General facts:

Place spirits are backwards from people. While people sleep at night, the place spirits sleep during the day. While people like to eat delicious, special food, like white bread or cake, spirits like normal everyday food best, like black bread or kasha (boiled grain of various types). They are male, but they like to do women's work. While people like wine, spirits like water best. There is one place spirit per location (but they may be represented as having families). The farther they are from the house, the more dangerous they are. They are the composites of their place, i.e., the barn spirit represents the animals, the consummation of marriages (which take place in barns), the working implements, etc. in his barn.

Domovoi (D.), House Spirit:

The D. lives in the house under the stove. He is pictured as a naked, hairy man, who often resembles the male head of the household. He is considered to be the spirit of the house and those who live in it. If there is sadness in the family, the D. may cry at night. If there is happiness, he may laugh. He sometimes likes to make noise at night as a joke. They love horses and often ride them at night. They are "fed" on Mar. 30 and Jan. 28, when bread and water are left out. If a person sees the D., it means that someone will die, become ill or have bad luck. They may help the female head of the household with the housework.

Dvornik (Dv.), Barn Spirit:

The Dv. is similar to the D. except that he is most concerned with protecting animals and is associated with their health and well-being, much like the D. is associated with the people in the house and their good or bad fortune. If animals are mistreated, he punishes people. He looks much like the D., but is hairier and larger.

Ovinnik (O.), Drying Barn Spirit:

The O. is bigger and more threatening than the D. and Dv. He lives in the grain barn in or behind the fire pit, which is lit to dry the grain. Since he is associated with fire, he is more dangerous and unpredictable than the D. and Dv.

Bannik (B.), Bath House Spirit:

The B. is the biggest, hairiest and most dangerous of the spirits who live in the homestead. He lives on the border of the household, near the forest and water, so that makes him especially unpredictable and in need of appeasement. After people bathe, the stones are always left steaming for him to bathe. If this is not done, he will punish the next people to take a bath.

Polyanoi (P.), Field Spirit:

The P. is the next largest spirit after the B. and, since he lives totally in the wild, is predictably more dangerous. If the fields are not harvested and sown properly, he will punish the farmer. Unlike the others, which are more animal-like, the P. often has characteristics of vegetation, such as hair made of grass or straw.

Leshii (L.), Forest Spirit:

The L. is the largest and most dangerous of all the spirits. He looks least like a man and most like a beast (a large upright wolf, for example). He represents the forest animals and plants. If he is offended, he will punish hunters, woodcutters and those who gather food in the forest, such as berries. Everyone who wants to take something from the woods (wood, food, game, etc.) must ask his permission (symbolically). He is so capricious that he often torments people just because he feels like it.

Vodyanoi (V.), Water Spirit:

Each body of water has a V., who looks like a large frog-like beast. If one is swimming or fishing in a particular body of water, one always asks the V.'s permission. If one does not, he may cause you to drown.

Rusalka (R.), Mermaid:

The R. looks like a beautiful, well endowed young woman with green hair. In the water, they have tails; out of the water, they have legs. R. live in bodies of water, but are often found in fields (during certain spring festivals) or in trees above their pools, where they sing and lure men to them. Once the men show up, R. usually jump on their backs and tickle them, during which the men usually drown in the pool.

R. are different from the remaining spirits. 1) There are often lots of R. in a given place. For all the other spirits, there is ONE spirit for each place. 2) R. were clearly alive at one point, since they are the ghosts of young women (usually pregnant out of wedlock) or illegitimate children who drowned themselves or were drowned. There is no indication that the place spirits are unquiet dead, like the R. 3) R. can be disenchanted and become human, unlike the other spirits, by putting a cross around her neck.

Homestead Overview

General Facts:

The Russian homestead was composed of a house, two barns, one for animals and one for grain drying and storage, a bath house (in the north; very often southern regions did not have bath houses). The layout of the buildings were home/barn in the center, farther out was the drying barn, and then the bath house (near the water source). Each homestead had a fenced courtyard. The homesteads were built in a circle, surrounded by fields. The amount of fields a given family farmed were determined yearly by the mir, a village's governing body, based primarily on the number of males and children living in the house. Widows with children or daughter-in-law might be included in the calculation, but unmarried daughters were not. Until the late 19th century when children started to do factory work or were more likely to set up an independent household, usually a single family (one household) consisted of a male and female head of household, their sons and any of their wives and children, and unmarried daughters.

House:

The house was generally a three or four room building. The four rooms included: an entryway, a storage room, a guest room and a main room, heated by the large stove, the pechka, which took up about 1/4-1/2 of the available space. The stove was the heart of the house (where the Domovoi lived) and was used for cooking as well as heating and sleeping. The entryway of the house faced the courtyard. All the rooms opened off this entryway.

In the northern and central regions, the houses were built of large logs, often chinked with straw or dirt wattle. In far northern areas where the ground melted in the summer, houses were built on stilts since they might sank. The roofs had a steep incline (for snow to drop off) and were usually shingled with wood. The houses were elaborately decorated with carving and sometimes, painted. In the south, the houses were also wooden, but were whitewashed and had thatched roofs. All houses had a center beam, called a matica or "mother beam" which had a carved horse head, the symbol of the male head of the household, on the end.

Main Room:

The stove was to the left or right of the entryway into the living quarters. Diagonally across from the stove was the table, over which was the icon corner, called the holy or beautiful corner. The icon corner held one or more icons on a suspended shelf decorated with embroidered towels. Upon crossing the threshold of the house, people bowed to the icon corner and crossed themselves.

The corner next to the stove was called the "dirty corner", where the men usually sat. There were built in benches around the room for sleeping and sitting. There was also a sleeping shelf above the stove, which was reserved for the oldest family members and/or for young children.

Barns:

In the northern regions, barns were built directly under the living areas of the house. The heat from the animals would rise and help heat the house. In the central areas, barns were attached to the house. In the south, they were free standing. The drying barn had a constant fire to keep the grain at the proper temperature for drying and storage. It was separate the house because of the danger of fire.

Bath House:

The bath house was a small wooden building located beside flowing water. It had sitting shelves and a place to burn wood, upon which water was thrown to create the steam. The bathers hit themselves with birch twigs to stimulate circulation. Bathing usually occurred once a week or more often in cases of illness. In the winter, after steaming, the bathers would roll naked in snow, which was considered to improve general health. In the summer, they poured cold water on themselves after a steam bath.

Animals:

Russians raised the typical farm animals: sheep, pigs, horses, cows, chickens, ducks, geese, goats. All were consumed, except horses, which were used as work animals.

Jobs:

Work was basically segregated by sex. Women worked with women and men with men. However, women often did work with men in the fields, especially during the harvest. Men, if they valued their reputations, never did women's work. There was a hierarchy such that older men got the best (easiest) jobs, while younger men got harder jobs. Among the women, hardest jobs were not only done by the youngest, but also by those who most recently came into the household (i.e., new daughters-in-law). They did not move up in the hierarchy either until they had kids or until a newer daughter-in-law came along.

For an entire year after her marriage, a daughter-in-law had to thank each member of her new family after each meal for feeding her. The Russians had a fear of strangers and travelers. Since the daughter-in-law was from outside the family, she was treated as a stranger until she earned her keep (we will talk about this more when we discuss marriage).

Women's work:

Cooking, tending the vegetable garden, feeding and milking animals, growing flax, sewing, spinning, embroidering, weaving and dyeing clothing, towels, sheets, etc., gathering wild fruit and mushrooms, healing, carrying water, childcare, preserving food. Plus, they helped men in the fields during the harvest.

Men's work:

Trading/selling goods/grain, sowing, harvesting, threshing and other tasks having to do with the grain harvest, knitting socks, construction, carving. Basically, they were farmers.

Men were also professional merchants as well as hunters, fishermen and blacksmiths, but the last three were not highly esteemed professions.

Children's work:

Children, after the age of about 5, had some small tasks to do. From 10 on they were expected to do more and more work (the type depended on their sex), so that when they reached maturity (15-18 years of age), they could perform all the household duties required of them.

Meals:

The stove was heated once a day in the morning for an entire days cooking. They had four meals daily: breakfast, a second ÒbreakfastÓ in the fields, dinner and a light supper before bed. The biggest meal was in the early to mid afternoon. The second breakfast would be brought to the fields by young children. Daughters-in-law never brought food to the fields. For meals in the house, the food was usually placed in one large bowl. The men would eat first (usually they sat at the table and women stood). The oldest man got the biggest spoon and so on down the hierarchy. The lowest on the hierarchy, got the smallest spoons. The spoons were carried when visiting or working in the fields.

Diet:

They ate little red meat, except at harvest time or during holidays, and rarely ate chicken at all. For everyday, they ate grains (millet and buckwheat), beans and peas, which were baked in earthenware pots in the stove. They also ate cheese and butter and other dairy products, such as buttermilk and eggs. Most of their protein came from fish. The women also grew cabbage, potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, which not only do well in the cold climate, but store well. Wild nuts, berries and mushrooms supplemented domestic vegetables. They usually drank tea sweetened with honey. They also made mead from honey as well as berry wine.

A typical meal was vareniki, a stuffed dough fried in fatback. They consumed a lot of fat, similar to American farmers of the period.

Storage/Preservation:

They had cold cellars for storage of fresh veggies. They also dried fish, legumes and grains, made salt pork, sausage and hard cheese and cured fat back. They pickled vegetables which did not store well and made jam or other preserves from fruit. Fat from animals was also used to make candles.

Clothing:

Russian clothing was made out of wool (pants, socks, coats, sarafans) or flax, a type of linen (shirts, aprons, dresses, belts). Richer people wore fur coats in the winter (the fur pelt was usually inside for warmth). Clothing was generally embroidered along all openings (at the collars, sleeves, bottom edges). In the summer they generally wore socks with bast shoes, which resembled sandals, or wrapped leather straps around their feet and legs. Bast is made from the bark of the linden tree and strips were cut and molded into shoes. In the winter, they wore thick felt boots made of pressed wool. Only richer people could afford leather shoes for everyday wear. Otherwise, leather shoes/boots were reserved for holidays. Clothing was generally passed down from older to younger people. If the cloth was worn out, the embroidery was cut off and resewn onto new cloth. The clothing was generally easy to sew and loose fitting, so it was suited for heavy work and adapted well for pregnancy.

Men wore dark colored pants and a long light-colored shirt with an embroidered belt. They wore a vest, in warmer weather, or a wool or fur jacket or coat. They wrapped their lower leg in leg cloths over their pants. They always carried an ax, pipe and their spoon with them. Men's marital status was not marked in their clothing. The ax they carried marked that he had come of age and was buried with him. He received the ax when born and carried it from puberty on. It was not generally used, but was carried as a symbol of manhood.

In the north, women wore a long light-colored shirt (almost like a slip) under a brightly colored woolen sarafan (like a jumper) and an apron. Their headdress was called a kokoshnik and was shaped like a triangular crown. In the central region, they wore a long light-colored shirt with a dark colored overskirt and a long apron which covered the entire front of the body. Their headdress was a tall round cap with ribbons hanging from the back. In the south, they wore the same long light colored shirt, with a darker overskirt and an apron that covered only the lower part of the body. Their headdress was usually a wreath or a hat similar to that in the central region.

Women's clothing was marked for marital status. Married women had two braids and always wore a headdress and an apron. Unmarried women (of marriageable age), had a single braid and could omit the apron or the head covering. Unmarried girls (not of marriageable age), had loose hair and wore only the long undershirt.

Their personal property consisted of jewelry, which was passed from their mothers when they married, and would be passed onto daughters. Men who sold this jewelry for whatever reason were considered to be beneath contempt and poor husbands.

Body type:

Particularly for women, a large body type was desirable. It was an indication of a strong, capable worker. Such people were less likely to starve if there was a bad harvest, less likely to suffer from hypothermia in the winter, less likely to miscarry, and to suffer from amenhorrea, the lack of or irregular menstrual cycles as a result of low body fat or of hard physical labor. Female athletes and anorexics often have amenhorrea.

Folk art:

The folk aesthetic is: if you make something, make it well and make it beautiful. Innovation was not encouraged; things should be made according to tradition and for function as well as beauty. Russian folk art and clothing was primarily decorated with a jewel tone color palate, which included: red, black, white, green, yellow and orange. The basic contrast was white, red and black. Black meant darkness or eternity; red meant projection, joy, the sun, passion and fertility; white meant purity, light and innocence. The other colors also had symbolic significance: yellow indicated light, youth, love and kindness; orange symbolized the sun, light and fire; while green meant life, earth, plants and fertility. Only in the south was blue used and it symbolized water and fertility.

Kinship/Family:

Kinship is particularly important to study when looking at a culture, because it tells where boundaries between categories are drawn, despite the reality of the situation, which is the essence of folklore. A general rule for studying kinship, is the more elaborate the terms found in the language (for example, a special word for uncle by marriage versus uncle by blood), the more important kinship relations are in that culture. The Russian language has a great many kinship distinctions. Unlike English, they do not use lots of compounds (daughter-in-law, mother-in-law), but have separate words for these relationships. This usage fits their living patterns. Lots of people lived in one house, and it was necessary to distinguish how they were related, their positions in the hierarchy and status with relation to others. The older one was, the more respectful the terms used to refer to them.
In Russian peasant culture, incest was defined as marrying anyone who was related by blood out to the 6th degree, i.e., 6th cousins. However, incest and kinship in the Russian village was often more broadly defined and kinship terms were used for those not related by blood. In fact cultural belief usually takes precedence over biology in formation of human systems of kinship. For example, in Russia one was not only prohibited from marrying a blood relative, but also from marrying one's wet nurse. In fact, where we in English say related by blood or bloodline, Russians say related by milk or milkline. There were also incest taboos on godparents. These people were responsible for a child's social behavior and initiation into the culture. A newborn baby was not totally human until it was baptized. If a baby was not baptized, it was not named, or buried in the graveyard, and might turn into rusalka. Finally, the midwife became a second mother or grandmother to a child and, as a result, no male could marry the woman who attended at his delivery. However, unlike in some Western cultures, one could marry an adopted brother or sister (discussed more when we cover marriage). The Russians also used kinship terms for animals, like little sister fox, uncle wolf, grandfather bear, although they were clearly not related to them by blood. We will discuss the implications of this practice in class.