Rasa Ardys-Juðka, Editor
Perspectives
The sugary, chocolatey smell, pastel colors, and stuffed, fuzzy bunnies of all sizes assail everyone who enters local stores these days. There hasn’t been a time that Easter hasn’t directly gone hand in hand with Easter bunnies, candy, and brightly-colored baskets. But, was it always that way for Lithuanian children?
Just as Lithuanians have their Father Christmas who visits good little children, they also have a kind, nurturing image for Easter. She is called Velyku Senelé or Grandmother Easter. Before Easter, she sits in her humble cottage and decorates her own hens’ eggs with traditional designs seen on every folk costume, sash, and woven article. These eggs are marguciai.
She thinks of the children who await her arrival Easter morning and chooses special colorings made from nature’s own fruits. Onion skins give an amber shade; beets present blues to a deep reddish purple; and sages color an egg different hues of green.
Early Easter, she places her baskets of marguciai into her horse-drawn cart and sets off for the villages around her. This is very hard work and the morning is short. Her friends from the forest help her by carrying her baskets to the different cottages and farms. Sometimes one or two tumble from the baskets. They nestle among the grasses and children look for them as a special treat.
How can Easter be Easter without the Easter bunny — even in Lithuania? Well, Grandmother Easter’s forest helpers are none other than the well-rested, energetic rabbits. They are also the ones who, in their clumsy haste, drop the eggs along the way.
These Easter bunnies are remembered by mothers who prepare for Easter day. They bake cookies in the shape of rabbits and place them alongside the colorful marguciai. Pastries, similar to those we’ve seen in food stores under the Polish name of chruschiki, are also baked. They are smaller and shaped a little differently. The ends are not squared, but a triangle is cut into the middle at each end. The pastries take on the look of little rabbit ears on both ends, and so are called kiðkio ausytés or rabbit ears. They also go by the name of zagaréliai.
The kindly Grandmother Easter and her friends leave behind symbols of renewal and joy as the Easter day ends. We remember them by using the Grandmother’s designs in our folk art and the rabbit’s thoughtful helpfulness in our actions with each other.