Houses for the dead: What are plague huts and why were they built in Russia

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For the burial of the dead in Russia, they used mounds, cremation, they could send the deceased on their last journey by boat or leave them in a pestilence hut. The method of burial was influenced by both the idea of the world of the dead and the social status of the deceased, as well as the reasons for the death. Read what a plague hut is, what does a hut on chicken legs have to do with burial and how an air funeral was held.

Soul to heaven, body to earth and a pestilent hut as a dwelling place after death

In ancient times in Russia, those who left this world rushed to their last journey on a boat, which could also be burned. It was a kind of combination of cremation and water burial. Later, what remained after the cremation was buried. Ideas about life in the next world were changing, and the ancestors had, on the one hand, to agree that the soul flies to the sky (on which rain, sun, snow depend), and on the other hand, the deceased had to be attached to the Earth, which is food source. Therefore, the burnt ashes were buried over the burial place and a domina was made, that is, a model of a house.

During paganism, it was believed that the world of the living is not too different from the world of the dead. Therefore, at first they built a small house, and then the time came for large huts, which were intended for the living of the deceased. The peasants, for example, believed that in the next world a person needs everything that he used during his lifetime. For the warrior - weapons, for the carpenter - tools, an ax. They were all buried together with the deceased. The more noble a person was, the larger the mound was, in which underground log cabins, real houses, were arranged. There were placed not only the remains of a person, but also there was a place for household items, furniture, clothes. Often, together with the deceased, they buried his horse, and sometimes servants and even his wife. The last stage is filling the burial house with earth and building a burial mound. Today, during archaeological excavations, such log houses are often found, in which the remains of people lie. Such premises were called pestilence huts. They contain the ashes of people in clay pots, and sometimes even without them.

Air funeral and why a hut on chicken legs could turn out to be a special way of burial

Researchers say that the prototype of the famous hut on chicken legs could be a domina, that is, a small house with a gable roof, installed over the graves. People brought food and things there to make the deceased's existence more comfortable. For this, a window was made in the house, or the fourth wall was simply not erected. Such homes for the departed most often stood on stumps or wooden piles, which were stoked with smoke. That is why the supports were called "kuryi", in other words, stoned legs. Chicken has nothing to do with it.

Here is the hut on chicken legs, in which Baba Yaga lived. Most likely, such a house did not touch the ground, since it was related to the world of the living. And perhaps everything is much simpler, and this was done so that rodents and insects did not damage the bodies of the deceased.

Ancient funeral - vessels on pillars

In the "Tale of Bygone Years", created by the chronicler Nestor, you can find references to other methods of burying people. Nestor noted that after the death of the dead, they were put on a log and burned, and after that they collected the ashes in a small vessel and set it on pillars dug along the roads. Most likely, this is how it all began. There were supports with urns, on which they later began to build small houses for the dead. Air burial is a kind of combination of cremation and burial in the air. On many continents, a deceased person was placed on a platform or suspended from a tree so that his soul ascended to heaven without problems.

It was believed that the earth presses on the deceased and does not allow him to calm down. Some peoples, and the Slavs as well, equated the dead with birds. It is possible that by burying the deceased in huts on chicken legs, they tried to facilitate his transition from earth to heaven. Air burial was practiced in the Volga region, Siberia, and the Urals. Most often, shamans, small children and people whose death occurred due to a lightning strike were buried in this way. It is believed that the plague huts were not intended for all the dead, but for certain categories.

Noble people were buried in mounds, and the bodies of soldiers were cremated. There is another option - the plague huts were intended for the mortgaged dead, that is, for people whose death was violent and who did not pass the sacrament rite. They are suicides, drowned people, victims of criminals. Their bodies should not have desecrated the earth for me to bring on crop failure, drought, frost or flood. Most often, the so-called pledged dead were not buried, but hid in secluded places, throwing stones or tree branches. The drunkard could find his refuge in the swamp. If there was a mass death of people, then the dead were placed in one place, constructing a fence of wooden stakes around.

Mass graves and what is a skodelnitsa

The word pestilence in Russia meant the death of a large number of people, usually as a result of hunger or an epidemic. For example, the plague in the annals is called a pestilence. When the number of the dead was too large, the church did not have time to carry out the rituals of communion and funeral services, so such dead were treated as pledges and were buried in a common grave. When there was a pestilence and there were too many victims, they organized a scum, that is, a mass burial. These could be ordinary ditches filled with the bodies of the dead.

The researchers note that the chronicles speak of the poor women who "set". That is, in ancient times, graves were not dug for such burials, but houses or other large structures were erected. This, of course, is an assumption, but it is well founded. For example, the researcher Sorokin A. N. suggests that during severe epidemics, people could not build a sufficiently large pestilence hut and simply dug a hole. Yes, there have always been emergencies.

How an English diplomat was struck by Bozhedom

In 1588, the English diplomat Giles Fletcher visited Moscow. He wrote a treatise "On the Russian State", which was then published in St. Petersburg (1911) in the translation of Prince M. A. Obolensky. Fletcher noted that in winter, when there is a lot of snow and the ground freezes very much, so that even a crowbar cannot be broken, the Russians do not bury the dead, but put them in houses outside the city. Such buildings are called God's house or God's house. The corpses are laid like firewood, from the frost they freeze, turn to stone. When spring comes, people take their dead and bury them. It is possible that the Englishman writes just about a temporary plague hut, where the corpses of criminals, unidentified bodies, drunkards who fell asleep in the cold, that is, those who found their last refuge in a common grave behind the churchyard, were kept.

Surprise today is caused not only by the pagan rites of farewell to the deceased. But also later funeral rites, the meaning of which modern people will not understand.