For many years, I went on ethnographic expeditions in Siberia, and I was lucky to collect conspiracies, lullabies, rituals preserved in the outback. These were trips through the frosty north and steppe south, and each time a new page in traditional culture was opened.
Here's what's interesting: practically all peoples have a special place in the period of infancy and early childhood, since it was at this time that the main personality traits, features of mental and spiritual development were laid. And lullabies play a very important role here.
At the beginning of the 2000s, I was able to record several lullabies of northern peoples. At first we just talked about culture and traditions. Then there was a meeting with the supreme shaman of the Khanty, who performed a ritual of appeal to the gods, so that they were allowed to transmit these songs.
A piece of reindeer moss, polar partridge fluff, reindeer wool, fir twigs, some herbs were collected in one bunch - all of this was set on fire with appropriate chants. I was lucky: the smoke went like a column, which means that the Khanty gods gave their consent to the transfer of secret knowledge. However, I only recorded lullabies from people who have already died.
To the question: "Why?" - Khanty people answered that performing a lullaby to an outsider can change the whole subsequent life of the person to whom the song is intended. Until now, the Khanty's cradle is "piece": at the birth of a baby, the grandmother and mother come up with a personal song for him, which "builds" a new member of society into the family system, the clan, explaining to the baby his goals and tasks that he must realize during life.
Mother is the first universe of the child
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Once people believed that there was a goddess of the umbilical cord, who helped a newborn to pass from one state to another, from the world of Navi to the world of Reveal, from the world of ideas to the world of matter. In some places, echoes of this belief have survived to this day. So, modern Kazakhs take away from the hospital not only the woman in labor and the baby, but also his afterbirth in order to bury him or hide him. Representatives of our northern peoples do the same.
In cosmogonic myths, the main attention is paid to the process of creation that takes place in the so-called mythical time, when there were no peoples, and chaos reigned in the world. Water is most often used as a symbol characterizing chaos: “There is water all around, and water and water,” “there was the sea all around,” “endless ocean,” “fog and darkness,” “cloud,” “swamp”.
The endless sea (ocean) is the original element of the feminine principle, a symbol of universal conception and procreation. Very often in myths, a piece of sky (silt, earth) moistened with rain (heavenly moisture) acquires the ability to spontaneously grow, just like a human embryo inside the uterus.
Therefore, it is possible that the Russians say: "The spool is small, but expensive", since in a number of dialects the uterus was called spool. In the mythical time, the earth continued to grow, mountains, stones, forests grew to the sky. So life in the womb of a mother grows according to mythological laws, and a woman is that unknown zone where a miracle happens.
A pregnant woman is at the junction of worlds, so she can "program" a child. Some norms of behavior of the expectant mother have survived to this day in the form of signs. For example, it was believed that a pregnant woman should not cut her hair - this would shorten the life of the baby. You cannot sew - otherwise the child will be born with an umbilical cord entanglement; eat a lot - otherwise the child will be envious. It was forbidden to go to the funeral (the baby or mother could die or the child will be born with deformities); listen about sorrows and troubles (this promised the baby misfortune); linger on the doorstep (there will be difficult childbirth), etc.
A pregnant woman was recommended to carry a knife with her for up to six months as a talisman against any misfortunes; look at the husband as often as possible (so that the child looks like his father) or at his own reflection (so that the baby looks like his mother); look at beautiful healthy little children, so that her baby is also healthy and beautiful.
Such an attitude towards the future mother was an echo of matriarchy: it was she, like the goddess of the sky Nut, who sang the first lullaby, creating the world and the gods.
A home where anything is possible
The cradle is a house in the border zone, therefore the cradle has a special decoration, indicating the sacredness of this house for both the baby and the adult. What does a cradle give to an adult? First of all, it allows one to experience such states that he does not experience so often in everyday life: this is freedom from anxieties and demands, peace, enlightenment, peace, a sense of security.
The cradle returns us to a special inner world, where our ideas, our own order. Rocking the baby, the mother retrieves from the heart something forgotten, hidden, but undoubtedly valuable. This restores the lost balance and allows you to convey the best to the baby.
In addition, the lullaby saturates the body with vital energy flowing along the special channels of the body - the meridians. Therefore, a lullaby is also a kind of connection channel to the higher energy flows of the Universe.
Healing tunes
Physicist Vladislav Lugovenko and psychophysiologist Alexei Birkin argue that rhythmically constructed phrases, melodiously reminiscent of a prayer (and the first prayer is a lullaby) or a blank verse, can have a bioenergetic effect.
Research carried out by me together with A. Birkin showed that the perception of lullabies is more connected with the theta range, and with the frequency-amplitude characteristics of the right hemisphere, which is responsible for intuitive perception and the work of the subconscious.
The rhythm of the texts of the culture of childhood has a unique effect on the body, normalizing the work of the psyche and internal organs, which is repeatedly emphasized by doctors. According to research reports, lullabies are especially recommended for children with perinatal encephalopathy, accompanied by a syndrome of general depression; with a violation of the rhythm of breathing; with a tendency to bradycardia; with disorders of intestinal motility; born prematurely and with low weight.
The centuries-old practice of observing the process of a child falling asleep and influencing him with a lullaby has led to the creation of a certain rhythmic structure of the lullaby melody and poetic text. Such a melody helps to induce a trance state for both the performer and the listener. Most often, a lullaby has a 4/4 beat, which is most naturally superimposed on the beating of a calm heart (rhythm 68-72 beats per minute).
Lullabies are sung, as a rule, using the upper vocal supports (diaphragm, chest), while singing comes from the heart, in a deep and gentle sounding voice. Such a voice has the strongest psychotherapeutic effect. To enhance the effect, the mother can visualize images of the sky, sea, fields associated with the state of peace, silence and flight. This strengthens and nourishes the image of peace transmitted to the child while singing a lullaby.
The clearly expressed rhythm of the lullaby serves as a preventive measure for motor and speech disorders (tics, stuttering, coordination disorders, disinhibition, motor stereotypes), correction of psychomotor developmental deficiencies, and normalization of speech breathing. But it is important to understand that only those lullabies that are performed by the mother in the “correct” emotional state have an effect.
Irina KARABULATOVA