The first historical information about the “Koukers’ ritual” dates back to VI c. BC. The Koukers’ ritual is a pre-spring holiday with “masked participants”. It’s held at the end of February on the first Sunday before Lent, “Clean Monday” or “Dogs’ Monday”. The ritual itself reproduces the myth of the dying and resurrecting God of vegetation and fertility. That’s why a lot of explorers think that the Koukers’ ceremony keeps moments from the old days reverence to the Thracian god Dyonisius. Later on the cult of Dyonisius was transferred into Bulgarian culture. The ethnographies interpret the origin of the name “Kouker” in different ways. Some of them think that “Kouk” comes from the name Kamkas, Lithonian god of fertility who was worshipped by the Thracians. Another explorer finds a close relationship between Kamkas and the Veda’s god Uzra. He explains the name Uzra by Lithonian Ausra, Latin Aurora. Some other scientists explain the meaning of Kouker interpreting the word as a compound one: built by two parts the first “Kou” according to the Thracian phonetic laws comes from a root meaning cow, and the second one “keri”- from the Thracian “kera” meaning horn. So, literally Kouker means “cow’s horns”. The Slavs adopted koukera and added the Slavs’ suffix “-je/-ja”. In Nowadays Bulgarian language “-je” is replaced by “-i” and the result is “Koukeri”. In some South-eastern Thracian dialects the word “kouk’ja” or “matrokouk’ja” means phallus. In these parts a red phallus is used as a part of the staging of the ritual (It is considered that “red” is equal to the Albanian “Kouk”).

D   r  e                                                                                                                                                     Q   u  e   t                                                                                                                                                          K   o  u e  r  i