Irij

"...the souls of our ancestors shine every morning from Iriy..." - "The book of Veles"

Ireland. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

"Éire",is Irish for "Ireland", the name of an island and a sovereign state. It evolved from the Old Irish word Ériu, which was the name of a Gaelic goddess. Ériu is generally believed to have been the matron goddess of Ireland, a goddess of sovereignty, or simply a goddess of the land.

There are two theories that try to explain the origin of this word.

The first one says that the name Ériu is derived from the name other people gave to the island of Ireland. The second one says that the name originated in Ireland and was the name by which the Irish called their own land. They both have their proponents.

Ireland, the western most land theory

The first theory, which was proposed in the 19th century, and for which we read that it "does not follow modern standards of etymology", derives the name from Scottish Gaelic. According to this etymology, the origin of "Ériu" comes from ì (island) + thairr (west) + fónn (land), which together give ì-iar-fhónn, or "western isle". This is similar in meaning to the Norse name for Irish people, "west men". If we look at the map of Northern Europe, we can see that indeed Ireland is the land lying directly westward, looking from Scotland and from the Baltic sea, from which both Northern Slavic, Baltic, Norse and Danish mariners would have come to Ireland.  So Western Isle and West Men makes a lot of sense, but as we are told it "does not follow modern standards of etymology"...

Ireland, the fat, full, abundant land theory

The second theory, which apparently "follows the modern standards of etymology" says that the origin of "Ériu" comes from Proto-Goidelic "Īweriū" or "Īveriū" which comes from Proto-Celtic "Φīwerjon", which comes from from Proto-Indo-European "piHwerjon", which is related to "piHwer", which is supposed to mean "fat, full, abundant". This would suggest that the meaning of the word Ériu is "abundant land". The whole root chain here is reconstructed, meaning that we think the words in the chain might have existed, and might have the meanings we propose, and might have been related to each other, but we actually have no idea if this is true or not. On top of this, we don't know if the meaning "fat, full, abounding" is correct. Ireland is certainly not especially abundant compared to England or the rest of Europe. The land in Ireland is not in any way fatter or more fertile and more suited for agriculture, crop growth. In fact the opposite is the case which you can see from this map of land use in Europe.

You can see the distribution of the arable farmland (yellow), forest (dark green), pasture (light green), and tundra or bogs in the north (dark yellow). It is plain to see that Ireland does not deserve to be the only place named "fat, full, abundant land". The description of the quality of the Irish soil is best summarized on the web page called "Soils in Ireland" where the first sentence is "The general consensus is that Irish soil quality is good overall". So good, not great, not amazing. One thing that I would like you to note on the above picture is that Ireland is mostly light green, which is the color of pasture. The data found on the "Crops and Livestock Survey" for 2015 is (in thousands of hectares):

Area farmed 4,429.5
Total crops, fruit and horticulture 359.7

Total cattle and sheep production related land over 4,000

This means that most of the Irish agricultural land is used as pasture land. The reason why this is so is because the combination of the Irish climate which is wet and cold and the Irish soil which is acidic, makes Ireland best suited for growing grass, not agricultural crops. And hence Ireland is basically one huge grass field full of grazing cattle and sheep with few cold climate crops fields, forests and bogs strewn around. 

Anyway :)

One of the proponents of this modern scientific "fat, full, abundant land" theory is John Koch. In his work "Celts, Britons, and Gaels—Names, Peoples, and Identities" he provides a detailed discussion on the subject, which is intended to prove the theory. Here is what he says:

"...The Irish as ‘them’ are first recorded as Latin derived from Greek Iernoi Īernī. Later, is recorded more correctly as Iouernoi Īuernī. The first occurrence of Īernī probably goes back to a Coastal Itinerary of Marseille of the sixth century BC. In both instances, the name of the people Īuernī is derived from the place-name found in classical sources as Īueriō. Īueriō is none other than the Primitive Irish forerunner of Old Irish Ériu, Modern Éire. The etymological sense of the word is ‘the Fat’ or ‘Fertile Country’. Ériu, genitive Érenn, corresponds to Welsh Iwerydd ‘Irish Sea, Atlantic’ and Iwerddon ‘Ireland’. The ancient Celtic forms behind these are the nstem nominative *Īweriū, genitive *Īwerionos. In the Antonine Itinerary, a Latin source of the early 3rd century AD, we find Insula Clota in Hiverione. Dative Īveriōne implies nominative Īveriō ‘Ireland’, thus directly reflecting the Primitive Irish nom. *Īweriū. Thus the Indo-European preform would have been  *piHwerjōn ‘The Fertile Land’. I proposed that the ethnonym Īuernī proves that Irish—or the Celtic language that was to become Irish was spoken in Ireland already at the time that the Greeks first heard of the place in the 6th century BC. More recently, Patrick Sims-Williams has doubted this conclusion. Instead, he argues that Īueriō and Īuernī could have been names in use by Celtic speaking peoples on the European mainland for an Ireland that was not yet itself Celtic speaking.  I do not think that this alternative is plausible, for the following reasons. Not only were Īueriō and Īuernī in use in what was Ireland’s Final Bronze Age or Dowris II and not only are they Celtic names, but they have also survived in the Irish language of literate, historical times. Īuernī, the name that the Greeks borrowed, survives as Old or Middle Irish Érainn, a name which not only exists in Irish, but exists in no other Celtic language except Irish. In medieval Irish literature Érainn is used for tribal and dynastic groups in Munster and elsewhere. The groups in question are marginal within historical times, but credited with having ruled the prestigious royal site of Tara in remote antiquity; so the name is stratified deeply within Irish-language Irish tradition itself and occurs nowhere else in the Celtic world. Furthermore, the place-name Ériu has, as a byform, a common noun Old Irish íriu, meaning ‘earth, land’. There is no corresponding word from Brittonic or Continental Celtic. In other words, Ériu is explicable has having arisen out of the semantics of Irish in particular, rather than Celtic in general. Furthermore, names derived from the same root as Ériu have survived prominently as submerged eponyms in the Irish origin legends of Lebar Gabála and related texts. These include the prominent Milesian invaders Iär and Íth. The latter’s name simply means ‘fat’. The connection of the name Iär to Éire and Érainn is not at all apparent within the literate period. But *Īueros, the pre-form of Iär, would have been an obvious eponym for Īueriō in the Primitive Irish of prehistoric times... Īueriō was known to mean the ‘Fat Land’, which was no longer so for the writers of Lebar Gabála...."

Convinced? Lets have a look at the highlighted parts. 

"...Ériu, genitive Érenn, corresponds to Welsh Iwerydd ‘Irish Sea, Atlantic’ and Iwerddon ‘Ireland’..."

If you are in Wales and you look directly westward, what you see on a clear day is: Ireland. So Ireland is the land in the west. And after Ireland, further west is the Atlantic ocean, the western sea. Or maybe the Irish sea and Atlantic got their name from Ireland.

"....Īueriō was known to mean the ‘Fat Land’, which was no longer so for the writers of Lebar Gabála.... "

Ok, this is strange. Īueriō is a word with an unknown meaning and so we proposed that it means "Fat Land" based on a completely derived etymology linking it to the derived PIE root "piHwer" which is supposed to mean "fat, full, abundant". Now it is " known to mean Fat Land"? The old Irish "íriu" which was supposed to have been derived from Īueriō, means "land, earth, soil; the earth, the world". Not "fat, full, abundant land". And if the meaning "fat, full, abundant land" was not known to the users of the word "íriu" in the Irish annals, maybe it is because this word never actually meant "fat, full, abundant land" but just "land, earth, soil; the earth, the world"....

But this part is the most interesting.

"...Érainn, a name which not only exists in Irish, but exists in no other Celtic language except Irish....Furthermore, the place-name Ériu has, as a byform, a common noun Old Irish íriu, meaning ‘earth, land’. There is no corresponding word from Brittonic or Continental Celtic. In other words, Ériu is explicable has having arisen out of the semantics of Irish in particular, rather than Celtic in general..."

Maybe the word "íriu" doesn't exist in other Celtic languages, but it exists in Slavic languages.

Iriy, Irij or Vyriy (Russian: ирий, ирей, вырий) is a mythical place in Slavic mythology where birds fly for the winter and souls go after death, sometimes identified with paradise. The term was first mentioned in the writings of Vladimir II Monomakh. During the Christianization of Kievan Rus', people were able to imagine heaven and hell based on the idea of Iriy. By the way Viriy is just v + iriy = in, into + iriy. Question: where do the souls of the dead people go? V Iriy = Into Iriy.

I know what you will say. This Slavic Iriy can be any place and surely the words similarity is a coincidence. But there is more. Slavic mythology tells us more about Iriy in the story about Jarilo: 

"Up until the 19th century in Russia, Belarus and Serbia, folk festivals called Jarilo were celebrated in late spring or early summer. Early researchers of Slavic mythology recognized in them relics of pagan ceremonies in honor of an eponymous spring deity. In Northern Croatia and Southern Slovenia, especially Bela krajina, similar spring festivals were called Jurjevo, nominally dedicated to St. George, and fairly similar to the Jarilo festivals of other Slavic nations.

All of these spring festivals were basically alike: processions of villagers would go around for a walk in the country or through villages on this day. Something or someone was identified to be Jarilo or Juraj: a doll made of straw, a man or a child adorned with green branches, or a girl dressed like a man, riding on a horse. Certain songs were sung which alluded to Juraj/Jarilo's return from a distant land across the sea, the return of spring into the world, blessings, fertility and abundance to come.

Jarilo was a son of the supreme Slavic god of thunder, Perun, his lost, missing, tenth son, born on the last night of February, the festival of Velja Noć (Great Night), the pagan Slavic celebration of the New Year. On the same night, however, Jarilo was stolen from his father and taken to the world of the dead, where he was adopted and raised by Veles, Perun's enemy, Slavic god of the underworld and cattle. The Slavs believed the underworld to be an ever-green world of eternal spring and wet, grassy plains, where Jarilo grew up guarding the cattle of his stepfather. In the mythical geography of ancient Slavs, the land of the dead was assumed to lie across the sea, where migrating birds would fly every winter. This land of the dead was by Slavs known as Iriy, Irij or Vyriy (Russian: ирий, ирей, вырий).

With the advent of spring, Jarilo returned from the underworld, that is, bringing spring and fertility to the land. Spring festivals of Jurjevo/Jarilo that survived in later folklore celebrated his return."

So...Wet, ever green land of eternal spring, full of cattle which lies across the sea and is called Iriy...

This is a typical picture from Ireland. What do you see on it? Ever green land of eternal spring, full of cattle, which lies across the sea. Is there better description of Éire, Ireland?

I have been living in Ireland for past 21 years. It snowed properly once. And we had one proper summer month. The rest of the time it was a perpetual wet spring. 

So is Īueriō, Iriu, Éire Slavic Iriy? I believe so, because believe or not there is actually no other place in Europe that fits the description. It is Ireland's unique position in the north of Europe and in the middle of the Golf stream that gives it unique climate ideal for growing grass and which makes it a paradise for cattle herders. 

And this is why the ancient Irish society was based around cattle. Cattle was wealth, cattle was currency, cattle was what people fought for. Even the main Irish heroic myth, "Táin Bó Cúailnge" is a description of a cattle raid...

Now interestingly the god that stole Jarilo, the young sun, and who took him to the land of the dead, Iriy, was called Veles, but who was also known as Volos. In Serbian, the word Vo, Vol means bull. So Volos would actually be "Cattle god". A very good name for a good that rules over Iriy, Īueriō, Iriu, Éire...Funnily enough in Irish the word for cattle is Bó which in Serbian means to stab, like with a horn. There is a whole cluster of words based on this root in Serbian and Irish. But not just the words for cattle are the same in Serbian and Irish. Serbians from Bosnia managed to preserve ancient bull fighting described in "Táin Bó Cúailnge". 

Bull fighting, Bosnia

I wrote about the common Irish and Serbian words and customs related to cattle in my post "Bó - Vo"

The obsession with cattle and viewing cattle as the main source of wealth was also the same in Serbian and Irish society. In Serbian language one of the old words for cattle was "blago" which literally means "treasure, wealth". So a green land, where grass never stops growing, ideal for growing cattle, must have looked like paradise for cattle herders. And guess what. The word for paradise in Slavic languages is "Raj" (pronounced ray), which is very very similar to the word for otherworld "Iriy". As a matter of fact we can get the word Iriy (which has no known etymology) from Je Raj (pronounced ye ray) meaning "is paradise". 

Slavic word "raj" meaning paradise comes from the Proto Slavic: "rajь" - paradise. This is an ancient word because the cognates include 

Avestan, Old Persian: ‎"rāy" - paradise, wealth and 
Sanskrit: रयि ‎(rayi) - rich, property, goods, possessions, treasure, wealth, house, stuff, materials

Proto-Italic: "reis" - thing, matter. Originally, the noun was a "regular" i-stem, and would have been *rēj- before vowels (genitive *rējes, dative *rējei etc.), and *rēi before consonants and word-finally (nominative *rēis, perhaps originally disyllabic). In the former, -j- was regularly lost, while in the latter the diphthong was shortened before another consonant, due to Osthoff's law.

Apparently these are the only descendants of the Proto-Indo-European *reh₁ís ‎meaning “wealth, goods”

If for our ancestors "raj" paradise was a place of wealth, and the greatest wealth was cattle, then the land of cattle was indeed a paradise "je raj" = "iriy". 

Was that paradise Īueriō, Iriu, Éire? Was the original meaning of the word "land rich in cattle" rather than "fat land"?

There are two worlds, the world of the living and the world of the dead. The sun spends the day in the world of the living and the night in the world of the dead.
And there are two gates that stand on the border between these two worlds: the eastern gate and the western gate. 
Every morning the eastern gate is opened by Danica, the day star, which is in the morning called Zornjača, the morning star, and the sun comes from the world of the dead into the world of the living. 
And every evening the sun goes from the world of the living into the world of the dead through the western gate, which is then closed behind him by Danica, the day star, which is in the evening called Večernjača, the evening star. 
The souls of the dead follow sun to the western gate, which is where the entrance into the land of the dead is. 
And there they enter Iriy, the ever green land of eternal spring, full of cattle, raj, paradise. And every morning, when the eastern gate of the world of the dead is opened, they smile on us...

New material on Bullaun stones

Archaeologist David Eitam said in his comment about multi hole bedrock mortars: "It seems that making flour, was in the past a collective activity. The reason for that was that acorn or cereal grinding was done using grinding stones. This was hard monotonous work which was best endured if done in company.  We can easily imagine the lively group of women covering the large bedrock and the sound of grinding and chat among the crowded millers."

We know from the ethnographic data from North America, that grinding acorns was at least in some cases a communal activity. You can find more info on this in the article "The Distribution and Function of Bedrock Mortars in California".  We also know from the archaeological data from Europe, that grinding cereal was also a communal activity. We can actually see it on this clay model depicting collective grain grinding from Cyprus, from Iron Age settlement at Tel Dor. You can find more details about this site in "An Iron Age I Canaanite/Phoenician Courtyard House at Tel Dor: A Comparative Architectural and Functional Analysis" 

The easiest way to make communal grinding areas was to cut the mortar holes in the bedrock, creating bedrock mortars. Like these ones at Indian Grinding Rock State Park:

I already wrote abut bedrock mortars in my article on Bullaun Stones. In that articles I compared the yet unclassified European bedrock sites with classified North American bedrock mortar sites. I then asked whether the European  should be also classified as bedrock mortars, considering that they are functionally identical to the North American ones. 

In this article I would like to present some new (to me :) ) evidence that supports my hypotheses that a lot of the European bedrock stones with large and deep cups could be (yet) unclassified bedrock mortars. 

I will start with the bedrock mortars used by the Chalcolithic communities from Central Israel (4,500–4,000/3,900 BCE). The grinding holes were cut into a bedrock with different profiled holes used for grinding different type of material, like grain (and possibly acorn), olives, grape (?). These are examples of the bedrock mortars from the Gassulian (Ghasulian) culture. 

You can find more info about these grinding bedrock mortars in the article "Cereal in the Ghassulian Culture in Central Israel: Grinding Installation as a Case Study. Israel Exploration Journal 59,1: 63-79"

This is the picture of the bedrock holes from the Ghassulian Horbat site. 

The picture was taken from the article "Excavations at Horbat 'Illit B: A Chalcolithic (Ghassulian) Site in the Haelah Valley". However these holes are in this article classified as flint excavation holes. This is based on the fact that a piece of flint was found at the bottom of one of the holes. 

I wander why would anyone make such smooth narrow round holes to excavate flint? Why not just continue to break bedrock to the left and right of the flint peace to see if there is more hidden in the bedrock? I believe that these are instead bedrock mortars. And this particular one was abandoned when the grinding exposed the hard flint at the bottom, rendering the mortar hole useless. But that is just my opinion. 

Since then, I came across this article, "Excavations at Modi‘in – H̱orbat H̱adat and Be’erit (A)" by Edwin C.M. van den Brink, which classifies these features as bedrock mortars...

Interesting how opinions vary...

From the above three articles it is plain to see that there is still no consensus on the issue of the classification of these bedrock holes. 

But a lot of work has been done lately on collecting and classifying all the available data related to bedrock sites. This is a good article that explores this issue: "Late Epipalaeolithic Rock-Cut Installations and Groundstone Tools in the Southern Levant. Methodology and Classification System".

Now, bedrock mortar type of utensils start to appear in 13000 BP and their use peaked in 6000 BP (Late Chalcolithic) and continued in rural MBII sites. 

Here are some Natufian bedrock mortars from Mount Carmen site dated to 12500 BP. You can find more info on this site in the article "3D Characterization of Bedrock Features: A Natufian Case Study".

This article entitled Article "Experimental Barley Flour Production in 12,500-Year-Old Rock-Cut Mortars in Southwestern Asia" presents result of the experimental archaeology experiments at a Natufian site in the Southern Levant documents for the first time the use of 12,500-year-old rock-cut mortars for producing wild barley flour, some 2,000 to 3,000 years before cereal cultivation. 

Considering that we have evidence of the use of acorns as food in the south western Asia in late Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Early Neolithic time, I would suggest that these mortars could also have been used for grinding acorns, and that that was their original intended use. But once you develop a suitable grinding technology for grinding acorns, it can be applied, with slight modifications to grinding of any similar type of material, like wild grains.  

But Natufians also used single hole boulder mortars, as I already said in my post "Acorns in archaeology".

So obviously grinding was not always communal. This is the situation found in all the other areas where we find multi hole bedrock mortars. So why did people make multi hole bedrock mortars? You can do communal grinding using multiple single boulder mortars. But they are more difficult to make. So maybe multi hole bedrock mortars are older? Or maybe they were located near a source of food, like oak forest or wild grain field, or source of metal ore or pigment, and were used for industrial scale grinding?

These are the large cup holes from the hillside boulders at Göbekli Tepe, dated to (9500 - 8000 BC). The hillside is apparently covered in cupping holes all about 500mm - 600mm, big enough to be acorn or grain grinding holes like the ones found on Bullaun stones in Ireland and the North American grinding boulders and on the above Natufian bedrock mortars. 

These bedrock mortars were discovered in recently excavated site Karahan Tepe located near Göbekli Tepe but even older. Karahan Tepe is dated to pre 10000BC...

As I said above, once you develop a suitable grinding technology for grinding acorns, it can be applied, with slight modifications to grinding of any similar type of material, like wild grains. Or ore. We know from the ethnographic and historical records that almost identical types of mortars were used for grain, spices, pigments and ore grinding. So it is no surprise to find bedrock mortars used for ore grinding. 

This is the Pino del Oro Mining Zone (ZoMiPO) is located straddling the Duero river, within the Arribes Natural Park, in the western part of Zamora province, and adjacent to the Portuguese border. It involves a group of very peculiar gold mining structures dating from the Roman period (1st-2nd Centuries). These are grinding mortars cut into the bedrock and used for grinding ore. Were they originally used for grinding cereal and before that for grinding acorn?

I believe that this new evidence adds a bit more support for my theory that Bullaun stones from Ireland and the similar stones with large deep cup marks, were made to be used as mortars for grinding probably originally acorns, and then wild grain, grain, tubers and even ore...

So what do you think, could the Irish Bullaun stones, like this Clonmore Triple Bullaun Stone be actual bedrock mortars?

The debate will undoubtedly continue. Great. :)

Herb Friday

"БИЉАНИ ПЕТАК је испред Ђурђевдана. По веровању, многе биљке ноћу уочи овога дана стичу лековитост. Зато се биље почиње брати још у току ноћи. Убране биљке дају се стоци о Ђурђевдану и Спасовдану, а неке се суше и чувају за лек. У селу Дубокој, у пределу Звижду, на Биљани петак окупљао се народ пред сеоском пећином. Женскиње је доносило лековито пољско биље, а мушкарци су уносили у пећину дрва и ложили велику ватру. Пред пећином се обедовало, а у њој се проводио дан у општем весељу. "

"Herb Friday is the last Friday before St Georges day. People in Serbia believed that during the night before Herb Friday, the medicinal herbs acquire their medicinal properties. This is why people went out into meadows during that night to gather medicinal herbs which were then given to livestock on St Georges day to keep them healthy and fertile. Some of the herbs were also dried and kept for medicinal use for both animals and humans. 

In the village of Duboko, in the Zvižd region, people gathered on the Herb Friday in front of a "village cave". Women would bring medicinal herbs and men would bring wood. All that was placed inside the cave and a big fire was lit. While the fire was burning inside the cave, people had a feast in front of the cave, and would spend the rest of the day celebrating in front of the cave."

Source "Srbski mitoloski recnik, grupa autora"

This custom is the remnant of the belief in Mother Earth. Caves were seen as wombs of the Mother Earth, and lighting of the fire inside the cave symbolizes lighting of the reproductive fire. You know when we say that a girl is "hot". That kind of fire. The fire that burns inside women which are ready to mate. Who are "in heat"... The villagers in Duboko (which by the way means "deep, dept"), were just helping Mother Earth in her "hotting up", in her transformation from an old ugly cold hag Morana, the winter earth, into a young, pretty, hot chick, Vesna, the spring earth. As I said in my post about the flower girls, April is the month when Mother Earth, in her youthful incarnation of Vesna, is coming of age, is getting beautiful and "hot" again. She is opening all her flowers and is ready to mate. And her mate is Jarilo, the young hot sun, who arrives on the 6th of May, the first day of summer. 

Flower girls

Cvetonosnice, Lazarice - flower girls

Palm Sunday, the last Sunday before Easter, is in Serbia called "Cveti, Cvetna nedelja", meaning "Flower Sunday". Originally this was the last week before Jarilo day, the 6th of May, which was the last week of Spring. The week which ends with the Flower Sunday is in Serbia called "Cvetna Nedelja" meaning "flower Sunday" or "Lazareva nedelja" meaning "Lazarus sunday". 

During this week, young girls in Serbia, who came of age (got their first period), would undergo an initiation ceremony which would turn them from children into young women ready to be married. The girls taking part in this ceremony were called Lazarice. In Serbia it was believed that every girl had to take part in Lazarice ceremony or "some misfortune will befall her". It was also believed that every girl had to take part in Lazarice ceremony at least three times. This was probably the way to protect young girls from getting married too early. 

As part of this initiation ceremony, young girls would get up before dawn. They would form a group of at least 6 girls. The oldest, tallest and the most beautiful girl in the group was called Lazar. The second oldest was called Lazarica. The next two were called the front girls and the last two were called the back girls. Lazar and Lazarica were girls who were taking part in the ceremony for the third and the last time. The front girls were girls which were taking part in the ceremony for the second time. And the back girls were girls which were taking part in the ceremony for the first time. The girls would gather in the house of the oldest girl in the group, Lazar, where they would be dressed into their best clothes. In their preparation they would be helped by the Lazar's mother. They would then go to a spring where they would sing and dance and would then wish good morning to the spring water. Spring water is in Serbia called "živa voda" (live water, water of life) and is believed to have magic properties. Spring is seen as a place where fertile Mother Earth releases her "water of life" in the same way that a fertile woman releases her menstrual blood, female "water of life". In this way the spring water is magically linked with the menstrual blood. So no wonder that the spring is the first stop of the Lazarice group, the group of girls whose "water of life has started to run" (who got their period).  After this ritual, the girls would go to meadows to pick wild flowers. They would use these flowers to make wreaths which they would wear on their heads during their initiation procession through the village land and the village. They would first walk through the fields, forests, meadows belonging to the village, and would sing fertility songs wishing nature to be fertile and bountiful. After walking through all the village land, the Lazarice girls would return to the house of the oldest girl, Lazar. There, they would be greeted by the Lazar's mother, who would shower them with wheat, symbol of fertility and rebirth, in the same way a bride is showered with wheat as she enters the grooms house. The girls would then kiss Lazar's mother's hand and would enter the house, where they would have breakfast. Lazar's mother would then give them money and hard boiled eggs, another symbol of fertility and rebirth. After this Lazarice would go on a procession through the village. During the procession, they would sing fertility songs and dance. They would stop in front of every house, and would wish the people in the house fertile, bountiful and happy year. In return the hosts would give them small presents and food for gratitude. 

This ceremony is the celebration of Vesna, the young Earth, one of the three heads of Troglava, Dajbaba, Mother Earth, the other two being Mokoš and Morana. Vesna, young Earth is in April "coming of age". The snow and ice has melted and the springs are gushing with fresh spring water of life. The meadows are blooming and the earth is decorated with flowers. It is getting ready for marriage with young sun, Jarilo, who arrives on the 6th of May, Jarilo day, which is today known as St Georges day. On that day, the Young Earth, Vesna, and the Young Sun, Jarilo, are married. Just like a girl, a young woman, a bride, is deflowered on her wedding night by her husband, and becomes a woman, a mother, so is Vesna, the Young Earth, the Girl Earth, the Young Woman Earth, deflowered at the end of Spring by her husband Jarilo, the Young Sun and she becomes Mokoš, the Woman Earth, the Mother Earth and the summer, the fertile part of the year begins....

Documentary showing the reenactment of the Lazarice ceremony in Serbia.

Majka Božja Krasanska

Holy Mary chapel on Krasno hill

This is the Church of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary which stands on Krasanski brijeg (Krasno hill) near the village of Krasno in the area of the North Velebit. There is a local legend which tells the story about how and why the church was built where it was built. This legend is very interesting and I believe very important because it is an allegory which contains, in one paragraph, the history of Christianization of Velebit population. 

This is the full text of the legend:

"Where the church stands today, there once used to be a thick old (oak) forest. In this forest local shepherds used to shelter from the heat of the summer. One day they saw a rose growing out of an old tree stump and in this rose they saw the image of Virgin Mary. The shepherds picked the rose and brought it to Krasno village. As there was still no Catholic church in Krasno, they took the rose to the "Greek" chapel in Krasno field. But the rose didn't want to stay in the "Greek" chapel. The next time the shepherds came to the oak forest, the rose was back growing from the same old stump. Then shepherds took the rose to another church in Kosinj, but the rose didn't want to stay there either. The next time the shepherds came to the oak forest, the rose was back growing from the same old stump. So shepherds realized that the Virgin Mary wants to stay in the Oak forest. So they built a stone altar over the old tree stump and the rose and then they built a stone chapel around it. "

Now here is what I believe this story actually means:

Where the church stands today, there once was a holly (oak?) grove where local pagan population worshiped the Mother Earth. Then during the early Medieval time, the Christian missionaries, which belonged to the "Greek" church tried to convert the pagans into Christianity. These "Greeks" were either pre Schism Roman Christians or post Schism Eastern Orthodox Christians which were by Catholics called  "Grko-istocnjački šizmatici (Greek eastern schismatics).  So these "Greeks" built a church in Krasno and for a while people may have even (probably just nominally) accepted Christianity. Anyway this first conversion ultimately failed and the local people returned to their old ways, and worshiping of the old gods in the holy (oak?) grove. The return to paganism probably happened because of the disintegration of the Roman power in the Balkans during the Arrival of the Slavs and the creation of the Slavic Early Medieval states. Another attempt to Chrisitanize the local highland population was made, this time by the Catholic church, probably during the Hungarian rule, but that also failed. People again returned to their old ways. This probably happened because of the Turkish invasion and occupation. Finally after the Turks were expelled from the area, the Catholic church which moved in made another final attempt to Christianize the local population. This time they realized that in order to "Christianize" the local population, they had to Christianize the old pagan temple and the old pagan god(s) to which the temple was dedicated. And this is exactly what they did. Basically the old goddess (Baba, Mother Earth) was converted into the new equivalent Christian character (Virgin Mary, The mother of god) and the chapel of the Virgin Mary was built on top of the old temple. Why do I think that the original temple was dedicated to Baba, Mother Earth? In my post "Shepherd's chapels from Velebit" I already described how old temples dedicated to Baba, Mother Earth in South Velebit were converted to the churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Because the same shepherd population lived everywhere on Velebit, I believe that the people in the North Velebit also worshiped Baba, Mother Earth and that the same thing happened with her temple here in Krasno. 

How important this old Pagan center was, can be seen from the fact that the newly built Church of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary became the most important center of the Marian cult in Croatia. Basically the local people continued flocking to the old (new) temple, to pray to the old (new) Goddess...

Well this is what I think. What do you think?

Source:

"Usmena predaja o gradnji crkve svete Marije u Krasnu" by Ante Glavičić

Tree of life

I have been thinking about something today. 

Is a father's sperm part of the father when it is inside of his body? What about when the sperm leaves his body? Does it stop being part of the father? Is mother's egg part of the mother when it is inside of the mother's body? What about the baby that develops from the father's sperm and the mother's egg? Is it part of the father and the mother? After all it is just an outgrowth of their cells. Is this baby part of the mother when it is inside of the mother's body? What about when it leaves the mother's body? Does it stop being part of the mother?

Our own body cells change completely every 7 years or so. Yet we are still calling ourselves ourselves. Why? Well one of the reasons is that the genetic material in the new cells is the same as in our old cells. And that we have a continuation of the awareness of ourselves, the continuous experience of ourselves.

The genes of our children are the same as our genes, a combination of the mother's and father's genes. They are the continuation of the development of our genes. Basically our children are the physical, genetic continuation of us. Also, our children, through life with us, through the fact that they are being molded by the life with us, become through their awareness of us a continuation of our own awareness of ourselves. We pass onto our children our own experience, our memories, our knowledge, in the same way our parents passed their experience, their memories, their knowledge onto us. So where do we stop and our children start? Every new generation is just a next branch of the same family, clan, tribe, race, species tree. Our children are like new buds of the same ancient family tree. And as long as new children are being born this family tree continues to live.

But if we go even further back in time we realize that we are just part of an even older tree of life whose root is buried somewhere even deeper in the past and whose branches we all, all living beings, are.

Our ancestors actually knew all this, or at least had some kind of awareness of this.

This is where ancestor worship in general comes from. And this is where the worship of the mother earth and the father sky, the ultimate expression of this ancestor worship, comes from.

This is where our inbuilt need to procreate, to insure the continuation of ourselves, but ultimately to insure the continuous growth of the tree of life comes from.

This is where our belief in karma comes from too. Every new generation is a new incarnation of the same family tree. Every new generation gets a chance to develop into something new and beautiful. But every generation is constricted by the fact that it is growing on the branches, which grow on the trunk, whose roots reach deep deep into the past. And the energy used for the growth of the new buds is drawn through these roots. Every new generation is in effect a new manifestation of the accumulation of the experiences of all the previous generations. And each new generation or incarnation,  adds new experiences to the ever growing collection of the experiences of the living family tree. Experiences which are then passed onto the next generation or incarnation... 

The latest genetic and epigenetic research has shown that this cumulative experience, the things we do or are done to us, thing we feel, we think. actually affect our genes and all this experience is recorded in our genes. These changes are passed on to our children and will greatly affect their lives. The more bad epigenetic changes we accumulate, the sicker our family tree will get. Our children will suffer, but this is basically our own suffering. Equally the more good epigenetic changes we accumulate, the healthier our family tree will get. Our children will prosper, but this is basically our own prosperity.  Because our children are just our next incarnation, the next incarnation of the family tree which is part of the great tree of life...

Finally this is also where the belief that we are all one comes from too. Because ultimately we are all part of one tree of life, on huge growing, ever changing ancient living organism. 

Doing good to yourself, your fellow human beings and the world in general makes a lot more sense now, don't you think?

Shepherd's chapels from Velebit

In my post about the Indian Summer, which is in Central Europe called Babje Leto (Grandmother's summer), I showed that the beliefs related to Babje Leto (Grandmother's summer), show that the old Mother Goddess, Mother Earth, Baba, was with the arrival of Christianity replaced with Mary, the Holy Mother of Christianity. 

In this post I will talk about the shepherd's chapels from Mount Velebit in Croatia. They offer us even more direct proof of the replacement of the Mother Goddess, Mother Earth, Baba with Mary, the Holy Mother.

Alpine transhumance is a seasonal droving of grazing livestock between the valleys in winter and the high mountain pastures in summer. Transhumance is a traditional practice that has shaped much of the landscape in the Alps, as without it, most areas below 2,000 m would be forests. The exactly the same type of practice existed once on Dinaric Alps. 

This is the highland pasture area called Jezera (Lakes) on mountain Velebit in Croatia. This is the area where in the past people living around the mountain used to bring flocks of sheep and goats and herds of  cows to spend the hot summers grazing on a good green highland grass. 

Jezera plateau

Jezera plateau

Each large grazing area had pre Christian shepherd's temples with sacrificial altar. These pagan temples were later turned into Christian churches, locally known as "stočarske kapelice" (shepherd's chapels). The oldest one is the shepherd's chapel in Jezera (Lakes) plateau grazing area. There on top of the "Goli hrbat" (Naked back), at the height of 1470 m above the sea level, lie in complete isolation ruins of an ancient sacral building with dimension 10 x 5 meters. The stone walls, which were built using dry wall building technique, were 1.3 meters thick. The most unusual thing about this chapel is the altar stone. The altar is actually bedrock, which existed there before the church was built. Bedrock is in the Balkans known as "kamen živac, živi kamen, živa stena" (living stone, living rock) and is venerated as sacred. They are called so, because they are believed to be still part of the living body of the Mother Earth. These types of stones are also known as "baba" stones. The fact that the altar stone was carved out of bedrock shows that this was an ancient pre Christian altar stone which was later encased inside of the Christian church, surrounded by the thick church walls in order to have it's "evil" power contained.

Remains of the old shepherd's chapel

There is something very interesting about this church though. In his article: "Nekateri topografski vidiki obrednih mest [Some Topographic Aspects of Ritual Places ]" Andrej Pleterski says:
"One of the diagonals of the church is aligned exactly to the east west line. The longitudinal axis of the church has azimuth of 123,5° (angle from geographic north). This means that the church is oriented towards the local point of the Christmas sunrise. Therefore, it is very likely that the original orientation of the pagan temple which was replaced with the church, was towards the winter solstice sunrise."

Was this an ancient solar observatory used for determining the beginning of the solar year? In order to carve the shepherd's solar year calendars that I wrote about in this post....

The church which is now the only visible structure in the area was once surrounded by a large summer shepherd's settlement which is in the Balkans called "stan" or "katun" or "tor". This settlement even had an artificial lake made from a converted sink hole. The bottom of the sink hole was paved with large stone plates and a stone wall was built along the perimeter, turning the sink hole into a giant cistern. This is why the area was known as Jezera (Lakes). Every year on the 15th of August, on the day of the Assumption of Mary, shepherd's had a large festival with a fair which was organized in the area around the holy Baba stone and later the church dedicated to Holy Mary. On that day, all the sheep, goats and cattle had to be gathered and brought to the pens and corals before 10 am in the morning, because that was the time when the holy mass started. After the mass, a special meal was prepared. Every family would kill (sacrifice) a lamb or a young goat, which was then cooked in a broth. This soup was then brought to the church where a communal meal would take place.

The shepherd's chapel in Jezera (Lakes) area is not the only Christian chapel built around an ancient bedrock altar stone. There used to be another one on "Veliko Rujno" (Big Rujno) plateau.

Veliko Rujno

But today the only thing left is the original bedrock altar - Baba. The stones from the old church which once encased this old pagan altar were used to build a new church dedicated to Holy Mary in 1930 and which stands 50 meters away from the old altar stone.

Veliko Rujno chapel

Next to old bedrock altar lies a large stone slab. The locals say that this slab marks "the grave of an innocent child". Every year on the 15th of August, on the day of the Assumption of Mary the shepherd's used to drive their flocks over this slab in order to cleanse them from decease and evil.

Near by is another highland plateau called "Malo Rujno" (Little Rujno).

Malo Rujno

On it there is a similar stone block which local shepherd's called "Baba". On the arrival, shepherd women used to bring food offerings and leave them on the stone. They also used to lite candles on the stone on various holy days. The stone was also known as "the altar".

According to the local informer Dara Babac :) , who was 80 years old when she was interviewed, Baba stone on Malo Rujno was blessed by a priest from Lika region, and this is why this stone is also called Babin kuk (Baba's stone, kuk being another word for rock, boulder) or Popov kuk (Priest's stone). Women who couldn't have children were praying to the Baba stone to help them to stay pregnant and give birth to a healthy child. During this prayer they were kissing the stone. After the second world war, the stone lost it's cultic importance, but the act of kissing the Baba stone was transferred to kissing any old woman. Young girls which were earlier urged to kiss the Baba stone "for their own good" were urged to kiss any old woman that they see, also "for their own good". The kissing ritual was also transferred from the Baba stone to its Christian replacement, the statue of the Holy Mary. During the prayer in the chapel on Veliko Rujno, women circled the altar on their knees. At the end of the prayer they would kiss the feet and the dress of the statue. They were also kissing the picture of the Holy Mary during the procession which circled the church.

Another ancient shepherd's chapel on Velebit mountain lies at the end of the "Grabov dol" (hornbeam valley) on the edge of the "Mala Paklenica" (Small hell) gorge.

Mala Paklenica

The chapel was dedicated to the shepherd's saint, Saint Jacob. Today the chapel lies in ruins. Please note the statue of Mary placed inside the church ruins.

Saint Jacob chapel

Another shepherd's chapel used to stand in the near by Libinje plateau, under Sveto brdo (Holy hill).

Libinje plateau

The chapel was dedicated to st Antun, but about 20 years ago the last trace of this chapel have disappeared. This is another place where shepherd's used to have their gathering, mass and fair immediately after the arrival on the mountain in the spring. The chapel was surrounded with stone sheep pens where the flocks were kept during the ceremonies. The sheep pens were made using the same dry wall building technique used to build the chapel.

I actually believe that both of these last two chapels, the one dedicated to St Jacob and the other one dedicated to St Antun, were originally dedicated to Holy Mary and were only later "rechristened". The same was done with the chapel on Jezera, which is today called the chapel of St Antun, even though it is known from interviews with the locals, that the church was originally dedicated to the Holy Mary...Is this being done to remove the link between the original Baba worship and its Christian replacement, the worship of the Holy Mary? I believe so. 

The fact that Baba (stone, mountain, earth) was specially venerated on Velebit can be seen from a large number of toponyms with the root Baba which are found in immediate vicinity (20 km radius)

Babin kuk (Baba's hip or baba's rock), Bobički kuk (Baba's hip or baba's rock), Babin kamen (žrtvenik), Babino jezero (Baba's lake), 3 mountain tops called Babin vrh (Baba's peak), Babino brdo (Baba's hill), Babin dolac (Baba's valley), Babino vrelo (Baba's well), Babac, Babica,

So what happened after the local population was Christianized? The same area became the most important center of the Marian cult. Coincidence?

Conclusion:

It seems that the shepherd's from south Velebit, both Orthodox and Catholic, preserved many pre-Christian traditions, customs and ceremonies until the mid 20th century. The most important set of these pagan rituals is linked to the veneration of the Mother Goddess, the female symbol of fertility and wealth - Baba, Mother Earth. These rituals were performed on and around protruding amorphous lumps of bedrock which are in this region, as well as in many other parts of the Balkans, known as Baba stones, like this one.  

The fact that the same type of veneration was directed towards these stones by both Catholics on Veliko Rujno plateau and by Orthodox Christians and Muslims on Malo Rujno plateau, shows that this custom predates the arrival of Christianity and Islam.

What is interesting is that with the arrival of Christianity, the veneration of Baba, Mother Goddess, Mother Earth was replaced with the veneration of the Holy Mary...

References:

"Mitske predaje i legende južnovelebitskog Podgorja" by Mirjana Trošelj

"Nekateri topografski vidiki obrednih mest [Some Topographic Aspects of Ritual Places" by  Pleterski, Andrej

"Deruralizacija južnog Velebita – aspekti života velebitskih Podgoraca u prvoj polovini XX. stoljeća" by Anita Bušljeta