Светлана Жарникова – The Distaff and the phallic cult (страница 2)
There are images of a lonely standing tree on Mezen spinning wheels, often ate. It is legitimate to associate these images with the veneration of trees, including spruce, reflected in the rites and customs of the Russian Mezen21. Numerous testimonies of the veneration of sacred trees by the closest neighbors of the Russians Mezen - Komi have been preserved.22
Leshukonye
Of particular interest is the composition of three trees (Fig. 3). In all likelihood, this is one of the variants of a three-part composition. Two identical trees are located on the sides of the central tree, differing from the others by either larger size or general configuration. It is no coincidence that a similar plot is found in the paintings on the old peasant furniture on the Mezen. The theme of three trees in various versions is inherent in the art of ancient Urartu and the art of the ancient Armenians and Scythians related to it.23 There are other analogies to the images of three trees on spinning wheels. The Selkups have an idea of three sacrificial trees - birch, cedar and larch, worshiping which they hung rags: white on birch, red on larch, black on cedar. Three sacrificial trees stood at the shaman's dugout. They were called "heaven and earth, binding the sacrificial trees." Around them, each clan made its own ancestral sacrifice, and the entire Selkup tribe sacrificed near the tree (birch) common to both clans.24 In the light of this kind of ideas, the special position of the central tree becomes clear both in the Mezen paintings and in the ancient Urartian and Scythian images.
Figure: 3. Fragment of painting on a palaschel spinning wheel (three trees).
Another circle of subjects in the painting on the Mezen spinning wheels is associated with ancient images. These are boats and ships in which it is easy to see the well-known world motif found in the art of many nations (Fig. 4, 5).
Figure: 4. Fragment of painting on a spinning wheel (boat)
Figure: 5. Fragment of painting on a spinning wheel (steamer)
Its antiquity is evidenced by numerous images of boats on rock paintings in different parts of the world. A. P. Okladnikov, who studied the Amur petroglyphs, in which boats often appear, writes that similar images are found in the petroglyphs of the Baikal region, Yenisei, Karelia and Scandinavia25: “In a word, this is a whole world of such boats from Baikal to the White Sea and the Baltic. You can ... from Scandinavia stretch the processions of boats and even further, to pre-dynastic Egypt, to the funeral boats of the pharaohs, to the solar boat of the god Ra, on which he makes his eternal journey from sun rise to sunset, into the bowels of the underworld to die and rise again to the delight of people, as the ancient Egyptian myth tells, as the sacred texts of the pyramids say"26. Ethnographic material shows that these boats are the boats of the dead, in which the souls of the dead are transported to the land of the dead. A boat or a ship often appears in fairy tales: on them the heroes go to another kingdom27. The idea of the ship (boat) of the dead prevails among the island peoples of Oceania; in Europe, the classic country of the cult of the boat of the dead is Scandinavia28. In this connection, I would like to note that the motive of the boat (ship) was especially developed on the Mezen spinning wheels; on spinning wheels from other Russian regions, it is almost completely absent. The preservation of this motive on the Mezen was undoubtedly facilitated by the close connection of the population of the Mezen with the river and the sea. An important role in the economy of the Mezen was played by the sea fishing for fish and animals, which in winter gathered the male population from many Mezen villages, including the village of Palaschelya.
However, although the economic activity of the population of Mezen played a role, it alone cannot explain the preservation of the subject in question in the Mezen painting. How else to explain the absence of it in the paintings of other northern regions (in particular, the Northern Dvina), the population of which was also drawn into the marine industries? Obviously, the motive of the boat in the Mezen paintings has deep roots, possibly connected with the local Neolithic population, who left rock paintings on the shores of the White Sea.
N. A .Shabunin "Journey to the North". 1906
World plots include the images of driving in a sleigh or carts harnessed by one or a pair of horses, which are not uncommon on Mezen spinning wheels (Fig. 6). The plot is quite widespread and is found in the paintings of household items and on architectural structures in many countries. He took a significant place in Russian art, having received special development in folk art, in particular, in the paintings of spinning wheels, especially in Severodvinsk, less often in Gorodets and Mezen. This plot is not uncommon in the paintings of Hutsul masters29. It is characteristic that of the listed murals, only the Mezen painting retains features that have analogies in archaeological antiquities. So, on the Mezen spinning wheels we see "drags", which are the most ancient form of the simplest construction of two tree trunks or poles, which were dragged by a horse. Such "drags" remained longer in hard-to-reach, swampy, mountainous places. Back at the end of the 19th century, “drags were found in the valleys of the Alps, Transcaucasia, the Carpathians and some remote corners of Russia. They are often mentioned in Kalevala. As D. N. Anuchin, a sled of a primitive design, supplanted everywhere by wheeled carts, was preserved as a part of the funeral rite.
Figure: 6. Fragment of painting on a spinning wheel (ride in a sleigh)
I would like to note, by the way, that the main subjects of the Mezen painting can serve as an illustration to the classic work of this scientist "Sleigh, boat and horses as belonging to the funeral rite." This indirectly confirms that the plots of the Mezen painting we are considering should be interpreted not as everyday, but as religious, pagan in their basis plots.
It is noteworthy that of the two horses, one is often dark and the other light. On the Mezen spinning wheels, often painted one black, the other red, and horses follow each other, personifying, apparently, the afterlife and the real world. The basis for the latter assumption can serve as mythological ideas about the horse, which exist among many peoples of the world, including the Slavs.30. The fact that the horses depicted on the spinning wheels have a sacred meaning can be judged by the numerous solar signs placed by the artists above the manes, between the legs and under the horses' legs, as well as by the nature of the images of the animal figures themselves. The horses of the Mezen paintings are more distant from the real prototype than the horses in the peasant paintings from other regions. Most of them are red-orange in color, which is not typical for ordinary horses. The body of black horses was often covered with a continuous lattice pattern, emphasizing, in our opinion, the sacred significance of the animal. The horses' legs, unnaturally long and thin, ended in feathers. Often horses were depicted “not following each other, but against each other and, judging by the rearing poses, in a mutual struggle. Sometimes, on reared horses, there are riders fighting each other (Fig. 7). On one of these images we find the names of horsemen - Ilya Muromets and Polkan the hero (Fig. 8).
Figure: 7. Wrestling horses
Figure: 8. Ilya Muromets and Polkan the Bogatyr
Of course, the considered Mezen drawings, which, in our opinion, are variants of the most common world plots, have come down to us in a transformed form. They bear the layers of different eras, including everyday life, by the modern Mezen masters of the 19th century, due to which they are perceived by many as everyday subjects. However, practice shows that in folk art only plots are firmly established, constructively and logically corresponding to traditional ornamental motives. V. S. Voronov, who devoted a special study to the genre of everyday life in peasant art, found that some genre scenes depicting cattle herding by a shepherd, milking cows, working in a smithy, round dances, a meal, threshing, dancing and other characteristic scenes from folk life, “did not receive strict formal crystallization in artistic processing and appear to be curious scattered fragments of everyday folk painting"31
On the outside of the spinning wheels, the pattern is more canonical than on the inside (Fig. 1). In its middle part, two rows of horses or deer running one after another are almost always depicted. Often, both rows are filled with uniform figures of horses, less often - deer. Usually, in each row, the master placed three or four figures of animals, so those in totals there were six or eight figures in both rows, respectively. The images of animals here, as well as on other parts of the spinning wheels, are rather monotonous. The red-orange silhouettes of horses and deer, as Yuri Arbat first noticed, who had the opportunity to directly observe the manufacture of spinning wheels in the village of Palashchel, are formed from three parts: a rectangular body, a long elongated neck and muzzle. The mane, four long legs and tail are drawn with thin black strokes. Deer differ from horses only in that instead of a mane, branched horns appear behind their backs with the same black strokes. Solar signs and images of birds are placed around the figures of horses and deer. The latter dominate in the upper and lower friezes, symbolizing, as already mentioned, the upper and lower worlds, respectively.