The story
Naoussa Genitsaroi and Boules in Naoussa
Naoussa's Genitsaroi and Boules carnival tradition traces to 1705, when the town's young men resisted an Ottoman military draft and were hunted down, and to 1706, when survivors donned Armatole uniforms and the Prosopo mask in defiant celebration rather than mourning. The costume, white foustanella, decorated vest, mask and a four-metre shroud-like handkerchief, is performed on four fixed dates across the carnival season.
Naoussa's carnival tradition traces to a specific act of resistance in 1705, when Ottoman authorities tried to draft the town's young men into their army and the youths killed the Sultan's representative instead, fleeing to the mountains where the Turks hunted most of them down.