“to revoke, carried away, the love a woman, to stave off the suffering, to weep in secret for the injustices of society.
They were people that had to live out of the boundaries of society; because they wanted to live their lives in their own different way … their need for companionship led them to hashish. The “χασικλίδικα” (hashish songs) were the first rebetika songs. The rebetes smoked hashish in order to feel more comfortable when hanging out with their peers…Smoking hashish always calls for company.”
-Panos Savvopoulos
Rembetes 1933 in Karaiskaki, Piraeus. Left with bouzouki Markos Vamvakaris, in middle with guitar Yiorgos Batis
Rembetiko: The Music of Hashish
In the late 1800’s Greece was heavily influenced by the collapsing Ottoman empire. With the influx of Turkish refuges came a smoking mixing pot.
The ‘Rebetes’ (Turkish origin meaning “unruly” or ‘rebel”) hung out in the opium dens and ‘tekkes’ (rooms attached to coffee houses to smoke hashish) of underground Greece…
They were often refereed to as “Mangas” stemming from the Turkish “Manghes” meaning someone with no respect for authority, someone anti-establishment.
The Mangas were uniquely dressed, had a long moustache, with a special way of walking and manners of honor. This culture had ideals; besides dignity and honor “the special love to the wife and to mother…. Friendship, solidarity and mutual support”.
But what brought the Mangas culture together was the love for Music, Dance and Hashish…
“Chasiklides” Hashish smokers
Rembetiko music was born from these Mangas hanging out in the Tekkes smoking hashish singing ‘Chasiklidika’ or songs dedicated to hashish.
Hashish being illegal in Greece only fueled the Rebetika songs born in the heavy hashish filled rooms to remain out of the mainstream society…
Songs of love, pain, joys and dance were mixed with criminal activity, sex, drinking, drugs and a favorite with many Hashish…
It was only after WW2 that Rebetika music made its way into mainstream society only to be censored and absorbed into popular culture.
“The womb of rebetika was the jail and the hash den. It was there that the early rebetes created their songs. They sang in quiet, hoarse voices, unforced, one after the other, each singer adding a verse which often bore no relation to the previous verse, and a song often went on for hours. There was no refrain, and the melody was simple and easy. One rebetis accompanied the singer with a bouzouki or a baglamas (a smaller version of the bouzouki, very portable, easy to make in prison and easy to hide from the police), and perhaps another, moved by the music, would get up and dance.”
-Elias Petropoulos
Papazoglou (guitar) with a group of musicians (and the hooks on the table!)
The Baglamas
by Stelios Keromitis & Stratos Payoumtzis – 1946
The baglama is playing
and I’m dancing zembekiko
bring me the bowl
I’m going to smoke the nargile
Since I found myself in your company,
I’ll smoke in your room
Stelios Keromitis & Stratos Payoumtzis – I Baglamades (1946;The Baglamas)
Smoking in tekkes
Five Mangas in Piraeus
by Yiannis Etziridi
Five Mangas in Piraeus,
Passed by the hash house ,
And one of them said,
Let’s go smoke a hookah.
They went into the hash house,
And they called the owner.
“bring us a well made hookah”,
With hash from Persia.
You charge it for two 5 bills,
But I’ll give you three,
And if the hash is good,
We will prefer you.
They smoked the hookah and it was bad,
That’s why they called the owner.
They didn’t like it at all,
Because it was plain tobacco.
“Hey, did you think you were talking to a beginner?”
“We are not kids, and we are not junkies.”
“At the top of that hill,
I have a hidden hookah,
Let’s go, guys, to smoke,
Let’s leave this place.”
“Hey, did you think you were talking to a beginner?”
“We are not kids, and we are not junkies.”
And when they close up the hash houses,
Near Piraeus and Kremidarou,
I will carry my old rug to my cave.
Five Mangas in Piraeus
Rebetes, smoking hashish in a “Tekke”
“We were wondering around the dens and there we met. Stratos (Pagioumtzis) was singing then and I was playing bouzouki. He was a ferryman. They called him koutomagkas –”dumb mangas” because he was full of hashish…”
– Markos Vamvakaris
The Mastouras
When I am getting high and drugged
I melt from dizziness,
I forget all my sufferings
And all of my worries.
Nature endowed me
with afflictions and sufferings,
All pass and disappear
Only with hashish.
With this I become calm and spend time
to gladden my body,
from the high mood
I have in my head.
I was born a mangas
And a mangas I will die,
let the hashish plants grow
on the top of my grave.
by Markos Vamvakaris 1934
Markos Vamvakaris. O Mastouras (English sub.)
Zeibekiko dancer. Henri Cartier Bresson – Cafe Piraeus.Greece 1953