Dyngus Day Celebrations Are Catching On The Rise In Parts Of The United States
Dyngus Day celebrations have sprung up in a few cities across the United States. Dyngus Day is traditionally celebrated the Monday after Easter and it seems to be catching on in some parts of the United States. Today marks the 4th year that Dyngus Day will be celebrated in Cleveland.
The historically polish tradition celebrates the end of the Lenten season with food, music and entertainment. Some very traditional Dungus Day traditions may seem a bit odd to modern folk. One tradition called for boys to wake girls they liked by pouring buckets of water on their head.
Another tradition is described by the Winona Daily News, “on Easter Monday morning, according to an old Polish custom, a young woman found in bed by a young man may well be switched — not swapped, traded or bartered, but swatted with a willow switch.”
According to the South Bend Tribune, “[Dyngus Day] originated in Europe as Smigus-Dyngus in the 15th century, an evolved Dyngus Day has been part of South Bend’s heritage since the 1930s, at least. Its political significance was underscored in 1968 when Robert Kennedy, in South Bend during his presidential campaign, made sure one of his stops was a Dyngus Day celebration.”
WiseGeek.com says Dyngus Day dates to the Easter Monday 966 A.D. baptism of the Polish prince Mieszko I.
“This was a significant baptism because it was taken by the Polish people to mean that all of Poland was Christian. Since baptism is thought to relate to purification, cleansing and fertility, the idea somehow adapted into Dyngus Day and boys soaking girls with water. Dyngus Day water traditions also relate to the mass Lithuanian baptisms that took place after the Lithuanian Duke, Jagiello, and the Polish Queen, Jadwiga, were married.”
Most Polish communities in the US have abandoned Dyngus Day but the holiday is alive and well in Poland. Father Paul Breza, founder of the Winona Polish Museum, told the Winona Daily News, “In most Polish-American communities, Dyngus Day is pretty much forgotten, but it is alive, wet and wild in Poland, with buckets of water sometimes tossed from second-floor windows to baptize girls passing below.”
A polka DJ named DJ Kishka helped to establish the annual Dyngus Day event in Cleveland after attending the festival in Buffalo.
“Instead of the Mardi Gras before lent, this is the party after lent. It’s kind of the sister party to the Mardi Gras,” Kishka told WKYC.
What began as approximately one thousand people at just a few locations has blossomed in its fourth year to twenty-six venues of food, music, and entertainment.
An expected fifteen thousand people will celebrate Dyngus Day in Cleveland, Ohio. The activities include parades, a Miss Dyngus Day Pageant, dog pageant, polish food, and polka bands.
