"Piggy" rituals: Christmas tree, Olympic flame and veil veil
Paganism is called "Pogan" religion, and its adherents – "Reloys". Once this word happened from Latin Paganus and did not carry a special estimated color, but meant only the "rural, wild". Yes, and the term "paganism" itself comes from the church-Slavic "tribe, people". So "frowning" rituals means not bad, but invalid folk. We tell about the origin of superstitions and urge to remember the days of the past, but live in the afternoon of today.
Believe Lie in superstition?
Black cat – sign of misfortune. Cat, she was the beenes of the beast, the Slavs were considered a Demon’s assistant. As if the cat, especially black, is indulging in dark forces, and is also a guide to the world of the dead. In our fairy tales, she is a constant companion of Baba Yaga (about the characters of Slavic fairy tales and how they are associated with the pagan deities, read in our material). Although the time of the ages of the cats helped keep the harvest from rodents. Very unfair!
A on the wood you knocked not to smooth? Surely, because the memory of the ancestors is not the table of orders: we take, as they say, they give. And "give" the spirits living in the trees. Knocking on a tree, a man asked for protection from good deities and at the same time he was distilled off evil so that they did not eave and not the pain.
Another custom is associated with the main home spirit of Slavyan – House. He was trying to draw in every way, and they were still afraid that he would leave the house and he would remain without a patron. Just need sit a little before the far dear. The house will think that households do not go anywhere, and will lose vigilance. But sign, prohibiting sweeping and wash the floor in the house, If someone in departure is related to believe that in this way you can "check" the mystical traces of this person and he will never return back.
Sitting on the corner of the table is not recommended (Seven years will not marry!) Because since ancient times, survivaltins and wildlife, women, as they say, "no chance". Keep in the house a bit of dishes means sticking trouble, because in antiquity she – of course, a whole – symbolized well-being and prosperity in the family.
Highly Many superstitions associated with a mirror. Despite the fact that this item entered the use only in the XVI century, the analogues of it were always: the surface of the water, the covered with vegetable oil or wine. Slavs considered similar surfaces by the "portal" into the world of the dead, so they treated them carefully. Fears alive still. They manifest themselves in the desire to have mirrors in the house where the dead man is so that the dead man does not affect them and could not go back to the world of living.
From here, by the way, the tradition of close the eyes of the dead. This is today for us the expression "Eyes – Mirror of the Soul" only a beautiful metaphor. Ancestors understood her literally. If you do not close the "soul mirrors" of the deceased, he will look at this world. Nothing good. The same ban works when a superstitious mother is afraid to show a baby his reflection in the mirror or photograph a child, until a month or even a year. The soul is still too weak to confront a cunning mirror, which can pull the baby in another world. And you believe in such?
Where did you come from Festive traditions
But truly paganism manifests itself on holidays and the so-called rituals of the transition. These include a wedding, birth and funeral – events when a person changes one state to another. All of them are simply filled with pagan symbols.
Take at least Modern wedding, which is a weave of a huge number of both foreign and Slavic cults. Beautiful vest veil, for example, nothing but a symbol of death. Slavs, like many other nations, closed the face of a newlywed piece of cloth. This meant the symbolic death of the girl and the resurrection of it in the new capacity – women.
Tradition to bury unmarried girls in the wedding dressing is happening from our ancestors. They believed that a person who did not marry could not get to the world after death and ranked for "unclean" like "stosed dead people" and vampires (articles about them read here). To create the visibility of the wedding and deceive spirits, the relatives of the deceased dressed her as a bride. And also baked loaf, invited musicians and guests. Today, the explanation of this is reduced to the same religious background, only with a Christian bias: they say, a young girl is just Christ the bride. This is a typical example of turning the attributes of an ancient religion to younger. So happened with a huge number of pagan rituals.
Many are sure, for example, the custom paint eggs on easter – Exceptionally Christian practice. In fact, it goes to distant antiquity. Scribed eggs – True, ostrich – still Sumerians and Egyptians. And they were decorated with threads even ancient people about 60,000 years ago. Slavs painted chicken eggs in the spring long before the baptism of Russia. They symbolized the awakening of the forces of nature, and they even distinguished them on the pussy (when painting on the cheese egg was made) and painted (on boaren). Symbols of various fabrics were applied on eggs, put them in the babies of babies to protect against the evil eye, gave a wedding for happiness, remembered them dead or rolled on the ground to increase the harvest.
Pancakes – Another favorite dish of Slavs, because they have always been considered ritual food. Them, like kun, ate to remember the deceased. Therefore, on the graves of relatives, it is still customary to bring pancakes and their oven on the pagan feast to Maslenitsa, when they remembered the deceased and burned the stuffed in the dying winter, and with her all the winter unclean forces. Our ancestors believed that dead, like alive, also need to feed, Therefore, next to the dead, a glass of water was put and put damn. Today they were replaced by a glass of vodka and bread shoes. Slavs believed that the dead man could hear, so the unlawful prohibition was still preserved: "On the dead or nothing or only good". Like all other peoples, our ancestors were afraid that the deceased relative can take revenge, if you say some nasty about him.
Believed ancient and in reincarnation, Therefore, many still seek to call the newborn in honor of the deceased relative, so that he adopted his best qualities. Tradition to organize acknowledged 40 days after death is also associated with paganism. In antiquity, they called "Socialists". Their goal was to prevent the deceased find the way home, so the commemoration was not satisfied in the settlement, but on some intersection or on the grave itself. For the same reason that the spirit of the deceased never returned to the house and pretended his tracks with his hair, the dead man always endure his legs.
Salad pagan rites and globally. For example, Ignition of Olympic Fire. It is clear that it is connected with the ancient Greek gods, but in fact his roots lie even deeper – in the Sumerian epic, which in many respects borrowed Ellad. Calendar from the small Sumerian city of Nippur can be considered primary (from the same calendar, by the way, many signs of the zodiac and European astrology went). In accordance with him, the sun at the end of the summer "fights the underworld, which devours it". So the Sumerians interpreted the fact that the days at this time of year are becoming shorter. Therefore, to support the luminaries, they lit lights. The emerging later ancient Greek rivance of the race with burning torches in the hands – the echo of the Sumerian traditions.
From the village To Christmas tree
The cult of trees existed almost all nations. With him even connected by mythological archetype about the global tree, uniting all spheres of the universe. It is not surprising that for the holidays, which were usually the days of solstice, people remembered the trees. Especially this concerned those who lived in a wooded area, – Europeans and Slavs. Trees dressed up to draw the spirits and dead ancestors. V days Winter Solt Shutty It was done that those contributed to the harvest next year. The most different representatives of the flora went to the move – from the birch to the mistletoe and even a simple line (the latter and today is considered a Christmas attribute in a number of European countries).
Interestingly, the Slavs were decorated with everything, except for the Christmas tree, because this tree was considered to have a symbol of death. Fir branches still taken to scatter at the funeral. The modern Custom Christmas fir came from the German tradition, which goes back to the biblical tree of knowledge of good and evil. Where did christmas toys come from? There is an opinion that they once replaced them. Inside of the victims of people and animals. What kind of symbolism is christmas decorations today, read in our thematic material.
Inherited the Christian tradition and festival of birth of the solar god Mitra, which Romans celebrated December 25. Slavs these days walked on Holie.
Curious roots and Orthodox holiday of the Assumption of the Virgin, which is celebrated at the end of the summer. Famous Easternist Vladimir Emelyanov connects him with the Sumerian rite of worship at the end of August – September, the goddess of fertility Innan, which several thousand years ago became the prototype of the sign of the Virgin zodiac. Sumerian tradition influenced the fact that the ancient Greeks celebrated in the late summer holiday Persephone, daughters of the goddess of fertility Demeters, and the Romans – Goddess of Fertility and Hunting Diana. The Virgin and the Day of Her Assumption are also associated with harvesting. Before the arrival of Christianity on Russia, our ancestors were celebrated on these days Harvesting Dogs and honored the Denity Mother – Cheese Earth. Today this time is called Babiy summer, which traditionally begins in mid-September, when the astrological summer ends, and the Sun is in the constellation of the Virgin.
