Mutual nudity in ancient times was undertaken quite often, but not for entertainment purposes, as now, but as a special magic practice. The main gods of the ancient Slavs were the highest entities associated with fruiting, harvest, childbirth. And their names "hinted" at all kinds of human organs and processes associated with this.
Rod is the creator of the Universe, Rozhanitsa is the goddess of fertility, Yarilo is a clearing spring, awakening from hibernation (yar), Kupala is a fertile deity of summer. Mokosh is a fertile feminine principle, the figurine of which was found in the form of a male genital organ. And many other gods, in one way or another, were also associated with fertilization and fruiting, in all nature and in humans.
The festivities were cheerful and violent, often poured into real orgies, which in every possible way persecuted the Christian church. The people certainly liked the festivities, but the church believed that this contributes to the "corruption" of young men and virgins. However, "naked magic" was enough without it.
For example, a special rite was performed on a grain field, which was obviously supposed to "contribute" to a good harvest. "The hostess lay down in the field and pretended to give birth, a loaf was placed between her legs …" - Professor N. M. Nikolsky noted in the book "History of the Russian Church".
During Holy Week, the last week of Lent (seven weeks after Shrovetide, and Shrovetide seven weeks before Easter), they also conjured up so that the bread was born better. The owner shook the plow, imitated plowing; told a slander against cattle and poultry. At the same time, a naked woman had to collect cockroaches in the corners, wrap them in a rag and take them out onto the road.
In Vyatka province, for example, on Maundy Thursday, before sunrise, “the hostess of the house, naked, runs to the garden with an old pot in her hand and knocks the pot over a stake: the pot remains overturned on a stake throughout the summer - it protects chickens from a bird of prey ….
Under Kostroma, a naked girl sat, like a witch, on a broomstick and also “circled” three times around the house with outbuildings.
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Later, by the 19th century, the people became more embarrassed, and all such rituals began to be performed in a lower shirt. This ritual was intended to protect cattle and households.
Many rituals imitated intercourse or something related to it. So that flax gave birth well, the woman put baked eggs in a bag of flaxseed, and the man, the "sower", had to "throw" these eggs as high as possible, because the higher the eggs were thrown, the higher the flax would grow.
In another magical rite, naked women "cheated flax." For this, and here, when sowing, the woman stripped naked, hoping that the flax, seeing such naked nudity, would take pity and think: "This woman is poor - she does not even have a shirt on her body, she will have to feel sorry for her and be born better …"
In ancient times, various diseases often happened both on humans (epidemics) and on animals (epizootics), therefore, another archaic rite was often performed - “the expulsion of cow death”. It was a rite of "plowing" the village, performed by women, usually naked or, later, in some undershirts.
One (sometimes three) harnessed to the plow, the other rules, and the others, loosening their hair, followed, shaking stakes and sticks, rattling into pots, pans, cast iron and flaps. It was believed that the furrow "will provide air" for "earth power", although at best such a "cat concert" could only slightly frighten rats or other rodents - the main carriers of plague fleas.
The ceremony was carried out when all the women were already completely desperate for the methods of treatment, and therefore they should not come across such a dancing and screaming naked crowd: they could simply score. The appearance of any man would mean the "failure" of witchcraft, and the men were buried far away. However, in case of failure, which usually happened, she was still "written off" to the men - someone looked up …
And undoubtedly nudity was used in the broadest way in love sorceries. In one, for example, a naked girl must collect certain types of herbs before dawn. In another - once, or even three times, naked run around the village, conjuring on some guy. In the third - at night or at dawn, sneak secretly to the house of the person you like and leave something at the porch, etc.
“In the villages that are farther in the backwoods, on the Quiet Days, another ancient action is celebrated, - noted PI Melnikov-Pechersky (“In the Woods”), - weed ridges. But before that, according to the old testament, one must "run around the ridges."
Red maidens gather in a crowd and run around the ridges in a merry line at dead midnight. And all of them themselves - in what the mother gave birth. From that running around - neither a worm will attack the ridges, nor fierce honeydew, nor will it bake vegetables with the sun, nor will it flood them with rain. Even though the action happens at midnight, but on Quiet days, dawn converges with dawn, what hot brave gaze on those white nights will not see naked beauties?"
And on Christmastide there was another naked eccentricity - fortune-telling about a bannik, a fellow goblin who lives in a bath. At midnight, the girl crept up her backside, her skirts raised, to the door or to the window of the bathhouse. It was believed, for example, that "if a bannik touches with a shaggy hand, there will be a rich groom, if with a bare hand, a poor one …" (Mythological Dictionary. M., 1991).
They wondered by a company of wax figures poured from a ladle into cold water. Alone, they went to guessing again in the bathhouse, where, undressed and trembling with fear, they bowed a dripping candle over a cup. At the same time, the groom sometimes appeared with his own eyes: “the efficient betrothed, having bribed the nanny, moved to the bathhouse in the evening and waited for the arrival of his betrothed,” noted the famous Russian ethnographer IP Sakharov. - When the betrothed wants to guess, he appears to her, handing the ring, and repents …"
And of course, "magical nudism" was used in the wedding action, before the meeting of the bride and groom. "The bathhouse plays the main role here," wrote Princess E. R. Dashkova and gave a description of the folk wedding in which she had a chance to participate.
“The bride, bursting with bitter tears, sits down in the front corner of the table covered with fruits, etc., the groom approaches her and, having presented her with various outfits, quickly disappears, accompanied by his comrades to the bathhouse. Then the girls' round dance begins to sing a kind of requiem - wedding songs.
After that, the bride is taken to the bathhouse, surrounded by her young friends, who are from thirty to forty, they undress her in the front room and then, still crying and naked, they are led into the bath itself. Having undressed themselves, they wash, wipe her, then begin to dance, clap their hands, drink wine, which is distributed by Eve alone, sitting with a bottle and a glass in her hand, and the bride continues to cry. Then a circular song is distributed, which is pulled up by everyone, except for the narrowed one.
This scene lasts about an hour and at the end takes the form of an unbridled feast. The girlfriends, heated with wine and steam, sing and dance like bacchantes, meanwhile the bride is gloomily silent or crying …”.
From the book “XX century. Chronicle of the inexplicable. Curse of things and cursed places"