SLFK 212, March 25, 2004
A great deal of the matriarch/patriarchy discussion centers around babies and controlling paternity, or making sure that your kid is indeed your own
Well, now we do children and childbirth
This is indeed very important to Russian and Ukrainian culture
During Soviet era - one privileged class: the children
Already mentioned, woman not truly married until she has a child; her kin name changes
If she can be sent home, it is really only up to the point where she has a child
Some areas, she can still go to courtship parties and have a good time for one year or until she gives birth, whichever comes first
Parenthood extremely important to the man also
Nothing raises his status so much as having a son
As in place he sits at the table
Inheritance rights
Term "father" (otets, batiushka) is a term of honor and denotes status
Used not only for clergy, but for people with political power like
Tsar, Lenin, Stalin
If becoming parent is so important, then:
Pregnancy is extremely important and a great many beliefs and taboos go with pregnancy
Already discussed a number
Woman cannot steal, or there will be a mark on the baby
She cannot become frightened, or there will be a mark on the baby
No sewing on Fridays and holidays
Dad cannot chop wood on holidays
She has great power
If she asks you for something, you cannot refuse her
Or else all of the grain you have in storage will spoil
Do survey before I start new material
Taboos on pregnant woman especially after she starts to show
About 5th month or so
Work taboos - many of these are a good thing
Keep her from hard labor so that she will not endanger fetus
Though you read lots of things in Tian-Shanskaia
Kushneryk biography: mom was working in the field and I was born
She put baby aside, finishes row
Then picks up the kid and takes home
Work taboos associated with milk are symbolic
Great many ties between milk and blood
In kin terms: milk mother (wet nurse) is virtually identical to blood kin
Folktales about milk-blood link
Witches and milk
Pregnancy is concealed as a good thing - so people will not evil eye the woman
Spirits especially like her and she will not be let out alone, so that they can have access to her, especially in bathhouse
That is where birth takes place in Russia
Bathhouse as a village medical establishment of sorts
Bloodletting done there
Various other cures
Evil-eye
Jealousy of women who don't have babies
Both married and unmarried, but of marriageable age
True jealousy within the household
Or at least ambiguous feelings
They (the other women) both want her to have a baby and are resentful of the elevation in status that will come with the baby
One manifestation of this protection is that there is nothing analogous to the baby shower
Do NOT buy or get ANY presents for the baby BEFORE it is born
Only once it is successfully out
This persists even now.
Delivery in bathhouse
Symbolic explanation - pregnant woman very dangerous to rest of family; esp. men - will deprive them of their virility
Dangerous to animals - will take away their ability to reproduce, spoil milk
Place of entry of spirits into the farmstead
Practical explanation of delivery in the bathhouse
Small and easy to heat and keep clean
Water readily available
Already mentioned that this is a medical locus of sorts
Heat helps with delivery?
Martha Jefferson and the Jacuzzi method
Who is present at delivery?
Women - what status?
Married for sure. In some areas, have be to before menopause; in other areas, does not matter as log as they are married
What relationship to bride?
Mother-in-law for sure
Own mother may come for first delivery
Various magic to ease birth and relieve pain
Unlocking of locks and untying of knots
Extreme cases - doors of the iconostasis in church
Pieces of stove under delivering mother
Wrapped in swaddling clothes of baby
Dad's clothes under mother - or used to swaddle baby
THERE ARE NO PAIN-KILLERS - AMONG SLAVS NOW ALSO
Use of heat (in bath house)
Martha Jefferson and the Jacuzzi
Use of massage
Use of towel
Importance of mortality at birth in female life expectancy
Better survival at birth is the single biggest factor contributing to women's survival
Changes in mortality at birth is what affects male/female ratios - previously, always more men than women
With improvements in delivery, more women than men
Midwife present or no?
Some sources say regularly, others - only if complications
When is midwife called?
Some areas - as soon as labor starts
Others - when kid about to come out
The stuff on TV is all wrong - labor takes MANY hours, can be as much as 24, esp. if this is first kid
How well trained is midwife?
Opinion varies a great deal
Various late 19th and then Soviet efforts to eradicate the midwife
Claim is that this is for medical reasons
Could it be for cultural reasons?
Midwives now essentially gone
Baby born in rod dom in city and in medpunkt in village
For the CEREMONIAL functions of the midwife, people appoint an honorary midwife or baba (nazvana baba) and she performs various rituals and baby magic
In some sources, calling midwife is delayed to save money
Men present only to cut umbilical cord
Father or eldest male, head of household
Male/female distinction right at birth
Umbilical cord cut on ax or on spindle
Ukrainian: delivery in the home
Use of towel or central beam
Couvade and dad helps
The string method of passing some of the pain on to dad
Ukrainian - midwife cuts the cord - or rather ties it and lets it break that way
Tying with hemp - male and female plants
The first bath of the child and the various herbs to affects its future
Perhaps she literally does tear as certain sources say she should
There is a certain point in the cord where it should naturally snap
Doing it this way allows the blood to stop flowing in the cord?
What is done with the afterbirth?
Buried in a special place in the cemetery
Buried in the icon corner
Buried under the threshold so child will always find way home
The ritual bath of the child
Special herbs
Their practical and symbolic functions
Sequestering the mother and child
3 days or 7 days
Midwife helps out around the house
Paying the midwife
Dad does it
Through water, so as not to touch the midwife and lose his fertility
Ukrainian welcome
Of mother and baby
Paying respects and acknowledging baby
Once it is born the more people who acknowledge the better
Like American honk your horn at the newly married couple
Attack on the mother-in-law
Her clothes ripped
She has gained in status by becoming a grandma and this is a ritual lowering of sorts
Like the "sacrifice" of the parents or god parents after the wedding
40 days after the birth
Baptism in some areas
In others, baptism done as quickly as possible
If the child is sickly and there are doubts it will survive, midwife does it so that the child won't die unbaptized
Some discussion of whether you should breast-feed right away or after 40 days
40 days mom and baby can't go out of the yard for evil-eye reasons
Vyvodyny in church after 40 days
Question of blood
No blood in the church except the metaphorical blood of the Eucharist
No meat (blessing of sausage for Easter must be outside)
Women who are bleeding cannot enter (use of grain - zhyto)
Baptism as a special ritual occasion
God parents should be your friends
Way to cement relationships
For the parents: people who are asked to be god parents are honored and thus beholden to the mom and dad
God parents are good for the child
Will take care of if something happens to the parents
And I have seen this done
Parents killed in car accident; god parents take over, no questions asked
Desire to have more that one set of god parents these days
Often 2
The "first-met" god parents when children keep dying
Giving up on the honor and the social bonds of god-parenting for the sake of the child
God should chose and if you end up with a bum as a god-parent, well, this is a sacrifice that God wanted you to make
Parents not allowed at the baptism
Possibly because it often takes place before 40 days
God parents come to the home
Godfather brings money to pay the priest and vodka
Godmother brings a special cloth to wrap the infant
Take to church
Have baptized
Bring back with special words
Often have to set over and ax or a knife in the doorway
Cut off the previous, non-baptized existence of the child
Then a BIG party
At baptism, fact of the child's birth is acknowledged for sure
At this point, you are pretty sure that the kid will make it and there is a big public event to celebrate
Kutia and uzvar in Russia
Seed and fruit
Beginning and end
Babina kasha in Ukraine
The kasha is equivalent to the child and will ensure his/her bodily wholeness
Plants, food and the child's body
"Baking" the sick child
Midwife has great powers
Foretelling the future of the child
Molding the child
Molding in general
The child's body is NOT seen as totally formed at birth
You have to help it along
What the midwife does to the head, etc.
Swaddling and the arms and legs