The Folk-Lore Journal/Volume 7/The Beliefs and Religious Superstitions of the Mordvins
A shirt ornamented with six stripes is the proudest dress of Mordvin girls. They are sewn in patterns with different coloured worsteds, especially red, green, and blue, upon a white linen shirt on three sides from the shoulder to the skirts. The collars and skirts are similarly adorned. A mark of the highest degree of pride is to have a girdle of twelve pieces of linen. They usually sew on their girdles a number of worsted fringes, or the shells called "snakes heads," or silver coins. If a Mordvin girl is in her smartest dress she arranges twelve pieces of fine linen, a good half ell in width, to hang behind her below the the girdle, so that the lower piece overlaps the one above, and the lowest of all reaches to the knee. These flounces (rutsyat) are also ornamented with worsted, or by the rich with gold thread and thread fringes. The second song of thanks is as follows:
THE BELIEFS AND RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES OF THE MORDVINS.[1]
O far as can be traced back historically, the Mordvins have always occupied the territory on both sides the Surà, between the Oka and the Volga, in the governments of Nizhni-Novgorod, Simbirsk, Pensa, Tambof, and Saràtof. Their number amounts to about half a million, but they are divided into two sections, called Ersa and Moksha. The former are the more numerous, and are chiefly found in the first two governments. The Mordvins are also found in considerable numbers in the governments of Kazàn, Samara, and Orenburg, but are believed to have extended themselves so far in more recent times. From a linguistic point of view they belong to the Finns, and of all the eastern members of the family they live furthest south, and are nearest to the Finns proper as regards language. The number of words they have in common is very considerable, apart from the similarity of grammatical structure. Such are—bow, arrow, boat, oar, bear, beaver, dog, calf, skin, marrow, honey, dough, pestle, mortar, tongs, house, weaving, twisting, span, ell, summer, autumn, cloud, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, &c. Well into the last century the Mordvins were still heathens, and the last public act of sacrifice on record took place as late as the year 1813.
The information about to be given was originally published by the late Mr. Melnikof, a great authority on everything connected with the Mordvins, in the Moscow journal Ruskii Vyastnik, during the months of June, September, and October, 1867. A Finnish translation appeared in several numbers of the Literary Monthly Paper (Kuukaus Lehti) for 1873, 1874, and this I have translated as literally as possible, though with some curtailments, owing to the diffuseness of style.
Mordvin Beliefs.
So far as is known, the Mordvins never worshipped images or natural objects as such. It is true they paid honour to sacred trees and offered sacrifices at their roots, but they never made gods of them. Though they prayed to the sun and moon, they always regarded them as creations of God.
When they have offered up sheep, geese, &c. at the time for sowing the summer corn, they beseech God for fine weather and a productive year, and conclude with the following address to the sun.
"O exalted sun, that shineth over the whole realm, shine also over us and our crops."
At the new year, when prayers are made at night, they terminate their offerings and prayers by an invocation to the moon.
"O moon, that shineth over the whole realm, shine also over us."
The Mordvins believed in one supreme God, on whom the whole visible and invisible world depended. The Ersa and Teryukhans[2] called him Pas, or Cham Pas, i.e., supreme God ; by the Mokshas he was termed Shkai.
Their conception of him is this. He has no beginning nor end, and is alike invisible to men and to the minor deities. He dwells in the sky, but how no one exactly knows. He rules the earth, and all creation takes its origin from him, even the good and evil spirits. Though he is the creator and protector of the universe, he arranges everything by means of ministerial gods and goddesses. Cham Pas loves what he has made, and from him all good issues. But, that men should not forget him, he allowed Shaitan to create evil beings, and placed them in morasses and deep waters. If a man does anything against Cham Pas he allows him to be tormented by an evil spirit ; but, if he repents and prays, the evil being is restrained and ordered to abide in the water. But private prayers[3] are insufficient to propitiate the exasperated supreme God : both a general and a family worship of the ministerial deities is imperative, and still more so a good life.
The usual Moksha prayer to the supreme God is short : "Shkai! otsyu Shkai, verdu Shkai, vanimist" ("God, Lord God, the original God, have mercy upon us ").
The Ersa and Teryukhans say :
"Cham Pas, Vel Pas (God of the village community), have mercy upon us."
In prayer the supreme God is always invoked first, but no special festival is held in his honour. (See note § 3.) Apart from him the Mordvins believe also in good and evil beings made by him. According to their conception, there is a vast number of these beings or spirits, who, like mankind, increase by procreation. In every place there is some invisible divinity, who rules that portion of nature assigned to him. Though all sections of the Mordvins believe this, the notions of the Ersa and Moksha regarding the minor gods and their participation in the government of the world is dissimilar.
The Ersa and Teryukhans know that, when Cham Pas had resolved to create the world, he first created a spirit, almost like himself, to aid him in forming and ruling it. This was Shaitan.
Story of the Creation.
A priest named Fedor Shaverski, of the village of Vechkamova, in the Bugurustan district of the government of Samara, noted down in 1853 the following account of the Creation: Once, when there was still nothing in the world but water, Cham Pas was drifting about on a stone on the open sea, reflecting how to create the visible world and how to rule it. Then he said: "I have no brother, no companion, with whom to take counsel in this undertaking."
While speaking thus, he spat, in his anger, into the sea and drifted on.
When he had floated for some distance he looked back and perceived his spittle had turned into a great hill, drifting in his wake. In order to destroy it he struck it with his sceptre. At the same moment Shaitan leapt out of it and said:
"Thou art grieved, Lord, because thou hast no brother or comrade with whom to consider and take counsel in the creation of the world. If thou wilt, I am ready to become thy brother."
Cham Pas was glad of this, and said:
"Good. But be my comrade, not my brother. Let us create the earth. What shall we make it of? There is nothing but water."
Shaitan was silent, for he did not know how the earth was to be created.
"Dive, comrade, into the sea," said Cham Pas, "there is sand at the bottom. Fetch a little, and of it we shall make the earth."
"I was just on the point of making the same remark," cried Shaitan, who did not want to show that he was less clever than Cham Pas, or less exalted. Moreover, he always called Cham Pas "brother," though he had only been taken as a comrade.
"Come, go to the bottom and fetch sand," said Cham Pas, "but take care, comrade, that in taking the sand thou mention my name." Shaitan dived to the bottom. But in his pride he would not mention the name of Cham Pas — only his own. Accordingly, he could not get even a single grain. A flame, too, rose from the bottom of the sea and burnt him all over. Scorched, he returned to the surface.
"Brother," said he, "I cannot get a single grain of sand, for a flame rises from the bottom which was like to burn me severely."
"Return, comrade, to the bottom of the sea, the flame will not touch thee if thou but mention my name."
Shaitan went a second time, but in his pride could not bring himself to pronounce the name of Cham Pas. Again the flames burnt him on all sides. Again he returned to the surface and appeared before Cham Pas without any sand.
"How did matters go, comrade, hast thou brought any sand?"
"No, brother, the flames burnt me again worse than before."
"Didst thou mention my name, comrade?" As there was no help for it Shaitan acknowledged that he had not mentioned the name of Cham Pas.
"What name didst thou mention, comrade?"
"My own, brother," replied Shaitan.
"Listen, comrade," said Cham Pas, "go a third time to the bottom of the sea and take some sand, making mention of my name. But mind, comrade, if thou mention not my name the flames will burn thee up completely, and nothing will be left of thee."
Shaitan started a third time, mentioned in his alarm the name of Cham Pas, and took wihout hindrance a mouthful of sand. On returning to the surface he gave some to Cham Pas, but retained a portion in his cheek. He thought to himself, "Let my brother create his earth, I shall create mine as well."
Cham Pas began throwing here and there upon the sea the sand, which grew till it became the dry land. But in the same ratio as the grains of sand on the sea grew larger, so did those in Shaitan's cheek. His head swelled up in consequence till it became like a great mountain. From the intolerable pain produced he howled out in a fearful voice.
"Why dost thou shout, comrade?" asked Cham Pas.
There was nothing for it but for Shaitan to confess
"I did not spit out all the sand from my mouth, brother, so an earth is growing inside my head and causes me unbearable agony."
Cham Pas struck him on the head with his sceptre and said:
"Spit out the sand, comrade, and be cured of thine agony."
Shaitan began spitting out the sand, but with such violence that the still unconsolidated earth quaked. From this shaking originated deep places, ravines, and valleys, but from the sand lie spat out were formed hills, peaks, and mountains. When relieved of his pain Chan Pas said to him:
"Thou canst not be my comrade, for thou art evil, while I am good. Be accursed and repair to the bottom of the sea, to the place of the dead, to the fire that burnt thee, because thou in thy pride wouldst not make mention of thy Creator's name. Abide there and suffer punishment for ever and ever."
Variant about Shaitan.
The Mordvins of the Simbirsk and Pensa governments relate the following variant:—
Shaitan stept up to his Creator and said:
"Cham Pas, thou art now old, it is time for thee to rest, but I am young. So do thou sit in thy place and sleep, and I alone shall rule the world we have created."
Cham Pas cursed Shaitan, who was so irritated that he turned himself for ever into an evil being and a hater of all good.
The Minor Gods and Goddesses.
The next creation of Cham Pas, after that of Shaitan, was Ange Patyai[4] (mother goddess). She is the source of life, of begetting children, and of the fruitfulness of the earth. These two minor deities are equally powerful and are incessantly at war. Ange Patyai gave birth to four gods and four goddesses.
Her eldest son, Nishki Pas,[5] is god of the sky, the sun, of fire and light. He is the chief protector of bees. At his place in the sky there are many habitations, where the souls of good men live. As bees cluster round their queen, so the souls surround Nishhi Pas, and hence he obtained his name of Beehive God. In the government of Simbirsk he is also called Shisa Pas or Shi Pas, i.e., Sun God. As the first-born of Ange Patyai he is also termed Iniche Pas,[6] i.e., Son or Child God, while she is termed Nishkeiva,' or the mother of Nishki Pas.
Her second son, Sviet-Ver-nishki Velen Pas (God of the world-forest-beehive community (village)), is ruler of the earth and looks after the human communities or villages (vele),[7] which he has established with the aid of his elder brother, the Beehive God.
Her third son, Nasarom Pas, is god of winter, night, and the moon. He receives into his kingdom of Nasarom-nishki[8] (the dark beehive) the souls of all the dead. Good souls he sends on to Nishki Pas, but drives off the bad ones to the realms of Shaitan.
Her fourth son, Voltsi Pas, is the supreme god of living creatures other than man. He protects hunters and fishers.
Her eldest daughter is Nishkende Tevtyar, who has a beehive on the earth where real bees live. She protects bee-keeping, a favourite occupation of the Mordvins from remote ages. She is also the goddess of destiny. When a child is born Ange Patyai leaves its fate to be settled by this daughter. She also has a son, Purgine-Pas[9] (the Thunder-child God) or Melkaso (Vergi Muchki Melkaso), which means "the thunder-child's spirit moving upon the earth."[10]
Her second daughter, Norrova Aparuchi, is goddess of agriculture. She has a son, Mastir Pas (Earth God), who dwells within the earth and gives it strength to produce all sorts of plants, especially grain and edible fruits.
Her third daughter is Paksya Patyai (field aunt), protectress of meadows, pastures, and gardens. She has a son, Ved Pas (Water
In Ersa ine means "great," inentae "greatest," which perhaps is the correct form of iniche. A son is in Ersa tsyora, a child eed, Moksha ed, id, idnä, ednä. God) or Ved Mastir Pas (god of water on the earth), who rules over seas, rivers, lakes, springs, and wells.
Her fourth daughter, Verya Patyai (forest aunt), is goddess of forests, groves, and trees. Her son Varma Pas (Wind God) is god of wind and weather.
These fourteen gods and goddesses are the chief divinities of the Mordvins. But besides them there are innumerable good beings or guardian spirits called by the Ersa and Teryukhans, ozais by the Moksha, ozhs.[11] The Mordvins give however the same name to the festivals held in honour of any divinity.
The Origin of Guardian Spirits.
When Ange Patyai had given birth to her eight children she wished to fill the whole world as soon as possible with good divinities, so that not only every man, but every tree and herb should have a protector from the wiles of Shaitan. She communicated this desire to Cham Pas, who gave her a steel, while her son, Nishhi Pas, gave a flint. With these she began to strike fire, and in the same ratio as sparks flew off did the good ozais beings make their appearance.
Shaitan, perceiving this, took up two flints from the ground, as he had no steel, and began striking fire. In the same proportion as sparks flew off evil spirits were born. Since that time Ange Patyai and Shaitan have continued striking fire and adding to the number of good and bad spirits in proportion as mankind, animals, and plants increase.
Ange Patyai first struck the sparks from which came the Ange ozais or guardian goddesses of children, that help at child-birth and protect the young from sickness and misfortune. Every child has one who watches over its health. From other sparks every dwelling has obtained its own Karda syarko ozais, who keeps the household and the domestic animals from all harm, whose office it is to maintain family peace and the general welfare of the home. It dwells in the middle of the court-yard in a hole under a stone which is called after it, Karda syarko (the stall nit). This divinity is assisted by Yurma ozais who protects the household goods ; Kyolyada ozais (birch tree ozais), who protects the cattle, especially Ange Patyai's favourite animals, sheep, pigs, and hens. Subordinate to the last-mentioned spirit are Angar ozais, guardians of stallions, Lishman ozais, guardian of mares and foals, Taunsyai or Taun ozais, guardian of pigs, and Rev ozais, guardian of sheep.
From the sparks struck by the goddess there appeared in every farm a Nishki ozais, whose function is to guard the enclosures where the beehives stand, and who is subordinate to Nishkende Tevtyar; also Suavtuma ozais, subordinate to the goddess Norrova Aparuchin (goddess of agriculture), and who protects fields; Past ozais, who protects seed from worms (past), locusts, and other injurious insects, and Keret ozais (ploughshare ozais), the guardian of agricultural implements.
Other good spirits that also originate from the sparks are Ahshakal ozais (white fish ozais), protector of fisheries, and under Ved pas (Water God): Kyolu ozais, ov Vechki Kyos Kyoldigo, guardian of birch trees, who is under Verya pas (Forest God) : Tumo ozais (oak ozais), guardian of the bark of elm and lime[12] trees : Pekshe ozais, guardian of lime trees : Piche ozais, protector of pine trees : Tot ran ozais, guardian of timber : Keren ozais (bark ozais), protector of elms, &c. According to the ideas of the Ersa, guardian spirits are found everywhere. Each faithfully defends the creation of Cham Pas that was entrusted to him, and so fulfils the commands of Ange Patyai, the good mother of the gods and of all the world. From her instrumentality in bringing into the world these gnardian spirits, she has received in places the name of Bulaman ozais (aged woman or midwife of the ozais), and in other places Bulaman Patyai, with reference to her assistance at child-birth and as being the chief protectress of midwives.
The evil spirits created by Shaitan bring disease on men and cattle, bring colonies of worms and locusts upon the fields, kill bees, destroy beehives, cause the bad weather that injures the crops, lead one into the jaws of a bear, and induce men to commit evil actions. They also wage eternal warfare against the good divinities.
Lastly the Mordvins worship their ancestors (see note §15) under the name of atyat (fathers). The departed that dwell in the heavenly beehive enclosures of Nishki Pas continue to care for their relations, and assist their descendants in all useful and good works ; keep them from harm, and warn them, if necessary, either by a dream or some other portent. Prayers and offerings are made to them both at home and at the places of burial.
Moksha Gods and Goddesses.
According to the conceptions of the Moksha, the supreme Creator of the world, Shhai (god ; sky), who is without beginning, first created Shaitan as his assistant. But the latter began to oppose his maker, and was accordingly cast down from the highest abode above the sky. Shhai then created in his place a new divinity, Soltan, also termed Soltan Keremet,[13] and Mastir hirdi, the ruler of the material world. All other Moksha divinities are goddesses.
Asar ava,<rf>Asar ava, literally, lord woman, i.e., queen, lady.</ref> i.e., the highest goddess, like the Ersa Ange Patyai, is goddess of life, child-birth, and fruitfulness. In everything she is on the same footing as Soltan, being likewise a creation of Shkai.
From this pair several goddesses were derived : Yurma asa ava, the goddess of household property ; Kud asar ava, goddess of the house (kud) itself and the cattle belonging to it ; Banya asar ava, goddess of the vapour bath (banya), a Russ. loan word ; Avin asar ava, goddess of the drying barn (avin), Russ. loan word ; Pahsya asar ava, goddess of fields (paksya) and meadows; Virya asar ava, goddess of the forest (virya) ; Ved asar ava, goddess of rivers and lakes (ved. water). There are besides a great number of goddesses of inferior rank. Every house has its own "house lady" (kud asar ava), every meadow its "field lady."
The Moksha have the same belief as the Ersa regarding Shaitan and the evil spirits that obey him, viz., that they try by every means to harm mankind, but the good divinities war against them and remove the injury.
Dualistic Ideas regarding the Creation.
All sections of the Mordvins hold the same notions respecting the creation of the world. The supreme God created the whole visible and invisible world. Shaitan, in his wickedness, tried in every way to frustrate each creation of Cham Pas, but the wisdom of the Creator always turned each act of malice into good. For instance, when the sky was created it was clean, bright, and blue.[14] [Shaitan darkened its bright surface with clouds.] Cham Pas did not remove them, but put rain into them, commanding them to moisten the ground and make it fruitful. Smooth and gleaming were the surfaces of the rivers created by Cham Pas. Shaitan directed winds against them so that they ruffled into waves, but Cham Pas prepared a boat, made a stern seat and oars, sewed together a sail, and taught men navigation.
Variant Story of the Creation.
When Cham Pas wished to create the dry land, as water was already made, he perceived Shaitan swimming as a goose (see note, §16) upon the sea. Cham Pas ordered him to dive to the bottom and bring up a little earth. Shaitan dived, brought up some earth, but did not give it all to Cham Pas, for he retained some in his mouth. From the earth the Creator formed the dry land quite smooth and flat. So Shaitan threw over it the earth he had kept back, and from it originated mountains, stones, and ravines. But Cham Pas remedied the evil by putting gold, silver, iron, and precious stones into the mountains. From the stones he taught men to make mill-stones, and he filled the ravines with water, from which rivers take their origin. The Creator had made the earth covered with beautiful trees, quite like a garden. So Shaitan raised a storm, and felled a number of them. Cham Pas turned the great open spaces thus caused into meadows and pasture ground, and also taught men agriculture and hay-making.
Shaitan wanted to destroy man as well as the other creations of Cham Pas. The latter had formed a man out of clay, but it was still without life. He went away for a moment to create a spirit elsewhere, and left a dog to watch over the body, to prevent Shaitan from destroying it. Now formerly the dog was a clean animal (see note, § 9), and had no hair at all on its skin (see note, § 24). So Shaitan caused such fearful cold that the dog was like to die. Then he made an offer to clothe it with hair, as a protection against the inclement weather, if he were allowed for a moment to get near the lifeless man. The dog assented. Shaitan spat all over the man, and from his spittle diseases were evolved. Then he began blowing his evil breath or spirit into the body. Upon this Cham Pas hurried to the spot, chased away Shaitan, and ordered the dog always to carry about his dirty hair. To remedy the mischief wrought by Shaitan he turned the body inside out, but the diseases caused by the spittle remained all the same. Then he blew his own good breath into the man and left him. For this reason man remained inclined to both good and evil. When man had thus been created, Shaitan said to Cham Pas, pointing to the man :
"My breath is in him to a half and thine to a half. Let us divide all mankind ; let half be thine and half mine."
Cham Pas drove Shaitan away, gave men understanding, and taught them to discern between good and evil, lest they should fall a prey to Shaitan. In his resentment the latter began to create first of all a whole quantity of evil spirits like himself, only less powerful ; then different diseases, which are also evil spirits, and sent them among men.
Variant Story of the Creation of Man.
The Teryukhans and Ersa, in the governments of Nizhni-Novgorod and Simbirsk, have a rather different account of the creation of man. Shaitan, not Cham Pas, began to create man. For this purpose he gathered together clay, sand, and earth from 77 parts of the world, and with them he fashioned a human body. But he did not wish to make it nice looking. Sometimes it took the shape of a pig, sometimes of a dog or some other animal, though he was anxious to give it the shape of God. Ultimately he summoned a bat, and said :
"Fly away to the sky. A towel is hanging up near Cham Pas. When he goes into the bath-house he dries himself with it. Station thyself on one of the borders of the towel, there make thy nest, and bring forth thy young, so that the towel may become heavy and fall to the ground near me."
The bat obeyed Shaitan, made its nest in the border of Cham Pas` towel, gave birth to young ones, which made the towel so heavy that it fell to the ground. Shaitan seized it at once, rubbed with it the man he had made, and gave him in this way the shape of God. Then he quickened man into life, but could not manage to get a living spirit into him. After trying in vain, he now wished to destroy what he had created ; but Cham Pas said :
"Go, hide thyself, accursed Shaitan, in thy fiery depths ; I shall create a man without thee."
"But I shall stand on one side," replied Shaitan, "when thou puttest a living spirit into him. It is I that made him, so something of the man should be given me as my share, for what thou desirest, brother Cham Pas, is insulting to me and no honour to thyself."
After disputing for some time with Shaitan, Cham Pas got wearied.
"Listen, Shaitan," he said, "let us make a man : the form and countenance are from my towel, and the spirit is mine, since I have blown it in, but let the body be thine." Shaitan still disputed, but had to assent, as Cham Pas was incomparably the stronger of the two. Accordingly, when a man dies his soul goes in the shape of God to the sky, but the soulless corpse loses its godlike form, rots, corrupts, and turns into earth, a prey to Shaitan.
Cham Pas punished the bat because it had obeyed Shaitan, had flown to the sky, and made its nest in the divine towel. He took away its wings, and replaced them by bare pinions like those of Shaitan, and moreover gave it the same kind of shoulders as his.
Men increased exceedingly after the creation of the world. Then Cham Pas divided them into nations, giving each jiits language and religious belief. Men have one and the same God, but they believe in different fashions. A Mordvin says, as each tree in the forest has its peculiar foliage and blossom, so each people has its religious belief and language. All beliefs are acceptable to God, because he gave them himself ; it is a sin therefore to turn from one faith to another. Like the Marya and Chuvash peoples, the Mordvins imagine there are seventy-seven religions and as many languages in the world.
Story of the Thunder God.
The Mordvins believe that the gods can descend to a close union with man, with the exception of Cham Pas, who is too lofty for immediate intercourse with mankind. The lower divinities make marriages sometimes with beautiful girls, and carry them off to the sky. The following story is current among the Teryukhans.
Once upon a time there lived a girl called Sirsha (the Beauty). Suitors came to her from all parts, for she was beautiful and industrious, with legs as thick as the stump of a tree[15] ! There was no one that would not wish to marry her. Suddenly a violent thunder-clap crashed from the sky and upset everybody, leaving them like dead men. When the thunder passed away, a traveller from some distant and unknown land made his appearance in the village where Shirsha lived. He paid her his addresses, and her parents joyfully gave her up, though they did not know where the traveller was from. At the wedding-feast the strange bridegroom began to dance with the bowls, the spoons, the benches, and the cupboards, from time to time shouting most vigorously. When the moment arrived for him to lead his bride home, he roared like thunder, lightning flashed from his eyes and burnt up the room ; the wedding guests fell to the ground as if dead.; and when they came to themselves again, both the bride and bridegroom had vanished.
This bridegroom was Purgine Pas, the thunder-god, and he had flown away to the sky with his wife Sirsha. When thunder is rattling, the Mordvins think that the thunder-god is dancing in the sky with the bowls, spoons, benches, and cupboards, just as he danced at his wedding. On such occasions the Teryukhans leave their houses and go into the street, raise their hands up as they look towards the sky, and cry out :
"More briskly ! more briskly! thou art one of ourselves."
This story is told in the village of Siuha.
Children born from the union of the gods with Mordvin women lived on earth, and were till their death princes of the people, but after their decease they returned to their parents in the sky.
The Fall of Man.
Like the Chuvash, the Mordvins have a story of the fall of man. The following was written down in the village of Inilei (Veliki Vrag), in the district of Arsamas.
The first men lived in a state of happiness. They had plenty of cattle. There was no need to till the ground, as it gave of itself a thousand grains. In every tree there was a bee-hive. All men were rich, and had the same quantity of property. Cham Pas sent his son, Nishki Pas (Beehive God), also called Iniche Pas, to govern mankind. He lived on the earth in the form of a man, and assisted the people in everything. If anyone became ill, Nishki Pas immediately cured him. If prayer was made to Cham Pas for rain or for dry weather the request was granted forthwith. Among men there was neither war nor strife, for Nishki Pas drove it all away by passing from village to village, and teaching men goodness. But Shaitan in his wickedness appeared to a certain old man, gave him a till-then-unknown plant, and said:
"Plant this shrub in the ground, and fence it round with long stakes, but don't say a word about it to Nishki Pas."
The old man obeyed, planted the shrub, and from it there grew up a hop garden. Then Shaitan again appeared to him, taught him how to make beer and mead, and how to prepare ardent spirits from corn. Hence arose drinking. Drunken men began to war against each other, and strife, contests, and bloody engagements came into existence. In vain Nishki Pas exhorted men to abandon drinking beer, mead, and ardent spirits. They would not listen to him ; began, on the contrary, to mock and despise him, even to beat him, and drove him from village to village. In place of him they thought of electing a chief from among themselves, but only strife, disputes, and combats ensued, for each wanted to be chief, and none was content to obey another man. In vain Nishki Pas warned them. Shaitan appeared on the earth in human form, and said :
"Why do you endure Nishki Pas among you ? He affirms that he is the son of God, but he lies. He is the same sort of man as everyone else, and not even a good one. He will not seek enjoyment, will not drink wine or spirits, nor keep several favourites. He only wishes to govern all mankind."
Shaitan incited men to seize Nishki Pas. Then they tortured him, and finally beat him to death. When they had taken his life, they saw that he was in truth the son of Cham Pas, for he whom they had killed rose up and ascended into the sky, saying to his murderers : "You did not wish to live in happiness with me, henceforth it will be the worse for you without me." Scarcely had he spoken this, when the sun at once became seven times darker than before ; the winter became seven times more severe ; the earth began to require cultivation with hard work, and after all gave but a small return, sometimes none at all ; added to which nearly all the cattle died. To maintain order among men, and to settle their disputes, Cham Pas then instituted kings or czars, princes and judges. He gave them power to imprison and flog men for their evil deeds, and for the worst kind of crimes to punish them with death. See Note, § 10, 12, 21.
Sacrificial Places and Feasts.
It may be taken as certain, says Melnikof, that the Mordvins never had any temples. No remains of them are to be found ; there is no mention of them in any chronicle or deed ; and the people themselves have no recollection of them. But, wherever the Mordvins live, old places of sacrifice are pointed out in forests, on plains, or at places of burial. Baptized Mordvins often assemble, even nowadays, at these places to sacrifice to the gods of their forefathers. Keremet is the term applied to these places of burial in some places, especially in the governments of Simbirsk, Pensa, Samara, and Saràtof ; and to some extent in that of Nizhni- Novgorod. Perhaps it has been borrowed from the Chuvash. In every Mordvin parish[16] there were several keremets, each sacred to a special divinity. Each village had also its own place of sacrifice, used by its inhabitants alone. It was called, Petsiona keremet; or the villagers' place of sacrifice.
When the Mordvins were still heathens, the parish keremet, and sometimes the village one, was enclosed. They selected a small flat piece of ground from 140 to 210 feet square in the forest or in a grove, and surrounded it with a high fence. A gate (ortá, from Russ. vorotà) was made on the north, south, and east sides. The people entered by the south gate ; the sacrificial animals were led in by the east entrance ; and the water for cooking the flesh was brought in by the northern one (see note, § 6, 10, 13).
Inside the keremet, at the east gate, there stood generally three posts, called ter shigat. The horses for sacrifice were tied to one, the bulls to another, and the sheep to the third. But for a long time no horses have been sacrificed. Even in the full pagan period, when they became acquainted with the Kussians, they had ceased eating horse-flesh, and therefore from sacrificing them. They are still offered by fishermen to Ak shakal ozais (white fish ozais) but not in the old-fashioned manner, by cooking the flesh in the kettles ; they merely slaughter the animal as an oJBfering to the divinity of fisheries.
On the west side there were also three posts, called yuba, near which the cattle were slaughtered. A small pit was dug between them for the blood to flow into, and which was afterwards covered over with stones. Near the posts was erected a small shed, called the horai shigat, or cooking-shed ; and in its centre small stakes were driven in to support the bar to which the kettles for boiling the flesh were suspended.
At the south gate stood the huma, or table, on which the sacrificial flesh was cut into as many portions as there were participators in the feast.
The flayed hides were hung up on the eastern posts (ter shigat). In former times all the hides were always left hanging there ; but, latterly, they were sold and the proceeds spent on the salt necessary for the sacrifice. The Arab travellers of the tenth century relate having seen hides hung up at the offering-places of the people that dwelt along the Volga.
Save in size and the occasional absence of a fence, there was no difference between a parish and a village keremet.
The praying feasts held at places of burial, when the celebrators eat pancakes and other eatables cooked at home, and drank beer, were on the whole nearly the same as the Russian festival for commemoration of the dead. A KEREMET.
As the Mordvins had no priestly class, prayers and sacrifices at home or at the graves of ancestors were performed by the oldest man — in some cases the oldest woman — of the house. At the village and parish festivals they elected each time by common consent some old man held in honour to perform these duties. They were termed ate poksh tei, or the good men. Generally, one of them was the reeve or headman of the village or parish, and was termed by the Ersa and Teryukhans, pryavt[17] (head), by the Moksha, inyatya (great father). He acted as priest, judge, protector of public property, and as responsible man to the government. His office was for life, though it might terminate from old age, blindness, or other cause. He could also be deposed by common consent, if he had forfeited the confidence of the villagers.
The pryavt was not a genuine priest. He did not perform the sacrifice or announce the festival ; he was simply the senior official. The first piece of sacrificial flesh and the first ladleful of beer was given to him. He summoned and dismissed the people, but did not perform the ceremonies. At his house the sacred ladles, bars, pails, knifes, &c. necessary for the festival were kept. It was his business, too, to fix the day for holding it.
The Mordvins never appear to have possessed a special calendar of feast-days. They ask the pryavt on each occasion what day he will fix upon for holding a festival in honour of this or that divinity. Since the spread of Christianity, however, he has begun to inquire of Russian priests on what day the feast of this or that saint is celebrated. On this account Mordvin feast-days are now partly held at the same time as the Russians hold theirs; and the native divinities are getting confused with the saints of the orthodox Church. But the nature and character of each particular god determines the season of year in which he is fêted. Nowadays the pryavt generally fixes on the Friday (see note, § 1) after the day of the saint who has been equated with a Mordvin divinity. For Friday was the holy day of the heathen Mordvins.
Nicholas the Wonder-worker, one of the most important Russian saints, has been imported into the number of the Ersa and Teryukhans under the name of Nikola Pas. He is fêted on May 9 and December 6 (the feast-days of the Wonder-worker) with special offerings, and has taken the place of Ved mastir Pas in spring, and of Nasorom Pas in winter.
On January 1 (o.s.) the Russians of northern and eastern Russia hold the festival of Basil the Great. He is regarded as the patron saint of swine, and pork is accordingly eaten on that day. On the same day the Mordvins keep the festival of Taun ozais (pig ozais), the protector of swine, who is now called Velki Vasyai (Great Basil) in their prayers.
On January 28, Efrem Sirin's day, and on March 1, the day of Kosman and Damyan, it is customary with the Russians "to invite the guardian spirit of the house" by leaving groats for him on the stove. On those days the Mordvins also pray and make offerings at home, in January to Yurtava ozais, in March to Karda Syarko ozais, the divinities of the homestead (yurt) and of the farm land. In praying to the latter the Ersa also mention Kusma Damyan. Their offering of a hen to the divinity of the homestead reminds one of the Russian popular belief, that hens are sacred to Kusma Damyan, and of the custom of placing a roast hen on the table on their day.
On April 3, Nikita the Confessor's day, Russian fishermen sometimes kill a strange horse for the entertainment of the water-spirit. The Mordvins pray to Ak shakal ozais, the god of fisheries, and drown a horse in a lake or river as an offering to him.
April 23, St. George's Day, is dedicated by the Mordvins to Svyet vereshki velen Pas, the god of the earth and of vegetation, taking him to be the equivalent of St. George. The Teryukhans of the government of Nizhni-Novgorod pray to their god the day after the spring festival of Nikola, calling him the father of Nikola Pas. So too, on May 9, they pray to the water-god, and on the following day to the earth-god. According to Russian popular belief the earth is sacred to Simon Zelotes, whose day is May 10.
May 1, or the Prophet Jeremias' Day, is dedicated to Keret ozais (ploughshare ozais), the god of agricultural implements. The Russians consider Jeremias the patron of agricultural implements, and term him Jeremias the harnesser.
On June 24, or St. John's Day, a great festival is held in honour of Nishki Pas, god of the sky, sun, light, and darkness, regarding him sometimes as John the Baptist, sometimes as the Saviour.
On June 20, or Elias' Day, thay pray to Purgine Pas, the thunder god, considering him to be the prophet Elias, who holds thunder and lightning in his power according to Russian belief.
August 18, the day of SS. Flora and Laura is celebrated by the Mordvins with prayers in honour of Angar ozais and Lishman ozais, the divinities of horsekeeping. Women are never admitted to this festival, and the Russians have the same custom at their horse-festival.
September 15, or Nikita's Day, is kept by the Russians by tearing off a goose's head and throwing it into the water for the water-spirit. The Mordvins make a similar offering to their water-god Ved mastir Pas, who answers in their opinion to S. Nikita, whom the Russians call "the goosey" or "the goose-flayer."
October 29 is the Russian festival of shepherds, when they pray to S. Anastasi to protect their flocks.
The Mordvins take this saint to be their goddess Rev ozais, who watches over sheep (rev), and whom they worship on the same day or on the following Friday.
On November 8, St. Michael the Archangel's Day, the Ersa and Teryukhans hold a great festival to Voltsi Pas, the god of hunting, a craft that Michael is believed to protect.
On Christmas Day a great feast is held in honour of Ange Patyai, whom the Mordvins look upon as the Virgin Mary, and of Nishki Pas, the son of God. The following day is kept sacred to the same goddess as the protectress of children and of women in child-birth. A third festival to her is held on the Friday before Trinity Sunday. The Christianised Mordvins make out Ange Patyai to be the old woman Salomea mentioned in the so-called gospel of James, and who was always made a saint of in the Russian church down to the time of Nikon. The old believers and the peasantry still regard her as a saint, and pray for her assistance at child-birth. Salomea is supposed to have been the midwife of the Virgin Mary at the birth of our Lord.
On the Friday before the so-called butter-week, and during the week of St. Thomas, as well as September 1 and October 1, when commemoration of the dead is made in Russian churches, the Mordvins hold festivals at their place of burial in honour of their deceased ancestors.
In this way the feast days and saints of the Russian calendar are gradually ousting the pagan feasts and gods of the Mordvins. Even in prayers to Cham Pas the expression "Holy Lord Savagof (Sabaoth) is sometimes heard. In a similar fashion the prophet Elias has replaced the old Slavonic thunder-god, Perun, and St. Vlasio or Blasio has taken the place of Volos, the god of cattle.
It is the same with the Moksha. They sometimes give the name of Lord Savaoth to Shkai; Soltana changes into the Saviour; Asar ava into the Virgin Mary. Kud asar ava (house lady) has received the strange appellation of Sochelnik, which the Russians give to January 5, the eve of the Epiphany. So too Banya asar ava (bath-house lady) is stiled Veliki Chetverg (Great Thursday), the Russian designation for Thursday in Passion Week. Avin asar ava (drying-barn lady) is about to turn into the Apostle Thomas, as her festival is on St. Thomas's Day. Already Nicholas the Wonder-worker is found among the Moksha under the name of Nikola asar ava, and a festival is held in his honour on December 6, but they have not made him a goddess.
The Officials at the Ceremonies.
The vosatya[18] was the chief sacrificer of the Ersa and Teryukhans at the public festivals. He repeated the prayers and arranged the ceremonies. He and his twelve assistants were elected at every parish festival from the most honoured of the old men, but generally this duty fell upon the same men for several years.
The twelve assistants were as follows:
The parindyaits or purendyaits were three men generally elected for a whole year. It was their business to make a house-to-house collection of corn for making beer, honey for mead, as well as eggs, butter, and money. When the beer and mead was made it was put into the sacred vats given them by the pryavt. Purè means beer and purendyait the boiler or brewer of beer. This beer is mixed with honey and is fermented, but contains no hops. It is very intoxicating and is in general use among the Chuvash, the Marya, and the Vyatka peoples.
The yanbeds, also three in number, were chosen two days before the festival, and received the sacrificial knives from the pryavt. It was their business to cook the sacrificial flesh and distribute it among the people.
The three kashangorods were chosen on the eve of the festival, and received from the pryavt the sacred ladles, of which there were from from forty to a hundred.
The turostors were the three assistants that had to maintain order and devotion during the ceremony. To enable them to overlook the people they stood on stumps of trees or on tubs turned upside down. They had to prepare the shtatols or thick wax candles, and were elected on the eve of the festival.
The posanbunaveds were three additional serving men, who, without belonging to the above-mentioned, were elected three days before the feast. It was their office to find in the village a reddish-yellow bull and a pure white ram. If such was not to be found, one of another colour would answer the purpose, so long as it was all the same colour. They were purchased with the money collected by the parindyaits, and were led to the place of sacrifice and afterwards killed by the yanbeds.
The Moksha had fewer divinities than the Ersa and Teryukhans. Their ceremonies were less complicated, and they had far fewer officials to direct them. The sacrifices and prayers made at home were performed by the senior members of the household, but for the public festival an old man and woman were elected in every village (see note, § 4). The inyat or ine atya, i.e., the great old man or grandfather performed the service to Soltan, but the imbaba or old woman to Asar ava (the lady). This old couple was held in unbounded honour by the villagers as the best repeaters of prayers in the place. If any misfortune befel a Moksha, he at once had recourse to them, asking them to pray to God or to come to their private prayers at home.
Ozais was the word the Ersa and Teryukhans formerly gave to their feasts, their sacrifices, and in general to their divine service. Now-a-days they use in the same sense the word molyan, a loan word from the Russian, and already in use in the first year of the last century. The word ozais, as we have learnt before, also denotes a good spirit or an inferior divinity. But the Moksha still call their divine service by its original term—osks.
The divine service of the Mordvins was five-fold:—
1. Velen ozais, velen molyan, Moksha vel osks was a public worship or sacrificial feast of the parish.
2. Petsiyona ozais, petsiyona molyan, Moksha petsiyona osks was the divine service of the village.
3. Paksya ozais, Moksha, paksya osks was the worship held in a field (paksya) or in the open.
4. Kuda ozais, Moksha, kuda osks was the service held at home (kuda).
5. Atyat ozais, Moksha atyat osks was the worship of ancestors at the place of burial.
The Public Sacrificial Feasts of the Parish.
These were chiefly held in summer, in honour of all the Mordvin divinities—when, for example, a pestilence or some calamity had befallen the community. The ceremonies were as follows:—
The velen atyatnya, or elders of the villages forming the parish, having taken counsel, sent five or six men to the pryavt. On reaching his house they halt before it with bared heads, and the pryavt on learning this orders the gate to be opened wide, and goes and stands beside the karda syarko. The old men approach him without saying a word, and bow three times. They then suggest that a festival should be held, that he should fix the day, and make the necesssary preparations. After fixing on the Friday following the fête-day of the divinity to be worshipped, the pryavt enters his house, halts near the stove, takes up a coal, blows up a flame and lights the sacred shtatol, or wax candle, preserved from the last festival. Formerly he placed it on the hearth-stone of the stove, but since the diffusion of Christianity, before the holy picture. Then the old men, with the same bows and protestations as before, state their petition. The pryavt, taking the candle in his hand, again announces on what Friday the divine service is to be held.
At the bidding of the pryavt the old men now sit down and discuss how much money, corn, honey, and other requisites are to be collected, and who should be elected vosatya. Then they elect the three parindyaits, summon them, and order them to begin the collection. One of the yanbeds at the last festival is assigned to each parindyait as a companion. The pryavt gives a vat to each of the latter to hold the meal and honey, and a knife to each of the former. Then they start off in three directions, but the collection is not made till next day. The customs used in doing this are especially remarkable.
In the village where the collection is to be made they know beforehand the day the collectors will come round, and the women make preparations to receive them. They sew three or more linen bags, and fasten two cords or leather straps to each. The mistress of the house puts into one bag 2 lbs. or more of meal, a birchbark-box of honey into a second, a few 10-kopek pieces into a third, a box of butter into a fourth, a basket of eggs into a fifth, etc., She then spreads the table with a clean cloth and piles up the bags upon it.
All this must be done by women only. The men, who are not allowed to see the preparations, go off accordingly early in the morning to their out-door occupations, or hide themselves in the stable as soon as they hear the parindyaits and yanbeds have entered the village.
When the collectors have arrived they make a halt. The girls in the street rush off to tell their mothers of the fact. The boys are in concealment with their fathers, as only children at the breast or boys that cannot yet walk are allowed to remain with their mothers. After waiting for a bit, the collectors begin going from house to house. The yanbed thrusts his knife five times into the door, and repeats the following prayer:—
"Cham Pas, Nishki Pas, Svyet vereshki Pas, Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, have mercy on Vasyai (the name of the master of the house), have mercy on Mashka (name of the mistress)."
He then opens wide the door, which had been left unlocked, and, accompanied by his companion, advances straight to the kardo syarko in the centre of the courtyard. The yanbed thrusts his knife five times against the stone, the parindyait places the sacred vat upon the stone, mouth downwards, while the former prays:—
"Cham Pas, Nasarom Pas, Kardas syarko ozais, have mercy on Vasyai, have mercy on Mashka."
They then go to the porch, the yanbed again drives his knife into the door of the dwelling-room five times, opens it, and prays:—
"Cham Pas, Voltsi Pas, Yurtava ozais, have mercy," etc. (as above).
Yurtava ozais is the special guardian spirit of the dwelling-room. The names of the deities recited by the yanbed vary according to whom it is proposed to sacrifice. The dwelling-rooms of the Mordvins were formerly somewhat differently constructed to those of the Russians. The fireplace was at the left-hand corner of the hack-wall, and therefore faced the door.
When the yanbed opens the door, the collectors enter the room and remain standing at the door, the one holding a vat, the other the knife, while they repeat prayers to Cham Pas, Ange Patyai, and Yurtava ozais. On the hearth-stone burns a candle, and before it stands the table with the bags already prepared. The married women of the family stand in front of it with their backs towards the door, and their breasts and shoulders bared to the waist. The girls stand beside the women, also with their backs to the door, but completely dressed.
When the women hear the collectors at the door, the senior married woman seizes the two straps of the meal-bag, one in each hand, and throws it over her head upon her bare shoulders. She then approaches the door backwards and without looking behind her, for the women are not allowed to look at the collectors. When sufficiently near, the parindyait places the sacred vat behind her back. The yanbed seizes the bag with one hand, and with the other lightly strikes her five times over her bare back and shoulders while repeating a prayer to Ange Patyai, then severs the straps so that the bag falls into the vat, though both the ends of the straps remain in the woman's hands. She returns to the table without looking back. Another woman, then a third, fourth, etc., repeats the same ceremony with the other bags. If there is only one married woman in the family she does it all herself, taking the bags one by one. The girls remain near the table, but are not allowed to touch the bags. When the two collectors take their departure to the next house, they leave the door of the room and the gate of the house wide open.
As soon as they have gone the women make a fire in the stove, kindling it with the lighted candle, and burn the ends of the straps. They heap the ashes and coals in the left-hand corner while the senior woman repeats a prayer to Yurtava ozais.When the collectors had gathered enough corn, honey, etc., they returned to the pryavt, who gave the parindyaits the sacred vats, and ordered them to brew the puré (beer). When he had fixed upon the three posanbunaveds, he gave them the money that had been collected to purchase a bull, sheep, goose, etc., for sacrifice, as the case might be.
The vosatya usually remained several years in office, as he had to know the ceremonial very accurately, and to repeat the prayers by heart, without mistake. While the preparations were being made he did not show himself in the street, and on the night before the festival went quietly to the Keremet, climbed up the sacred tree, and concealed himself among its foliage.
On the day of the festival the parindyaits set the vats in front of the sacred oak or lime tree, and poured puré (beer) into them. Two or three small barrels of beer were placed under the tree, beside the seat eventually occupied by the vosatya during the course of the ceremonies. The same persons also laid out on the ground baked bread, salt, and sometimes omelets. The Kashangorods fried the "parish omelets," and suspended them to the bars attached to the branches of the tree.
The people flocked to the place of sacrifice, the men, women, and girls keeping separate. The pryavt entered the Keremet first, and stationed himself in front of the vats. The people followed, the men placing themselves on the right, the women on the left, and behind them the girls. The women brought with them in frying-pans ready- made omelets and pies of millet groats.
All stood facing the west. The posanbunaveds led in the animals for sacrifice by the east gate,[19] and tied them up to the three posts there. Then they led them across the Keremet and fastened them to the yuba posts, where they were slaughtered by the posanbunaveds, and the blood allowed to run into the pit below the stones. The hides were hung up to the ter shigat, or posts on the east side. While the animals were being flayed the yanbeds, bearing the sacred vats, brought in water by the north gate,[20] filled the beer-kettles hanging in the horai shigat, or cooking shed, and lit a fire under them with the sacred candles. At the bidding of the pryavt, the turostors at the same time attached lighted candles to the back rims of the vats under the sacred tree. When the carcases had been cleaned the entrails were thrown into the pit, and the posanbunaveds filled the kettles with flesh. At the greater feasts, when several animals were sacrificed, the meat was boiled in several kettles, for it was not allowable to boil the flesh of two animals in the same pot.
When this last operation was completed, the loud voice of the vosatya from the branches of the sacred tree rang out the command:
"Sakmede" (keep silence).
The people uncovered, kept silent, and the vosatya said in a loud tone:
"Puré pre sa márta, paigure sa márta, andrya sa márta, shépete sa márta, velikoye sa márta, pashkin kodi."
The Ersa and Teryukhans are already so Russianized, and have so forgotten their language, that neither they nor the vosatya completely understand these words. But sa márta means "pray fervently," and pashkin kodi "make a lower bow or prostration."
Then all make a profounder obeisance, and each repeats individually;
"Cham Pas, have mercy upon us. Voltsi Pas, Nasarom Pas, have mercy upon us. Nishki Pas, Svyet Vereshki Velen Pas, protect us. Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, pray for us."
The prostrations and repetitions of this prayer, made in a subdued voice, occupy about half an hour or more.
The vosatya again shouts from bis hiding-place:
"Sakmede."
All are again silent, and cease bowing and making prostrations. He then repeats a second prayer, which he also does not understand. It begins:
"Chuval pusadyo, ilya mu sadyo chyaste vyaste."Next he orders the people to pray on their knees. All kneel down, raise their hands, look towards the sky, and shout with one voice:
"Cham Pas, Nasarom Pas, have mercy upon us. Nishki Pas, Svyet Vereshki Velen Pas, protect us. Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, pray for us."
The names of the divinities are pronounced slowly, but the words "have mercy upon us, defend us, protect us, pray for us," are slurred over quickly and imperfectly. The prayer is repeated several times, and meanwhile the vosatya descends from the tree and stands on the table, or on the seat at the foot of it. On one side of the seat is the barrel of beer (puré) called "the sovereign's barrel," as it is an offering for the welfare of the sovereign. On the other side is "the world's barrel," an offering for the welfare of all mankind. It often happens there is a third for the welfare of the government.
Having mounted on the seat, the vosatya throws his hands about in every direction, and again cries:
"Sakmede."
Those who are praying on their knees rise up and fix their eyes on the vosatya, who, with uncovered head, raises his hands towards the sky, turns to the west, and repeats to himself the prayer recently said by the people.
Then begins the proper sacrificial ceremony, called vosnápalom.
The vosatya, leaving his seat, takes the sacred ladle from the pryavt, places bread and salt in it, and approaches the pot in which the flesh is being boiled. Taking the sacrificial knife from the yanbed, he cuts off a piece of flesh and—without its being imperative—the tongue, and lays them carefully in the ladle. Then he stations himself on a seat beside the horai shigat, or cooking shed, raises the ladle towards the sky, and shouts:
"Cham Pas, take notice! accept! Nasarom Pas, take notice! accept!"
Meanwhile, all those in front of him stand silent, with their faces to the east,[21] and raise their hands towards the sky. When the vosatya has finished consecrating the sacrifice, he throws the contents of the ladle into the fire. All the worshippers simultaneously fall on their knees, look at the fire, and pray while the offering is being burnt, sometimes raising up their hands, sometimes letting them fall, and crying to Cham Pas and to the other divinities. While this is going on the vosatya is standing with the yanbeds near the fire, watching how the flesh, bread, and salt burn. When all this has been consumed, the vosatya again mounts the seat at the foot of the sacred tree and cries out three times in three directions:
"Sakmede."
All are silent, and now begins the second part of the ceremony.
The vosatya, with four old men from the crowd, take "the sovereign's barrel," and sets it on a large door. He puts candles lit from the sacrificial fire upon the barrel, round which one or more players on the pulama (bagpipe) kneel down. The people, still on their knees, raise their hands aloft, and with their faces to the west sing to the accompaniment of the bagpipes:
"Lord God Savagoth, Lord God Savagoth, Lord God Savagoth, Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, protect the white Kussian Czar."
Meanwhile several men take the door and hoist it up, barrel, musicians and all, sometimes heaving it up in the air, sometimes lowering it to the ground, sometimes hoisting it upon their heads. But when the vosatya's command, "Sakmede!" again rings forth, all are silent, while he repeats:
"Cham Pas, Nishhi Pas, Svyet Vereshki Pas, save the white Czar."
The musicians again begin playing, and all the people on their knees sing the above prayer.
The same ceremony is repeated with the second and third barrels for the welfare of all mankind and of the government. The vosatya then takes the sacred ladle from the pryavt, fills it with beer, approaches the fire, mounts upon the seat near it, raises the ladle aloft, and cries out:
"Cham Pas, take notice! accept!" &c., adding at the end, "protect the white Czar, have mercy on the white Czar, defend the white Czar."Then he upsets the purè into the fire, and all the people, kneeling with their faces to the east,[22] raise their eyes and hand towards the sky and sing the prayer recited by the vosatya. In the same way the beer and wort in the second and third barrels is offered.
The door on which the "the sovereign's barrel" rests is now laid on the ground. The vosatya orders everyone to bow to the ground, and the pryavt, approaching the barrel with the sacred ladle, fills it with purè, drinks, and says:
"Cham Pas, Nishki Pas, Svyet Vereshki Pas, protect the white Czar—for his health."
Meanwhile the kasangorods issue out the sacred ladles to the men that come in succession to the barrels to drink, repeating the same prayer as the pryavt. The beer (purè) is then emptied into vats, barrels, birchbark vessels, and carried home. This operation completed, one of the parindyaits walks up to the door, which the men standing near lift up. Holding a long fir pole in his right hand, and a ladle full of purè in the left, he then cries out:
"Dur, dur, dur pare Mastir Pas," i.e., "look, look, look, awful Mastir Pas."
He then takes a mouthful of purè, and spirts it in three directions over the people. The object of this is to insure a good harvest with the help of the earth-god who dwells in the earth.
When this ceremony is over the vosatya climbs up a tree. A ladle full of purè and a fir-pole is handed to him, and he again conceals himself in the branches. In that position he cries out:
"Sakmede!"
When all are silent, he recites in a loud voice the following prayer:
"Cham Pas, Nishki Pas, Svyet Vereski Velen Pas, have mercy upon us. Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, send forth white lightning and warm dew upon our crops. Mastir Pas, we wish to eat. Ved Mastir Pas, we wish to drink. Norrov ava Anaruchi, make the crops grow. Mastir Pas, Pas, the provider, feed us. Ved Mastir Pas, give us rain. Nishki Pas, shine hot upon our crops. Vergi muchki melkaso, give dry weather. Varma Pas, give gentle winds. Tast ozais, protect our crops. Suavtuma ozais, make much grow. Mastir Pas, make the corn, the oats, the buckwheat, and the millet grow. Dur, dur, dur, pare Mastir Pas."
After reciting this he takes some purè in his mouth and spirts it out in every direction. He then pours some from each barrel into the ladle, stations himself on the ground at the foot of the sacred tree, sticks a lighted candle into it, cries "Sakmede!" and orders all to bow to the sacred tree. Turning towards it he recites this prayer:
"Cham Pas, Nishki Pas, Svyet Vereshki Pas, have mercy upon us. Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, pray for us. Tumo ozais (oak ozais), have mercy upon us. Vechki kes keldigo, give plenty of trees. Pekshe ozais, give us plenty of bast shoes and plenty of bast. Piche ozais, give us dwelling rooms. Shotran ozais, give us logs for houses. Keren ozais, give us lime trees."
The vosatya then spills the whole of the first ladleful at the foot of the sacred tree. Afterwards he proceeds to do the same over the roots of the other trees in the Keremet, taking care that at least each different kind should get a little. While this is going on, the people are singing on their knees a prayer to the deity of the forest, of the same purport as that recited by the vosatya.
During the course of these ceremonies the sacrificial flesh got cooked. The posanbunaveds took it from the kettle and piled it up on the large wooden vats in front of the horai shigat. Then they carried it to the southern entrance, laid it on the huma or couch-shaped table there, and began to cut it into as many pieces as there were persons present with the sacrificial knives. The yanbeds distributed the volog or flesh to the people as they approached the huma; first to the pryavt, then to the old men and elders of the villages. Meanwhile the kashangorods went to the pot in which the shchirya or broth remained, took it out in the sacred ladle, and brought it to the people according to their ages. They brought a ladleful to the vosatya, who, retaining his seat at the foot of the tree, and shouting with a loud voice "Sakmede!" commanded all to fall on their knees while he recited:
"Cham Pas, Voltsi Pas, have mercy upon us. Kyolyada ozais, Rev ozais, protect our cattle. Taim ozais, have mercy on the pigs. Angar ozais, Lishman ozais, have mercy on the horses. Voltsi Pas, give plenty of calves, lambs, foals, and sucking pigs. Dur, dur, dur, pare Voltsi Pas."
After praying in this manner he takes some soup in his mouth and spirts it in all directions, while the people are on their knees singing, with their hands raised, and the musicians playing a slow accompaniment.
Then followed usually the offering of the omelets and pies made of millet groats. The former were made at home of as many eggs as there were persons in the family, and were brought in frying pans and suspended by bast strings to bars placed in the branches of the sacred tree. Besides these, larger omelets were made in the Keremet of the eggs collected by the parindyaits and yanbeds the day before the festival. The larger "parish omelets" were usually made in four pieces. The posanbunaveds made and fried them on the oven plate in the horai shigat and then gave them on the plate to the kashangorods to suspend from the bars. If there was no room on the tree for the omelets and pies brought from home they were hung up on adjacent trees.
The vosatya then takes the plate of "parish omelet," places the fire upon it, mounts on the seat beside the sacred tree, shouts "Sakmede!" and commands all the people to bow. Then, raising the omelet and pie above his head, he recites the following prayer:
"Cham Pas, Nishki Pas, Svyet Vereshhi Pas, have mercy upon us. Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, pray for us. Ange ozais, have mercy on our children. Ange Patyai Pas, give us more children, protect the hens, the geese, the ducks. Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, Nishkendi Tevtyar, give us plenty of bees."
When this is over the vosatya descends to the ground, takes a piece of "parish omelet," walks to the horai shigat, mounts on a tub reversed, and raising the morsel says:
"Cham Pas, take notice! accept! Ange Patyai Pas, mother, most holy mother of God, take notice! accept! Ange ozais, take notice! accept!"
He then throws the morsel into the fire, and the people prostrating themselves and turning to the east[23] towards the fire sing the "omelet prayer," pronounced by the vosatya at the foot of the tree. While this is going on the musicians play upon the pulama.
The omelets and pies are distributed to all present. When the women have eaten their share they carry away the remainder to their little children at home. All then sit down on the ground and partake of the flesh, broth, bread, and pies of millet groats, and drink the purè.
When they are seated, the girls, who up to this time have been given nothing to eat or drink, begin asking in lachrymose voice:
"Pryavt, we wish to drink. Elders of the village, we wish to eat."
Then beer, flesh, broth, pies, and omelets are given them. While they are eating, each of the turostors, at the command of the vosatya, mounts on a bench or a tub reversed and cries out:
"Sakmede!"
Those who are eating keep silent, and the turostor gives orders to the girls:
"Tyavter murado posmorò" (let the girls sing the pos morò or sacred song).
Those that have high and powerful voices are selected for this purpose. At the bidding of the turostor they place themselves in the centre of the Keremet and the former shouts out:
"Puláma."
The musicians obey the summons, and the story begins.
According to Melnikof the pos morò is a long song in the Mordvin language, the meaning of which the Ersa and Teryukhans no longer understand. The girls sing it, however, without knowing what it means. At the beginning it is directed towards the Gods, and at the end sets them side by side with some day of the week:
"Friday, Pas Velen Pas.
Sunday, Voltsi Pas ukoni.
Wednesday, Cham Pas.
Tuesday, Ved Pas.
Thursday, Nishki Pas.
Saturday, Mastir Pas.
Monday, Vam Pas, to ike.
When this is concluded, the girls sing in Russian while the musicians are playing:
"Parindyaits, we wish to drink,
Ye seniors of the village chulkoni,
Oh! thou most senior, we wish to eat.
Tyavter muradon."
Then the turostor cries out:
"Pulama mukyit! tyavter kodamò!" (bagpipers keep silent, girls keep silent).
He then orders those standing near the table to give the singers food and drink. When they have eaten, at the bidding of the turostor the girls again sing the pos morò, again eat and drink till all is consumed, save a small quantity of purè, flesh, and omelet, which is carried home.
The remains of the sacrificed animals—the horns, bones, hoofs, etc.—were sometimes burnt in the sacred fire at the conclusion of the feast, sometimes were buried inside the Keremet.
When all was over, the ladles, knives, vats, and other articles were taken back to the pryavts. So, too, with the ends of the candles that had been attached to the rim of the "sovereign's barrel," but the other candle-ends were divided among the heads of households.
The Goddess Ange Patyai.
Public parish sacrificial feasts were not held oftener than five times a year. They were celebrated in honour of the chief divinities, Ange Patyai, her sons Nishki Pas, Svyet Vereshki Velen Pas, Voltsi Pas, and Nasarom Pas, and her four daughters, "Patyai's sisters." The customs were not everywhere the same. In some parishes on the Volga, the Sura, and other large rivers, where the inhabitants were partly fishermen, public festivals were held in honour of Ved mastir Pas, the water-god, etc.
Twice a year honours were paid to Ange Patyai, and at the same time to her four daughters. The Mordvins believed her to be an ever-young virgin, full of power, beauty, and life, and the maintainer of life in the world. In her virginal character she was the protectress of girls and of morality. But as mother of the gods she was also protectress of married women, was helpful at child-birth, and protected the lives and health of new-born children. Hence the two festivals in her honour. The one was held in spring, first by girls (see note, §11), then by widows, out in the fields or in groves by the side of a spring or a water-course. The other was kept at home in winter, first by children, the beloved of Ange Patyai, afterwards by married women and midwives.
Altogether there were eight festivals a year to Ange Patyai:
1. On the seventh Thursday after Russian Easter the girls held one, partly in the country, partly near water. It was called Kyolu molyan, after the name of the birch-god, Kyol ozais.
2. On the following day a great parish sacrificial feast was held in honour of Ange Patyai and Kyol ozais. This was called Tevtyar molyan, or the festival of girls, as they were the chief personages concerned.
3. On the Thursday after Trinity Sunday widows held a feast in honour of Ange Patyai, at which a midwife was the chief personage. It was termed Baban molyan, or festival of aged women.
4. On Christmas Eve small boys and girls celebrated a festival in honour of Ange Patyai and Kyolada ozais, the protector of cattle.
5. On Christmas Day a sacrificial feast was held in honour of Ange Patyai and Nishki Pas, to which all the gods were invited as guests.
6. On the following day the married women held a public parish festival at the house of a midwife.
7. On New Year's Eve the children again held a festival to Ange Patyai and Taunsyai, the divinity of swine.
8. The winter festival was held on New Year's Day, with a divine service at home to the above divinities.
According to the Mordvins, Ange Patyai lives both in the sky and on the earth. Her house is high up behind the clouds, and is filled with unborn human souls and with the growing corn on which wild and domestic animals are nourished. Thence she pours down on the earth the forces that sustain life, sometimes in the form of morning dew, sometimes as rain and snow, at other times as lightning. The latter is especially fertilizing. When it has been discharged it penetrates even the dwelling of Mastir Pas, and gives him the power of fertilizing the ground. In a MS. of the last century, a certain Miklovich relates that the Mordvins of Simbirsk called the lightning Sarya[24] ozais, and regarded it as Ange Patyai's dearest granddaughter, and as their principal helper. Ange Patyai sends her female servants to the earth in the event of a child being born, but is herself invisible.
In her abode in the sky she is young and beautiful, but on descending to the earth displays herself as a remarkably powerful old woman. Here she is like iron. The earth bends as she walks along, and should she tread on a stone the print of her foot remains behind. Occasionally she is seen on earth, sometimes in the shape of a great white bird with a golden tail, dropping seed from its golden beak upon the fields and pastures; sometimes in the form of a snow-white dove that showers down flowers for bees to gather honey from and grains of corn for her beloved hens. For the most part men only see the shadow of this benevolent divinity, when she is going to look at the meadows. Sometimes on a clear summer's day, about mid-day, one sees a thin shadowy veil suddenly thrown over the cornfields, though against the sun it is scarcely perceptible. This, the Mordvins say, is the shadow of Ange Patyai. The goddess is then passing invisibly over the earth, benefiting the animals and plants dear to her and fertilizing the ground. Though she assigns an Ange ozais, or good guardian spirit, to every babe, yet she often goes herself to sleeping children and does acts of kindness to them. If a sleeping child smiles, one may know that the goddess is fondling it.
One of her cares is whether women are industrious, and especially how they spin, for she is a spinner herself. On the ridge of a silver mountain in the sky she spins her threads with a golden wheel. During her week, from Christmas-eve to the new year in winter, and from the day of Semìk (the seventh Thursday after Easter) to the following Thursday in summer, Mordvin women do not spin. To do so would be a great sin; and they believe that wearing clothes containing threads spun on those days brings much misfortune to the wearer. The cobwebs that float about on a clear autumn day are the weaving of the goddess.
Of domestic creatures, hens are her favourites, on account of their productiveness. Hens and eggs are therefore offered to her. The eggs offered on the day of Semìk are stained reddish yellow with cloves of garlic. Such eggs are termed golden. They are carefully kept; and in case of fire are thrown into the flames to check the blaze and to turn the wind. They are placed on trees in the forest, where beehives are kept, that the bees may be more productive, and chickens are fed with them, accompanying the action with a prayer to the goddess, that they may become good layers of eggs when full-grown. These eggs are also eaten by barren women, and by those whose children have died young. If a plague has broken out among the cattle or other domestic animals, especially if the sheep die, such eggs are broken and scattered about the cow-houses, and the cattle are smoked with the burnt egg-shells and cloves of garlic.
The Mordvins relate the following legend:
At the beginning of the world, Ange Patyai said to all the women and female creatures that they ought to bring forth offspring every day. They would not, however, agree to this, saying that it would be very irksome and painful. The hen alone agreed, and therefore became the favourite creature of the goddess. Another bird also consented, and was also on the point of becoming her favourite; but, subsequently, it got weary of the trouble of daily laying eggs. This was the cuckoo, which was intended to be a domestic creature. The goddess then became angry, drove it away from human habitations into the woods, and did not allow it to make its own nest any more, but ordered it to lay its eggs in a strange nest. As a sign of the breach of promise, she made the cuckoo pock-marked and its eggs speckled. From that time forth it cuckoos in the forest, lamenting and pining after the human habitations where it had led such a comfortable life.
While shaking down growing corn upon the fields Ange Patyai restrains storms, thunder, and lightning. Without her aid the world would long ago have been destroyed. When it rains the goddess is sprinkling down milk from her home in the sky, and if these "milk-drops" fall upon cows, their yield of milk is increased. Of all mammals the dearest to the goddess are sheep and pigs, from their greater reproductiveness. On this account the Mordvins offer up to her in summer a white sheep and in winter a pig, in lieu of hens and eggs.
Of agricultural products she especially loves millet and flax, as they yield more seed than other plants. She herself gathers flax from the fields, about one stalk from every desyatin (1866 square yards), and spins with her silver comb the thread for the shirts of her infant gods. She also plucks wool from white sheep, spins it, dyes the yarn in the blue of the sky, in the red of the sun, in the yellow of the moon, and in the ruddy dawn; and with the motley thread she sews hems and shoulder-seams, after Mordvin fashion, on the shirts of the gods. The rainbow is the hem of Nishki Pas' shirt, which his mother sewed for him.[25] If a woman is in the family-way and Ange Patyai is specially well-disposed towards her, she orders her daughter to weave a shirt for the infant, and sends it to the earth to the Ange ozais. Such children are born with a so-called "lucky cap." They are considered fortunate, and live all their lives in the goodwill of the goddess. The caul is sewn into the child's first suit of clothes, is carried about during its whole life-time, and follows its owner into the grave. If the person loses it he brings on himself many misfortunes and loses the favour of the goddess.
As millet is also dear to Ange Patyai, sick children are fed with millet groats boiled in sheep's milk. Similar groats are eaten by newly-married couples at their wedding, At the gatherings on the occasion of the birth of a child—nowadays at the christening—the midwife gives groats of this description to all present. Widows offer the same to Ange Patyai at "the festival of aged women." Hens, too, are fed with millet groats, mentioning at the same time the name of the goddess, that they may become better layers.
Ange Patyai is also well disposed towards onions and garlic. The former are, therefore, placed by the Mordvins under the pillows of sickly or restless children, who are also smoked with cloves of garlic. She does not like hops, as they have grown from a shoot given to man by Shaitan. The Mordvins, therefore, never use hopped beer at their festivals in her honour, but only pure, or wort mixed with honey. The birch is her favourite tree, because it is more fertile, and spreads more than other trees. No festival is held to her without eggs, millet, and birch trees. At her winter festivals macerated bath-switches of birch are employed.
Of insects, the busy, productive bee is her greatest favourite, as it, like the hen, consented to her proposal to produce offspring every day. Accordingly, it is only from beeswax that the sacred candles are made; and the sacrificial purè is only prepared from bees' honey. Wasps and bumble bees are not favourites, as they did not agree to her desire. The ant undertook to breed daily, and to be an ever-industrious worker; but deceitful Shaitan began digging the ants' honeycombs into the ground, and concealed its young ones in the coarse sand, so that men could get no use out of them. The goddess, therefore, took the sweetness from the "ants' butter" and commanded them to work only in the ground. But, formerly, "ants' butter" was honey.
Ange Patyai also favours midwives, so that she has here and there obtained the cognomen of Bulaman Patyai, goddess of the midwife. On the second day of her winter festival a private sacrificial feast was held in every village in the house of a midwife, and this has preserved the name of "the midday-meal assembly," down to our times. Doctors were also favoured persons, and she aided them in curing all diseases. In all the special appliances with which they healed any complaint or disorder they used eggs and millet, without which no sort of ceremony could be performed in her honour. The Mordvins in the government of Samara still cure disorders with eggs, millet-groats, branches of birch or bath-switches.
Before her summer festival the parindyaits and yanbeds collected malt, corn, honey, &c., as has already been described; but this time girls, not the women, bared their shoulders and breasts, and gave the supplies to the collectors. Holding both ends of the straps in one hand, the girl concealed her breast with the other, as a sign of her maidenhood. On the eve of the festival the girls decked the room and the courtyard with green, especially with birch branches, and planted small birch trees in front of the houses, in the same way as the Russians do on Trinity Sunday. They tied wreaths of flowers and twigs for their heads, and suspended them outside the dwelling-room, one for each girl in the house. Wreaths were also hung over their pillows, with the following prayer to Ange Patyai:
"Cham Pas, have mercy upon us. Ange Patyai, dear mother, help thy daughter Masyakai (the girl's name) to live modestly, and give her soon a good bridegroom." Having hung the wreath up, they add:
"Svyet Nishki Pas, send me a bridegroom."
On the eve of the festival, or on the eve of the Russian Semìk (the seventh Thursday after Easter), the girls of all the villages assemble and go in procession from house to house, with wreaths on their heads, holding birch branches in their hands, and singing lustily to Ange Patyai for protection and to Nishki Pas to send them husbands. Men are not allowed to take part in this procession. If any reckless youth ventures to intrude upon their company they cuff and tickle him till he promises to buy them about a dozen fresh eggs. Only a player on the pulàman could accompany the girls if they chose to invite him.
The girls choose a leader called pryavt tevtyar; she walks at the head of the procession, preceded by little girls carrying a small birch tree, kyölu, decked with the karkschamaks (girdle) of the leader, as well as with handkerchiefs and scarfs. Three girl parindyaits follow their leader, carrying bast and birchbark baskets, adorned with branches of birch. On approaching each house the girls sing a special song called kyöl-moró (birch-song). In the government of Samara and Simbirsk, where the girls have forgotten their own language, they sing in Russian:
"Hail! thou white birch,
Hail! thou great maple leaf,
Hail! guardian of the lime,
All hail! ye lovely girls,
All hail! our mistress dear:
To thee, mistress dear,
Are coming lovely girls
To gather yellow eggs,
Omelets and also pies.
The mistress of the house gives eggs, millet, meal, and butter through the window. The leader takes the eggs, but the daughter, niece, or some relation of the mistress takes the meal and butter. These gifts are laid in the baskets of the girl parindyaits.
While delivering these presents the mistress says:
"Ange Patyai Pas, dear mother, preserve thy dear child, so that a bad man may not fall in love with her, nor carry of her green wreath."
As they retire from the window, the girls arrange themselves in a circle in front of it, and, to the accompaniment of the pulàman, sing a song of thanks to the daughter of the house. The three following are specimens of these songs as they are still sung in Mordvin in the districts of Saransk and Krasnoslovodsk, in the government of Pensa, though some singers do not completely understand them. In the first, in which several Russian words occur, there are traces both of Finnish metre and alliteration:
"Káti Káterka máterka,
Káterka yakói shchogolsta.
Kati shchogolsta, chuvansta,
Vai Saratovskoi chyulkasi,
Séri kochkeri báshmaksa,
Kóta kválmasa palyasa
Kem kaftova rutsyasa
Vai, páli sarya shtofnoisa."
Little mistress, Kitty, Kate,
Proudly Kitty clothed herself.
Proud and stately is her gait,
Oh! what stockings of Saràtof!
Oh! the shoes so high of heel,
Six the stripes upon her shirt,
Flounces ten on her kaftán,
Shirt adorned with rose of dawn."
"Tevtyars ionos Tatyanas.
Mesdya paro son?
Palininsa másinit,
Oshanyansa, kúvakat,
Selymi nànsa ràushat."
"A lovely girl is Tatyana.
But wherefore is she beautiful?
Most lovely are her linen clothes.
Her shirtsleeves are voluminous.
Her eyes are of the blackest hue."
The third runs as follows:
"Ryasapan Sófas
Shechk làsan pésha
Sófan rongonats,
Ilyanas kotf krinks
Pilgen kartsifats,
Vai leshmé lévken
Pílgen shechafkes."
"Ryasapan Sophia!
White as a peeléd lime
Sophia's body is,
Round as a tuft of flax
Her stocking-legs appear,
Oh! like a nimble foal's
Her movements seem to be."
Mordvin women are particularly proud of their legs, and therefore wear short shirts and petticoats. The beauty of the legs consists in their thickness and their firm gait. The women therefore bind several ells of fine well-bleached linen as smoothly as possible round their legs. They are noted for the briskness of their gait, always hold their heads well up, look straight before them, and never turn their eyes to the ground.
When the girls have collected enough eggs, butter, and meal, they start off, as evening approaches, for some river, watercourse, or spring near the village, carrying their bedizened birch trees, and singing as they step along.
It must be remembered that the Russian peasantry celebrate Semik with various ceremonies in which songs, special to the occasion, occur. It is highly probable that these ceremonies are not originally Slavonic, but have been borrowed from a people of Finnish stock. In the governments of Nizhegorod and Simbirsk both the Mordvins and the Russians, living in close proximity, sing the following song in Russian. The Mordvin girls, too, sing it in Russian when going to their festival:
"Bless us, o Trinity,
Thou mother [too] of God,
While going to the woods
To plait together wreaths
Of branches of the birch.
Oi Did Lado!
My wee birch tree!
"We'll to the forest go,
We'll gather flowers there,
We'll plait together wreaths.
Oi Did Lado!
My wee birch tree!
"We shall direct our steps
To meadows—groves of birch.
A birch branch we'll break off—
Together plait a wreath
And fling it in the stream.
Oi Did Lado!
My wee birch tree!
"The wreath—will it float,
The wreath—will it sink,
O little birch tree?
O wreath, do thou float,
O wreath, do not sink.
Oi Did Lado!
My wee birch tree."
The expression Did Lado has undoubtedly come to the Mordvins through the Russians, and was used by the former at the beginning of the last century.
On reaching the watercourse, the girls set up their decorated birch tree on the bank, or, as in some places, they strip it of its ribbons and tie them to the branches of a growing birch. Then they place themselves in a circle round it, and the girl parindyait cries:
"Sakmede!"
The girls are silent, and their leader repeats:
"Kyolu Pas! viniman mon, have mercy upon us, Ange Patyai Pas, give us health."
They then bow profoundly to the birch three times. After this service to the divinity of the birch tree they take the wreaths from their heads and throw them into the water. If the wreath floats, the girl will soon be married, if it sinks she will soon die. They then take their clothes off and wash their feet in the water. Lastly they strip the birch of its ribbons and decorations, break it up, and throw it into the fire on which the omelets are being prepared. When these are ready the leader cries:
"Sakmede!"
She then repeats a prayer, first to Cham Pas, next to Ange Patyai, for health and good bridegrooms, and lastly to Kyol ozais, to whom the omelets are offered by raising the fryingpan three times in the air. When all the food is eaten, the girls begin "making godmothers" of each other. For this purpose they make a large wreath of birch branches through which they kiss one another after singing a song. In the governments of Nizhegorod and Simbirsk the following Russian song is used, as also by the Russians themselves, during the ceremonies of the day:
"Godmother! we'll be godmothers, godmothers we shall be,
We'll make godmother the Semìk birch tree.
Oi Did Lado to worthy Semìk,
Oi Did Lado to my wee birch tree,
To godmother [and] to the dove.
Godmothers we'll be,
Godmothers we'll be,
Don't wrangle, don't scold,
Oi Did Lado! my little birch tree!"
When the girls have made themselves godmothers, they return to the village singing lustily in Russian:
Dear mother Trinity,
The mother too of God,
And hon'rable Semìk
To us both soap and candles give,
Something to bleach [us] white,
A little looking-glass,
Of money a copek,
Oi Did Lado
Worthy Semìk's cake of eggs."
In place of the Trinity, they probably used to pray to Cham Pas, Nishki Pas, and Ved Pas. The phrase "mother of God" has undoubtedly taken the place of Ange Patyai, and "honourable Semìk" that of Kyolu Ozais, in whose honour the girls hold the festival.
On the following day old and young, men and women, all assembled for a public festival in the Keremet consecrated to Ange Patyai. Three girls led the white one-year-old sheep, bought with the money collected by the parindyaits and yanbeds. First they washed it in a brook, and sometimes tied branches to its horns. If there was a great gathering of people, they brought two, three, or more sheep. When they had led them to the east door of the Keremet, the girls left them to the posanbunaveds. These tied the sheep to the sheep-post (yuba), then led them to the tershigat, skinned them with the sacrificial knife, hung up the fleeces on the yuba posts, and left the flesh to be cooked by the yanbeds. The girls, holding birch branches decked with handkerchiefs and linen cloths, stationed themselves in front of the sacred birch, which was similarly bedecked. Behind the girls were the women, and behind them stood the men. The omelets and millet-groats brought from home were suspended to the branches in earthen pots, and in front of the birch tree was set a barrel of beer mixed with honey or purè. The girls chose three of themselves, and gave them the eggs already collected to make "parish omelets" on the stove-plate.
Then the vosatya climbed the tree and conducted the divine service, as has already been described. At this festival no purè was sprinkled over the people, but instead the vosatya ejected green birch twigs from his mouth, with a prayer to Kyolu Ozais. The girls gathered the twigs, wove wreaths with them, and set them on their heads. On this occasion the girls were the first to receive purè, mutton, broth, and omelets.
At the conclusion of the service the men and women returned home, but the girls went singing to a stream, undressed, and washed their feet. Then they again "made godmothers," by kissing through wreaths, and finally threw both the wreaths and the branches they had been carrying into the water.
The spring festival to Ange Patyai did not, however, end there. A week later, on the Thursday after Trinity week, the so-called "widows' prayer-feast" was held. Only widows took part in it, and only such recent widows as had determined to live unwedded for the future. This festival of the widows, or "widows' groats," was the third dedicated to Ange Patyai.
On the eve of the Thursday six or seven aged women assembled, and went the rounds of the village, to collect what was necessary. The material thus gathered was handed over to the elected pryavt baba, or senior of the aged women. The office was usually assigned to the bulaman or midwife of the village. With the money collected an old sheep was bought. On Thursday morning at sunrise the aged women assembled at the same place, and first carried a small birch tree, decked with white scarfs or handkerchiefs, to a river, watercourse, or spring. Then they transported to the place fifteen earthen pots full of millet, groats, and other edibles, together with a live sheep and a hen. The widows appointed an aged widower, usually a posanbunaved, to kill the animal for sacrifice.
By the side of a spring or stream, and, as a matter of necessity, in a grove of trees, if possible of birch, the aged women lit a fire and hung the kettles over it. In a cauldron that would hold about ten pails they cooked a sort of pap, thickened with butter, and prepared the omelets on large stove-plates. They placed the cooked food on the ground, and planted the birch in the centre. Then they arranged themselves in a circle, and, three widows stepping forward, repeated a prayer simultaneously. It is to be regretted that Melnikof had no Mordvin text of this prayer, but Feodor Shaverski, a priest of the village of Vechkomof, states that now the widows take a holy picture with them, and say before it:
"Lord Pas the Provider, help and protect us, and may much of every sort of produce be given to the orthodox people!"
Then they look towards the sky, and add:
"Thou father, Ilya the Great, send down warmth, dew, and fine weather!"
Then looking at the river or spring, they pray:
"Water, dear mother, give health to all baptized people. Whoever drinks thee, whoever eats, give him health; and to whoever bathes to him grant refreshment and joy. Give health also to the cattle that drink thee."
Approaching the food laid on the ground, they say:
"For thee, Lord! Take the pap, omelet, pancakes, and sour cream, but grant what we ask for. Give, Lord Pas, and thou, dear mother, most holy mother of God, to all orthodox people abundance of all kinds of cattle; grant that they may bring forth many young, that they may grow large and may be healthy."
According to Shaverski this is repeated three times. He also says that at its conclusion the women eat the pap, mixing with it omelets and sour cream. They then lie down and sleep. On waking about noon they begin the offices of sacrifice. The appointed widower kills the sheep and the nine hens, and cooks their flesh in water without salt. When sufficiently cooked he takes the meat out of the broth, pours the latter into a trough, and sets it on the ground near the stream or spring. The women put the meat near the fifteen earthen pots full of groats, and add butter to it. When all is arranged, they fall on their knees before the picture, and the three aged women repeat:
"Lord Pas the Provider, help and defend us. Give us plenty of every sort of good thing, and health to all thy people. Grant us health, grant success to all our labours, and undertakings. Wherever we go, grant good luck to the journey. What we beg of thee, what we entreat for, do thou, Pas the Provider, ever give us. Dear mother, most holy mother of God, let a great crop come up; give us horses, cows, sheep, and to the latter give soft wool. Defend, O Lord Pas the Provider, all the orthodox from bad men, from wizards; do not let them attack us; cause them, Lord, to hang down by their feet, break their right hands, thrust out their right eyes."
Then they approach the food, saying:
"Look! for thee, O Lord Pas the Provider. Look! for thee, dear mother, most holy mother of God, there stand groats, a whole loaf, mutton, the flesh of a fowl, and broth. Take it! what we pray for, give!"
After repeating this thrice, the women seat themselves round the food and eat their midday meal. Men and young women of the same village now come on the scene, and something is given them to eat. The women then collect what remains and go home. In the districts of Alatirya, Kurmusha, and Ardatova, in the government of Simbirsk, the aged women, on their return home, bury one portion of the remains of the groats in the west corner of the sheep-pen, another portion they put under the Kardo syarko stone, and what is left they eat next day with the people of the house. A birch tree is placed in the sheep-pen, and perches for the hens are put in the branches.
The winter festivals to Ange Patyai are called kyolyadenak, and are held at Christmas. Properly speaking, the word means the festival of Kyolada ozais. It is chiefly married women and children of both sexes that take an active part in them, and midwives are held in special honour.
The young women concoct purè for Christmas without hops, an operation at which no old men or women are allowed to be present. The day before Christmas Eve a three weeks' old pig was slaughtered with special ceremonies over the centre of the kardo syarko. All the mash that remained from the brewing of the beer for the festival of Nasarom Pas on December 6, and what was collected on the present occasion, was given to the pig. Three days before it was slaughtered it was released from the recess under the hearth-stone where it generally lived. On December 23 the young married women dressed out the pig. A linen scarf was tied round its neck, and between them were stuck in some twigs of a macerated bath switch. It was then led to the front corner of the room, and the greater part of the water used to soften the switch was poured into a bowl and presented to the pig to drink. The master of the house then led it to the centre of the courtyard, and stuck it without removing the linen or the twigs, allowing the blood to flow under the kardo syarko. On the same stone the pig was singed with chips of birch ignited by the sacred candles, and accompanied by a prayer to Ange Patyai, Nishki Pas, and Taun ozais, the divinity of pigs. The scarf was also burned, but the bloody twigs were taken by the mistress of the house to wake the children with on Christmas morning. While still sleeping their mother used to strike them hard, saying:
"Ange Patyai kasines, kyolchanyan kasines, kyolkyolyada kasines," i. e., A. P. has given, the birch festival has given, kyolyada has given.
The mother does this for the benefit of their health. The louder the children cry the healthier they will become, for Ange Patyai will hear them the sooner. For the feast they usually boiled maccaroni broth or pap with the pork, and roasted the pig's head with sausages made of its intestines and stuffed with millet groats.
On Christmas Eve children both in Mordvin and Russian villages have the same custom, termed by the Russians kolyada, and by the Mordvins, after their birch tree divinity, kyolyada, the protector of cattle. The Russians have vainly endeavoured to explain their word either by the Latin calendoe, or by the Slavonic kolo, a circle. The Mordvin word means "birchen," from kyol, kyolu, a birch, the tree sacred to Ange Patyai.
During the summer festival girls and widows go about with fresh birch trees, but as these are not obtainable in winter the Mordvin women soften bath-switches of birch in boiling water, into which they put milk, a handful of millet, and break a few eggs. Some of the water is given, as we have seen, to the pig. Children's cradles are also washed with it, and women about to be confined are sprinkled with some.
On Christmas Eve boys and girls up to the age of 14 or 15 assemble together. The girls go about carrying bath-switches of birch to which scarfs and handkerchiefs are attached. These switches are also known as kyol kyolyada. The boys carry sticks, large and small bells, and stove plates. The procession is headed by a girl with a lantern, tied to the end of a stick, and carried high. She is followed by another girl carrying a sack. As they move in procession the children sing:
"Kyoly Kyolyada,
Golden bearded.
On his business we go.
Kyolyada has come.
Open the gate (ortà)
Give to Kyolyada
Sausages, feet,
And old women's pancakes.
Kyol, Kyolyada
Golden bearded."
While this is being sung the boys ring the bells, beat the stove-plates, and raise a fearful din through the whole village. Approaching a window they sing:
Ho! Kyolyada!
[See] those red posts,
Ho! Kyolyada! [repeated after each line]
That golden, solid gate,
Like silver gleams the fence.
Where, brother Vasyai, sleepest thou at night?
It is hot on the stove,
On the stove-bench—a smell.
Near the stove-mouth—a smoke,
On the bench—a tight fit,
At the place in the nook,
Old wives have been there,
Aged women have drunk;
Men too have been [there],
Married women have drunk;
Brother Vasyai is rich.
With a spade gathers coin,
Pancakes and sausages,
Kyolyangemen pies."
The young married women, dressed in their best clothes, give from the window eggs garnished with cloves of garlick, pork sausages stuffed with millet groats, sweet pancakes of milk, butter, eggs, &c.; and the so-called kyolyangemen, or pies stuffed with millet, groats, and eggs, and made into the shape of sheep, pigs, and hens. The children put these donations into the sack. When they have made the round of the village they assemble in some room, set the great decorated bath-switch and the lighted candle in the front corner, and eat their supper. That over, they return home.
By noon on Christmas-eve the young married women are already beginning the preparation of food. A fire is lit in the stove with a special ceremony. A lighted candle and a bath-switch of birch are placed in front of the stove. Then the ashes are swept from the stove and the pit below it with another softened switch before putting in the firewood, which must be of birch. The mistress of the house takes a faggot of birch rods, lights it with the candle, saying:
"O, Cham Pas, have mercy upon us. O, Ange Patyai, dear mother, most holy mother of God, pray for us. O, Svyet Nishki Pas, let the ruddy sun rise, warm us with its warmth, cause abundance of crops to grow for us."
The burning faggot is placed on the hearth-stone, and on the top a brand that has been carefully preserved from the last winter festival. When ignited, it is pushed into the pit below the stove, and the wood in the stove is lit from the blazing faggot. Besides the brand they put in the pit a log of birch, still wet, which smoulders for three days. On the remains of the brand they pour some of the water in which the switches were softened. Afterwards, it is put under the hearth-stone, to serve for the next winter's festival. Doucing the brand should be performed by a child, the youngest member of the household that can stand on its feet. Before this is done its mother shakes salt over the brand, and as it crackles in the fire, she says :
"O, Nishki Pas, shine upon us more sharply than salt; do not thunder, O Pas Purgine."
Next day (Christmas-day) the married women cover the floor with clean straw, put a bath-switch of birch with its head outwards in the front corner, and a lighted candle in front of it, and then begin preparing food. The pig's head is cooked separately, and, when ready, a red egg is put in its mouth, and also a softened sprig of birch. On the dish they lay red threads like a beard under the head, and this is called, "the golden beard."
At mid-day, December 25, the master of the house lights a candle and falls on his knees with all the household before the open window. At all divine services at home the Mordvins keep the window open and look through it to the sky while repeating their prayers. All bow towards the ground and elevate their hands, while the master of the house invites the gods as guests in this way:
"O, Cham Pas, have mercy upon us. O, Ange Patyai, dear mother, most holy mother of God, come to our house, to thy kyolchyanyan festival. O, Nishki Pas, O, Iniche Pas, come to our house, to thy kyolchyanyan festival. O, Svyet Vereshhi Velen Pas (here other divinities are mentioned, as the case may be), come to our house with Ange Patyai and her son Iniche Pas to their kyolchyanyan festival."
Cham Pas is too great to be invited as a guest. The Mordvins say if he were to enter anyone's house the whole village, with all its inhabitants, buildings, cattle, fields, woods, rivers, and wells, would burn up in the twinkling of an eye.
After this invitation to the gods the master of the house bids those present to prepare for dinner. The mistress hands him the pig's head on a dish, which he takes outside the room, accompanied by the children. The youngest child leads the way, carrying the bath-switch that was placed in the front corner. First he carries the head to the kardo syarko, then to the horse-stalls, the cow-house, the hen-house, the cellar, the bath-house, the drying-barn, and the well, repeating at each place a prayer to Ange Patyai, Nishki Pas, and to the divinity of each place—to Rev Pas at the sheep-pen, to Lishmen ozais at the stall, &c. After this they return to the room where all the eatables are already laid on a table spread with a clean linen cloth. Two of the millet-groat pies are placed side by side, and the third on the top. The upper one is consecrated to Ange Patyai, the lower ones to Nishki Pas, and to her other sons and daughters. A tub of puré is set on the floor near the table. The master of the house places the pig's head in the centre of the table, and the bath-switch in the front corner of the room. Then all fall on their knees, and he prays as follows. "O, Cham Pas, have mercy upon us. Ange Patyai Pas, dear mother, most holy mother of God, pray for us. O, Nishki Pas, O, Iniche Pas, help and defend us. We salute you with bread, salt, and a full table. Look! for thee, Ange Patyai, is a pig's head, kyolyangemen, bread, salt, a bucket of puré, and coloured eggs. Look! for thee, O, Nishki Pas (the food is again recounted). Look! for ye gods (their names are given and the food is specified). In proportion to the bread and salt on the table, in that proportion give us wealth. Give us as much wealth as there are grains in the pies. Protect us from evil men, and from the unclean Power; protect also the sheep and pigs from wolves. Give, O Ange Patyai, to our crops that are sown in the ground white lightning and warm dew. O, Svyet Nishki Pas, shine hot upon our crops. O, Ange Patyai, make the straw grow thick with great ears, with grain yellow as the eggs of a hen. Give us cattle of the colour Yurta ozais likes. Give us plenty of hardy horses, sound and strong as bears. Give us cows, pigs, fowls, geese, ducks; all sorts of cattle, and all sorts of birds. For old benefits we prostrate ourselves; give fresh ones."
This prayer is still used in Russian by the Russianised Mordvins of the government of Samara, though according to Shaverski the pagan divinities are no longer mentioned. It begins:
"O God on high, the great God, help and defend us." Instead of invoking the favour of Ange Patyai, they say: "Look! for thee, Festival of Christ's birth (rozhdestvo Kristovo) is a pig's head, &c."
In place of Nishki Pas they say Pas the Provider. These Russianised people also no longer use a bath switch of birch, but place a lighted candle before the holy picture.
When the above prayer is over, the master takes the upper pie, cuts off an edge and puts on it a bit of the head, some pork from the maccaroni broth, a morsel of stained egg, of sweet pancake, and of other eatables on the table. All this he takes in his right hand, in his left a ladleful of puré, and then repeats without kneeling the above prayer for a third time. All the others are on their knees. As he mentions each kind of food he touches the corresponding piece in his right hand. Then he hands it all over to his wife, who sets it on the old brand smoldering in the stove-pit and on the new log of birch. After this he gives her the ladle, which she empties into the recess below the stove with a prayer to Ange Patyai, and lights a fire there with dry birch twigs for the offering to burn the sooner.
When they begin eating, the master first cuts off a slice of the pig's head and eats it, then his wife does the same, and lastly the rest of the family. The ears and snout are usually given to the children. When dinner is over, the wife takes a piece of the head and a ladle of pure, puts the former under the kardo syarko and pours the latter over it.
The following day, December 26, the whole village holds a public feast, petsiona molyan, in the house of a midwife. Puré, pies, groats, and other requisites were collected by the mistresses of families, who brought puré brewed by themselves and ready cooked food to the house of the midwife, who had herself only cooked two kinds of millet groats, one thick, the other thin. A few days before the festival of Ange Patyai the women that had had children in the course of the year brought her the millet and butter to make this.
Only married men with their wives and children up to seven years old took part in this festival, which was termed Bulaman molyan, or the midwife's festival, and was held in the evening. The children on this occasion were called "the grand-children," both of Bulaman Patyai (Ange Patyai's cognomen for the nonce), and of the midwives that assisted at their births. Each of them brought the midwife a pie of millet groats, a honey-cake, and a loaf of sifted flour bread. The father brought a pail of puré, and now-a-days brings concealed in the breast of his coat a flask of the brandy so hateful to Ange Patyai. But he drinks it secretly lest the goddess see it and be angry. The mother brings a pie of groats an ell long, and two cakes of the same length, while the children bring a shoulder of boiled pork and veal. She ties her present and that of such children as are too small to carry their own gifts into a piece of white cloth, and then sews on two long straps. Baring her shoulders she puts the burden round her neck and attaches it crosswise with the straps. After putting on her fur coat she marches off followed by the children. On reaching the gateway she takes a small child by the hand, and in the district of the Nizhegorod, among the Russianised Teryukhans, sings:
"Dear old woman, give thy blessing,
Bulaman Patyai.
Dear old woman, come to meet [me],
Dear old woman, come to meet [me],
I am coming [now] to see thee,
A great bundle I am bringing;
Supplicate, O dear old woman, (bis)
We are coming [now] to see thee,
Much [it is] that we are bringing
Of bread, of salt,
Of pork, of beer,
Of pies and cakes."
When this song of greeting is concluded the family gets under cover; the mother throws off her fur coat, and turning round enters the room backwards. The midwife approaches her saying:
"We supplicate for mercy on thy house and thy possessions."
With one hand she lays hold of the bundle, and with the other lightly strikes the woman with a knife five times across the bare shoulders and back, then she cuts the straps of the bundle through. After this ceremony the midwife kisses the woman and her "grandchildren," taking from them the pies and cakes they have brought for her. Then the father sets the pail of puré on the table and bows down to his feet before the midwife.
When all has been collected, the midwife spreads the table with a clean cloth, and lays upon it the bread, salt, cakes, pies, the dishes of pork and veal, as well as the two earthenware pots of groats—the thin for the children, the thick for the grown up persons. She also places on it the pail of puré, attaches a lighted candle to it, and opens the window. After crying in a loud voice: "Sakmede" (silence), she orders all to fall on their knees and pray near the window, but she herself repeats:
"O Cham Pas, Lord Savagoth himself, have mercy upon us. Ange Patyai, dear mother, most holy mother of God, give health to thy grandchildren, to the babes, to their fathers, to their mothers. Bulaman Patyai, protect thy grandchildren that they may keep warm cheerful, and healthy. O Ange ozais, protect thy grandchildren from the evil eye, from wizards, and from every unclean power. Ange Patyai Pas, descend frequently from thy golden heavenly home to comfort thy grandchildren and babes. Give their mothers plenty of milk that they may feed thy grandchildren. Give plenty of children, grant that they grow up large and healthy."
While thus praying, the midwife, with the assistance of the women, raises up the table three times, then she walks thrice round it, candle in hand, repeating as she touches the food:
"O Ange Patyai, Bulaman Patyai Pas', look! for thee there are loaves, salt, pies, and cakes. Look! for thee there is puré. Look! for thee there are groats and butter." The midwife then puts both kinds of groats into separate dishes and butters them, while continuing her prayer to the goddess. Then taking a ladleful of puré she goes to the window, stretches the ladle towards the sky and prays:
"O Cham Pas, Lord Savagoth himself, have mercy upon us. O Ange Patyai Pas, Bulaman Patyai Pas, dear mother, most holy mother of God, give health to thy grandchildren and to babes; give health to their fathers and mothers, that the children may thrive, that their mothers may have plenty of milk in their breasts."
When this is concluded she drinks a little of the purè, then the women, and after them the men. The midwife now seats herself on the bench by the stove, takes a spoonful of thick groats and eats it, after her the women and the men take a spoonful; lastly she gives a spoonful of the thin groats to the children. They do not sit down to supper till all these prayers and ceremonies have been gone through.
On December 27 the children alone, without their parents, meet at the midwife's. She warms up the food that had remained over. When they have eaten enough she takes them by the arm and leads them away to visit from house to house singing as they go:
"Let us go [now], dear old woman,
Let us go [now], dear old mother;
Father has been brewing beer.
Mother has been cooking groats;
Make a visit, dear old woman,
Make a visit, O dear mother."
At every house they receive the midwife with honour, giving her beer, pies, and groats. On that day the groats are boiled in a pig's paunch.
The unmarried men and women, both in Mordvin and Russian villages, drive round from house to house singing and playing the palama (bagpipe) or the fiddle. The party stops at a branch road in the outskirts of the village, or at a well, and begin dancing a kind of round dance. In these amusements they carry about, as in the kyolyada processions, a bath-switch and a lantern.
On New Year's Eve, the Mordvins celebrate the festival of Taunsyai. In the Ersa language a pig is called taun, in Moksha, tuon;[26] from this the name of the festival is derived. Mordvin influence on Russian customs is attested by the fact that the Russians, or rather the Russianised people of the governments of Ryazan, Vladimir, Tambof, the northern parts of Saratof, and in some parts of the governments of Penza and Samara, still preserve the Mordvin ceremonies of Taunsyai, under the name of tausen or avsen. The Mordvins celebrate it in the following manner:
On New Year's Eve the well-to-do, who have many pigs, slaughter one with almost the same ceremonies as on Christmas Eve. The destined pig is kept in a room till the other is killed on Christmas Eve. It is then taken to a separate sty, where it is fed till December 31, but a macerated bath-switch is not used on this occasion when it is slaughtered. Those who cannot afford to kill two pigs in close succession keep over from the kyolyada festival the trotters, as they are an obligatory article of food, in order to cook them on New Year's Eve. At the same time they also fry sweet pancakes in pork fat, make pies in the shape of pigs, and tarts of eggs, milk, and butter the size and shape of a hen's egg. In the same way as on Christmas Eve boys and girls make the rounds of the houses, though without bath-switches or lantern, singing in the following manner among the Ersa of Sergachk, Ardatof, Arsamas, and Simbirsk. Elsewhere the songs do not greatly differ:
"Taunsyai!
Open, O earth,
Let the crops grow,
Round ears of corn,
Grain like an awl,
Let straw grow as well,
Like the shaft of a cart.
"Taunsyai!
Thrust out a seed,
Bake thou a pie.
Near the window put [it];
A pigeon will fly.
Will take up the grain,
[But] we'll [take] the pie.
"Taunsyai!
Go not to the door.
To the windows they come,
Pigs' trotters and cakes
That have sat in the stove
That have looked down on us.
Taunsyai!"
If something is not speedily given, the singers begin banging stove-plates, jingling bells, and sing:
"Just give us a pie,
If you don't give a pie
We'll break in the gate.
If you give not a potful of groats
We'll drive a dungfork through its side;
Just give us a cake,
A small pot of millet seed groats.
Taunsyai!"
When they have obtained pancakes, trotters, and millet groats through the window, they begin praising the people of the house:
"Denyan Lasunyas's
Dwelling house is bright.
His windows white,
An ornamented gate,
Red painted posts.
Taunsyai!
"Denyan Lasnnyas
Is a bright moon,
His wife Masai (beautiful)
A ruddy sun,
[While] Denyan's bairns
Are very stars.
Taunsyai!
"May Denyan's crops increase
Till doors won't hold them all,
His sucking pigs increase,
His calves, his lambs,
His geese, his swans.
And his grey ducks.
Taunsyai!"
When this is concluded the children enter the house, and the eldest, who carries the sack, takes from his glove some seeds of various kinds, and throws them at the people of the house with the words:
"May Pas the Provider send you crops."
The people collect the seeds to put by till the time for sowing arrives. When the children have completed the rounds of the village they assemble in some house and eat what they have collected. They do not, however, consume the whole, but keep some to give to the hens, ducks, geese, calves, sucking pigs, and lambs. An old animal gets nothing.
On New Year's Day, at dinner time, the master of the house opens the window, lights a candle in front of it, and, kneeling down with all the household, prays:
"O Cham Pas have mercy upon us. O Ange Patyai pray for the swine, sheep, sucking pigs, hens, &c. (enumerating each animal). O Taun ozais defend our swine from wolves, give us many sucking pigs. O Velki Vashai (Basil the Great) Taunsyai give us black and white sucking pigs, such as thou lovest."
After this the mistress of the house gives her husband the pig's head on a dish. On this occasion it is not garnished with an egg, with sprigs of birch, or with a golden beard. He then goes, dish in hand, with the children, first to the kardo syarko, then to the pig-sty, the cow-house, and sheep-pen. But he is preceded by the eldest child—whether boy or girl—holding in its mouth the pig's tail, put there by its mother, and carrying in its hand a glove full of different sorts of grain. This it scatters about the kardo syarko, the cow-house, the ploughs, harrows, carts, drying-barn, hay-loft, in fact everywhere. The father holding the pig's head prays:
"O, Ange Patyai, let the crops and the cattle grow. O, Taun ozais, Velki Vasyai, Taunsyai, protect the swine, that the wolves eat them not."
When they have made the round of the house and the out-houses they return to the dwelling-room and sit down to dinner after repeating three times the same prayer as on Christmas Day. The wife, as soon as dinner is over, buries the pig's ears and snout under the front corner of the room.
The straw laid on the floor at Christmas must remain till January 2. Then the wife takes a bundle of it, places it on the kardo syarko, and sets it on fire with a candle. Next day she smokes the cow-house. More straw is strewed in front of the dwelling-house on Twelfth Day Eve, and ignited with a candle. The Mordvins believe the smoke of the straw drives away unclean spirits.
On Twelfth day the young men, the girls, and children draw each other about in hand-sledges through the streets. They imagine that all the evil spirits, that Shaitan gave birth to, break their legs in these sledges.
NOTES.
The Chuvash, who are apparently of Tatar stock, live in the governments of Kazan, Simbirsk, Orenburg, and Saratof. The Cheremis, of Finnish stock, occupy the northern portions of the governments of Nizhni Novgorod and Kazan on the left banks of the Volga, and portions of the governments of Ostroma and Viatka. The Yotyaks, also a Finnish people, are found between the Kama and Viatka rivers in the government of Viatka.
The following is taken from an article on the Votyaks that appeared in the Finnish magazine, Kieletär, 1875.
§ 1. The Votyaks hold feasts called zin, a word borrowed from the Tatars, on Fridays at certain seasons of the year. They last at least three days, and are celebrated in different villages at different times, so as not to clash. Without these feasts they believe the crops would not grow.
§ 2. The Votyak gods are now reduced to three: Inmar, the god of the sky, the equivalent of the Finnish Ilmarinen, is also the personification of all goodness; Keremet, his younger brother, the enemy of mankind; Shaitan, the personification of evil, also known as Vu-mort, the water-man, the evil spirit that resides in water. Inmar hates Keremet because the latter had instilled curiosity into the wife of Urom, the first man formed by Inmar out of clay. A beaker of kumis had been placed before the first human pair in Paradise with the injunction that it was not to be opened. The woman, however, disobeyed the order of Inmar, and drank it all up, after Keremet had defiled it.
§ 3. The Votyaks believe Inmar to be very good, so do not fear him, and only worship him with prayers. But as Keremet is malignant they appease him with offerings.
§ 4. They have both public and private divine services. The former are performed at home by the eldest male member of the family. He pours out a glass of kumis or of beer for every one present, gives them a piece of bread, and each, holding the glass in his hand, prays for what he wants. Sacrifices are of rare occurrence now.
§ 5. Before an animal is slaughtered it is first sprinkled with water. If it shivers they know the sacrifice will be acceptable to Keremet. See § 14.
§ 6. Public divine service is held in a grove or in a field near a wood. These sacred groves where Keremet is worshipped are also called keremets. Both Votyaks and Chuvash believe that he listens more favourably to prayers made in a place where oaks, birches, or lime-trees are growing. Some villages have several keremets, and each has its special guardian, or warder, who performs the ceremonies. The office is hereditary.
§ 8. Public services are held in case of pestilence, a bad year, a drought, &c. All domestic animals are used for sacrifice, and the number slaughtered depends on how many families take part in the festival. There are no special ceremonies, but all must appear in holiday attire. The flesh of the animals is boiled in kettles, but the entrails, bones, &c., are thrown into the fire. When the meat is cooked it is cut up and eaten. Women are not allowed to be present. It was formerly the custom to hang up the hides on the trees in the keremet, but not now, as they were stolen by the Russian peasants.
§ 9. Dogs are held in considerable honour, both by the Votyaks and Cheremis. The latter say this is because they watch the homes of the dead.
§ 10. A. Ahlqvist, in his Muistelmia matkoilta Venäjällä, pp. 105-108, gives some account of the Chuvash. Their two chief gods are Tora (Esth. Taara, Finn. Tiera, Tat. tangri) and Keremet. But they have also a sun-, moon-, wind-, road-, house-, farm-, cattle-, forest-, and thunder-god. The supreme god has many names. He has a mother, a wife, and a son. The origin of evil is Shaitan, though he now is known as Keremet. The latter was originally the son of the supreme god, who descended to the earth and distributed all sorts of benefits to men. But once, through the deceit of Satan, he was seized and murdered. To hide this atrocity from the father of the murdered god, they burnt his body, and threw the ashes to the winds. Trees grew up wherever any ashes fell, and with them Keremet was reborn, not as a single individual, but as a great many, so that every village has one or more keremets, according to its size. From this time Keremet ceased being the benevolent son of the supreme god. He revenges himself on man by scourging them and their cattle with misery and diseases. Generally he lives in the forest, or in the small groves of oak or lime trees, which are termed keremets. He also frequents lakes, springs, watercourses, &c. If a village migrates, the keremet migrates also; if a portion only of the villagers takes their departure a new keremet is obtained from the mother-village keremet, for keremets marry and have offspring like the gods. Money is also offered to Keremet, who in this regard is termed silver or copper Keremet.
§ 11. Vámbéry, in Das Türkenvolk, pp. 444-495, gives a good deal of information about the Chuvash. About Christmas the girls hold a feast called Khir-siri, or "girls' beer." After collecting the materials necessary for brewing beer, meal, malt, and hops, they assemble in some place where they will not be disturbed, make the beer, and invite the girls of the nearest village as guests. On the day of the feast, dressed in their best clothes, they receive their guests, and the day is passed in singing, dancing, and drinking beer. One of the songs is as follows:
"We keep the maiden's feast (beer),
We love the [blood] red cock,
We give the bagpiper
The entrails and the crop."
§ 12. The following story is told of the evil spirit Keremet. Once upon a time the son of the supreme god, Syüldi Tora, drove down to the earth in a caleche drawn by dappled grey horses to distribute blessings and wealth. But people were induced by Shaitan to murder him, and, the better to conceal the crime, they burnt the body, and scattered the ashes to the winds. Trees suddenly sprang up wherever the ashes fell, and the son of God came again to life, no longer as the personification of good, but in the form of countless spirits, inimical to mankind. These evil spirits are called Keremet.[27] Vámbéry believes this word to be the Körmüs, Körümes, or Devil of the Altai Tatars, though Schiefner, on the other hand, thinks it a loan-word from the Persian Khormusd, O. Pers. Ahura Mazda, the personification of goodness. See § 16.
§ 13. The halls of offering were for the most part built of wood, in the form of a parallellogram, with three doors, one to the east, at which the sacrificial animals were brought in; another to the north, at which water was carried in; the third to the west for the people to enter by. Along the west wall was a curtain, behind which the sacrificial flesh was eaten. In the middle stood a very large table.
§ 14. Before an animal is slaughtered the Jomzya (the wise man, wizard) first pronounces the prayer of purification. Then it is doused with water till it begins to shiver. Should this not take place, the animal is unfit for sacrifice. When the meat has been cooked in kettles, it is cut up and divided among those present, but the head, feet, and hide are suspended to the trees, and the entrails are burnt.
§ 15. The Chuvash believe that the souls of the dead pass into the bodies of dogs, and when they hear the howling of the latter they imagine they are listening to the voices of the departed.
§ 16. Dr. Radloff, in Proben der Volkslitteratur der Turk. Stämme Sud Sibiriens, pp. 175-184, gives a long Altai legend of the creation of the world. The following is a summary of its contents:
Before the earth and sky were made there was nothing but water. God and a man flew about as black geese. God told the man to go to the bottom of the sea and bring up some earth. God made land with it, but told the man to go down again for more; he brought up two handfuls, gave God one, but put the other in his mouth. He was nearly suffocated thereby, and cried out to God to save him. God told him to spit the earth out, which he did, and thereby small hillocks were formed. Then God said to him, "Thou art sinful. Thou thoughtest to do me evil. The minds of the people subject to thee will be just as evil. The dispositions of my subjects will be holy. They will see the sun and the light, and I shall be called the true Kurbystan. [By this Shiefner understands Ormazd, known to Mongols as Khurmustu.'] Thy name shall be Erlik."
§ 17. A single branchless tree sprang up. This was not pleasant to God, who ordered nine shoots to grow, with a man at the foot of each, and that a nation should spring from each man.
Erlik saw everything living that God had made—men, animals, birds, &c.; and wondered what they fed upon. He noticed they only eat from one side of the single tree, and asked them why they did so.
A man said God had given a command, they were not to eat the food of four branches, but only of the five branches on the east side. After telling them this he had gone up to heaven, and had left a dog and a snake at the foot of the tree to bite the Devil if he approached, and to prevent men from eating of the four forbidden branches.
§ 18. When the Devil heard this he went to the tree, and found a man called Töröngoi, and told him to eat of the four forbidden branches, but to leave the other five untouched. Then the Devil entered the snake, climbed the tree, and eat of the forbidden food. A girl named Edyi lived with Töröngoi. The Devil invited both of these to eat. The man refused, but Edyi eat and found the food very sweet. Then she rubbed his mouth with it; the hair fell from their bodies, and they were ashamed, and hid behind two different trees.
When God came he asked what was the matter. The woman said the snake had entered her while she slept, and had done the mischief. On being questioned, the dog said he could not seize the snake, as it was invisible to him.
God said to the snake that it had now became the devil, whom man might kill. He told Edyi that henceforth she would feel great pain at child-bearing. He also asked Erlik why he had deceived man. He replied that he had asked for men and they had not been given; so he had taken them by deceit, and meant to harm them in many ways.
God consigned Erlik to the under-world of darkness, and said he would send them Mai-tere to teach them how to prepare every kind of thing.
§ 19. Mai-tere [according to Schiefner this is the Buddhist Maitreya, Mongol Maidari] came and taught them how to prepare barley, radishes, onions, and lily-roots. At the intercession of Mai-tere, Erlik was allowed to go to heaven to implore God's blessing, so that he could finish making heaven. A great number of Erlik's devils grew in his heaven.
A man called Mandy Shire was angry at God because men lived on the earth and Erlik's men in heaven. He made war against Erlik, but was repulsed and had to take to flight. God met him and comforted him by saying, that though Erlik was the stronger now, his time would come, and God would give him notice of it.
At length his time came, and God give Mandy Shire a spear, by means of which he overcame Erlik and drove him out of heaven. With his spear he demolished the heaven, and threw down everything in it. Before then there were no stones, mountains, or forests. But all these arose out of the ruins of Erlik's heaven that fell upon the earth. All Erlik's subjects were cast down and all perished.
§ 20. Erlik now asked God for some land, as his heaven had been destroyed. He was refused, but at length was allowed as much as the point of his stick would cover.
On this he began building a heaven. But God bade him go below and build underground. He then wanted to take all dead men as his subjects. This was not allowed, but he was told he might make men for himself. So he made bellows, and placed a pair of tongs underneath. He struck them with a hammer and a frog appeared; he struck again, and a snake wriggled out; he struck again, and a bear came forth and ran away; again he struck, and a wilg pig appeared; struck again, and an Almys (a hairy evil spirit, a loan word from Arabic) came forth; again he struck, and a camel issued forth.
God now came, and threw the bellows, tongs, and hammer into the fire. The bellows became a woman, the hammer and tongs became a man. God spat on the woman and she became a heron (kordoi), the feathers of which are not used for pluming arrows, the flesh of which a dog will not eat, which makes the swamp to stink. God also spat on the man and he became a rat (yalban), that has long feet, no hands, that is the dirt of a house, that nibbles the soles of old shoes.
§ 21. God then told the man he had made cattle, food, and good water for him; that he would soon go away not soon to return. Before doing so he gave directions to Yapkara, Mandy Shire, and Shal Yime to look after mankind in various ways. Mandy Shire was to teach man how to fish with a line and with a net; how to shoot squirrels and to pasture cattle. Accordingly, he made a rod and fished, spun hemp and made nets, made boats and fished with the net, made a gun and gunpowder and shot squirrels. One day he said; "The wind will carry me away to-day." Then a whirlwind arose and carried him away.
§ 22. In Mr. A. Lang's "Myth, Ritual, and Religion," p. 182, allusion is made to a Huron legend, in which the earth is formed from some soil fished up by a musk-rat.[28] Also, to a Vogul story, in which the son of the first pair of human beings made by the chief god Numi Tarom dives to the bottom of the sea and brings up three handsful of mud which grew into our earth.
§ 23. A short Finnish creation myth, not unlike the Mordvin forms, will be found in the Folklore Journal, vol. v. p. 164, 165.
§ 24. Dr. Radloff, op. cit. vol. i. p. 285, gives another Tatar legend.
In days gone by the great Payana had made man, but could not make him a soul. He went to the great Kudai (god) to ask for a soul. He said to a dog: "Wait here, keep watch, and bark." Payana went off and the dog remained. Then Erlik came up. Erlik spoke to deceive it: "Thou hast no hair, I will give thee golden hair; give me that soulless man." The dog, bent on getting golden hair, gave him the man. Erlik spat all over the man. Then came Kudai to give the man a soul, and Erlik bolted. Kudai saw the saliva but could not clean him of it; so he turned the man inside out, for which reason a man's spittle is in his interior. Then Kudai struck the dog. "May thou, dog, be bad," he said, "man can do with thee what he likes; he is allowed to strike thee, to kill thee; thou art a dog out-and-out."
- ↑ In transcribing foreign words I have used the following symbols:
= the thick Russian i, sometimes transcribed by ui.
Zh = French j.
Sh = English sh.
Ch = English ch.
Kh = Scotch ch. - ↑ The Teryukhans differed in language and dress from the Ersa, and lived mainly in the district of Nizhni-Novgorod.
- ↑ See note §4.
- ↑ Patyai in the dictionaries means uncle, aunt. Ange I cannot find, but perhaps it is the same as the Ostiak angi, mother.
- ↑ Nishke is an Ersa word given in the dictionary as "high, exalted, lord." The author has probably confused this word with neshhe, a beehive.
- ↑ Nishke ava.
- ↑ Also means a swarm of bees.
- ↑ Not in the dictionaries.
- ↑ In the dictionary purgine is given as the word for thunder.
- ↑ I much doubt if this translation can be relied upon.
- ↑ In the dictionaries the word is given ozks, oziks, with the meaning, prayer, devotion, offering.
- ↑ Probably a mistake for oak (tumo).
- ↑ Both the Turkish Chuvases that live in the same governments as the Mordvins and the Votyaks to the north-east of the latter know a god or divinity named Keremet. See note §§ 2, 6, 8, 10, 12.
- ↑ * In the rough copy I have omitted a sentence by mistake, but its contents must have been similar to what I have supplied in brackets.
- ↑ Thick legs are regarded as a sign of strength and beauty by some of the other adjacent Finnish peoples, and a strong wife is a godsend, as she has to do so much out-door work. The Mordvins always marry a woman older than themselves, for the purpose of getting an able-bodied wife.
- ↑ As regards the extent of a parish one must think of a highland, not of a midland county parish.
- ↑ Prya prea is the Moksha and Ersa word for head, and pryaft must be a derivative.
- ↑ Perhaps it should be ots' atya "great old man or father," though otsu "great" is a Moksha not an Ersa word. A prosthetic inorganic v is not uncommon.
- ↑ See note, § 13.
- ↑ See note, § 13.
- ↑ This must be a mistake I think for west, as the cooking- shed and fires were on that side of the Keremet.
- ↑ West?
- ↑ For east one should read west, I fancy, as the fire was on that side of the Keremet.—J. A.
- ↑ Saryä is the flush of dawn or of sunset.
- ↑ The ordinary name of the rainbow is in Ersa pirgene yonks, in Moksha atyam yonks, both meaning "thunder bow."
- ↑ In the dictionary Ersa, tuvo; Moksha, tuva; diminutive, tuvane.
- ↑ Der Ursprung der Magyaren, p. 355.
- ↑ A new, fuller, and most interesting version of this legend is given in the American Folklore Journal, vol. i. No. III. pp. 180-183.
