Светлана Жарникова – Ornamental complex of the Nort of Russia (страница 9)

Let's start with the fact that on the heads, that is, on the upper, occipital parts of the Severodvinsk and Tarnogsky warriors, made of damask and velvet, as a rule, cherry, crimson or scarlet, are depicted embroidered with gold or silver threads on the "map" (cardboard templates) strange zooanthropomorphic creatures. As a rule, each of them is presented in a characteristic spread frog pose, typical for a woman giving birth. Under the main, central figure, on whose hands birds or snakes are sitting, the second image is placed. In Tarnog Borushki it is placed between the widely spaced legs of the first creature, as a rule, horned, the second, almost completely identical to the first horned creature, also in a characteristic spread-out pose. The central figure is connected to a second, smaller, thin strip - the "umbilical cord" (ill. 1).

Fig. 1. Borushka tarnogskaya. 19th century. VOKM 20927. Photo by V. Tarosovsky.

In Severodvinsk, specifically Cherevkovsky povoiniks, the central figure is connected by a strip, which also descends between widely spaced legs, with a triangle or three-stage pyramid. But the triangle and the step pyramid in many ancient agricultural cultures since the Eneolithic times were a sign of the female productive principle, a symbol of birth and reproduction8. So, E. V. Antonova, speaking about the origin and semantic load of signs on the statuettes of the Anau culture and comparing them, in particular, with signs on the Trypillian clay plastic, concludes that the triangle and the stepped pyramid throughout the early agricultural Eurasian Oykumen meant a woman, birth, growth⁹. A. P. Pogozheva comes to the same conclusion¹⁰.

Fig. 2. Severodvinsky Povinik. XIX century. Vologodskaya Oblast. Museum of local lore. Inv. No. 3439/16. Photo by V. Tarasovsky.

Since (which is especially emphasized by B. A. Rybakov in "The Paganism of the Ancient Slavs") folk symbolic and ornamental memory is distinguished by amazing conservatism and the ability to preserve motives created in antiquity for thousands of years, we can assume, following the named researchers, that the stepped pyramid and triangle Cherevkov warriors are the same thing with the second component of the compositions of Tarnog Borushki, a zooanthropomorphic creature in the pose of Rozhanitsa.

The specificity of the pose, as well as the fact that the upper and lower figures are connected by a thin strip, very similar to the umbilical cord, give us, I think, grounds for assuming that we have before us images of two Rozhanitsa goddesses, and in this compositional scheme the following

a component is the woman herself, who wears this warrior: she must continue further an infinite chain of births and, by all the logic of this incantatory ornament, must repeat the act of birth, reproduction.

It must be said that such images, made of pearls, beads, cut mother-of-pearl or bugles, are also characteristic of Kargopol kokoshniks, where a stylized figure, somewhat exaggerated in its sprawl, with raised arms and legs wide apart is almost always placed above the forehead.

It is interesting that women wore hats with such ornaments only during the reproductive period of their lives, often even only in the first years of family life, before the birth of a child ¹¹, and then changed to less decorated ones; getting old, they switched to other, old women warriors.

The strength of the tradition was so great that, having almost lost the ancient idea of the meaning of these images, which they called "toads" or "rokastitsy", embroiderers nevertheless, even in seemingly completely baroque compositions, so far from pagan symbolic, still retained the ancient scheme: while changing, transforming, it retains the most important thing, the basis of compositional construction - the spread-out central figure. One of the characteristic details in the images of Rozhanits on the North Russian warriors was the horns that adorned the heads of these zooanthropomorphic creatures.

It seems that this is also not an accidental detail ¹². The fact is that researchers have long noted that a number of Russian hats the moat has horns; these are Ryazan, Tula, Kaluga, Tambov, Kursk kichki, magpies and kokoshniks, this series also includes the famous Voronezh ships and one-horned Kargopol kokoshniks. They all bring the same element to the look of the woman wearing them - a woman likened to a cow or a goat, creatures considered from antiquity to be associated with the symbolism of fertility.

Fig. 3. Severodvinsky Povinik. XIX century. Vologodskaya Oblast. Museum of local lore.Inv. No. 3439/22. Photo by V. Tarasovsky.

Probably, the horniness of the Rozhanits embroidered on the headdresses, on the one hand, emphasizes their connection with the sphere of the sacred, and on the other hand, unites the goddess with her possible archaic prototype - the cow. B. A. Rybakov, speaking about the closeness of two Rozhanitsa, mother and daughter, to the ancient Greek Leto - Latona and Artemis, - emphasizes the connection of these Greek goddesses with the cults of fertility. But almost all the most ancient goddesses of the fruiting forces of nature in Eurasia and North America are in one way or another associated with the cow. Whether it is Isis or Ishtar crowned with cow horns, hair-eyed Hera or Io, turned into a cow, Europe, originally embodied in the guise of a cow, etc., we repeat, all of them in a zoomorphic version are associated with the cult of the same animal. It is interesting that one of the supposed analogs of the Old Russian Rozhanitsa - the goddess Artemis in the guise of Selena - was also depicted as horned, like Ilithia, helping women in labor, and in its Asia Minor version, it appeared to be many-breasted, with a whole host of cows on her body. All of these goddesses listed above have one more thing in common - they are somehow connected with the most ancient lunar cults, since the moon was the giver of fertility in the form of rain, dew and moisture in general in many ancient cultures.¹³ But the moon in the same cultures was usually associated with a cow or a bull¹⁴, since the moon, water, cow and bull have long been closely interconnected and interchangeable in various mythological systems. In addition, the marriage partners of many fertility goddesses also appear, as a rule, in a zoomorphic form, in the guise of the same animal - a bull.

Fig. 4. The Severodvinsk type povoynik. XIX century. Vologodskaya Oblast. Museum of local lore. Inv. No. 3439/25. Photo by V. Tarasovsky.

So, in the numerous headdresses that existed in the vast territory of Russia, the woman, who was a kind of earthly hypostasis of the goddess-woman in labor, was likened to a horned creature - a cow. Emphasizing the signs that associate a woman with a cow, and at the same time, the constant horniness of the Rozhanits depicted on the warriors suggests that since the women, and ultimately the goddess-Rozhanitsa, are horned, it is possible that god should have been depicted as horned Genus.

This assumption is supported by the conclusions of B. A. Rybakov about the genetic relationship of Rod and Baal, Rod and Gad, Rod and Apollo. Zeus, Jupiter, Dionysus and, finally, the Christian hosts, whose antagonist was the god Rod in church teachings against paganism¹⁵. However, both Baal and Gad (gods of fertility, water, and birth) had one zoomorphic incarnation - a bull ¹⁶. Apollo, as Pausanias wrote, loved bulls most of all¹⁷. Zeus of Crete was personified in the form of a bull. In the form of a bull or goat, the god of fertility and the elemental forces of nature, Dionysus, were embodied. And, finally, the prototype of Sabaoth - the ancient lord of the gods Ilu - was also depicted in the guise of a bull¹⁸.

In this series of analogues of the Sort, one of the most important, if not the most important, I think, can be called the most ancient Vedic (Aryan) god Rudra, about whom the famous Soviet Indologist N. R. Guseva writes: “In the Vedic pantheon, the god Rudra also played an essential role, which appears in the Vedas under many names and is the bearer of a number of functions. He is described as a benevolent creator of all living things, the son of the dawn and at the same time as an angry deity of storms. <...> Being a Vedic, that is, an Aryan deity, Rudra probably became an object of cult worship of the Aryans not in India itself, but was known even in the pre-Indian period of their history. Let's turn to some comparisons. The ancient Russian pagans had a god Rod - a formidable and capricious ruler of the sky, “who owned clouds, rain and lightning, from whom

all life on earth depended. " The meaning of the name "Rudra" repeats these definitions: formidable, mighty, god of thunder, benevolent. The name of the Slavic Family is also explained as red, shining, sparkling. There are Slavic words “ore” in the meaning of “blood”, and “ore”, “red” (“red color”). In Sanskrit there is also an ancient root “rudh” (“to be red”), from which “rudhira” is formed ("Red", "bloody", "blood")¹⁹. The connection of the name of the East Slavic god Rod with the words "ore" (blood), "ore", "red", "rodry" (red) is also noted by B. A. Rybakov ²⁰. But Rudra in zoomorphic incarnation is a bull, like a mighty bull he is sung in the hymns of the Rig Veda.