Tradition

The multicultural and distant past is reflected in all aspects of modern life, such as language, dance, music, food, dressing, arts, crafts, etc

The tradition is an integral part of the Cretans, who thankfully never abandoned their past and served it faithfully in every occasion. The Cretan dialect is considered the oldest in Greece and has become a subject for study and research. Dozens of words have purely archaic or ancient past, while many are the linguistic influences from Arabs, Venetians and Turks.

The Greek dances and music first appeared in Crete, where it is said that the mother of the Gods, Rhea, taught them to the Curetes (Cretan tribe). The most famous Cretan dance was the pyrrhic (the generalised name "pyrrhic" characterized all martial dances of antiquity). Today the Cretan dances, famous throughout Greece, constitute echoes of the dances of the Curetes or pyrrhic!

Many hand crafts remain alive on the island, while they have been abandoned in other places of Greece. Potters who mold the clay just like the Minoans did thousand years ago, carpenters who turn the wood of mulberry to lyre and lute, cobblers who create the Cretan buskins, daggers that convert steel to Cretan knives, women in the villages who still weave on the loom... All these arts, though clearly weakened, are still alive in several areas of the island, resisting stubbornly against the invasion of technology.