Everything connected with the dead inspired our ancestors with superstitious horror. The deceased, if they were not okay, could, after all, "return" to the village, walk around the house and sheds, check the farm, scare the villagers. To avoid such cases, the clothes of the deceased were furtively nailed to the coffin boards and buried at night. In order not to get out and find the way back in the dark. I have already written about these and other superstitions here. But we still have a few amazing superstitions left uncovered.
1. Straw
As soon as a person began to "retreat" to the forefathers, he was transferred to straw. This was done rather for reasons of economy.
Well, do not throw away the bedding every time. But the Russians, in order not to be considered greedy, came up with an excuse for their actions. According to legend, each feather in the pillow increased and prolonged suffering, while the straw made it easier and faster to go to a better world. By the way, it was forbidden to burn it after everything that happened. They carried them out of the outskirts, sometimes threw them into the river. But there is also a risk. The cattle will eat such straw and lose its teeth. And they believed in this.
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2. Clothes and shoes
The shirt for the deceased was sewn from white fabric with the left hand. (The ritual protected the seamstress from the Bones) Some villagers pulled threads out of their shirts and sewed them to their husbands' clothes. It was believed that after this the spouse would become calm, less scolding and grumble. There shouldn't have been anything iron in the coffin. Even the nails from the boots of the deceased were pulled out. But more often they changed his shoes in bast shoes.
Mandatory elements for men are a pectoral cross and a belt. Girls who did not live to get married were dressed festively, with a ring on the middle finger, and a wedding loaf on the cover.
3. Coins on the eyes
We borrowed this rite from the Greeks. And those - from their pagan ancestors, who prayed to the gods of Olympus. The coins were intended to pay a ferryman in the next world for a ferry to the kingdom of Hades across the Styx River.
But the Slavs had their own interpretation of the ancient ritual. The pyataks held their eyelids, which means that the deceased could not raise them and look at the person. If this happened, then the one on whom the eye fell, would soon become the next in line to the next world.