27 November · аг. Скірмантава · State List 33АК000117
"Ката пячы"
On the evening before the fast a cat is shaped out of buns and hung from the ceiling on a cord. The players are hoisted up to it one by one on a pitchfork: jump, bite and the piece is yours. Everyone else, meanwhile, is shoving to make you miss. Whoever bites off the tail wins. Here there is an oven in front of all that: the cat has to be baked first. And whatever comes out of the oven is the cat you will have to bite.
"Ката пячы"
bite off the tail
— —
- yours
- 0
- theirs
- 0
- tries
- 0
trough
The trough is full and the oven is hot. 6 buns make a cat.
How to play
- Hold and a lump of dough pulls away from the trough. A big bun is easier to bite later. A small one is harder and it burns faster in the oven.
- The trough holds dough for exactly 6 buns. The sixth is the tail and without a tail there is no winning. Remember to leave some for it.
- Let go and the lump goes into the oven. Press when the bun turns golden. Raw comes out heavy and slippery; burnt comes out wide and crisp, but light as a feather.
- Then the cat is hung up and the real thing begins. A heavy cat swings lazily, a light one tears about. And with every piece bitten off it gets lighter.
Source
State List of Historical and Cultural Values of the Republic of Belarus, no. 33АК000117, entered in 2017: the rite "Ката пячы", village of Skirmantava, Dziaržynsk district. The rite rests on the Redźka family and the ensembles "Сваякі" and "Весялуха", every year since 1993.
How Belarusian it is
A rare case where the word “unique” holds up: nothing like it turned up among Russians, Ukrainians or Poles, however hard we looked. Then again, the rite does not belong to all of Belarus either. It belongs to one village. And that is how it is shown here: as Skirmantava’s.
Why 27 November
It is the last evening before the Piĺipaŭka fast. The food is deliberately rich and filling: the fast starts in the morning and it allows neither meat nor games.
What we made up ourselves
The record says little: the cat is baked from buns, hung from the ceiling, reached on a pitchfork, the others shove and the tail decides. Every number is ours: how much dough the trough holds, what a bun’s size is worth in the biting, how raw and burnt change the swing, how many tries the tail allows. Baking as a half of the game is ours too: in the record the buns are simply baked, nobody competes over them. And the 3 at the table are invented: Hanna, Symon and Alesik. They deliberately give conflicting advice: the tradition comes in variants and none of them is more right than the others.