Interesting Facts About Cheremis Ritual

Interesting Facts about Cheremis Ritual

I am still enjoying reading through Thomas Sebeok and Frances Ingemann's Studies in Cheremis: The Supernatural. There are some interesting tidbits about Cheremis ritual which I would like to share with you.

First, there apparently is a holiday devoted to eating head:

B.5 buj kocma pajram 'head eating holiday'

In the autumn, in October, November, or even as late as December, falls the 'head eating holiday,' a day of feasting at slaughter time. There is no fixed date for this ceremony; each family decides on a different day, so that friends may be invited. On the appointed day, a feast is prepared. A man who knows the prayers, acting as the priest, kills an animal: a horse, cow, or goat, depending on the wealth of the family. The head, intestine, heart, liver, lungs, and other internal organs are cooked for the banquet. In the evening, when all the guests have assembled, the priest, standing next to the head which is in a large wooden bowl on the table, prays for prosperity and good fortune in cattle raising. Following the prayer, the priest eats three pieces of the head and then the owner of the house and his wife, relatives, and friends do likewise. After the guests have partaken of the head, they wish the people of the house prosperity and, particularly, abundant herds. After this, the rest of the food is served and the banquet lasts well into the night. Any meat left on the head after the ceremony is used by the family on subsequent days. The rest of the meat is kept for the family to eat during the winter.

Apparently, during the ritual of surem (driving out), it is lucky to beat women (albeit with switches):

The exorcism is performed by the young men of the community who go about usually at night or in the early morning, beating walls, fences, and steps with mountain ash switches. Women are also beaten so that the evil will not hide in their clothes. A great deal of noise is made, horns blown, and sometimes shots fired. Horse racing is also sometimes connected with this holiday. In some places young men masquerade as bears, deer, etc.m and one person, masquerading as sajtan, is driven from house to house.

You can also determine your future spouse by the color of sheep:

One of the most widespread customs, perhaps the one from which the holidy gets its name, is that of predicting the appearance of a future husband or wife by means of grabbing a sheep's foot. The young people go out to the sheep pen in the dark and grab either the foot of a sheep or some of its wool. If a white sheep is caught, the future mate will be a blond; if a black sheep, a brunet. From the size and age of the sheep it is also possible to predict the size and age of the future husband or wife.

The Cheremis were very resistant to both christianization and islamization, they to this day still retain great elements of their original pagan religion, as can be ascertained from the following description of a funerary custom:

As the corpse is carried from the yard into the street, a hen is killed at the gate; if it dies in the yard, it means there will be another death withing a short time, but if it runs headless out into the street, death will not visit the house again soon. It is believed that those who have previously died come to meet the recently deceased on the spot where the hen is slaughtered. Some say that in the other world the hen gathers all the nails which the dead person has lost during his life because a person may not appear before the ruler of the dead without all his nails. In other places, at the slaughter it is customary to say, 'Loosen with this blood your own blood from death!' The first drops of the hen's blood are then smeared on the eyebrows of the corpse. In some regions the hen is left where it died to be eaten by dogs. In other places it is cooked and eaten. Sometimes a chicken (a cock for a dead man and a hen for a dead woman) is hung by the neck under the wagon to 'free the blood' of the dead person. Sometimes the gate is not closed until the people return from the cemetery.

The Cheremis perform 'weddings of the dead' for those who die unmarried (not unlike those roumanians studied by Linda Degh, but it doesn't seem that the Cheremis actually pick out a bride or bridegroom for the corpse):

If an unmarried young man dies, the mourners express the wish that he find himself a suitable bride for the next life. If a single girl dies, in her coffin are put materials and ornaments for her to make her wedding clothes, especially a married woman's headdress. An unmarried dead person is accompanied to the grave as if to his wedding. Wagons and horses ae decorated with bells and ribbons; all his young friends accompany the deceased to the graveyard; sometimes even wedding attendants are chosen.

If I find any more cool stuff in this book, I will definitely share!