Pčinja

Pčinja

Nakosnik- People who did not have thick, beautiful hair, which was highly appreciated, sometimes wore headpieces made of somebody else's hair, dyed wool or some other fibres. They also dyed their hair in order to make it look more beautiful. Nakosnik consisted of a large number of thin braids (over 70) of dead hair decorated with coins or beads. It was warn until the 1930-ies.

Women covered their heads with headscarves which were called šamija regardless of the colour, design or fabric (wool or cotton). In the 20th century, large, square-shaped manufactured scarves were worn. They were usually printed with designs like leaves or roses. This scarf worn by young girls and brides was called pervazlija.

Around the neck, girls wore a piece of jewellery called mreža (net). It was a futa, diamond shaped ornaments prevailed. Beads were threaded on horse hairs.
ribbon, 20 centimetres long and 2 centimetres across, with various geometrical ornaments, made of tiny multi-coloured beads.Just like on the

According to the type and shape of ornaments, there were three types of the futa: redara- the simple one with vertical stripes, kolarka- with diamond-shaped designs interwoven with stripes and pervazlija woven, with white cotton designs, worn by girls and young women.

Male costumes were characterized by brightly coloured socks. They usually reaches the knees and were made of red wool. Depending on the design there were a few types: kolarke with diamond-shaped ornaments, or resnato kolo if the diamond was serrated. Some other designs included: big and small flowers, axes, etc...

After the liberation from the Turkish rule, the fez disappeared and people started wearing the šajkača and šubara which was made of lambskin. During the period of Bulgarian occupation people were not allowed to wear the šajkača. They had to wear caps which looked like baseball hats. In order to avoid this, people from Pčinja started wearing knitted woollen hats similar to šubara.

Pafte - Another kind of adornments was called pafte (belt buckles). Different names were used in different regions: pafte, pavte, tapte, kopče, kanice, čampre, pahte. They were worn on woven sashes. They were usually made of metal (silver, copper, bronze, brass), and sometimes of silver threads, beads of pearls. The adornments were usually made of gemstones, zircon and mother-of-pearl. The buckles were characterized by a variety of shape, which did not depend on the region, so different shapes could be found in the same region. There were six basic types: almond-shaped, rounded, rectangular, Pirot pafte, pjevac pafte and Šibenik tapte.

National ensemble KOLO - Pčinja