Thursday, August 24, 2023 <p>Xenos Xenitas was the pen-name of army officer-turned-folklorist Xenofon Akoglous. Akoglous was born in the Pontos, in Amisos, in 1895. He grew up in Kotyora, a small seaside town also known as Ordu. To avoid being conscripted in the Ottoman army, he went to Thessaloniki by way of Crimea in 1914 and enlisted in the Greek army, He saw fighting in Skra, where he was wounded, went to officer school, and saw fighting ion the Asia Minor front. He demobbed in 1935, and thereafter devoted most of his time to folklore research and publication. He published a book of Kotyorite folklore in 1939 (which won a prize from the Academy of Athens), ran a journal Hronika tou Pontou during some of the worst economic times Greece ever experienced during the twentieth century, and contributed to ethnicist journals like Pontiaka Fylla and Arheion Pontou. The second volume of his Laografika Kotyoron was published posthumously, in 1964. His two volumes devoted to the folklore of Kotyora are magisterial, run to about 1000 pages, and worthy of greater attention than they tend to receive.</p> <p>Contents include:</p> <ul> <li>History and geography</li> <li>Religion and ethnicity</li> <li>Community organization</li> <li>Education</li> <li>Art movements</li> <li>Economy</li> <li>Ecclesiastical matters</li> <li>Types of dwellings</li> <li>Household economy</li> <li>Cooking tools</li> <li>Water vessels</li> <li>Foods</li> <li>Pasturage</li> <li>Hospitality</li> <li>Pregnancy</li> <li>Birthgiving</li> <li>Baptism</li> <li>Childcare</li> <li>Child training</li> <li>Education and athletics</li> <li>Engagments</li> <li>Wedding customs</li> <li>Funerals</li> <li>Memorial services</li> <li>Fasting</li> <li>Feast days</li> <li>Easter celebration</li> <li>Weather forecasting</li> <li>Folk medicine</li> <li>Superstitions</li> <li>Greetings</li> <li>Local dress</li> </ul> <p>And much, much more...</p>