Karpathos Efta Custom

According to many scholars, the remote Karpathos is one of the places with the richest folklore traditions in the country, with many of the age-old customs surviving to this day. One of them is the interesting custom Efta (Seven), which may well derive from the ancient Greek Amphidromia. It is celebrated seven days after the birth of a child, hence its name, in order to ask the three Fates to bless it with good luck.

More specifically, on the seventh day after a child is born, friends and relatives come to the family’s house to celebrate, bringing along drinks and traditional sweets like baklava, as well as gifts for the baby, which may include gold chains, identity bracelets, crosses, copies of Byzantine coins, clothes or icons of saints. As soon as all the guests have arrived, the newborn’s mother or grandmother wraps it into a silk sheet and dresses the boy or the girl in the father’s or the mother’s best shirt respectively. Then, the infant is placed on a big table and everybody leaves their gifts around the baby, while, immediately after that, two sisters cradle him or her on the silk sheet, singing improvised couplets (mantinades) to wish it good luck.

After the singing is over, the mother or the grandmother lights seven small candles, which are given the names of Christ, the Virgin Mary and the local saints. The candles are placed on a honey jar, and whichever goes out first represents the saint who will be the child’s guardian for the rest of their life.

Meanwhile, the women prepare a traditional sweet known as alevra, made with flour and a variety of spices. After the dough is baked, it is put on dishes with honey and locally produced butter, and each of the guests has to eat seven spoonfuls. The rest is left for the Three Fates, who are believed to come on the same night to determine the child’s destiny. Then, a lively feast starts, with plenty of eating, singing and dancing till the early morning.

This colorful custom is a rite of passage meant to introduce the infant to the first phase of their life as a member of the local community. The poems, as well as all the material symbols that surround the baby, mark the framework of values and beliefs in which the child will grow up.