Bimonthly Magazine December-January Issue December JAnuary İssue | Page 11

Bocu
k
Nigh
t
Bocuk  means the night of the bocuk in Turkish language.
On the night of January 6, north western Turkish people
do a festival almost like the Halloween. They just use the
pumpkin in a different way. Rather than carving them,
they are making a tasty dessert to serve the people
coming at their houses. Here is the story;
Due to the similarity of Božić (bojic) in the languages of
Thrace, Bocuk night is believed to be inspired from the
Christian festival celebrated on the night of January 6, the
day of baptism. However, there is a Serbian historian
named Tihomir Đorđević who claims it is an ancient
Turkish festival in his book named Nas Narodni Zivot.
The story told behind the festival is way better to talk
about rather than its origins.
According to the old people of the area, Bocuk is a woman,
who was 80 years old. She dives into the black magic to
get younger. She is believed to have carried an egg in her
armpit for 21 days. When the egg hatches and the hen
grows, she cooks it in 6 fireplaces and eats it. That makes
her 18 again and rather than taking a good date with a
handsome boy, we find her visiting all the stalls and
milking the cows naked! People believe that those cows
will never be able to produce milk again. To avoid it,
people of Thrace made a pumpkin pie and put it on top of
their houses so the Bocuk woman could eat for it is the
favorite food of her.
Besides, people gathered in the houses and talked about
her and the people who claimed to had seen her before till
the morning light. It is believed to be unlucky to wander
around on that night. Like trick or treat, people used to
use starch to paint their faces white like ghosts and scared
the people waiting at their windows for the Bocuk
Woman! People are preparing pumpkin dessert to serve
to people coming at their windows. In the past, they would
make lanterns of pumpkins and walk in the dark streets of
their villages to scare the Bocuk Woman.
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