Inner children rejoice, as Easter is almost here.
With Easter egg hunts beginning, and fish and chip shops readying themselves for Good Friday, we thought it was appropriate to check in on how the rest of the world is celebrating.
From flying kites in Bermuda to dressing as witches in Sweden, Easter is an occasion for unique cultural traditions all across the globe.
Here’s our top 7 ways the world is marking Easter.
7. Verges, Spain
On Holy Thursday, in the Medieval town of Verges in Spain, everyone dresses in skeleton costumes and parades through the street, performing the traditional dansa de la mort, or death dance.
The procession ends with frightening skeletons carrying boxes of ashes, with the ghoulish dance kicking off at midnight, and continuing into the early hours of the morning. Photo by Getty Images.
6. Czech Republic and Slovakia
For an interesting and slightly unorthodox Easter celebration, get yourself to these Eastern European countries over Easter. On Easter Monday, men indulge in the tradition of spanking women with handmade whips of willow and decorative ribbon.
According to legend, the willow is the first tree to bloom in the spring, so the branches are supposed to transfer the tree’s vitality and fertility to the women. Photo from Stuff.co.nz
5. France
Heading to southern France this Easter? Well, you’d better take a fork!
Each year on Easter Monday, a giant omelette is served up in the town’s main square, using no less than 4500 eggs and feeding up to 1000 people.
he story goes, when Napoleon and his army were traveling through the south of France, they stopped in a small town and ate omelets. Napoleon liked his so much that he ordered the townspeople to gather their eggs and make a giant omelet for his army the next day. Photo from TheRichest.com.
4. Bermuda
Bermuda’s citizens celebrate Good Friday by taking to the skies with homemade kites, before gorging on codfish cakes and hot cross buns.
The tradition is said to have started when a local teacher from the British Army was trying to explain Christ’s ascension to Heaven on Easter Sunday. He made a kite, typically shaped like a cross, to help the locals visualise the tale.
The traditional Bermuda kites are made with colourful tissue paper, long tails, wood, metal, and string. Photo from Flickr.
3. Sweden
The beloved Swedes take a more Halloween-y approach to Easter, with Easter Thursday typically seeing children dress up as Easter witches.
The children make Easter cards for their friends and neighbours, and exchange them for candy, sporting scarves on their heads, painted-on freckles and old brooms. Photo from DosFamily.
2. Norway
Sweden’s neighbours get equally as weird when it comes to Easter, taking a more mysterious approach.
Norwegians celebrate a period known as Paaskekrim, or Easter-Crime, where around the country, local folk catch up on their crime through detective novels and TV series.
The milk company prints crime stories on their cartons, and publishers churn out series of books known as “Easter Thrillers”.
1. Haiti
Easter celebrations in Haiti take a turn for the weird, with a mixture of Catholic and Voodoo traditions taking place.
In Haiti, Holy Week is marked by colorful parades and traditional “rara” music played on bamboo trumpets, maracas, drums, even coffee cans.
Voodoo believers make an annual pilgrimage to the village of Souvenance, where they present offerings of goats’ heads and other parts to the spirits during a ceremony of drumming and chanting.
Other traditions include rara bands dressing in colourful clothing and playing music in bands, and making and flying colourful paper kites. Photo from News.cn.
