SLFK 214, January 29, 2004
Started out with explanation of belief in spirits as animistic thinking
May SEEM primitive - but we all do it
Not just backwards peasants
Slavs attribute special meaning to soil, see space as alive
And have place spirits
Americans tend to have machines that are alive, interact with people
Artificial Intelligence - ultimate living machine - like a little boy
The teddy bear is pretty cute too
People's reaction - the various destroy the machines "circuses"
Matrix is a machine - that feeds off of people
I/Thou relationship is supposed to be characterized by attribution of WILL
You interact with nature and placate it because it is a living thing and is pleased by your gifts of black bread and milk
If things go wrong, it is because the appropriate spirit is pissed at you for being bad, or simply transgressing on the spirits territory
Me and ice storm
Students and messed-up schedules
Animistic thinking produces lower mythology - something that is, was, and will be
With appropriate cultural differences
For Slavs, it is the system of place spirits
These change
They blend with other belief systems
But, while Slavs see space as alive, this belief will continue
Plant survey
Lower mythology is a belief in something that is not real - though I wouldn't tell a Slav that
Actually, some of this is tongue-in-cheek, among elite
But when they get pushed - like mom with domovoi at Christmas
Various cults - things seen as especially important
Here something EXISTS and is accorded special value, special meaning
For Slavs, it is ancestors
They will see how important ancestors and crops are
How often ancestors are celebrated during the calendar year
Could be a cult of a particular place, say a well
This is NOT a belief in a place spirit, though the well could certainly be inhabited by a vodianoi or a rusalka
But belief that a certain well is sacred, that it has healing waters, that sacrifices need to be made to it
Sacrifices made to all bodies of water and certain times of the year
A well which is the center of a cult would be one that you would approach with a special problem, like an illness
So far, what they have is ancestor cult
And this was around a long time ago
And it blends with the domovoi, because he is the spirit of the place where people live, die and become ancestors, namely the house
And cult persists now and there are various religious holidays when you go out and have picnic with the dead and honor the ancestors
Finally - higher mythology or religion
Whether you see it as mythology or religion depends on your belief
Current religion of most of the East Slavs is Orthodoxy
What I was arguing at the end was that the rusalka is NOT a place spirit, not part of lower mythology, but remnant of an old religion
She IS different from place spirits and note duplication of her and vodianoi (though they can marry)
Every body of water will have a vodianoi, but only a body of water where a young woman has drowned will have rusalka
Supposition that there was once goddess worship among the Slavs
Archeological evidence - map
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
Amazon video