Table of contents:
- How 12 Old Men Predicted the Harvest
- I went for firewood - I found my wife
- Dung and fish
- Siberian shamans, kind inside
- Peter chopped off the shoulder
Video: Fortunetellers-men in Russia: why Peter the Great executed the Magi, and what fortune-telling were popular
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
When they talk about fortune-telling in Russia, a girl appears with a mirror and a candle, or a whole group of Russian beauties throwing a slipper. As a last resort, a mysterious fortune-teller who predicts the future. But men wondered at least as often and with the same pleasure. They just did it a little differently, like a man.
How 12 Old Men Predicted the Harvest
In Russia, they often wondered. Family people tried to guess wealth and healthy children, the young were interested in the future wife or husband, but the old people trusted the most important thing - they wondered about the harvest. According to legends, old people were in a special intermediate state: apparently on earth, at the same time, almost there, above, where in their thoughts, prayers and dreams they managed to look with one eye before the end of their long life's journey. Therefore, in the villages, they trusted only the very old and most respectable men to guess the harvest.
For this, 12 people were selected - the number was determined by the number of months in a year. They selected the most worthy people leading a righteous working life. Before the New Year, they took sheaves tied from a wide variety of crops and went straight to the church. There they put them behind the church fence at the porch.
In the morning, these same people came back and examined the sheaves, on which of them the most frost appeared, what patterns he left on the surface. Based on these mysterious signs, accessible only to old people, they decided which crop should be planted in order to get an unprecedented harvest.
I went for firewood - I found my wife
If women guessed purposefully, with taste, after thorough preparation and morally tuned in to an important matter, then men did it as if by the way. This is undoubtedly the difference between female and male psychology.
For example: men gathered for a rest after hunting, fishing or the end of the working day, sat in a circle, had a snack with what God sent. They took a little salt and threw it on the red coals. Here you have all the fortune-telling - you just have to dream up and see what salt shows there. Maybe a knife? It means that there will be a quarrel with someone. Horse - wait for a long journey. And if there is a bell, then perhaps a young wife will soon appear in the house. There were many such symbols, and they could be deciphered in different ways.
Another time a man went to the barn to bring firewood. And by chance I counted how many knots were on the very first leaf on which my eyes fell. He counted and said: "Here is a girl, here is a widow." The last bitch showed who would become the future wife. Or maybe he called certain names. The last bitch on the name Masha has ended - therefore, you will have to call her wife.
Dung and fish
The practical male mind forced to use many fortune-telling for a specific purpose. For example, fishermen used to guess on fish scales and they did it before fishing. A larger fish was chosen, which was caught early in the morning, at sunrise. All scales had to be removed from it and mixed with manure and sand. In order to find out whether the fishing will be successful, wolf skin was laid out on the shore. The fishermen sat around her, took the mixture obtained earlier and rubbed it between their palms, saying: "Tell us to fish or wait a bit."
The components of the mixture fell into the skin, and the men closely watched what would fall first. If fish scales mainly fell from above, then one could safely go out to sea. If the top layer was manure, it was recommended to cancel fishing for at least a month. When the fishermen, having listened to the fortune-telling, went out to sea, they took the scales with them to throw them off the board after sailing. At the same time, a special conspiracy was read, the purpose of which was to attract good luck.
Perhaps modern men would also gladly take advantage of such fortune-telling, but only wolf skins and dung in modern times, many of them have not even seen.
Siberian shamans, kind inside
Siberian shamans were famous fortune-tellers. These people, who know how to enter a certain mental ecstatic state with the help of a tambourine and ritual dances, could cause rain and relieve headaches, predict the future and cure various diseases. All the rituals of Siberian shamans for the most part were aimed at attracting good. Residents turned to shamans for help.
Most often, it was men who became shamans, since the rituals required physical strength and endurance. Fortune-telling was the responsibility of shamans, and they were often asked to predict the future. The most ancient system was, however, and remains, fortune-telling by stones. In order to find out the future, 41 stones were required, which the shaman collected on the banks of the rivers, choosing according to one known sign and even extracting from bird craws. Each was attributed its own meaning, and fortune-telling was to understand how the stones lay down, what they say, combining their symbolic names.
If the future was predicted with 41 stones, then shamans needed 45 stones to diagnose diseases. Each of them designated nothing more than the cause of the disease. Having spread the fortune-telling stones, the shaman learned what to do for a person, how to get rid of the disease. Unfortunately, this is sometimes lacking in modern medicine - to look for the reason, to dig deep.
Peter chopped off the shoulder
Wise men were called wise men, sorcerers, sorcerers, magicians, warlocks. Someone worshiped them, someone hated them, but the majority recognized their magical power. Even in Stoglava in 1551, the Magi were mentioned, who skillfully read the stars. And among them there were also predominantly men.
The Chukhon Magi, who lived on the territory of St. Petersburg and who had many sites for their rituals, can be distinguished into a separate caste. The famous sacred pine tree, by which the Magi used to guess, predicting natural disasters and wars, grew practically in the center of the city, not far from Trinity Square. Peter I was skeptical about this kind of fortune-telling, considering them a fraud and obscurantism. After the prediction of the Magi about the death of the city, three hundred years later, the tsar ordered them to be executed, and the pine tree to be cut down and used to kindle the soldiers' stoves. Either the Magi did not guess well, or the rulers of the city still believed them and took all measures, but their terrible prophecy about the death of St. Petersburg, fortunately, did not come true.
In general, many fortune-telling was literally dangerous. Especially Christmastide, for which it was necessary to prepare very carefully.
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