Verhnee Makoshie.
May 22 (grass) was considered the Day of the Earth among the Slavs. In some regions, it was widely celebrated as the Veshnee Makoshie holiday. The ceremonies performed on this holiday eloquently speak of the importance of the Mother of the Raw Earth in the worldview of our ancestors. Mother of Cheese Earth is not a poetic expression, as many people think, but a living being that gave life to everything on Earth. The female hypostasis of the God of the Family.
Rod, through Perun, irrigates the Earth with its seed from heaven, and she gives birth to all living things from him. It is curious that many of the indigenous peoples of North America had similar ideas. They also idolized the Earth as a living creature, and believed that the first man left the Earth, and everyone, after death, is back in the Earth.
It is clear that such a worldview left a special imprint on the attitude of both Indians and Slavs to death. Death was not considered something terrible and tragic. Dying was followed by a funeral rite, which was just the starting point for life in another world. Birth and death were considered two hypostases of being, so we have contempt for death in our blood.
Do not scare us with death. If only she was red, i.e. beautiful. It was considered honorable to give one's life for the sake of others, or in the name of something. It was especially beautiful to die with arms in hand, defending our Motherland - Earth. For representatives of other peoples, such a worldview seemed shocking, and was considered a sign of savagery and backwardness.
A reverent attitude towards Mother Raw Earth can be found in folk art and in the tales of Russian writers. The tradition of taking a handful of native land before leaving for other countries is very tenacious, until the middle of the twentieth century it existed everywhere, and still exists. It is believed that the native land in a foreign land always helps.
You can remember how the heroes fell to the ground to listen to her advice. It is generally accepted that this is a metaphor, in fact, the soldiers listened to the sound of the hooves of the enemy cavalry, but this is just a sign of ignorance. People have forgotten who the Mother of Cheese Earth is, therefore they are looking for explanations that correspond to their concepts and their level of knowledge. That is why such ridiculous versions appear.
It is also unclear why, in order to turn into someone (turn into), the characters of epics and fairy tales had to hit the ground. Sometimes two or three times. Our contemporaries, without a moment's hesitation, believe that this is a kind of artistic turn of speech. It does not even occur to them to think about the meaning of the expression "hit the ground and turned into …". But experience suggests that our ancestors knew much more than we do now, and put some specific meaning into this turn of speech. It was not a metaphor. It was an action that had its own goals, and with its help one or another result was achieved. And there is no doubt that the main assistant in achieving this result was precisely the Mother of Cheese Earth.
Promotional video:
The fact that we do not understand the meaning of this action does not mean that our ancestors were ignorant and superstitious, but that we lost knowledge about the structure of the world, indiscriminately attributing everything incomprehensible to the "wild paganism". At the same time, they replaced the worldview with religion, which is no different from sawing the bitch on which we sit.
Imagine the following situation: - A group of students cannot master the topic of a physics lesson, for example. Well, it does not fit into their minds what a potential difference is. Then they declare the teacher "an obscurantist, mired in the prejudices of the past," and put forward their own version, which is accessible to their understanding. And then they also issue a law so that no one dares to question the validity of their theory, and at the same time they prohibit physics as a pseudoscience under pain of criminal punishment. Doesn't it look like anything?
But back to Mother Raw Earth. Celebrations and ceremonies on the Day of Vernal Makoshya could not help but shock the representatives of other nations. The descriptions that have come down to us shock even the Slavs themselves. Judge for yourself. The sorcerer leads the villagers to arable land, and they begin to walk along the furrows, pour grain into them, pour beer, and bow in all four directions. They stand facing east, bow to the Earth, and sing: - “Mother of Cheese Earth! Kill the snake and every reptile !
They turn to the west, and again they pour grain, pour beer on the ground, bow and sing: - “Mother of Cheese Earth! Swallow all evil spirits into your belly!
They will stand facing the north and say: - “Mother of Cheese Earth! Soothe your midday winds, calm down the crackling frosts!
And looking to the south, they sing: - “Mother of Cheese Earth! Quench your midnight winds, calm down the loose sands!
Then, the earthen beer jug was broken and left on the edge of the arable land. This description alone is enough to understand with what horror the "enlightened" representatives of religious confessions looked at all this. But that's not all. The worst thing, according to the ideas of modern man, is that during the ceremony, married couples who wanted to conceive a child were engaged in public … Conception of children, lying right in the furrows of the arable land. And it was not considered a deadly sin. It was perfectly normal. All ancestors did this from generation to generation.
The essence of Earth Day was the conception of a new life. On this day, it was absolutely impossible to disturb the earth. Not only plowing and harrowing, but even sticking a stick into the ground was considered a grave sin. The earth was gratified that day by pouring beer and male seed. It was the day of conception of the future harvest, and at the same time the day of the conception of future children. It was believed that the children born after the second half of January were the messengers of Mother Raw Earth herself, and Makosh would patronize them all their lives.
As for the savagery of the outer ritual side of Veshny Makosh, we can recall that not long ago foreigners considered the Slavs savages because it was customary for our husband, wife and small children to wash together in our bathhouse. Well … For Europeans this is wildness, but for us the fact that they did not have baths at all, and did not wash at all for years and decades, seems wild to us. And if we take into account the modern mores rooted in the West, or rather their complete decomposition, then talking about which of us is wilder is not appropriate.
We are neither bad nor good. We are just different. And you need to be able to respect other people's traditions, and not try to impose your own on others. And it is very likely that our ancestors coped with this very successfully. That is why we are the best in the world to learn to live peacefully with representatives of a wide variety of cultures and religions. We do not consider ourselves better than others, and do not impose our way of life on anyone. We treat everyone with respect and from the position of equality of all among all.
Maybe the massive revival of this worldview is the very notorious "national idea"?
Author: kadykchanskiy