Secrets of the ancient Aries. Digest of articles

In the Russian tradition, it was women, girls and girls on the spinning wheels, who were holding pancake in the apron’s pocket, from the mountain to Shrovetide. But the spinning wheel in Russian ritual practice was by no means a simple tool for obtaining a thread. She was the embodiment of the Tree of Life, with which the Goddess – the Mother of God is directly connected. This tree carried the Eternal Time on its branches – past, present and future.

The spinning wheel was a grave monument and connected the world of the living and the world of those who passed away, ancestors and descendants. As the embodiment of the original deity, combining both feminine and masculine principles, the spinning wheel was a symbol of fertility and contributed to an increase in the fertility of everything living on Earth. And the threads obtained on a spinning wheel are not so simple. The very word «niti» in Sanskrit means literally «correct behavior, life wisdom, custom», and nitka – «musical melody, song».

And here it is appropriate to recall the ancient Egyptian goddess Neith (Nit), who was worshiped as «the father of fathers and mother of mothers», «All-Creator», combining both male and female principles, «Lady of the Waters» at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC during the first dynasties of the kings of Egypt. Her hypostases later became Hathor, Isis, Nephthys and Serket. Herodotus identified Neith with Athena, the owl Goddess, the Mother of matriarchy. It is worth emphasizing that the sacred city of the goddess Neith was called «Lunyt» (Lunit), and the ancient Greeks called it Latopolis (city of Lato), Polis Laton (city of Latona) or simply Lato.

Together, they personified Mother Earth, which cannot be loved or praised. Awakening from a long winter sleep, she was glorified by songs, and bonfires, and violent merriment. People asked Mother Earth for happiness, abundance and a rich harvest, burning a scarecrow from the straw left after threshing last year’s grain. And giving this symbol of the past year the elements of fire, they returned to the Earth ashes and ashes so that they would be reborn with new breads (note that in the Lithuanian tradition, Sauvius is the founder of the tradition of corpse burning and the guide of souls).

Everything returned to the eternal mother’s beginning. And the women who gave birth, raised and married their daughters, represented this Universal and Eternal Mother in the world of people, calling her by the most ancient name Mother-in-law.

Great Mother Avina

Even in the era of Paleolithic proto-farming, people already clearly realized that the straw burnt in the fields, remaining after grain collection, increased soil fertility.

This is probably the very source, the starting point from which the widespread straw cult subsequently grew. On straw (in the Russian folk tradition): they gave birth to children, danced on Christmastide and Shrovetide, the bride had to stand in front of the crown, washed, washed the dead, laid them on the table for Christmas and only after that they laid the table with an abusive tabletop, and it was supposed to die on the straw. Sheaves of straw and a straw effigy that were burned on Shrovetide, in this context, were symbols of fertility, happiness, abundance – the very «dead body» of last year’s harvest, which was given to the elements of fire and, having turned into soot and ashes, gave rise to new life, a new harvest.

And since in the Paleolithic antiquity, the collection, storage and processing of grain «were occupied by women -" girls, young men», and the earth itself was associated with the image of a woman -" Mother Earth "– there is nothing surprising in the fact that the Maslenitsa straw effigy was given female features. And this rite does not at all testify to the «bestial manners» of our ancestors, as some modern «intellectuals» claim, being horrified at the burning of a scarecrow and believing that its place before, before the adoption of Christianity, was occupied by a living woman, during the burning of which everyone around her people sang, danced and rejoiced.

Such a terrible picture could only be born in a very sick imagination. Indeed, even during the numerous auto-da-fe (burning of heretics) in Christian Western Europe, there was nothing like this (songs, dances and violent fun).

During Shrovetide, participants in the ritual sprinkled ashes and soot from a fire on each other and even on the floor in the huts, thus joining in fertility, abundance, happiness, wealth.

And here’s what’s interesting. In the ritual songs of Christmas fortune-telling (submarine songs), we meet the image of the Owl precisely in connection with smoke, ash, soot or a hole in the barn through which the sheaves were transmitted. So in a sublime song (recorded by P. V. Shein at the end of the 19th century), predicting poverty and widowhood, it says:

«Sitting owl

Over the boot.

Wonderful or lyadu!

Who sang

Good for that!».

But almost the same song foreshadowed the wedding:

«And the owl sits

Before the dry

The falcon has arrived

He tore off the crest!».

Here «sapushka, sopuha» is:

1) an air vent near the stove;

2) soot in the pipe;

3) a carved hole in the wall, which throws hay;

4) smoke in a chicken house.

And, what is no less interesting, «sipukha» is the North Russian dialect name of the owl itself.

Among the songs foreshadowing death, one of the attributes is the barn (or threshing floor):

«A woman sits on a barn

The canvas tears.

Ilea, Ilea!».

Or:

«I walk around the humenets

I lay a towel.

Holy evening!».

In turn, the girls complain in sacred songs that they are forced to «ram the sheepskin» or «threshing floor» (Notes of P. V. Shein in the Oryol and Simbirsk provinces).

Where does such a more than strange attitude to the barn (threshing floor) come from and what does it have in common with the stove (soot, ash, ash) and, ultimately, with the owl?

Let us turn for the answer, first of all, to the «East Slavic Ethnography» by D. K. Zelenin, which says that: «In the swamps and forests where the North Russians and Belarusians live, the drying of the sheaves in the barn is still preserved, although now this is rarely done. Until the beginning of the 20th century, barns existed here everywhere, and only the widespread use of threshers led to their rapid disappearance… The simplest variety of barn for drying sheaves is called Shish… A real barn… it’s a rough log building. According to popular beliefs, in the pit of the barn lives the barn or the barn, the barn’s father. His appearance is uncertain».

It is worth emphasizing that the archaic form of Shisha is a cone made of poles or logs, under which a hole is dug, where a fire is made to dry the sheaves, and extremely resembles the shape of a grave mound, mound or pyramid.

B. A. Rybakov noted that the Northern Russian barn is a place of the cult of fire – Svarozhich, which in various forms survived until the beginning of the 20th century everywhere.

«Fire Svarozhitsu pray.» Fire is called «god», «holy fire»; while blowing up the fire, prayers were recited. The fire is transferred from the old dwelling to the new… «We honor fire as a god,» said the inhabitants of Podolia. Ancient sources speak of the cult of Svarozhich under the barn, where a fire should burn, drying the sheaves. The Belarusians, making a fire under the barn, threw an unmilled sheaf of rye at it as a sacrifice to the fire.» In one of the sermons of the 12—13th century those who pray «fire under the barn» are sharply condemned. Very often, the «barn» (or Ovinnitsa) was perceived in the early 20th century as a spirit of fire. It should be noted that in the Vilnius province the Belarusians washed in barns, and in the Russian provinces they gave birth in barns. The barn was also directly related to the wedding ceremony. So there is evidence that on the first day of the wedding they drank beer in the barn. Then, during the wedding, the bride’s parents «drank the barn.» And, finally, at the end of the wedding, the ceremony of «pouring the barn» was performed, when a fire was lit in the barn, shouted «fire» and ran to fill the fire with beer (information of L. A. Tultseva).

The deceased was brought to the barn to be put on straw (wheat or pea). The idea that the souls of the dead (navi) leave bird tracks was widespread until the early 20th century. Therefore, on Thursday of Holy Week, in the bathhouse or barn (which served as a bathhouse), the floor was sprinkled with ashes so that the «navi» left a bird trail. In Bulgarian folklore, the «navi» have left a trail of birds. In Bulgarian folklore, «navi» are the birdlike souls of the dead, flying at night and frightening with their cry. But mostly only owls and eagle owls fly at night, i.e. representatives of one family.

In the folk tradition, there were special holidays in which it was forbidden to heat Riga.

They were called «the name of the barn.»

These included:

Exaltation (September 14),

Thekla Zarevnitsa day (September 24),

Feast of the Most Holy Theotokos (October 1).

It is interesting that at the end of the threshing process, pancakes are baked, brought to the barn and put on the oven there. Pancakes, as you know, in the Russian folk tradition are associated with the cult of ancestors and the moon – «the sun of the dead», and in the archaic version they are unleavened cakes baked on hot stones in ancient hearths.

Ovinnik (or barn) seemed to our peasants the most powerful of all the spirits around them -«experienced owners begin to drown the barn in no other way than by asking the “ owner ” for permission. When the last sheaf is removed, they turn to the barn with their faces and with a low bow they thank the barn». And, finally, «barns», like baths, are a favorite place for girls’ fortune-telling. They come here on Vasilyev’s evening, at midnight, between the second and third roosters (the most convenient for conspiracies).»

Earlier, grain pits were used as warehouses for communal grain, which were arranged in the threshing floor. Ovin (or threshing floor, riga) is a place where grain was dried and stored.

And where grain is stored, mice will appear. And where mice appear, owls appear. And in this case, owls are welcome guests.

The owl that flew to the granary is still a gift for the farmer today. She saves the crop by killing the mice. No cat can compare to an owl here. In general, even in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the attitude towards the barn and the owl in the Russian folk tradition was special.

And here are some examples.It was believed that if an owl flies into a village, sits under the roof of a house and screams, then a big fire will happen in this house, or even in the whole village.

But at the same time, the owl screams to the newborn.

A. V. Gura in his work «Symbols of animals in the Slavic folk tradition» noted that «in the Owl they see the embodiment of the devil… According to the ideas of the Poles and Serbs, witches often turn into Owl. Poles have a belief that an owl is dead during the day and only comes to life in the dark. Everywhere, by its appearance near the house, the Owl portends death… There are known beliefs about the Owl as the embodiment of the soul of the deceased…

With its cry, the Owl cries out the souls of the dead (among the Poles), lures children out of the house and deprives them of life (among the Serbs). The owls guarding the treasures are the souls of the longtime owners of buried treasures (among the Poles).»

But with all this, «the scream of an owl is also perceived as a prediction of the birth of a child… The image of the newborn in connection with Sova appears in some Belarusian reaping songs in which women urge each other to catch the Owl in life. «An owl appears as a celibate, widow, or dissolute (unfaithful wife, promiscuous girl).» And here it makes sense to recall Lilith – Ishtar – Astarte – the Goddess Owl of ancient Sumer (2 thousand BC).

«Cry of the Owl and some subtle songs about the Owl, writes A.V. Gura – promise the birth of an illegitimate child from a widow or a girl. The Belarusian abusive expression «Smaked Sava» is addressed to the girl who gave birth before marriage… The Russians called the owl a «dissolute» inn «woman».

The image of the Owl develops erotic symbolism. In Polish riddles, the Owl is directly related to the female genital organ. Marriage and erotic symbolism is inherent in the image of the Owl in the wedding ceremony. For example, in Ukrainian songs performed before the wedding night, the Owl symbolizes the bride. «And, finally, «as a talisman for the people of the city, the Owl is nailed to the door of a house to ward off illness and misfortune. For Poles – to the gates of the barn, to frighten mice, for Ukrainians they hang Owl in the stable so that the brownie does not torture the horses».

And how can you not remember the «Owl-Mother-in-law», which herded horses in the Vologda ritual song:

Turu-turu, shepherd, do you sound far off?

From sea to sea, to Keyeva town

There is our homeland, in the homeland there is an oak tree,

An owl is on the oak, an owl is my mother-in-law, she grazed horses.

And further. «The owl has extraordinary properties. If the heart of this bird is put together with the left leg or at least one claw on a soundly sleeping person, he will immediately tell what he thinks to do in the future, and will reveal all his innermost secrets».

Researchers of the «owl question» also note the following about the Owl: «Since she is afraid of daylight and flies out only at dusk or at night, lives mainly in old or destroyed buildings, she is credited with demonic significance… takes the form of an owl (here it is appropriate to recall the Russian: «I went to the devil’s grandmother!»)…

An owl feather is worn by people who roam at night and want to get rid of the fear of darkness. Obviously, the owl was once a symbol of the ability not to feel fear and move freely even in the dark, that is, to be initiated into the secrets usually hidden for mortals».

For all the vices and virtues attributed to the patriarchal Sowa, in the Vologda and Vladimir ritual songs that survived until the 80s and 90s of the 20th century, she appears before us as:

«Owl – Mother-in-law», that is, the Foremother;

«Lady of the Horses», that is, the Great Mother Goddess of Indo-European peoples;

«Little telly motley», that is, Mother Earth of Indo-Iranians (Aryans).

B. A. Rybakov in «The Paganism of the Ancient Slavs» speaks of the essence of the worldview of primitive farmers «in the form of the formula: grain + earth + rain = harvest and the reflection of all links of this formula by means of a female figure… Woman and earth are compared and equalized on the basis of the ancient idea of fertility, fertility… supposed to sculpt a female figurine, then grain and flour were added to the soft clay, merging the agrarian and female principles».

Draga Garashina, and after her Maria Gimbutas, expressed the idea that in the Eneolithic figurines (such as the clay goddesses of Tripoli), the Great Bird Goddess appears before us. B. A. Rybakov writes the following about this: «one should warn against some insufficiently substantiated propositions of M. Gimbutas. These include, first of all, the hypothesis of the great Bird – Goddess. The author often relies on the primitive stylization of sculptures, but the avian features attributed to them do not seem convincing. Perhaps a retrospective analysis should also be applied: from the later winged sirens – Sirins, to go deeper into the origins of this image».

Our North Russian ritual song about «Owl-Mother-in-law», recorded by A. M. Mehnetsov in 1974 in the Vologda Oblast, seems to have put an end to this discussion. The favorite plot of M. Gimbutas was confirmed.

But to talk about where, the origins of this image, should be based not only on the Neolithic images of women with owl heads found in the Russian North (6—4 millennia BC), and Trypillian owl-headed goddesses of the Eneolithic (4- 3 millennium BC). We will have to descend into those depths of millennia when agriculture was born on the territory of the Russian Plain (and the Russian North, in particular).

50 – 48 millennia BC is the beginning of the warm Mologo-Sheksninsky interglacial. As the atlas monograph «Paleogeography of Europe for the Last Hundred Thousand Years» (1982) and «Paleolithic of the USSR» (1984) testify, this was a time when in the territory of most of Western Europe it sharply became colder. The Wurme (Valdai) glaciation led to the prevalence of the tundra with birch-spruce woodlands on these vast expanses. But unlike Western Europe and Siberia, the territory of Eastern Europe was warm. And this warm Mologo-Sheksninsky interglacial period lasted, with small intervals, almost 27 thousand years – up to 23 millennium BC.

For those who find this unbelievable, I advise you to refer to the «Paleolithic of the USSR» (Publishing House «Science») published in 1984 in the series «Archeology of the USSR» Here on page 30 is placed «Comparison of the development patterns of the natural process of the Valdai (Wurm) time of Western Europe (A), Eastern Europe (B) and Siberia (C).

Authors write: «The relatively mild climatic conditions of the Molo-Sheksna interglacial allowed the population to spread widely throughout the Russian Plain, up to the Urals and the Pechora basin… In the north-east of Europe, which includes the vast expanses of the Volga and Ural regions, outstanding monuments of the early Paleolithic period have been found over the last mountains, and a turning point towards intensifying the work on their study. Certain areas of the Russian Plain (northwest) in the Molo-Sheksna time may not have been inhabited. It should be emphasized that from the south to the north of the Russian Plain, during the formation and development of the Upper Paleolithic, it was not nomadic hunters who moved, but the sedentary tribes who built long-term dwellings of various types, leading complex household activities based on hunting and gathering… The main object of hunting for the population of the southwest of the Russian Plain in the Molo-Sheksna period was the horse… Hunting for herds of horses and reindeer required the improvement of throwing weapons and, perhaps, at such an early time led to the invention of the bow and arrows».

By this time, such archaeological sites as: Byzovaya (northeast of Europe, Pechora region, right bank of the Pechora River), Sungir (near Vladimir), Bear Cave (upper reaches of the Pechora River, foothills of the Northern Urals), Ostrovskaya (500 km to the south Bear Caves), Kapovaya Cave with wall cave painting (upper reaches of the Belaya River, mountainous region of the Southern Urals), and, of course, Kostenki on the Don River.

Archaeologists note that they all belong to the period of the Molo-Sheksna interglacial period, which lasted practically from 50—48 millennia BC. up to 24—23 millennia BC).

«Kostenkovo-Streletskaya culture of the early period of the Late Paleolithic, leading its beginning from the Mousterian era» (which ends with the end of the Mikulinsky interglacial), reached by the beginning of the Ostashkovsky glaciation (24—23 millennia BC) «an amazingly high degree of development, not inferior to in many respects to later archaeological cultures.»

Thus: «Achievements of the material and spiritual culture of the population of Eastern Europe during the Molo-Sheksna interglacial period underlie, in turn, the highest flowering of the late Paleolithic culture of this region, which took place in the early period of the Ostashkov glaciation.»

Archeology confirms that by the beginning of the cold snap, vast settlements existed in the center and north of the Russian Plain, which «testify to the complex domestic and economic activities, the high level of culture, reflected not only in numerous remarkable works of art, but also in a highly developed and varied homebuilding technique. These monuments allow us to draw a definite conclusion about the significant population of the preglacial zone of the Ostashkov glacier at a time when the climate became more severe. The population led a sedentary lifestyle and provided itself with stocks of vital resources for the winter.»

Archaeologists speak of «long ground dwellings with hearths in the center, surrounded by small dugouts in combination with storage pits.» In these «strong and long-term dwellings of the population of the Russian Plain» there are a large number of «grater pestles and real grain-grinding slabs of granite, quartzite and Shoksha sandstone. Cooking plant foods in ordinary ways, similar to those used in agricultural crops, in the Paleolithic is a rather rare phenomenon, but not exclusive».

The authors of «Paleolithic USSR» emphasize that «Finds of pestles-blackfishes are known in the Late Paleolithic monuments of other regions, but, perhaps, only in the south-west of the Russian Plain, they are found in such quantities, starting from the Mousterian industries and passing like a red thread through almost all the different cultural and different times of the Late Paleolithic industries».

They testify that: «In recent decades, important data have been obtained that already in the Middle and especially in the Late Paleolithic (recall that this is the ancient Stone Age from 70 thousand BC to 12 thousand BC) forms of complicated gathering began to be widely used related to the processing and preparation of plant foods. Primitive archeology now possesses massive and indisputable materials proving a long prehistory of agriculture, which began at least from the end of the Middle Paleolithic era. In the south-west of the Russian Plain, for three or four tens of millennia, peculiar stone, sandstone pestles-grains in the form of small tablets, usually found together with stone slabs, developed and improved… The wide distribution of these tools indicates that the emergence of agriculture is preceded by various forms developed, complicated gathering associated with the preliminary complex processing of the collected plant food in the form of edible roots and grains».

40—50, and maybe 70 thousand years ago, the population of the Russian Plain (our ancestors, by the way) collected cereals and ground them with grater pestles on stone graters, getting flour. Then the question arises – what were these cereals? The answer is given by the atlas-monograph «Paleogeography of Europe over the last hundred thousand years», where on the territory of the Russian Plain, during the Valdai glaciation, along with forests of birch, pine and spruce, stretching from the Carpathians to the Middle Pechora along the south-west-north east, there are huge meadow grass steppes stretching far to the north. It must be assumed that the grasses in these steppes were endemic to these latitudes, which require 18—20 hours of indirect solar irradiation and an abundance of moisture in the soil for normal vegetation. Such «plants of long daylight hours» (according to academician LS Berg) are rye, barley, oats, wheat, flax and peas. It is they who, apparently, made up the ancient meadow grass steppes of high northern latitudes.

And if this is so, then the grain had to be collected. And women, of course, did this, since even at the beginning of the 20th century, as «stingy songs» testify, this work was performed by

«girls, young people» (recording by Shane P. V., late 19th century):

«Wheat in the field

Ripe stood.

May, may,

Mayu, green!

Ripe stood

Waving a spike

Waving a spike

Her voice was hooting.

«Girls, young men,

Come out, reap!

I cannot stand, wave a spikelet!».

Or:«We reaped, we reapedReaped, reaped, —Young reapersSickles gold».Or:«Petrova’s wifeOn your ownI went out earlyDaughters-winchesQuail DaughtersI took it out with me.«Reap, daughters-in-law,Reap, daughters!Winch daughtersQuail Daughters!».

And, finally, a full description of the process, which, apparently, has not changed in its structure from the Paleolithic to the present day, since this record was made in 1964 in the Pskov region (from E.F. Razumova):

«А я, молодЕнька, рожь топчУ.

Рожь топчУ, рожь топчУ.

Травку-муравку вытопчУ,

ВытОпчу, вытопчУ.

ЗеленОе жито вырастёт,

ВырАстет, вырастёт.

А я, молодЕнька, буду жАть,

БудУ жать, буду жАть.

И да в снОпочки вязАть,