Ancient Greek women had their own festival, Haloa, where they honored three deities with drinking, telling dirty jokes and carrying huge makeshift phalluses. Men were not allowed to attend.
The festival took place in Athens and Eleusis, and the deities honored were Demeter, goddess of agriculture, Dionysus, god of wine and festivities, and Poseidon, god of waters, horses, and protector of coastal crops. It was celebrated in midwinter towards the end of the Attic month of Poseidon and appears to be a fertility rite.
The origin of the word Haloa (Αλώα), according to the poet Philochorus, is related to the word Αλώς, meaning threshing floor. Rhetoricjan and satirist Lucian, however, suggests it derives from the word Αλωαί, which means vineyards.
Τhe months in the Attic calendar were lunar, which means they began with the rising of the new moon. For this reason, neither their duration nor when they began and ended was fixed. Thus, the month of Poseidon usually began in mid-December and ended around mid-January, although of course the exact day changed every year.
In ancient Attica, each month was divided into three approximately ten-day periods and there were no weekends for workers to rest. So each month had the necessary break periods when festivities took place for people to relax and have fun. Most of them were restricted to men, while in some others both men and women participated. However, Haloa stands out because it was exclusively for women who would celebrate it all out, even to the point of obscenity.
Women only
There is an alternative theory about the period when the women-only festival was held. Some scholars argue that Haloa were held in the month of June, so that it coincided with the harvest of the crops. However, the most common version is that it was celebrated around the month of December (Poseidon), when the new wines of the year were opened.
Scholars argue that the festival is associated with threshing—the separation of the grain of cereals, such as wheat, from the chaff—a task that also symbolized fertility. However, this does not seem so plausible if we believe that the festival was held in December, a season that has nothing to do with harvest and threshing.
However, some suggest that the festival was so named because it was held on the threshing floor in the field where such tasks were usually done but which were not used at that time of year.
Realistically, information about the festival is limited. This is no doubt related to the fact that the Haloa were attended exclusively by women, who in Ancient Athens had almost no knowledge of writing and reading, so they could not have recorded themselves what was happening there. At the same time, male writers would have little interest in recording what happened at a women’s festival, even if they learned about it indirectly from the women who participated in it.
The festival seems to have lasted for days and began in Athens, ending in Eleusis. The Poseidonian Procession followed and culminated with the initiation into the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone.
Since men were excluded from the festival, there was no hierophant, the male highest religious ruler of the festivals. Thus, the general “command” was held by the first priestess (prothieria), who had the privilege of presenting the gifts and initiating any young women who were not yet initiated.
The lewd festival
The festival began with a sacrifice which was overseen by the priestess and it may have been a bloodless one, that is to say it didn’t involve an animal. Animal sacrifices were forbidden, as the goddess Demeter only accepted fresh fruit.
Once the sacrifice had taken place, the women continued with a pannychis, an all night feast. Women from all strata of society were invited to celebrate, hetairai included, and the night was like an all-out competition in vulgarity.
Women, even virtuous wives, were encouraged to swear and discuss the sorts of things which would be considered shocking in everyday conversation. The Telesterion, a large building, is suggested as a location for all the bawdy chat and for the feast itself.
The dinner for the banquet was prepared by the archons of Eleusis, the male priests of the Eleusinian Mysteries, who left when they had completed the preparation. The food consisted of agricultural products and seafood. Here food and cakes shaped like genitals (male and female) were washed down with lots of wine.
However, there were certain foods that for some unknown reason were forbidden to be present at the dinner. These include eggs, pomegranates, apples, birds and certain types of fish. These foods were also forbidden at the Eleusinian Mysteries.
After the feast the action moved outside, though exactly what went on isn’t clear. Women poured onto the streets dancing and singing provocative songs and shouting insults. An inscription dated to the 4th century BC indicated 3 tons of wood was ordered for the festival. This might mean a massive bonfire, or seating to watch dances.
A kylix that dates to around 480 BC depicts two women dance around a large phallus. It’s plausible that such structures were built and the wood was used in part for these and for a bonfire.
When the festivities were over, the women buried the replicas of the genitals in the ground, because they believed that in this way vegetation and fertility were enhanced.
Phalluses and vulvae were directly associated with fertility and the god Dionysus, while they were also associated with the celebration of Demeter, who as the goddess of agriculture also symbolized fertility. Fertility was so important to the ancient Greeks that she was one of the first goddesses from the time of the Minoan civilization. She ensured both the flowering of nature and the reproduction of animals as well as the perpetuation of the human species.
Men had little involvement
It seems that men were not completely excluded from Haloa. According to some sources, when the High Priests of Eleusis left, leaving the women alone, they went outside Eleusis, where men were waiting for them.
The involvement of men does seem to have been secondary to the festival of the women. Male deities Poseidon and Dionysus are referenced as supporting characters in the festival. The latter has a more obvious connection, since there were agricultural elements to his worship. He was the god of the vine and of fertility. Phalli featured at the Haloa and they were certainly also a part of his worship.
With Poseidon the association is more complex: Poseidon the phytalmios (nourisher) was connected to the flooding of fields and the fertility of vegetation.
These festivals ended with games called “patrioi agoi” in which only those who had the right to participate in the Eleusinian Mysteries took part and not all Athenians, as was customary in other festivals.