SLFK 214, February 3, 2004
Last lecture - various types of belief
Then plant survey
Then matriarchy video
Look at plant survey results - then
Recap and on to other systems of belief
Recap lower mythology - cult - higher mythology
Lower mythology < animistic thinking
Believing that things don't happen just because
That there is a will and a purpose to things
The computer doesn't just die on you when you have a course paper due
It happens because you have been bad
Or because there is some evil genius that sabotaged you computer
Someone doesn't just accidentally trip in the barn
It happens because you have neglected the animals
An animal doesn't just get sick
It happens because you bought an animal of the color that the domovoi or dvorovoi does not like
Or someone has evil-eyed your animal
Witchcraft beliefs are of this same sort and we will get to those shortly
Cult - veneration of a place, an object, a person
Here you have something concrete
Veneration of a particular icon (Virgin of Chernihiv)
Of a place - well in Snopot, considered life-giving, esp. at certain times of year
Of a group - for Slavs, it is ancestors
Higher mythology = religion
It is the OFFICIAL belief system
Folklore certainly deals with lower mythology
The various legends about place spirits
Folklore tells stories about cult items and figures
About return of the dead in general
About specific dead
But cult can also be incorporated into religion
Commemoration of the dead on certain religious holidays
Religion - can issue edicts against lower mythology
Can incorporate cults
Apocrypha are stories tangential to religion and those are pretty close to folklore
Christ as child not knowing own strength
Also, when one religion is replaced by another, the remnants of that religion can either be translated as in that chart in Ivanits where pagan gods are connected to Christian saints
Or - religion can be INVERTED
What was good > bad
Deity > demon
This is probably what happened to rusalka
Supposition that there was once goddess worship among the Slavs and that the Slavs - or their predecessors in this geographical area - were once matriarchal
Several versions of the matriarchy theory - view in conjunction to treatment of SPACE
One version - as in video
The Slavic lands, what is now Ukraine, were the origins of myths about Amazons (warrior women) and Centaurs, riders so much one with their horse that Herodotus thought they were half human and half horse
To go by video: a group that is now gone: Saromatians, Saracens, Scythians
Was warlike and had female warriors, on whom the Amazons of Greek mythology are modeled
These peoples are nomadic. When they settle down, being settled in one place becomes good, instead of being bad as before
New belief or social order INVERTS what was before to mark self as new
Perhaps also shift in gender roles
Perhaps also increased importance of possessions
Now LAND, a possession you cannot take with you to the grave and it is important that you marry, so that your land can go to your OWN offspring
Other version is according to Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe
Archeological evidence of female deities
Terracotta figurines are associated with fertility
Human
Crop
Animal
Hypothesis - a one point the Slavs (and other peoples in this part of the world) were matriarchal
Essentially female-dominated society which places a great deal of importance on crops and babies - sort of like represented on the terracotta figurines
So - very different from video
Matriarchal group is NOT war-like
Sedentary, agrarian, peaceful
Assumption is that, while babies are important, marriage is not
Rather, free-for-all
It matters who the mom is, but not the dad
Image of this group is sort-of like that of a pride of lions
Essentially female society, with males on the outside, admitted every so often for sex, whether that sex is seen as for pleasure or for procreation
Some supposition that this sort of culture does not understand the role of the male in conception
Since they practice agriculture, rather than animal breeding, don't realize the importance of the male
They are supposedly overrun by pastoral nomads
These are patriarchal
Because they breed animals, they know all too well how important the male is in conception
They also are not a free-for-all society
They have property and want to know whose children are whose - to pass property on to own children
They have marriage, basically to keep the women in line and assure female fidelity
So that all the children of a woman are the children sired by her husband
This group also happens to be aggressive and warlike
When they come upon the peaceful agriculturalists, the latter don't stand a chance
They are overrun by the patriarchal warrior group
For a while, you have a mixed matriarchal/patriarchal group
This is reflected in the video
Capsule version of this approach: the matriarchal group is sedentary
Essentially a society of women which lets men in when they want babies
Functions like a pride of lions with the males on the outside
Here, with new order, when males dominate, they come to prize the land
Again INVERSION: before females tied to land and males wander
New order is the reverse: males stay in one place and females move at marriage
Central elements whatever way you look at it are
Gender and marriage
Male dominance/female dominance
No marriage/marriage
Relationship to land (sedentary/nomadic)
Food choice (meat/vegetable or agrarian/animal breeding)
Some old beliefs are INVERTED
Rusalka stories are exactly descriptions of matriarchy
Male joins female in her abode
There is a baby, but it is out of wedlock (wedlock is not necessary for babies)
But rusalka beliefs are matriarchy INVERTED
Male joins female is BAD - he has to die to live underwater
Baby before marriage is bad
Some matriarchy elements are continued
In the period between goddess worship and Christianity, pantheon includes female deities
If we look back in time, we see that there was a pre-Christian pantheon of female deities
Rozhanitsa
Mokosh
Bereginia
Among others and Ivanits and Balzer will give you additional names
Some of these affect current belief directly
As in special reverence for Virgin, Paraskeva, Varvara
We know that there is a great deal of reverence for female saints and the Virgin Mary now
Portrayal of the Virgin in churches
Importance of Varvara
Paraskeva and structuring the whole year by Fridays
She is also a patroness of pregnant women and birth - the fertility motif once again
Virgin and Paraskeva associated with cloth and this is extremely important
Has ritual power
We know about earlier goddesses from manuscripts
From the survivals above
Also, some direct survivals
Embroidery motifs called Bereginia
Easter eggs with female figure used for protection, as of home
Wells called Rozhanitsa
These are usually thought to contain healing water
The female-dominated society usually presented as rather idyllic
Unrestricted sex - for pleasure, not babies
Agricultural group is peaceful
Patriarchal society has nostalgia for the system of the group that they put out of business
Guilt over displacing the various goddesses
Manifested in ideas of male sacrifice
Esp. to female deities, esp. those connected to the earth and to crops
World War II and sacrifice for the Motherland