An eerie and unpleasant sight when a person suddenly begins to speak in a strange voice, uttering words as he exhales, or shouts out something inarticulate, or laughs hysterically and maliciously and cannot be held responsible for his actions at all. And if this happens at the same time as a whole crowd?
In Russia they said: the demon possessed. And this statement is not far from the truth. For two centuries, people have known a mysterious phenomenon that the peoples of the North call hiccups.
INFECTION
The famous Soviet writer F. Abramov wrote: “In the North, or rather, in Pinega and Mezen, there is such a female disease - hiccups, which, however, has now subsided a little, and until recently, a rare working woman did not flutter. He finds, rolls over the poor - and stirs, and breaks, and strangles, and screams and roars at all voices: like a dog, like a cat, and even the most obscene swearing sometimes breaks from the lips …"
The widest distribution of hiccups was observed until the mid-50s of the last century in the village of Pinega, Arkhangelsk region. There were so many sick women in the village that scientists started talking about the heredity of the disease.
The people began to call such women “Pinega hiccups”, and to this day many fear their presence nearby. It is not surprising, because the disease, appearing in one of the inhabitants of the village, literally in a few days covers entire settlements. The symptoms of hiccups can disappear without a trace after a couple of weeks and come back again after a year or two. One would assume that all this is the invention of dark people who lived two centuries ago, but modern descriptions of the disease are similar to those that appeared a hundred and two hundred years ago.
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WITCH-HUNT
For the first time, Bishop Benjamin of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogorsk mentioned hiccups in 1785 in his letter to the Synod, who believed that it was a special type of corruption and an obsession with an evil spirit. Benjamin associated the emergence of a strange disease with the pagan beliefs of the local population, which passed to them from an ancient people living in those parts, called the "white-eyed monster", who, according to legend, possessed paranormal abilities.
The belief that sorcerers and sorcerers let hiccups were so strong among the people that in the 19th century several trials took place on this matter: for example, in 1815, the court sentenced Mi-hailo Chukrai, a resident of Pinega, to 45 lashes for guiding damage to your sister. And in 1862, a popular riot took place in these parts, during which the houses of sorcerers suspected of damage were burned. It was possible to pacify popular unrest only with the help of troops and clergy.
Researchers of this strange disease distinguish three types of hiccups: "mute" - the patient has an uncontrollable yawning, tears flow and limbs tremble; "Roaring" - accompanied by a spasm of the larynx, the voice changes beyond recognition; “Speaking” - begins with prolonged hiccups, accompanied by shouting out words and phrases, most often rude and obscene.
At the same time, hiccups perform a kind of intermediary task. For example, a "talkative hiccup" divines the future, finds missing things, that is, communicates that information or special knowledge that its "carrier" does not possess.
LIVE MOLD
It is believed that hiccups are an entity that looks like mold, which sorcerers, using magical practices, grow on the remains of food or certain drinks. After the hiccups have arisen, they "plant" it to the person in whom it will live. It happens, as a rule, like this: the enchanted mold is placed in kvass, fruit drink or beer and given to the victim to drink. It is curious and inexplicable that hiccups cannot be grown in strong alcoholic drinks: well, she does not like vodka and moonshine, therefore they are not suitable for magical rituals.
After the essence has entered the carrier, it can take on different forms: a person, an insect, a frog, a devil, etc. The hiccup is very fond of telling about its appearance through the mouth of its carrier. With the same pleasure she gives her name - as a rule, human: Yegorka, Pavlik, Dasha and others. Ikotka grows inside her victim for years. And she does not always start broadcasting immediately after the damage, sometimes she is silent for a long time and only after a while she declares herself.
The longest period recorded by ethnographers is 32 years (Yegorka lived in a carrier for 35 years, and began to "speak" only for the last three years).
Having penetrated into a person, the demon “settles” somewhere in the stomach, but it happens that it is all over the body - such sensations are experienced by the carrier. The first sign of an intruder is a constantly recurring hiccup that cannot be stopped. At the same time, two hiccups can exist in a person, which rarely get along with each other, so one of them must be “expelled”. Another interesting feature of the disease is that it is most susceptible to pregnant women or women living in difficult family and household conditions.
Ikotka always knows in advance when the time will come for her bearer to die, and decides for herself whether to leave with the person or "move" to a new home (to a relative or acquaintance). However, if the deceased is baptized in time, then the demon will cease to exist with him or go into the earth.
CAPRIC ESSENCE
Sometimes the hiccup, which has been silent for years, begins to give voice only after the carrier is going to expel it or … give milk to the mare. Until that time, the essence silently guides the "spoiled" person, forcing him to perform completely unusual actions: to use foul language, drink wine, eat junk food, etc. In addition, it keeps his whole life under control. For example, you can cite the words of one "hiccup": "Yegorka says:" Mother, let's go to sleep, I want to sleep. " And so we sleep with him."
For so many years of close coexistence with hiccups, the people of the North were able to determine its inherent habits and preferences: loves the dark, does not accept baptized food, drinks only red wine (rejects white), does not eat honey, does not like vodka, garlic, onions, peppers, horseradish, radish and wormwood.
The essence does not tolerate prayer, is afraid of a fig, especially if it hears: "You don't give a fuck, I have strength." She especially does not like clothes and bed linen of red color or with a "prickly" pattern, so women in the area where this disease is widespread, prefer such fabric colors.
MEDICINE IS POWERLESS
The spread of the disease is not limited to the infamous Pinega. Karelian peoples, Mordovians, Vyatichi, Perm and other northerners knew about hiccups. This fate of the settlement of the Urals and Siberia was not spared. It turns out that the hiccup prefers the territories where the Finno-Ugric peoples have always lived. Old Believers, living in remote places of Siberia, built monasteries in which they treated patients with hiccups.
True, the methods of treatment they used were rather cruel: the "spoiled" were starved, beaten, frightened with chain bears or dogs, kept in the cold, doused with ice water. Sometimes it helped and people (if they survived, of course, after such trials) returned home completely cured.
Medical scientists consider the causes of mass illness, oxygen starvation of brain cells, insufficient or excess content in the body of diseased iodine, calcium, zinc, B vitamins.
And they offer to treat the disease with the help of deep hypnosis. However, no one has yet managed to get rid of hiccups in this way. Moreover, the entity entered into an argument with the doctors and gave out such details of their life that it caused confusion and embarrassment, which was frankly happy.
To protect against the penetration of hiccups, healers recommend evening and morning prayers, amulets in the form of a pinch of salt, poppy or a red shred. If the trouble has already occurred, then the patient is prescribed strict fasting and soldering with charmed water. After seven days of such procedures, the patient begins to vomit violently and exudes something that looks like a kombucha, which should be burned and the ashes buried.
It is believed that a cured person is protected from the intrigues of even the most powerful sorcerers for three years. So what is a hiccup curse or gift? Or maybe there are doors to other worlds in the Russian North, from where guests come to us to share their knowledge with humanity?
Galina BELYSHEVA