin said but it should always have 5 coins attached to it. I think one coin is missing on the jewelery pictured above and i can see the little attachment hook for the 5th missing coin.




I have to say that the similarity between traditional Turkish and Macedonian clothing is striking. I`ve checked wowturkey website to show you few pictures of our traditional bridal woman pictures and i saw that this jewelery is called as "Tepelik" in all other Turkic people at Caucasus too.



These are Aegean Anatolia villagers;



These are central Anatolia yoruk girls;



But these are regular cloths without any jewelery. The jewelery pieces only used in weddings or panayir.




These are Pomak girls in Bulgaria with traditional cloths. They look similar to your/our clothing too;

This is a painting done by a French artist in Istanbul, 1740 AD. He portrays a Turkish woman. Notice her belt. I saw same belt design on today`s Macedonian women traditional dress in pictures posted by you guys before. Same belt is also still used today in traditional Turkish women dress too;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-%C3%89tienne_Liotard_008.jpg

Btw, you are right about skirts. I don't know about the pants but skirts are definitely not Turkish style. I`ve never seen Turkish men in skirts. Already the pants are for horsemen since you cannot ride a horse with skirts. Pants becomes shorts if there is a warmer climate, like in Aegean Anatolia.

The pictures of traditional men dress in the messages here, lacks the extra two arm pieces of the shirt for some reason. The ones which hangs from the shoulders to the back side, to the saddle. I know that it also exists in some Macedonian men dress. These extra two arm pieces also exists in every traditional Turkish men dress, it`s a must have.

You can see these extra arm pieces here, hanging behind the arms of them;



Btw do you know what is the cloth piece on top of the pants are called? The one surrounds the waist. We call it "Kusak, Kushak". And the small waistcoat on the shirt is called as "Yelek".

[Soldier of Macedon]

Similarities to such ornaments can also be found in the ancient cultures of Paleo-Balkan peoples. Take for example the below, which is from Illyria:




Onur, it would be good to compare 19th/20th century Turkish examples to those of the original central Asian homeland of the Turkic peoples. This should help in identifying peculiarities in the costumes.

[Onur]

Onur, it would be good to compare 19th/20th century Turkish examples to those of the original central Asian homeland of the Turkic peoples. This should help in identifying peculiarities in the costumes.

SOM, i don't claim that all these have Turkish origin. I am just pointing out the similarities. Also i don't mind if Turks would adopt all these things from Macedonians. It really doesn't matter for me.

Also we came from central Asia 1000 years ago. If i had to give a percentage for it, i would say that 70% of our culture produced in Anatolia and Balkans after 11th century. Probably today, we still carry only 30% of what we had from central Asia. Also it would be difficult to find a source which describes our cloths from that time. As far as i know, earliest detailed clothing descriptions and pictures are from early 15th century.

One thing i am sure that we were wearing pants but not skirts because of horsemanship.

[Soldier of Macedon]

SOM, i don't claim that all these have Turkish origin. I am just pointing out the similarities. Also i don't mind if Turks would adopt all these things from Macedonians. It really doesn't matter for me.

Nor for me mate, I just wanted to see if we can determine their origins.

Also we came from central Asia 1000 years ago. If i had to give a percentage for it, i would say that 70% of our culture produced in Anatolia and Balkans after 11th century. Probably today, we still carry only 30% of what we had from central Asia.

I would say that is pretty accurate where it concerns Turkish culture, but of course the Turkish language has preserved much more than 30%.

Also it would be difficult to find a source which describes our cloths from that time. As far as i know, earliest detailed clothing descriptions and pictures are from early 15th century.

How about comparing them to the Turkic minority groups in China and Russia?

[Serdarot]

paltoloni
pantoloni
pantoli
paltoni
palto
kalpat (kapa/hat)

pelt(ast)

rest of thinking pls do yourself

concidering the "bechvi" (the man trousers shown on the first pages of this topic)...
bechvi were not used only in the Galichnik / Miak region.

Also in Mariovo region they used bechvi, and f´stan as well, on top of the bechvi. I am very sure they were used (bechvi) in many regions.

[Soldier of Macedon]

paltoloni
pantoloni
pantoli
paltoni
palto
kalpat (kapa/hat)

pelt(ast)

rest of thinking pls do yourself

I am not sure what to think. What exactly are you suggesting?

[Serdarot]

SoM, there are several descriptions of the warriors living "north of Olymp".

Mostly when describing the Macedonians and the Thracians, it is written that they went to war dressed in skins, with horns on the head.

I claim that Peltasts were those missile troops, looking similar to the today´s "babari", dressed in skins, and that their name comes from some version of "Pelt"/"Palt", and not from "their shield".

I will not say it is "Macedonian word", couse i think it was wide spread, and i dont have the need to mark as "Macedonian" everything. (logic, cause i am not "greek", "greeks" do that, claiming everything )

In modern days, we have "paltoloni" "pantol" "pantoli" "pantuli" "palto" etc, what someone say has a Turkish roots.

How can be Turkish, if it was used with same and / or similar meaning, long before the Seldjuks came in Anadolia, not to speak about the Balkans?

But let the Turks aside...

How can "peltast" / "peltastai" be "greek"???

It is connected with COVERING YOUR BODY with SKINS, what is logic, because those skirmishers, in order to engage the enemy, were themself in enemy´s range / missile troops.

So they NEEDED both, to be protected more or less from some of the enemy missiles, and also they were masked, probably mixed with the herds of goats and ships, "invisible" untill the moment when they could launch their missiles upon the enemies.

And the "greek" explanation about "peltastai" is hilarious, like most of their ethymologies!

Now, the connection with this topic is the following:

- if the Turks brought the pants on the Balkans, why using non-Turkish word???

So claiming the design of the pants, and the word, from people who can not understand its meaning, is very, very stupid.

It is very possible that the Turks used "pantoli" (trousers, pants), but i dont think our ancestors were riding their horses naked

And i can laugh upon those who claim it is "greek" or "turkish" or "albanian".

[Risto the Great]

Palto makes sense to me and the connection seem plausible.

Pantaloni seems to be substantially different in my mind.

[George S.]

Pants or trousers, were probably invented about 6,000 years ago by the horsemen on the Steppes of Ukraine. Pants were the typical dress of the Scythian warriors of ancient Scythia-Ukraine 2,600 years ago. Pants are particularly suited to a northern climate and to horsemen which places the logical origin on the steppes or prairies of Eastern Europe, or Ukraine. They are depicted on ancient gold jewelry and vases found in Ukrainian burial mounds (kurgans). Some ancient Greeks, such as Hippocrates, thought poorly of the pants worn by the Ukrainian Scythians. James and Thorpe mention pants were popular among many nations but do not suggest the possible location of the origin of them.

[Onur]

What George said is the truth. Several forms of clothing like pants has been invented by horsemen of Eurasia because they needed to create clothing to be comfortable when riding horse.

You know, neither Romans nor ancient Greeks used pants. As far as i know, all semitic people like Jews and Arabs was using skirt like dresses too. Most probably pants started to be used by westerners after Huns but it`s highly possible that it came to Balkans after Turkic/Iranic migrations since early Bulgars was wearing pants too.


Most beautiful example for the clothing of Eurasian people is in the museum of Kazakhistan. There was a giant kurgan in there and when it was excavated by the archeologists, there was graves of several warriors and a young princess with more than 4000 piece of golden armaments, dated back to 5th century BC. The young princess was buried with her cloths made of gold and she wears pants. It`s been shown in the museum in Kazakhistan. Mummies of the warriors also had magnificent tattoos on their body;


The young princess;






The mummies of warriors;





His tattoo is magnificent. A tiger or leopard lookalike cat on his shoulder. It`s hard to believe that this is from 5th century BC.