Myth and ritual in primitive culture read. Ritual as a component of primitive culture

Myth is the first form of human exploration of the world, the first historical form of worldview. The world for primitive man was a living being. A person encounters the existence of the surrounding world and holistically experiences this interaction: emotions and creative imagination are involved in it to the same extent as intellectual abilities. Each event acquires individuality and requires its own description and thus explanation. Such unity is possible only in the form of a unique story, which should figuratively reproduce the experienced event and reveal its causality. This is exactly the “story” that is meant when the word “myth” is used. In other words, when telling myths, ancient people used methods of description and interpretation that were fundamentally different from those we are accustomed to. The role of abstract analysis was played by metaphorical identification.

Imagery in myth is inseparable from thought, since it represents the form in which the impression and, accordingly, the event are naturally realized. Myth becomes a way of understanding the world in primitive culture, the way in which it forms its understanding of the true essence of being, i.e. myth acts as a kind of philosophy or metaphysics of ancient man.

Totemism and magic. Mythology was a kind of philosophy of history primitive society. But in the spiritual, conceptual and cognitive spheres of life of this society, two other layers of its culture played an equally important role: totemism and magic.

In the first stages of their development, people felt much better (than we do now) their unity with nature, and therefore willingly identified themselves with its specific manifestations. In culture, this identification took the form of totemism, i.e. the belief that each group of people is closely connected with some animal or plant (totem) and is in a family relationship with them. The prerequisite for totemism was a myth that asserted the possibility of “conversion,” i.e. transformation of a person into an animal, a myth based on one of the most ancient beliefs that there is no fundamental difference between a person and an animal. Totemism has retained its position in modern culture (heraldry, everyday symbols, prohibitions on eating the meat of certain animals - cows in India, dogs and horses - among the Aryan peoples.

The idea of ​​totemistic kinship appeared earlier than the awareness of the usual physiological kinship, and seemed to people of ancient eras to be much more significant. Totemism involves the belief in totemistic ancestors from which specific groups of people descend. The life and adventures of these ancestors are the content of numerous myths; complex rites and ceremonies are associated with belief in them. Special origin allowed a separate group to realize its difference from other groups, i.e. realize your individuality. With the emergence of totemism, a boundary was drawn between “us” and “strangers”. This is how a key element of social self-identification was formed, which largely determined the path of development of human culture, and indeed the entire history of society.

Primitive culture is often defined as magical, as based on magical actions and magical thinking. To a certain extent this is true. Of course, in our time, the number of fans of “white” (healing) and harmful (“black”) magic is innumerable. Astrological forecasts, fortune telling, rain making rituals, witchcraft and the like have become profitable occupations for many. But in modern culture, elements of magic, with all their influence, are under the powerful pressure of the rational world, which determines the worldview of our civilization. It is not without reason that many modern types of magic try to imitate scientific activity.

In primitive culture, such censors as logic and cause-and-effect conditionality almost did not interfere with magical and fantastic ways of self-expression. Hence the amazing brightness and diversity of this culture. Reality and fantasy are equally real for primitive man, and the priest’s spell sometimes killed him more accurately than primitive weapons. Magical forms of thought, fortune telling, signs, complex rituals were not only a cultural component, they predetermined the very way of life of that time.

Both in the purely spiritual and in the practical sphere, one can point to many examples of how the expedient, the reasonable (in our understanding) is intertwined with what we tend to consider magical or witchcraft acts. The techniques of healing magic are closely related to traditional medicine, magic forms its methodological and theoretical basis. Malicious magic, damage, love magic were effective means fashionable and now methods of manipulating consciousness by influencing the psychosomatic structures of a person. The same is the nature of the action of military, hunting and other types of magic.

Special role magic shows V archaic culture associated with one of its qualitative features - boundless syncretism, i.e. absolute undifferentiation, fusion, organic unity of elements, both realistic and fantastic. Syncretism makes it almost impossible to distinguish between the subjective and the objective, the observed and the imaginary, the conjectural in primitive culture, since all this is not reflected in it, but, on the contrary, is unambiguously experienced and perceived.

It is impossible to distinguish between the spheres of the “supernatural” and “natural” in archaic culture, to separate “magical” ideas from practical ones on purely cognitive grounds. Such a division would affect not the cognitive, but the emotional sphere of the psyche of primitive man, since it presupposes a functional separation of “mind” and “heart”, i.e. intellect and emotions, easily accessible to us, but completely impossible for primitive man. The supernatural for a primitive society is not something that violates the natural laws of nature, for this last concept does not yet exist in archaic culture. "Supernatural" is something that breaks the routine Everyday life, interferes with the usual sequence of events, it is something unexpected, unusual, sometimes extremely attractive and seductive, but, most importantly, always dangerous, which can threaten life, deprive people of well-being and peace of mind. In such circumstances, a powerful arsenal of magical actions was put into action: spells, witchcraft, turning to the spirits of ancestors and gods for help, making sacrifices, even human ones.

In magical thinking, synthesis does not require preliminary analysis. The existing information blocks that make up magical knowledge are indecomposable and insensitive to contradictions, and are little permeable to negative experience.

Magical activity involved the use not only of magical techniques, but also of certain things, which, like the external circumstances of magical procedures, also acquire a magical meaning. Therefore, awareness of the need for certain external conditions for the success of a spell took the form of faith in “signs”, which very often reliably reflected real patterns. Later, along with belief in omens, the belief arose that objects with a magical meaning could not only influence the outcome of a person’s individual actions, but also determine his fate.

Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 1- Scanning and formatting: Janko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected] || [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || Icq# 75088656 || Library: http://yanko.lib.ru/gum.html || update 05/09/06 POPULAR HISTORICAL LIBRARY Edward Burnett Tylor MYTH AND RITE IN PRIMITIVE CULTURE Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --1,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 2- POPULAR HISTORICAL LIBRARY Edward Burnett Tylor MYTH AND RITE IN PRIMITIVE CULTURE Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --2,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 3- SMOLENSK “RUSICH” 2000 UDC 397 BBK 86.31 T14 Series founded in 2000 Translation from English by D. A. Koropchevsky T 14 Taylor E. B. Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - 624 p. ill. - (Popular Historical Library). ISBN 5-8138-0161-8 The publication represents selected pages from the famous work of one of the most prominent ethnographers and historians of the 19th century. E. B. Tylor's "Primitive Culture" (1871). The book contains enormous factual material on the primitive beliefs of the peoples of the world and introduces the reader to the origins of religion, to the most ancient ideas and rituals of mankind, the remnants of which (“living evidence”, “monuments of the past”, as the author aptly defines them) can be found in modern culture. For a wide range of readers. UDC 397 BBK 86.31 ISBN 5-8138-0161-8 © Compilation, text processing, notes and indexes. “Rusich”, 2000 © Development and design of the series. “Rusich”, 2000 Taylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --3,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru || 4- Electronic table of contents Electronic table of contents.................................................... ........................................................ ................................4 CONTENTS................... ........................................................ ........................................................ ...............................5 Chapter I. CULTURAL SURVIVALS................... ........................................................ ....................................7 Sphinx......... ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ .....15 Athenian king Aegeus, questioning the oracle................................................. ........................................................ ...............17 Human sacrifices.................................. ........................................................ ........................................23 Chapter II MYTHOLOGY...... ........................................................ ........................................................ ....................25 Atlas with a globe on his shoulders.................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ 27 Prometheus sculpts the first man from clay.................................................... ........................................................ ............28 African sorcerer................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ .......40 Werewolf.................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ .......................43 Hermes kills the hundred-eyed Argus...................... ........................................................ ...................................................46 Tezcatlipoca is one of the main deities of the Indians of Central America.................................... ..........49 The Egyptian sky goddess Nut absorbs and gives birth to the sun.................................... ........................................................ .50 Hindu sun god Surya.................................................... ........................................................ ................................58 Chapter III. ANIMISM................................................. ........................................................ ........................... ....64 Siberian shaman............................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ .....74 Penelope sees her sister in a dream....................................... ........................................................ ................................75 Crossing the soul of the deceased to the world of the dead (fragment of the painting of the ancient Greek lekythos. V century BC . e.) .......105 Domovina - a grave frame in which the Slavs placed funeral food. Russia, XIX century ............108 When visiting family graves, the Chinese decorate them with flowers and eat cold snacks...................109 Odysseus, who descended into the afterlife, talks with the shadow of the soothsayer Tiresias............................................113 The Judgment of Osiris in the Underworld ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................119 The spirit hunts the emu in the underworld. Australia................................................. ...........................................128 Punishment of sinners in hell. Antique book illustration, China.................................................... ..............131 Chinese paper sacrificial money intended for the souls of ancestors.................................. .....................136 Possession............................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ...............................147 Old Russian amulets-pendants............... ........................................................ ........................................................ .....155 Salamander - the spirit of fire.................................... ........................................................ ...........................................172 Water Spirits ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ .......174 Dwarves - spirits of the earth's bowels.................................... ........................................................ ...........................................179 Sacred Oak in the Prussian sanctuary of Romov.................................................... ........................................................ ..180 Apis - the sacred bull of the ancient Egyptians..................................... ........................................................ ................183 Cat - a sacred animal Bast of the ancient Egyptians..... ........................................................ ................................184 Hanuman, the king of the monkeys, builds a bridge between Ceylon and India...... ........................................................ .............185 The symbol of eternity is a snake biting its tail.................................... ........................................................ ..................186 Asclepius - the ancient Greek god of healing with a snake........................ ........................................................ ..........187 Trimurti - trinity supreme gods Hinduism: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.................................................... ..........190 Hindu god Indra - lord of lightning................................. ........................................................ ..................196 Wotan - the thunder god of the ancient Germans.................................. ........................................................ .......................198 Agni - Hindu god of fire..................... ........................................................ ........................................................ .....203 Mithras trampling the bull.................................... ........................................................ ...........................................208 Selene - goddess of the moon of the ancient Greeks ........................................................ ........................................................ ..........210 Chapter IV. RITES AND CEREMONY.................................................... ........................................................ ...213 Human sacrifices among the Mayans.................................................... ........................................................ ................220 Conclusion......................... ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................243 NOTES.................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ ....248 Chapter 1................................................... ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................248 Chapter 2..... ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ..........................248 Chapter 3................. ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ...................251 Chapter 4................................. ........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ ......256 INDEX OF ETHNONYMS.................................... ........................................................ ........................258 INDEX OF NAMES.................................. ........................................................ ............................ ...............................266 CONTENTS...... ........................................................ ........................................................ ...................274 Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --4,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru || 5- CONTENTS Chapter I. Remnants in culture Relics and superstitions. - Children's games. - Gambling games. - Ancient sayings. - Children's songs. - Proverbs. - Riddles. - The meaning and remnants of customs: wishes for sneezing, sacrifices when laying the foundation of buildings, prejudices against reviving drowned people......3 Chapter II. Mythology Mythological fiction, like all other manifestations of human thought, is based on experience. - The transformation of myth into allegory and history. - The study of myth in its actual existence and development among modern savage and barbarian peoples. - The original sources of myth. - The most ancient doctrine of animation nature.- Personification of the sun, moon and stars; waterspout; sand column; rainbow; waterfall; pestilence. - Analogy turned into myth and metaphor. - Myths about rain, thunder, etc. - The influence of language on the formation of myth. Material and verbal personification.- Grammatical gender in relation to myth.- Proper names of objects in relation to myth.- Degree of mental development, predisposing to mythical fictions.- The doctrine of werewolves.- Fantasy and fiction.- Natural myths, their origin, rules their interpretations.—Nature myths of the highest savage societies, in comparison with the kindred forms among barbarian and civilized peoples.—Heaven and earth as universal parents.—Sun and moon: eclipse and sunset in the form of a hero or maiden devoured by a monster; the sun rising from the sea and descending into the underworld; the jaws of night and death; Symplegades; the eye of the sky, the eye of Odin and the Grays.- The sun and the moon as mythical civilizers.- The moon, its inconstancy, its periodic death and revival.- The stars, their generation.- Constellations, their place in mythology and astronomy.- Wind and storm.- Thunder - Earthquake.................................................... .43 Chapter III. Animism Religious concepts generally exist in primitive human societies. - The denial of religious concepts is often confused and misunderstood. - Definition of the minimum of religion. - The doctrine of spiritual beings, here called animism. - Animism as a 620 feature of natural religion. - Animism, divided into two sections: the doctrine of the soul and the doctrine of other spirits. - The doctrine of souls, its distribution and definition in primitive societies. - Definition of ghosts, or ghosts. - The doctrine of souls as a theoretical concept of primitive philosophy, designed to explain phenomena , now included in the field of biology, especially life and death, health and illness, sleep and dreams, ecstasy and visions. - The relation of the soul by name and nature to the shadow, blood and breath. - The division or multiplicity of souls. - The soul as the cause of life. - Its return to the body after an imaginary absence. - The leaving of the body by the soul during ecstasy, sleep or visions. - Theory of time the absence of a soul in sleeping people and spirit seers. - The theory of visits by other souls. - Ghosts of the dead appearing to the living. - Doubles and ghosts. - The soul retains the form of the body and is mutilated along with it. - The voice of spirits. - The concept of the soul as something material. - Sending souls to the service of others in the future life through funeral sacrifices of wives, servants, etc. - Souls of animals , their departure to another life during funeral sacrifices. - Souls of plants. - Souls of objects, sending them to the next world during funeral sacrifices. - The relationship of the primitive doctrine of the souls of objects to the Epicurean theory of ideas. - Historical development of the doctrine of souls, starting from the ethereal soul primitive biology to the immaterial soul of modern theology. - The doctrine of the existence of the soul after death. - Its main divisions: transmigration of souls and future life. - Transmigration of souls: rebirth in the form of a person or animals, transitions into plants and inanimate objects. - The doctrine of the resurrection of the body is weakly expressed in the religion of savages. - Future life: a common, although not universal, belief among primitive societies. - Future life is a continuation of existence rather than immortality. - Secondary death of the soul. - The ghost of the deceased remains on the earth, especially with an unburied body. - His attachment to the mortal remains of the body. - Celebrations in honor of the dead. - The journey of the soul to the land of the dead. - Visits by the living to the residence of departed souls. - The connection of these legends with the myths of sunset: the land of the dead appears to lie in the west. - Realization of religious concepts current in primitive and civilized theology in stories about 621 visits to the land of spirits, - Localization of future life. - Its remote areas on earth: earthly paradise, islands of the blessed. - Underground regions: Hades and Sheol. - Sun, moon, stars. - Sky. - Historical move beliefs in such a localization. - The nature of the future life. - The theory of continued existence, which is apparently original, belongs mainly to primitive societies. - Transitional theories. - The theory of retribution, obviously derivative, belongs mainly to cultural peoples. - The doctrine of moral retribution, developed in higher culture.- general review doctrines about the future life from the wild state to modern civilization. - Their practical influence on the feelings and mode of action of the human race. - Animism, developing from the doctrine of souls into a broader doctrine of spirits, becomes the philosophy of natural religion. - The concept of spirits is similar to the idea about souls and, obviously, derived from it. - Transitional state: categories of souls turning into good and evil demons. - Worship of the shadows of the dead. - The doctrine of the infusion of spirits into the bodies of people, animals, plants and inanimate objects. - Possession by demons and the possession of demons in a person as the cause of illnesses and divinations. - Fetishism. - The possession of disease-causing spirits. - Spirits that adhere to the mortal remains of the body. - A fetish formed by a spirit that is embodied in some object, connected with it or acting through it. - Analogs Taylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --5,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 6- fetishism in modern science.- Worship of stones and pieces of wood.- Idolatry.- Remains of animistic phraseology in modern language.- Decline of animistic teaching about nature.- Spirits as personal causes of natural phenomena.- All-pervading spirits influencing the fate of man as good or evil geniuses.- Spirits appearing in dreams and visions: nightmares, brownies and kikimoras (incubi and succubi).- Vampires.- Visions,- Spirits of darkness driven away by fire.- Spirits visible to animals, detected by footprints.- Spirits that are recognized as material. - Guardian spirits and household spirits. - Spirits of nature; development of the doctrine about them. - Spirits of volcanoes, whirlpools, rocks. - Reverence for waters: spirits of wells, streams, lakes, etc. - Reverence for trees: spirits embodied or living in trees, spirits of groves and forests. - Reverence for animals: animals , serving as objects of worship either directly or as the embodiment of deities. - Totemism. - Cult of snakes. - Species deities; their relation to ideas about prototypes - arche622 types. - The highest deities of polytheism. - Human properties attached to the deity. - The highest persons of the spiritual hierarchy. - Polytheism: the course of its development at the highest and lowest stages of cultural development. - Classification of deities in accordance with the general the concept of their meaning and functions. - God of the sky. - God of the rain. - God of thunder. - God of the wind. - God of the earth. - God of water. - God of the sea. - God of fire. - God of the sun. - God of the moon.... ................................... 129 Chapter IV. Rites and ceremonies Religious rites: their practical and symbolic meaning. - Prayers: the continuous development of this ritual from the lowest to the highest levels of culture. - Sacrifice: the original theory of gifts develops into theories of honor and renunciation, - The method of accepting sacrifices by the deity. - Material transfer of sacrifices to the elements, fetish animals and priests. - Consumption of the substance of sacrifices by a deity or idol. - Blood offering, - Transmission of sacrifices through fire, - Smoking. - Spiritual transmission: consumption or transfer of the soul of the sacrifices. - Motives for sacrifices. - Transition from the theory of gifts to the theory of honor: insignificant and formal offerings; sacrificial feasts.—The theory of renunciation.—Sacrifice of children.—Substitution in sacrifices: the offering of a part instead of the whole, the life of a lower being instead of the life of a higher one; offering of likenesses.- Modern remnants of sacrifices in popular belief and in religion.- Fasting as a means of inducing ecstatic visions.- Forms of fasting in the history of the development of society.- Medicinal substances for inducing ecstasy.- Fainting and seizures caused for religious purposes.- Appeal to east and west.- The relation of this custom to the solar myth and the cult of the sun.- Turning to the east and west during funerals, prayer and the construction of temples.- Purification by fire and water.- The transition from material to symbolic purification.- Its connection with various occasions of life. .- Purification in primitive societies.- Purification of newborns, women and people defiled by bloodshed or touching the dead.- Religious purification practiced at the highest levels of culture................... ....................475 Conclusion................................... ........................................................ 547 Note................................................... ....................................567 Index of ethnonyms......... ........................................................ .............587 Name index.................................. ...................................604 Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --6,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 7- Chapter I. SURVIVALS IN CULTURE □ Survival and superstition. □ Children's games. □ Gambling. □ Old sayings. □ Children's songs. □ Proverbs. □ Riddles. □ The meaning and remnants of customs: wishes for sneezing, sacrifices when laying the foundation of buildings, prejudices against reviving drowned people. When a custom, habit, or opinion is sufficiently widespread, it is like a stream which, once it has established its channel, continues its course for centuries. We are dealing here with the sustainability of culture. Nevertheless, it is quite remarkable that the changes and upheavals of human history have allowed so many small streams to continue flowing for so long. In the Tatar steppes 600 years ago it was considered a crime to step on the threshold and touch the ropes when entering a tent. This view seems to have survived to this day. 18 centuries before our time, Ovid mentions the popular prejudice of the Romans against marriages in May, which he explains, not without reason, by the fact that this month fell funeral rites Lemuralia: 3 Virgos and widows equally avoid marriages at this time. Marriage in May early death threatens, This is what the people know with the proverb you know: Only take an evil wife for yourself in May. The belief that marriages entered into in May are unhappy continues in England to this day. Here we have a striking example of how a well-known idea, the meaning of which disappeared many centuries ago, continues to exist only because it once existed. You can find thousands of examples of this kind. The stability of the remnants allows us to assert that the civilization of the people in whom such remnants are found is the product of some more ancient state, in which one should look for explanations of customs and views that have become incomprehensible. Thus, collections of such facts should serve as the subject of development as mines of historical knowledge. When handling such material, one must be guided first of all by observing what is happening now. History must explain to us why old customs are preserved in the environment of a new culture, which, of course, could not give birth to them, but should, on the contrary, strive to supplant them. What direct observation gives us is shown by at least the following example. The Dayaks in Borneo did not have the custom of cutting down forest, as we do, with a U-shaped notch. When the whites, among other innovations, brought with them this method, the Dayaks expressed their dislike for the innovation by imposing a fine on any of their own who began to cut down forests according to the European model. The native woodcutters, however, understood the superiority of the new technique so well that they would use it secretly if they were sure that others would remain silent about it. This was 20 years ago, and it is very likely that the foreign method of logging could cease to be an insult to Dayak conservatism. However, strict prohibition prevented him from establishing himself. We have here a striking example of a relic that is held on by virtue of 4 ancestral authority, in direct defiance of common sense. Such a course of action could, as usual and with sufficient justification, be called superstition. This name generally applies to a significant number of survivals, for example to those that can be collected in hundreds from books about folk legends and about so-called occultism. However, the word “superstition” nowadays has the meaning of reproach. For the purposes of the ethnographer, it would be desirable to introduce a term such as “survival.” This term should serve as a simple designation of a historical fact, which the word “superstition” can no longer be. To this category of facts must be included as particular survivals many cases in which enough of an old custom has been preserved to enable its origin to be recognized, although the custom itself, having assumed a new form, has been so applied to new circumstances that it continues to occupy its place by virtue of its own meaning. With this view of things, only in a few cases would it be fair to call the games of children in modern Europe superstitions, although many of them are survivals, and sometimes wonderful ones. When we consider the games of children and adults from the point of view of the ethnological conclusions that can be drawn from them, what first strikes us about these games is the fact that many of them are comic imitation of a serious matter in life. Just as modern children play at dinner, horse riding and going to church, so the main children's play among savages is Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --7,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 8- there is imitation of things that children will do seriously a few years later. Thus, their games serve as real lessons for them. The games of Eskimo children consist of shooting at a target with small bows and building small huts out of snow, which they light with the remains of luminaries begged from their mothers. Small Australian children have miniature boomerangs and spears as their toys. Their fathers retained an extremely primitive way of getting wives by forcibly taking them away from their native tribe, and the game of “bride stealing” was noticed among the most regular games among native boys and girls. The game, however, usually outlives the serious activity that it serves as an imitation. A clear example of such an experience is provided by the bow and arrow. We find this weapon ancient and widespread at the stage of savagery in both barbarian and ancient culture. We can trace it back to the Middle Ages. But at the present time, when we look at a meeting of archers, or when we pass through villages at that time of year when children are most in use with toy bows and arrows, we see that the ancient weapons, which among a few savage tribes still play a deadly role on the hunt and in battle, it became a simple relic, a toy. The crossbow, a comparatively later and local improvement of the ordinary bow, has survived even less than the bow in practical use, but as a toy it is in use throughout Europe and, apparently, will remain in use. In terms of antiquity and widespread distribution in various eras - from savagery to antiquity and the Middle Ages - the sling stands alongside the bow and arrow. But in the Middle Ages it fell out of use as a practical weapon, and the poets of the 15th century. in vain they point to the art of wielding a sling as one of the exercises of a good soldier: Practice throwing stones with a sling or hand: This can often come in handy when there is nothing else to shoot with. Men clad in steel cannot stand When the stones are thrown in multitude and with force; And stones are indeed everywhere, and slings are not difficult to carry with you. An example of the economic use of throwing weapons, which are akin to slings, within the civilized world can, perhaps, be found only among the shepherds of Spanish America. They are said to throw their lasso or bola so skillfully that they can seize the animal by any of the horns and turn it as they please. But the use of a sling, this crude ancient weapons, preserved mainly in the games of boys, who are again here, as it were, representatives ancient culture. Just as our children’s games retain memories of primitive military techniques, they sometimes reproduce ancient stages of cultural history dating back to childhood in the history of mankind. English children who amuse themselves by imitating the cry of animals, and New Zealanders who play their favorite game, imitating in a whole chorus the screeching of a saw or plane and the shots from a gun and other implements, making the noise characteristic of various instruments, equally resort to the element of imitation, which was so important in language education. When we study the ancient history of the number system and see how one tribe after another learned to count, going through primitive finger counting, this is of a certain ethnographic interest to us, since it gives us an idea of ​​​​the origin of the most ancient numbering. The New Zealand tee game is said to consist of counting on fingers, and one of the players must name a known number and at the same time immediately touch the corresponding finger. In the Samoan game, one of the players puts out several fingers, and his opponent must immediately repeat the same, otherwise he loses. These may be native Polynesian games or games borrowed from our children. In an English children's game, a child learns to say how many fingers the nanny shows him, and a certain formula of the game is repeated: “Beech, beech, how many horns have I raised?” A game in which one raises his fingers, and the others must raise exactly the same amount, is mentioned in Strutt. We can see little schoolchildren on the streets playing a guessing game, where one of them stands behind and raises a certain number of fingers, and the other has to guess exactly how many. It is interesting to note the wide distribution and antiquity of these empty amusements, about which we read from Petronius Arbiter, a writer of the time of Nero, as follows: “Trimalchio, so as not to appear upset by the loss, 7 kissed the boy and ordered him to sit on his back. The boy immediately jumped on top of him and hit him on the shoulder with his hand, laughing and shouting: “Buka, beech, how many of them are there?” Simple counting games on the fingers do not need to be confused with the game of addition, where each of the players is Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --8,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru || 9- raises his hand. It is necessary to name the sum of the fingers exposed; Whoever says this correctly wins. In fact, everyone is in a hurry to name the number of fingers before he sees his opponent's hand, so that the art of the game consists mainly in guessing quickly. This game is a constant pastime in China, where it is called "guess how much", and in Southern Europe, where it is known in Italy, for example, as "morra", and in France as "murre". Such an original game could hardly have been invented twice, in Europe and Asia, and since the Chinese name does not indicate its antiquity, we may consider it probable that the Portuguese merchants introduced it into China, as well as into Japan. The Egyptians, judging by the names, also used some kind of finger game, and the Romans had their own game “micare-digitis”, which butchers played with their ordinary customers for pieces of meat. It's hard to say whether it was Morra or some other games. When Scottish guys take each other by the crest and say: “Do you want to be mine?” - they are not aware of the old symbolic custom of taking feudal citizenship, which continues among them as a relic. The wooden drill for making fire by friction, which is known to have been used in the home life of many primitive or ancient tribes and which even among the modern Hindus is preserved as a time-honored method of lighting a pure sacrificial fire, exists in Switzerland in the form of a toy. With its help, children light a fire as a joke, just as the Eskimos would do it seriously. In Gotland they still remember how the ancient sacrifice of a wild boar in modern times turned into a game in which young boys dressed up in masquerade costumes, inked and painted their faces. The victim was represented by a boy, wrapped in fur and placed on a bench, with a bunch of straw in his mouth, which was supposed to represent the bristles of a boar. One of the innocent children's games of our time has a strange connection with an ugly fairy tale that is more than a thousand years old. In France, it is played like this: children stand in a circle, one of them lights a folded piece of paper and passes it to his neighbor, saying “Alive, alive, smoking room,” and he passes it on, and so on throughout the circle. Everyone says these words and hands over the burning piece of paper as quickly as possible, because whoever has it going out must give away a forfeit, after which it is announced that “the smoking room is dead.” Grimm mentions a similar game in Germany, where they play with a lighted splinter, and Gallivel cites children's poems that are recited during this game in England: Jack is alive and in good health, Beware lest he die in your hands. Familiar with church history They know well that the favorite polemical device of the adherents of the dominant faith was to accuse heretical sects of performing the sacraments of their religion in the form of disgusting orgies. The pagans told these stories about the Jews, the Jews about the Christians, and the Christians themselves achieved a sad superiority in the art of attacking their religious opponents, whose moral life, in fact, often seemed to be distinguished by extreme purity. The Manichaeans in particular were the subject of such attacks, which were then directed at the sect whose followers were considered to be the successors of the Manichaeans. It's about about the Paulicians, whose name appears again in the Middle Ages in connection with the name of the Cathars. These latter (it seems as a result of one expression in their religious formulas) were called boni homines (“good people”), and this name later became the common name of the Albigenses. It is obvious that the ancient Paulicians aroused the hatred of orthodox Christians by rebelling against icons and calling their admirers idolaters. About 700 John of Osun, Patriarch of Armenia, wrote a denunciation against this sect, containing an accusation of a real anti-Manichaean type, but with some peculiarity that puts his story in a strange connection with the game of which we have just spoken. Reporting that they blasphemously call the Orthodox “idolaters” and that they themselves worship the sun, he claims that they, in addition, mix wheat flour with the blood of children and take communion with this. “When they put to death the most painful death of a boy, the first-born of their mother, they throw him to each other in turn, and in whose hands the child dies, they pay respect to him as the person who has achieved the highest dignity in the sect.” How to explain the coincidence of these terrible details? It is unlikely that this game was inspired by the legend of the Paulicians. The most likely assumption is that this game was as known to the children of the 8th century as it is to the present, and that the Armenian patriarch simply used it. He accused the Paulicians of seriously doing the same thing to living children that the guys did to the symbolic smoking room. We are able to trace another interesting group of games that have survived as a relic of that area of ​​​​savage worldview, which once occupied an important place, but has now quite deservedly come to Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. --9,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 10 - decline. Gambling is closely connected with the art of fortune telling, already known to savages, and perfectly shows how something that was once taken seriously can degenerate into a comic relic. For modern educated person To cast lots or a coin means to rely on chance, that is, on the unknown. The solution of the question is left to a mechanical process, which in itself has nothing supernatural or even extraordinary, but which is so difficult to follow that no one can accurately predict its result. However, we know that this was not at all the idea of ​​the case characteristic of antiquity. It had little to do with mathematical theory probabilities and had a lot in common with sacred fortune-telling10 and was akin, to take an example from later times, to the custom of the Moravian brothers to choose wives for their young men by casting lots with prayer. The Maoris did not have a blind chance in mind when they cast lots to find a thief among suspected people, just as the Guinean blacks did when they went to a fetish priest who shook a bunch of small strips of skin and made a sacred prediction. In Homer, a crowd with their hands raised to the sky prays to the gods when the heroes draw lots from the cap of Atrid Agamemnon to find out who should go to battle with Hector, to the aid of the well-armed Greeks. Praying to the gods and turning his gaze to them, the German priest or father of the family, according to the stories of Tacitus, took out three lots from the branches of a fruit tree, scattered on clean white clothes, and, based on their signs, interpreted the answer of the gods. Just as in ancient Italy the oracles gave answers through carved wooden lots, so the Hindus settled their disputes by casting lots in front of the temple and calling on the gods with cries: “Do us justice! Point out the innocent!” The uncivilized man thinks that the lot or dice, when they fall, are not randomly positioned according to the meaning he attaches to their position. He is invariably inclined to suppose that some spiritual beings hover over the fortuneteller or gambler, shuffling the lots or turning over the dice to force them to give answers. This view held firm in the Middle Ages, and even in later history there is an opinion that gambling not without supernatural intervention. About the change that occurred in views on this issue at the end of the Middle Ages, some idea is given by the work published in 1619, which, apparently, itself contributed a lot to this change. I am referring to the treatise “On the Properties and Use of Lots,” where the author, Thomas Goethaker, a Puritan minister, among other objections to gambling, refutes the following, very common in his time: “The lot can only be approached with great reverence, because the location of the lot comes directly from God... The lot, as they say, is a matter of the special and immediate discretion of God; it is the sacred oracle, the Divine judgment or sentence; therefore to use it frivolously is to abuse the name of God and thus violate the third commandment.” Goethaker dismisses such views as mere superstition. However, quite a long time passed before this opinion gained currency in the educated world. 40 years later, Jeremiah Taylor still expressed the old understanding of things, speaking out in favor of gambling, if it is not for money, but for delicacies. “I have heard,” he says, “from those who are skilled in these things, that there are very strange cases here: movements of the hand by inspiration, some techniques of divination, constant winnings on the one hand and inexplicable losses on the other. These strange accidents lead to such terrible actions that it is not incredible that God allowed the devil to interfere in gambling, who makes everything bad out of it that he can. If the game is not played for money, he is unable to do anything.” How tenacious this opinion about supernatural intervention in gambling, which still survives in Europe as a relic, is clearly shown by the thriving and still thriving witchcraft of gamblers. The popular belief of our time continues to teach that for good luck in the game you should bring with you an egg consecrated in the temple on Good Friday and that turning the chair entails a turn of luck. The Tyrolean knows a spell with which you can acquire from the devil the gift of a happy game of cards and dice. On the continent of Europe there are still books in circulation that promise to teach how to find out the lucky lottery number from dreams, and the Serbian peasant even hides his lottery tickets under a cover in the altar so that they can receive the blessing of the Blessed Sacrament and thus have a better chance to win. 12 Fortune telling and gambling are so similar to each other that in both cases the same tools are used. This is evident from the very instructive accounts of the Polynesian manner of divination by Tylor E. B. = Myth and Rite in Primitive Culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -10,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 11- Spin the coconut. In the Tongan Islands, during the time of Marineris, this fortune-telling was solemnly performed in order to find out whether the sick person could recover. Beforehand, a prayer was read loudly to the patron god of the family so that he would direct the movement of the nut. The latter was then started, and its position when stopped showed the will of God. In other cases, when the coconut was thrown just for fun, the prayer was not recited and the results were not given any importance. This is serious and gaming use of this primitive top are connected together. On the Samoan Islands, according to Turner, although later, the same actions pursued a different goal. The participants sit in a circle, the coconut is launched in the middle, and the oracle's answer is considered to refer to which way the underside of the nut is facing when it stops. It is not known whether the Samoans used this fortune-telling in former times to discover a thief or for something else, but they now preserve it simply as a lot and as a game of forfeits. The opinion that this custom was originally a serious fortune-telling is supported by the fact that the New Zealanders, although they do not have coconuts, still retain traces of the time when their ancestors on the tropical islands had these nuts and used them to tell fortunes. The well-known Polynesian word "niu", i.e. coconut, is still used by the Maori to designate other methods of fortune-telling, especially for fortune-telling with sticks. R. Taylor, from whom this was taken shining example ethnological evidence is given by another case. The method of divination here was to bring the hands together while the corresponding spell was repeated. If the fingers passed freely, the prediction was considered favorable; if they were caught, it was considered bad. When the question was whether it was possible to walk across the country during the war, the interpretation was very simple. If the fingers passed freely, then this foreshadowed a happy passage, if several fingers were delayed, then one should wait for the meeting, if all the fingers were delayed, then this meant the impossibility of passage. A similar connection between fortune telling and gambling can be traced in simpler objects. Let's take grandmas, for example. They were used in Ancient Rome for fortune telling, and then they turned into rough dice. Even when a Roman gambler used dice to play, he had to call upon the gods before throwing the dice. Items this kind often found in games now. However, their use for divination was not at all limited to the ancient world. Grandmothers are mentioned back in the 17th century. among the objects by which young girls used to tell fortunes about marriage, and black sorcerers still use bones as a means of detecting thieves. The lot serves both these purposes equally well. The Chinese play dice both for money and for delicacies, but at the same time they seriously look for omens, solemnly taking out the lots kept for this purpose in the temples. Their professional fortune tellers always sit in the markets to reveal the future to their clients. Cards are still used in Europe for fortune telling. The ancient cards known as tarot1 are said to be preferred by fortune tellers to ordinary cards because a deck of tarot cards, in which the figures are more numerous and complex, gives greater scope for the variety of predictions. History cannot tell us what the original use of cards was - for predictions or for playing. The history of the Greek cottabos is instructive in this regard. This fortune telling consisted of pouring wine from a glass into a metal bowl placed at some distance so as not to spill a drop. The one who splashed the wine uttered the name of his beloved out loud or in his mind, and by the transparency or cloudy color of the splashes of wine falling on the metal, he learned what fate awaited him in 14 love. Over time, this custom lost its magical character and became simply a game in which dexterity is rewarded with a prize. If this case were typical and if it could be proven that fortune telling preceded the game, then gambling could be considered a relic of the corresponding methods of divination. Comic fortune telling could turn into a serious game of chance. Looking for other examples of the durability of certain customs established among mankind, let us look at a group of traditional expressions, venerable in their antiquity - old sayings, which are of particular interest as survivals. Even when the real meaning of these expressions has disappeared from the memory of people and they have lost all meaning or are obscured by some later superficial meaning, even then the ancient sayings continue to retain great interest for us. We hear the expression “buying a pig in a poke,” that is, “buying a thing without seeing it,” from people who are not familiar enough with the English language to understand the meaning of the word “bag.” The real meaning of the phrase "sow wild oats" seems to have been lost in its more recent usage. Without a doubt, this once meant that bad herbs would grow later and that it would be difficult to eradicate them. Just as the parable speaks of an evil spirit, so about the Scandinavian Loki2, the culprit of troubles, a Jutlandic proverb says that he sows oats, and the name “Loki’s oats” corresponds to the Danes’ concept of “wild oats”. Proverbs, the source of which was whatTylor E.B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -11,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 12 A forgotten custom or legend, of course, can especially often be subject to such misuse. The expression “unlicked cub” about someone who still needs to take a completed form has become purely English. Meanwhile, only a few remember the explanation of these words in the history of Pliny. Its meaning is that bears will be born blind, naked, clumsy “pieces of meat” and must be “licked into shape.” In these sayings, which are sometimes remnants ancient magic and religion, you can sometimes find a more profound meaning than the one that is put into them now, or find real meaning in what now seems absurd. How a folk proverb can be the embodiment of an ethnographic memory, we see clearly from a Tamil proverb, even now known in South India. If one hits the other, and the third one screams, then the Tamils ​​say about the screamer: “He is like a coravan who eats asafoetida for his sick wife!” Koravans are a tribe in India and asafoetida is a medicine. At present, the Coravans belong to the lower strata of the population in Madras. They say about the coravan that he is “a gypsy, a tramp, a donkey driver, a thief, that he eats rats, lives in matting huts, practices divination and is generally a suspicious person.” The proverb is explained by the fact that native women generally use assafetida as a strengthening medicine after childbirth, but among the Coravans in this case it is not the wife who eats it, but the husband. In fact, this is an example of the very common custom of “couvade”, when after a woman gives birth, her husband undergoes treatment. Often he is even forced to go to bed for several days. The Coravans apparently belong to those tribes who had this strange custom, and their more civilized neighbors the Tamils, struck by its absurdity and not knowing its now forgotten meaning, turned it into a proverb. Let us try to apply the same kind of ethnographic key to the obscure expressions of our newest language. The English expression “the hair of the dog that bit you” was not at first either a metaphor or a joke, but an actual recipe for a dog bite, one of many examples of the ancient homeopathic teaching: what hurts you, heal yourself.. This is mentioned in the Scandinavian Edda: “ Dog hair cures dog bites.” The expression “catching up the wind” is now used by the British in a humorous sense, but once upon a time it quite seriously meant one of the most terrifying witchcraft actions, once attributed especially to 16 Finnish sorcerers. The English sailors have not yet forgotten their fear of their power to command the storm. Ancient rite ordeal3, which consisted of passing through fire or jumping over a burning fire, was so firmly held in the British Isles that Jamison deduced from this rite English proverb“to drag over the fire,” meaning test, test. This explanation does not seem to be at all far-fetched. Not so long ago, an Irish woman in New York was tried for killing her child: she put it on burning coals to find out whether it was really her child or a substitute. An English nanny who says to a capricious child: “You got out of bed today on your left foot” usually does not know the meaning of this saying. She is quite satisfied with the common belief that getting out of bed with your left foot means having a bad day. This is one of many examples of a simple association of ideas connecting the concept of right and left with the concept of good and evil. Finally, the expression “to draw the line” seems to go back to the series famous legends, where a person makes a pact with the devil, but at the last minute gets rid of him either through the intercession of a saint, or through some ridiculous trick, such as humming the words of the Gospel, which he promised not to read, or refusing to fulfill the pact after the leaves fall under with the pretext that the stucco leaves in the church still remain on the branches. One of the forms of the medieval contract with the demon was that for teaching students his black art, the devil, instead of a teacher’s salary, had the right to take one of the students for himself, letting them all run to save their lives and grabbing the last one - a story that obviously had a connection with another folk story. proverb: “The devil takes the one who is behind everyone.” But even in this game it is possible to spot a slow-witted devil, as popular belief in Spain and Scotland says, in the legends about the Marquis de Villano and Count Souteska, who studied in magic schools the devil in Salamanca and Padua. A clever student provides his mentor17 with his shadow as the very last of those running, and the devil must be content with this immaterial payment, while the new magician remains free and is only forever deprived of his shadow. One can, apparently, admit that a popular belief is closest to its source where a more important and more sublime meaning is attributed to it. Thus, if some ancient verse or Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -12,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 13 - a saying in one place has a sublime meaning and relates to philosophy or religion, and in other places it is at the level of a children's saying, then there is some reason to consider the serious meaning more primitive, and the comic meaning a simple relic of antiquity. Even if this argument is not always correct, it should not be completely neglected. IN Jewish religion For example, two poems are preserved, usually placed at the end of the Passover service book in Hebrew and English. One of them, known as “Had Gad”, begins with the words: “A little goat, a little goat, which my father bought for two coins.” Then follows a story about how a cat came and ate the kid, a dog came and killed the cat, etc. until the end. “Then one saint appeared - blessed be he! - and killed the angel of death, and the angel of death killed the butcher, the butcher killed the bull, the bull drank water, the water poured on the fire, the fire burned the stick, the stick killed the dog , the dog killed the cat, the cat ate the kid, which my father bought for two coins. Kid, kid! This work is taken by some Jews to be a parable relating to the past and future of the Holy Land.According to one explanation, Palestine (kid) was devoured by Babylon (cat), Babylon was devastated by Persia, Persia by Greece, Greece by Rome, until finally the Turks took possession of the country. The Edomites (i.e., the European peoples) will drive out the Turks, the angel of death will destroy the enemies of Israel, and the kingdom of his sons will be restored under the rule of the Messiah. Even regardless of such a private interpretation, the solemn ending of the poem makes us think that before us, indeed, is a work still partially retained its original form, and that it appeared to express some mystical idea. If this is so, then the well-known children's tale in England about an old woman who could not get her kid (or pig) from behind a fence and did not want to return until midnight, must be considered a distorted adaptation of this ancient Hebrew poem.The other work is a poetic numbering and begins like this: Who knows one? - I (said Israel) know one. One is God in heaven and on earth. Who knows two? - I (said Israel) know two: Two tablets of commandments; but one is our God in heaven and on earth. And so on, ever increasing, until the last, next verse: Who knows thirteen? “I (said Israel) know thirteen: thirteen divine properties, twelve tribes, eleven stars, ten commandments, nine months before the birth of a child, eight days before circumcision, seven days of the week, six books of the Mishnah, five books of the Law, four foremothers, three Patriarch, two tablets of commandments, but one is our God in heaven and on earth. This is one of a whole series of poetic numbers, which, apparently, were very much valued by medieval Christians, since they are still not completely forgotten in the villages. One ancient Latin edition says: “One is God,” etc. And one of the English versions that still exists today begins with the words: “One is completely alone and will forever remain alone” - and continues counting to twelve: “twelve - twelve apostles " Here both the English and Hebrew forms are, or were, of a serious character, and although it is possible that the Jews imitated the Christians, the more serious character of the Hebrew poem here again makes one think that it came earlier. Ancient proverbs inherited by our modern language, are far from being without meaning in themselves, because their wit is often as fresh and their wisdom as stable as in the old days. But, having these practical qualities, proverbs are also instructive in their meaning in ethnography. But the scope of their action in civilization is limited. Apparently, they are almost completely absent among the most primitive tribes. They first appear in a definite form only among some of the savages of sufficiently high standing. The inhabitants of the Fiji Islands, who a few years ago were in what archaeologists could call a late state stone age, have several very characteristic proverbs. They laugh at the lack of consideration, saying: “The Nakondo (tribe) first of all cut down the mast” (i.e., before they build the boat). When some poor person looks enviously at a thing he cannot buy, they say: “He sits in silence and looks out for fish.” One of the New Zealand proverbs describes a lazy glutton as follows: “Deep throat, but shallow strength.” Another says that the lazy often takes advantage of the work of the hardworking: “The big chips from a strong tree go to the lazy person,” and the third expresses the truth that “you can see the curvature of the stem, but you cannot see the curvature of the heart.” Among the Basotho of South Africa, the proverb “Water never stops flowing” is cited as a reproach for talkers; the proverb “Lions roar even as they eat” means that there are people who are never satisfied with anything. “The month of sowing is the month of headaches” - it is said about those who shirk work. “The thief eats the thunder arrows” means that the thief himself brings upon himself the punishment of heaven. Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -13,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 14- The peoples of West Africa are so strong in the matter of proverbs that Captain Burton amused himself in Fernando Po during the rainy season by compiling a whole volume of native proverbs, hundreds of which are at the same high level as European proverbs. The proverb “He walked away from the sword and into the sheath” is as good as our sayings “Out of the frying pan and into the fire” or “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” The Negro proverb “He whose only eyebrow serves as a bow can never kill a beast,” if not as elegant, is certainly more picturesque than the English saying “A harsh word does not break bones.” The old Buddhist aphorism, “A man who indulges in enmity is like one who throws ashes downwind; the ashes fly back and cover him from head to toe,” is expressed less prosaically and with more wit in the Negro proverb, “The ashes fly back into the face of the one who throws him." When someone tries to settle a matter in the absence of those to whom it directly concerns, the Negroes will say: “You can’t shave a man’s head when he’s not here.” To explain that the owner cannot be blamed for the stupidity of his servants, they say: “The horseman is not stupid just because the horse is stupid.” A hint of ingratitude is expressed in the proverb "The sword does not know the head of the smith" (who made it) and even more strongly in the proverb "When the pumpkin saved them (during famine), they said: let's cut it off to make a cup out of it." The common contempt for the poor man's intelligence is clearly demonstrated in the saying, "When a poor man makes a proverb, it does not go far." At the same time, the very mention of composing proverbs as a completely possible thing shows that the art of composing proverbs is still alive among them. The Africans transported to the West Indies preserved this art, as can be seen from the proverbs “If a dog follows behind, it is a dog, and if in front, it is a mistress dog,” “Every hut has its mosquitoes.” Over the course of history, the proverb has not changed its character, maintaining its precisely defined type from beginning to end. Proverbs and sayings recorded among the advanced peoples of the world number in the tens of thousands and have their own extensive literature. But although the area of ​​existence of proverbs and sayings extends to the very higher levels civilization, this can hardly be said regarding their development. At the European level medieval culture They, of course, played a very important role in the education of the people, but the period when they were created, apparently, has already come to an end. Cervantes raised the art of saying proverbs to a height beyond which it has never gone, but it must not be forgotten that the sayings of the incomparable Sancho were for the most part received by inheritance. 21 Even at that time, proverbs were already a relic of the previous society. In this form they continue to exist in our time, and we use almost the same remnants of our great-grandfather’s wisdom that formed the inexhaustible supply of the famous squire. Nowadays it is not easy to remake old sayings or create new ones. We can collect old proverbs and use them, but making up new ones would be a weak, lifeless imitation, like our attempts to invent new myths or new children's songs. Riddles appear in the history of civilization along with proverbs and walk alongside them for a long time, but then diverge along different roads. By riddle we mean those problems constructed in the ancient manner, to which a completely serious answer must be given, and not at all a modern play on words in the traditional form of question and answer, which usually amounts to an empty joke. A typical example is the riddle of the Sphinx. The original riddles that can be called meaningful arose among the higher savages, and their heyday occurs in the lower and middle stages of civilization. Although the development of such The ancient Greek king Oedipus was the first to solve the famous riddle proposed by a mysterious creature with the body of a winged lion and the head of a woman, who guarded the path to Thebes. According to the myth, the Sphinx asked every passerby: “What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?” The Sphinx killed those who did not answer her question. Oedipus answered her that this is the man himself, who crawls on all fours as a child, stands on his feet as an adult, and leans on a stick in old age. Hearing the correct answer, the Sphinx jumped from the cliff and crashed. 22 Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -14,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 15- The Sphinx of riddles stops at this level, but many ancient examples of them are still preserved in our children's fairy tales and in rural life. It is quite understandable why riddles relate only to the highest levels of primitive culture. To compose them, you must have a good grasp of the ability of abstract comparison. In addition, a significant amount of knowledge is needed for this process to become publicly available and move from serious to play. Finally, at a higher level of culture, the riddle begins to be considered an empty matter, its development stops, and it is saved only for children's play. A few examples, selected from the riddles of various societies, from the most savage to the more cultivated, will more accurately indicate the place which riddles occupy in the history of the human mind. The following specimens are taken from a collection of Zulu riddles, recorded together with simple-minded native interpretations touching the philosophy of the subject. Question: “Guess who those people are, there are many of them and they are standing in a row: they are dancing a wedding dance and dressed in white elegant dresses? Answer: “These are teeth. We call them people standing in a row because their teeth stand like people preparing for a wedding dance in order to perform it better. When we say that they are dressed in white elegant dresses, we say this so that one does not immediately think that these are teeth; we distract from the thought of teeth by indicating that these are people dressed in white elegant dresses.” Question: “Guess who doesn’t go to bed at night, but goes to bed in the morning and sleeps until sunset, then wakes up and works all night, guess who doesn’t work during the day and who no one sees when he works?” Answer: "Barnyard fence." Question: “Guess who is the person whom people don’t like for his laughter, because they know that his laughter is a great evil and that after it there are always tears and the end of joy. People cry, trees cry, grass cries - everyone cries in the tribe where he laughs. About whom do they say that a person laughed who usually does not laugh? Answer: “Fire. He is called “man” so that it is impossible to immediately guess what is being said, since this is hidden behind the word “man”. People name many things, vying with each other to find the meaning and forget the sign; A riddle is good when it cannot be guessed right away.” Among the Basotho, riddles form a necessary part of education and are offered as an exercise to a whole group of children puzzling over them. Question: “Do you know what is thrown from the top of a mountain and does not break?” Answer: "Waterfall". Question: “Who walks nimbly, without legs and without wings, and whom neither mountain, nor river, nor wall can stop?” Answer: "Voice". Question: “What are ten trees with ten flat stones on top called?” Answer: “Fingers.” Question: “Who is that small, motionless, mute boy who is dressed warmly during the day and remains naked at night?” Answer: “A nail for hanging a night dress.” From East Africa, let us take as an example the riddle of the Swahili tribe. Question: “My hen is lying in the thorn bushes, who is it?” Answer: Pineapple. From West Africa, a mystery of the Yoruba tribe. Question: “Who is this long, thin trader who never goes to the market?” Answer: “Boat” (it stops at the pier). In Polynesia, the Samoan islanders are very fond of riddles. Question: “Who are the four brothers who always carry their father with them?” Answer: “A Samoan pillow, which consists of bamboo sticks three inches long, lying on four legs.” Question: “What is it like - a gray-haired man stands over the fence and reaches to the sky?” Answer: “Smoke from the chimney.” Question: “What is it like for a man to stand between two voracious fish?” Answer: "Language". (The Zulus have a similar riddle to this one, in which the tongue is compared to a man living among fighting enemies.) Here are old Mexican riddles. Question: “What are those ten Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -15,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru || 16 stones that everyone has? Answer: “Nails.” Question: “What is it - where we enter with three doors and exit with one?” Answer: "Shirt." Question: “Who passes through the valley dragging their entrails with them?” Answer: “Needle.” These riddles, found among primitive tribes, do not differ at all in their character from those that found their way, sometimes in a slightly updated form, into the children's fairy tales of Europe. Thus, Spanish children still ask: “Which dish of nuts is removed during the day and scattered at night?” (Stars). The English proverb about tongs (“Long legs, crooked hips, small head and no eyes”) is so primitive that it could have been composed by a Pacific islander. Here is a riddle on the same topic as one of the Zulu riddles: “A flock of white sheep is grazing on a red hill; they walk here, they walk there; aren’t they still standing?” Another is quite similar to the Aztec riddle: “Grandma Twitchett had only one eye and a long tail that flowed, and every time she passed over a hole she left a piece of her tail trapped. What is this?" The writing of riddles is connected to such an extent with the mythological period in history that any poetic comparison, if it is not very dark and distant, with a certain slight rearrangement can become a riddle. The Hindus call the sun Santashva, that is, "riding on seven horses," and the same idea is contained in the old Germanic riddle, which asks: "Which cart is pulled by seven white and seven black horses?" (A year carried by seven days and seven nights of the week.) The same is the Greek riddle about two sisters, Day and Night: “Both sisters, one of whom gives birth to the other and, in turn, will be born from her.” Such is the riddle of Cleobulus, which reflects the features of primitive mythology: One father has twelve sons, who gave birth to each thirty maidens, having two appearances. One is white in appearance, the other is black. They are all immortal, although death awaits them. Such questions can now be guessed as easily as in the old days, and they should be distinguished from that rarer class of riddles, the solution of which requires guessing some dissimilar events. A typical example of such riddles is the riddle of Samson and one similar Scandinavian riddle. The point is that Hester found a duck sitting on its nest in the horned skull of a bull, and then proposed a riddle describing, using a purely Norman metaphor, a bull whose horns were supposedly already turned into cups for wine. Here is the text of the riddle: “The long-nosed goose has grown greatly, rejoicing at its chicks. He collected wood to build a dwelling. The chicks were protected by grass incisors (jaws with teeth), and a sonorous drinking vessel (horn) hovered above.” Many of the answers of the ancient oracles present difficulties of exactly the same kind. This is the story of the Delphic oracle, which ordered Temen to find a man with three eyes to lead the army, and Temen fulfilled this command, meeting a crooked man on horseback. Interestingly, this idea appears again in Scandinavia, where Odin poses a riddle to King Heydrek: “Who are the two who look like a creature with three eyes, ten legs and one tail?” And the king replied that it was the one-eyed god Odin himself, riding his eight-legged horse Sleipnir. The close connection between the study of survivals and the study of morals and customs is constantly revealed in ethnographic research. And it seems hardly too bold to say once and for all that customs that now have no meaning are survivals and that where these customs first arose they had a practical or at least ritual significance, although at the present time, having been transferred to a new environment in which their original meaning is lost, they have become absurdity. Of course, new customs introduced at a certain time may be funny or bad - Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -16,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 17- Athenian king Aegeus questioning the oracle 26 us, but still they have their own motives that can be recognized. It is precisely this method, which consists in appealing to some forgotten meaning, that seems to best explain the dark customs that some seemed to be a manifestation of stupidity. A certain Zimmerman, who published the ponderous “Geographical History of Mankind” in the last century, notes the following about the prevalence of such senseless and stupid customs in various distant countries: “If two bright heads can, each on their own, attack a good invention or discovery, then even more probably, taking into account the much larger number of fools and stupid heads, that some similar stupidities could be introduced in two countries far from each other. Consequently, if the inventive fools of two peoples were important and influential people, as indeed very often happens, then both peoples accept similar stupidities, and then, after a few centuries, some historian will extract his proofs from this; that one of these peoples comes from the other.” Strict views regarding the irrationality of mankind seem to have been in great vogue in times french revolution. Lord Chesterfield was, no doubt, a man very different from the German philosopher mentioned, but regarding the absurdity of customs, both of them agree with each other. Giving his son advice on court etiquette, he writes the following: “For example, it is considered respectful to bow to the King of England and disrespectful to bow to the King of France. Regarding the emperor, this is a rule of politeness. Eastern monarchs demand that they prostrate their whole bodies before them. These are established ceremonies, and they must be performed, but I greatly doubt whether common sense and reason can explain to us why they were established. The same thing occurs in all classes where certain customs are accepted, which must be obeyed, although in no way can they be recognized as the result of common sense. 27 Let us take, for example, the most absurd and widespread custom of drinking to your health. Could anything in the world be less important to another person's health than my drinking a glass of wine? Common sense, of course, will never explain this, but common sense commands me to conform to this custom.” Although it would be rather difficult to find meaning in the small details of court etiquette, Lord Chesterfield very unsuccessfully exposes the latter as an example of the irrationality of mankind. In fact, if someone were asked to determine in short words the attitude of the people towards their rulers in various states, he could do this by answering that people bow to the ground Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -17,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 18- to the King of Siam, that they kneel or take off their hat before the European monarch and firmly shake the hand of the President of the United States, as if the handle of some pump. All these are ceremonies that are understandable and at the same time meaningful. Lord Chesterfield chose his second example better, because the custom of drinking to health is truly of dark origin. However, it is closely connected with an ancient ritual, practically, of course, absurd, but established with a conscious and serious intention, which does not allow it to be classified as nonsense. This is the custom of pouring libations and drinking at solemn feasts in honor of the gods and the dead. This is the ancient Norman custom of drinking in honor of the ancient German gods Thor, Odin and the goddess Freya, as well as in honor of kings at their burial. This custom did not disappear with the conversion of the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples to Christianity. They continued to drink in honor of Christ, Mother of God and saints instead of pagan gods and heroes, and the custom is to drink to the living and the dead at the same feast with the same exclamations: “Gods minni! (to the glory of God)” - sufficiently proves the common origin of both rites. The word “minne” meant simultaneously love, memory and the thought of the absent. It was preserved for a long time as a relic in the name of the days on which the memory of the dead was honored with divine services or feasts. Such evidence 28 fully justifies those writers, old and new, who considered these ceremonial customs of drinking wine to be essentially sacrificial customs. As for the custom of drinking for the health of the living, information about it comes to us from various regions in which the Aryan peoples lived, from ancient times. The Greeks drank to each other's health at feasts, and the Romans adopted this custom. The Goths shouted “heils” when answering each other’s toasts, as can be seen from the curious opening line in the poem “Decohviis barbaris” in the Latin anthology, which mentions Gothic cheer exclamations around the 5th century, in words that still partially retain their meaning to the English ear . As for ourselves, although the old healthy greeting “Be healthy” (“Wacs hael”) has ceased to be an ordinary English greeting, its formula remains, having turned into a noun. In general, it can be assumed, although not with complete certainty, that the custom of drinking to the health of the living is historically associated with religious rite drink in honor of the gods and the dead. Let us now subject the theory of survivals to a rather rigorous test. We will try with its help to explain why, within the framework of modern civilized society, there exist, in practice or as tradition, three remarkable groups of customs, which completely cannot be explained by civilized concepts. Although we will not be able to clearly and completely explain their motives, in any case, it will be a success if we are able to attribute their origin to wild or barbaric antiquity. If we look at these customs from a modern practical point of view, then one of them is ridiculous, the rest are cruel, and all of them are meaningless. The first is a greeting when sneezing, the second is a ritual that requires a human sacrifice when laying the foundation of a building, the third is a prejudice against saving a drowning person. In explaining the customs relating to sneezing, it is necessary to bear in mind the view prevailing among primitive societies. Just as they thought about the soul of a person, 29 that it enters and leaves his body, so they believed this about other spirits, especially those who supposedly enter the sick, take possession of them and torment them with illnesses. The connection of this idea with sneezing is best seen among the Zulus, who are firmly convinced that the good or evil spirits of the dead hover over people, do them good or evil, show themselves to them in their dreams, enter into them and cause them illness. Here is a summary of the native evidence collected by Dr. Callaway. When a Zulu sneezes he says, “I have received a blessing. Idhlozi (ancestral spirit) is now with me. He came to me. I need to quickly praise him, because he’s the one who makes me sneeze!” Thus, he glorifies the souls of his deceased relatives, asking them for cattle, wives and blessings. Sneezing is a sign that the patient will recover. He thanks for the greeting when he sneezes, saying: “I have acquired the well-being that I lacked. Continue to be favorable to me!” The sneeze reminds a person that he must immediately name the Itongo (ancestral spirit) of his people. It is Itongo who makes a person sneeze, so that by sneezing he can see that Itongo is with him. If a person is sick and does not sneeze, those who come to him ask if he sneezed, and if he did not sneeze, then they begin to feel sorry for him, saying: “The illness is serious!” If a child sneezes, they say to him: “Grow up!” This is a sign of health. According to some natives, the sneezing of blacks reminds a person that Itongo has entered into him and is with him. Zulu fortune tellers and sorcerers try to sneeze more often and believe that this indicates the presence of spirits; they glorify them by calling them: "Makozi" Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -18,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru || 19- (i.e. gentlemen). An instructive example of the transition of such customs from one religion to another are the blacks of the Amakosa tribe, who usually called on their divine ancestor Utixo when they sneezed, and after their conversion to Christianity began to say: “Savior, look at me!” or: “Creator of heaven and earth!” Similar concepts are found, according to descriptions, in other places in Africa. Sir Thomas Browne relates a famous story, 30 that when King Monomotapa sneezed, exclamations of blessing, passed from mouth to mouth, went around the whole city. He should, however, have mentioned that, according to Godinho, from whom the original story was taken, the same thing was done when the king drank, coughed or sneezed. A later story, from the other side of the continent, is closer to our topic. In Guinea in the last century, when the boss sneezed, everyone present knelt down, kissed the ground, clapped their hands and wished him happiness and prosperity. Guided by a different thought, the blacks of Old Calabar sometimes exclaim when a child sneezes: “Get away from you!” At the same time, they make a gesture as if they are throwing away something bad. In Polynesia, sneeze greetings are also very common. In New Zealand, when a child sneezed, a spell was cast to prevent evil. When the Samoans sneezed, those present said: “Be alive!” In the Tongan Islands, sneezing while preparing for a journey was considered the most bad omen. A curious example from American life dates back to the time of the famous expedition to Florida by Hernando de Soto, when Guachoya, the native chief, came to pay him a visit. “While all this was happening, Katsik Guachoya sneezed heavily. The people who came with him and were sitting along the walls of the hall between the Spaniards all suddenly bowed their heads, spread their hands, folded them again and, making various other gestures that signified great reverence and respect, greeted Guachoya, saying: “May the sun protect you, protect you.” you, will give you happiness, will save you" and other similar phrases that came to mind. The hum of these greetings did not subside for a long time, and on this occasion the amazed governor said to the gentlemen and captains accompanying him: “Isn’t it true that the whole world is the same?” The Spaniards noticed that such a barbarous people should adhere to the same ceremonies, or even greater ones, than those of people who consider themselves more civilized. Therefore, we can recognize this method of greeting as natural for all peoples, and not at all a consequence of a pestilence, as is usually said.” 31 In Asia and Europe, superstitious beliefs about sneezing are common across a wide range of tribes, centuries and countries. Among the relevant references from the classical times of Greece and Rome, the most typical are the following: the happy sneeze of Telemachus in the Odyssey; the sneezing of a warrior and the cry of glorification of the gods, which passed through all the ranks of the troops, which Xenophon called a happy omen. Aristotle's remark that the people consider a sneeze to be divine: a Greek epigram on a man with long nose, who, when he sneezed, could not say: “Save, Zeus,” because the noise of the sneeze was too far away for him to hear; a mention by Petronius Arbiter of the custom of saying “Salva” (“Be healthy”) to someone who has sneezed; Pliny’s question: “Why do we welcome sneezing?”, about which he notes that even Tiberius, the gloomiest of people, demanded compliance with this custom. Similar sneezing practices were often observed in East Asia. Among the Hindus, when someone sneezes, those present say: “Live!”, and he replies: “With you!” This is a bad omen, and, by the way, the Thugs4 paid great attention to it when they went to catch people for their bloody sacrifices. It even forced them to release captured travelers. The Jewish formula for sneezing is: “Tobim Chaim!” - “Have a good life!” A Muslim, sneezing, says: “Praise be to Allah!”, and his friends greet him with appropriate words. This custom passes from generation to generation wherever Islam is widespread. It passed through medieval Europe into modern Europe. Here, for example, is how they looked at sneezing in medieval Germany: “The pagans do not dare to sneeze, since it says: “God help!” We say when we sneeze: “God help you.” For England, an example is the following verses (1100), from which it is clear that the English formula “Be healthy!” was also used to prevent illness that could occur from sneezing: “Once they sneeze, people believe that they will feel bad if you don’t immediately say: “You’re welcome.” In the Rules of Courtesy (1685), translated from the French, we read: “If his Lordship should happen to sneeze, you must not shout at the top of your voice, “God bless you, sir,” but, taking off your hat, politely bow to him and say this address to yourself.” It is known that the Anabaptists5 and Quakers6 abandoned both these and other greetings, but they remained in the code of English good manners among the upper and lower classes at least 50 years ago or so. And even today they are not yet forgotten: many find the most witty thing in the story about Tylor E.B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -19,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 20- violinist and his wife when his sneezing and her hearty “Bless you” interrupt his violin practice. It is not surprising that the existence of these absurd customs for many centuries was a mystery to inquisitive researchers. The creators of legends were especially clever about this custom, and their attempts to find historical explanations left their mark on the philosophical myths of the Greeks, Jews and Christians. In the Greek legend, Prometheus7 prays for the preservation of his artificial man when he gave the first sign of life by sneezing; in Hebrew Jacob - about the fact that the soul does not leave the body of a person when this person sneezes, as happened before; in the Catholic Pope Gregory - about the aversion of pestilence in those days when the air was so deadly that whoever sneezed died from it. According to legends, the formulas pronounced when sneezing originated from these imaginary events. For our purpose it is even more important to note the existence of a corresponding set of views and customs associated with yawning. The Zulus considered frequent yawning and sneezing to be signs of impending possession by an evil spirit. When a Hindu yawns, he must clench his thumb and some other finger and pronounce the name of one of the gods, for example Rama, several times: neglecting this ritual is as great a sin as killing a Brahman. Persians attribute yawning and sneezing to possession evil spirit. Among Muslims, when a person yawns, he covers his mouth with his left hand and says: “Allah, protect me from the damned Satan!” In fact, according to the Muslim view, yawning should be avoided because the devil has a habit of jumping into the mouth of a yawner. This is probably the meaning of the Jewish proverb: “Do not open your mouth to Satan.” The story of Josephus Flavius, who saw how one Jew, named Eleazar, cured demoniacs during the time of Vespasian, pulling out demons from them through the nostrils, also belongs to this category of views. He did this with the help of a ring containing a root that had mystical powers and which Solomon mentions. Stories about the Messalian sect who spat and blew their noses to drive out demons that could get into the nose when breathing, evidence of medieval exorcists who expelled devils through the nostrils of the sick, the custom, still observed in Tyrol, of crossing oneself when yawning, so that something evil would happen did not enter through the mouth - all this reflects similar views. When comparing the views of the newest Kaffirs with the views of the peoples of other countries of the world, we come across a clear idea that sneezing occurs from the presence of spirits. Apparently this is the real key to solving the issue. This is well explained by Galiburton in relation to the popular Celtic beliefs, expressed in stories from which it follows that a sneezing person can be carried away by fairies, unless their power is counteracted by some exclamation like “God bless you.” A corresponding concept of yawning can be found in an Icelandic folk legend, where a troll (a small mountain spirit), having turned into a beautiful queen, says: “When I yawn a little yawn, I am a beautiful tiny girl, when I yawn a half-yawn, it’s as if I am half-yawned.” a troll, when I yawn a full yawn, I completely become a troll.” Although the superstitious idea of ​​sneezing is by no means universal, its considerable prevalence is nevertheless extremely remarkable. It would be extremely interesting to determine to what extent this spread was due to original development in different countries, to what extent it is a consequence of the transition34 from one tribe to another and to what extent it is a great-grandfather’s heritage. Here we only want to confirm that initially it was not some random custom devoid of any meaning, but an expression well-known principle. The absolutely unequivocal evidence of the present Zulus corresponds to the conclusions that can be drawn from the superstitions and popular beliefs of other tribes. This makes it possible to connect the views and customs regarding sneezing with the idea of ​​​​the ancients and savages about spirits penetrating and possessing a person, which were considered good or evil and were treated accordingly. Survivors in modern Europe the remnants of ancient formulas seem to be an unconscious echo of a time when the explanation of sneezing was not yet within the competence of physiologists, but remained at the “theological level.” In Scotland there is a widespread belief that the Picts, to whom local legend ascribes buildings of prehistoric antiquity, sprinkled the foundations of their buildings with human blood. Legend says that even Saint Columba found it necessary to bury Saint Oran alive under the foundations of her monastery in order to appease the spirits of the earth who destroyed at night what was built during the day. Already in 1843 in Germany, when a new bridge was being built in Halle, there was a rumor among the people that a child should be laid at the foundation of the building. The view that a church, wall, or bridge needed human blood or a walled-up sacrifice for the strength of its foundation was not only widespread in European folk belief, but was also practiced, as confirmed by local chronicles and traditions as Tylor E. B. = Myth and Rite in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -20,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru || 21 is a historical fact in many countries. So, for example, when it was necessary to restore a collapsed dam on the Nogate River in 1463, the peasants, following the advice to throw a living person there, made the beggar drunk, as they say, and buried him there. The Thuringian legend says that in order to make Liebenstein castle strong and impregnable, a child was bought from the mother for a lot of money and laid in the 35th wall. While he was being walled up, the child was eating pie. When the masons got to work, the story continues, he shouted to his mother: “Mom, I can still see you,” then a little later: “Mom, I can still see you a little,” and when the masons laid the last stone on him, he shouted: “Mom, Now I can’t see you anymore.” The walls of Copenhagen, according to legend, collapsed several times as they were built. Finally, they took the little innocent girl, sat her at a table with delicacies and toys, and while she played and ate, twelve masons built a vault over her. Then, with the thunder of music, the wall was erected, and since then it has always stood strong. An Italian legend says about the bridge over Arta that it constantly collapsed until the builder’s wife was laid in it. She, dying, cast a spell so that from now on the bridge would tremble, like a flower stalk trembles. Slavic princes, when pawning a child, according to the old pagan custom, sent people to seize the first boy they met and laid him in the wall of the building9. A Serbian legend tells how three brothers conspired to build the fortress of Skadru (Scutari), but year after year the “vila,” or mermaid, destroyed at night what 300 masons had built during the day. This enemy had to be appeased with a human sacrifice. She was supposed to be the first of three wives who would bring food to the workers. All three brothers swore to keep a terrible secret from their wives, but the two eldest betrayed their oath and warned their wives. The younger brother's wife, suspecting nothing, came to the construction site and was laid into the wall. But she begged to leave a hole there so that she could breastfeed her child, “and he was brought to her for twelve months. Serbian women to this day go to the grave of the good mother, to the source of water flowing along the fortress wall and similar to admixture of lime into milk.Finally, there is the English legend of Vortigern, who could not finish his tower until the foundation stones were moistened with the blood of a child born of a fatherless mother. 36 As usually happens in the history of sacrifices, here too we are faced with the replacement of victims. There are known, for example, empty coffins embedded in walls in Germany; a lamb buried under an altar in Denmark so that the church would stand strong; a human cemetery where a live horse was the first to be buried. In modern Greece, an obvious relic of this view is the belief that the first person to pass by a new structure after the first stone has been laid will die within the same year. Therefore, the masons kill a lamb or a black rooster on this first stone as a substitute. A German legend, based on the same idea, tells of an evil spirit that prevented the construction of a bridge. They promised him a soul, but they deceived him by letting a rooster cross the bridge first. One German folk belief says that before entering a new house, it is good to let a cat or dog in. All this forces us to admit that before us is not only a frequently recurring and changing mythological theme, but a memory preserved in oral and written tradition of a bloody barbaric rite, which not only really existed in ancient times, but also persisted for a long time in European history. If we look now at less cultural countries, we will find that this rite has been preserved to this day and quite obviously has as its goal either the propitiation of the spirits of the earth by the sacrifice, or the transformation of the soul of the victim itself into a patronizing demon. In Africa, in Galama, in front of the main gate of a new fortified settlement, a boy and a girl were usually buried alive in order to make the fortification impregnable. This custom was once widely practiced by a Bambara despot. In Great Bassam10 and Yoruba11 such sacrifices were made when founding a house or village. In Polynesia Ellis had heard of a custom, exemplified by the fact that the central column of one of the temples of Mawa was erected over the body of a human sacrifice. On the island of Borneo, among the Milanau Dayaks, one traveler witnessed how, during the 37th construction big house They dug a deep hole for the first pillar, which was suspended above it on ropes. The slave girl was lowered into the pit and, at a given signal, the ropes were cut. A huge beam fell into the hole and crushed the girl to death. It was a sacrifice to the spirits. Saint John saw a milder form of the ritual, when the chief of the Kuop Dayaks placed a high pole near his house, and a chicken was thrown into the hole prepared for him, which was supposed to be crushed by this pole. The more cultured peoples of South Asia retained the ritual of sacrifice at the founding of a house until modern times. One Japanese story of the 17th century mentions the belief that a wall was placed over the body of a voluntary human victim, Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -21,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 22- is protected by this from various misfortunes. Therefore, when they began to build a large wall, some unfortunate slave offered to become the foundation and lay down in the prepared pit, where heavy stones piled on him killed him. When the gates of the new city of Tavoy, in Tenasserim,12 were built about twenty years ago, Mason heard from eyewitnesses that a criminal was thrown into each of the holes prepared for the pillars as a sacrifice to the patronizing demon. Thus, such stories about human sacrifices buried for patron spirits under the gates of the city of Mandalay, about a queen drowned in the Burma ditch to make it strong, about a hero whose body parts were buried under the fortress of Tatuig to make it impregnable - all these stories are memoirs, in historical or mythological form, telling about the actually existing customs of the country. Even in English possessions there was such a case. When Raja Sala-Bin built the fortification of Sial Kot in Punjab, the foundation of the southeastern bastion was destroyed several times. Therefore, the Raja turned to a fortuneteller. The latter convinced him that the bastion would not hold until the blood of his only son was shed, as a result of which the only son of a widow was sacrificed. All this clearly shows that the vile rituals described in Ev38 Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -22,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 23- Human sacrifices have survived only as a vague memory; they still retain their ancient significance in Africa, Polynesia and Asia in those societies that are, if not chronologically, then in the degree of their development, representatives of the most ancient stages of civilization. Walter Scott tells in his "Pirate" about the pedlar Brace, who refused to help Mordaunt save a sailor drowning after a shipwreck. Expressing an ancient Scottish belief, Brace points out the recklessness of such an act. “Are you crazy? - says the peddler. - You, who have lived on the Scottish Islands for so long, want to save a drowning man? Don’t you know that if you restore his life, he will probably cause you some terrible harm?” If this inhuman belief were noticed only in Scotland alone, then one would think that it was of some local origin, which now defies explanation. But when such superstitions are found among the inhabitants of the islands of St. Kilda, and among the Danube boatmen, and among French and English sailors, and even outside Europe, among less civilized peoples, then it is no longer possible to explain this state of affairs with any local inventions. We have to look for some very widespread belief related to archaic culture. Hindus will not save a man who is drowning in the holy Ganges, and the inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago share this cruel attitude to a drowning man. Among the primitive Kamchadals this prohibition has the most remarkable form. They consider it a big mistake, says Krasheninnikov, to save a drowned man: the one who saves him will drown later himself. Steller's story is even more unusual and probably applies only to those cases where the victim actually drowned. He says that if a person somehow accidentally fell into the water, then it was considered a great sin for him to get out of it: if he was destined to drown, he commits a sin by saving himself from death. No one would let him into their home, talk to him, give him food or a wife, considering him dead. If 40 people fell into the water, even in the presence of others, they would not help him get out of the water, but, on the contrary, would drown him. These savages avoided the fire-breathing mountains, as spirits seemed to live there and cook their food. For the same reason, they consider it a sin to bathe in hot springs and fearfully believe in the existence of a sea spirit shaped like a fish, which they call Mitgk. This Kamchadal spiritualistic belief is undoubtedly the key to their ideas about the salvation of drowning people. Even in modern Europe one can find remnants of this belief. In Bohemia, as a not very old report says (1864), fishermen do not dare to pull out of the water Tylor E. B. = Myth and rite in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -23,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected]|| http://yanko.lib.ru || 24 - drowning man. They are afraid that the merman might take away their luck in fishing and, at the first opportunity, drown them themselves. This explanation of the prejudice against saving victims of water spirits can be confirmed by a mass of facts taken from various countries of the world. Thus, on examining the customs of sacrifice, it turns out that the usual way of making a sacrifice to a well, river, lake or sea is simply to throw a thing, animal or people into the water, which itself or through the spirit living in it should take possession of them. That a person who accidentally drowned was considered just such a catch of water is proven by many beliefs of wild and civilized peoples. Among the Sioux Indians, Unktah, a water monster, drowns its victims in streams or rapids. In New Zealand the natives believe that huge supernatural reptile monsters called Tanivga live in the windings of the rivers, and those who drown are said to have been dragged away by these monsters. The Siamese are afraid of the Knuckle, or water spirit, which seizes bathers and carries them away to its home. In Slavic lands this is always done by Topilets, who drowns people. In Germany, when someone drowns, the people remember the religion of their ancestors and say: “The river spirit has demanded his annual sacrifice,” or more simply, “Nix took him.” It is quite obvious that from this point of view, rescuing a drowning person, that is, snatching the victim from the very claws of 41 water spirits, is a reckless challenge thrown at the deity, which can hardly remain unavenged. In the civilized world the crude old religious idea of ​​drowning has long since been replaced by a physical explanation, and the prejudice against saving drowning people has almost or completely disappeared. But archaic ideas that have passed into folk beliefs and poetry, still indicate an obvious connection between the primitive view and the custom that has survived from antiquity. As the social development of the world advances, the most important views and actions may little by little become mere relics. Their original meaning gradually fades away, each generation remembers it less and less, until finally it completely disappears from the memory of the people. Subsequently, ethnography tries more or less successfully to restore this meaning, connecting together grains of scattered or forgotten facts. Children's games, folk sayings, and absurd customs may be practically unimportant, but from a philosophical point of view they are not without significance, since they belong to one of the most instructive phases of ancient culture. The ugly and cruel superstitions of this or that person may turn out to be relics of primitive barbarism, and at the same time education for such a person is the same as it was for Shakespeare’s fox, “which, no matter how you tame it, no matter how much you cherish it and protect it, will preserve the wild cunning of their ancestors." Tylor E. B. = Myth and ritual in primitive culture. /Trans. from English D. A. Koropchevsky. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. - -24,624 p. ill. Yanko Slava (Fort/Da Library) [email protected] || http://yanko.lib.ru || 25- Chapter II MYTHOLOGY □ Mythological fiction, like all other manifestations of human thought, is based on experience. □ Transformation of myth into allegory and history. □ Study of myth in its actual existence and development among modern savage and barbaric peoples. □ The original sources of the myth. □ The most ancient doctrine of the animation of nature. □ Personification of the sun, moon and stars; waterspout; sand column; rainbow; waterfall; pestilence. □ Analogy turned into myth and metaphor. □ Myths about rain, thunder, etc. □ The influence of language on the formation of myth. Material and verbal personification. □ Grammatical gender in relation to myth. □ Proper names of objects in relation to the myth. □ A degree of mental development conducive to mythical fictions. □ Teaching about werewolves. □ Fantasy and fiction. □ Natural myths, their origin, rules for their interpretation. □ Natural myths of the highest wild societies in comparison with related forms among barbarian and civilized peoples. □ Heaven and earth as universal parents. □ Sun and Moon: eclipse and sunset in the form of a hero or maiden consumed by a monster; the sun rising from the sea and descending into the underworld; the jaws of night 43 and death; Symplegades; eye of the sky, eye of Odin and Graia. □ The sun and moon as mythical civilizers. □ The Moon, its inconstancy, its periodic death and revival. □ Stars, their creation. □ Constellations, their place in mythology and astronomy. □ Wind and storm. □ Thunder. □ Earthquake Among those views that are generated by a small supply of information and which must disappear with the development of education is the belief in the almost limitless creative power of the human imagination. Perhaps nothing can be used to study the laws of imagination so well as from certain events of mythical history, as they pass through all known periods of civilization, bypassing all the physically different tribes of the human race. Here Maui, the New Zealand sun god, who caught the island with his magic fishing rod and pulled it out from the seabed, will take place next to the Indian Vishnu, who dived into the very depths of the ocean in the embodiment of a boar in order to lift up the flooded earth on his huge tusks. There, the creator Bayam, whose voice is heard by the rude inhabitants of Australia in the peals of thunder, will sit on the throne next to the Olympian Zeus himself. Beginning with the bold and crude myths of nature, in which the savage clothed the knowledge he extracted from his childhood contemplation of the world, the ethnographer can trace these crude works of fantasy down to the era when they were formalized and embodied in a complex of myths.