Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas: Manifestations in Artifacts and Rituals 9781800738171

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Worldview
Chapter 1. Cervids and Their Associations
Chapter 2. Goddess Civilizations and Their Symbols
Chapter 3. Image of the Universe
Chapter 4. Weaving and Embroidery: A Semblance of the Cosmos
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas Manifestations in Artifacts and Rituals

• • • Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2023 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2023 Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Oleszkiewicz-Peralba, Małgorzata, 1954- author. Title: Mythology and symbolism of Eurasia and indigenous Americas : manifestations in artifacts and rituals / by Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba. Description: 1st. | New York : Berghahn Books, 2023 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022028506 (print) | LCCN 2022028507 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800738164 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800738171 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Symbolism | Signs and symbols | Mythology Classification: LCC CB475 .O44 2023 (print) | LCC CB475 (ebook) | DDC 302.2/223--dc23/eng/20221011 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022028506 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022028507 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-80073-816-4 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-817-1 ebook https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800738164

For the new generations For Agnieszka and Marta

Contents

List of Illustrations

viii

Foreword Alan West-Durán

xiv

Acknowledgments

xviii

Introduction. Worldview

1

Chapter 1. Cervids and Their Associations

6

Chapter 2. Goddess Civilizations and Their Symbols

37

Chapter 3. Image of the Universe

57

Chapter 4. Weaving and Embroidery: A Semblance of the Cosmos

85

Conclusion

108

Bibliography

110

Index

131

Illustrations

1.1. Two horses in a cloud, Easter egg. Poland, early twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

8

1.2. Tree flanked by three pairs of birds, paper cut-out. Poland, twenty-first century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

9

1.3. Tree with deer and birds, detail at center of a woven kilim. Anatolia (Turkey), twentieth century. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

10

1.4. Embroidered blouse, Goddess as plant, flanked by animals. Oaxaca, Mexico, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

10

1.5. Goddess as Tree of Life, paper cut-out. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

11

1.6. Embroidered rushnyk, Goddess as plant with birds and bees. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

11

1.7. Goddess as plant, with spread arms and legs, metal incrustation in wood. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

12

1.8. Goddess as flower. Walls of a rural house. Central Poland, late nineteenth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

12

1.9. Goddess with birds, transformed into a cross with angels, paper cut-out. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

13

1.10. Lalka (“doll”)—Goddess holding birds, paper cut-out. Poland, beginning of the twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

14

1.11. God K as deer, falling from the planets (b, middle), and knocked down on the ground (c, bottom). Dresden Codex, p. 45bc. Mayan, Post-Classical. Public domain.

20

1.12. Trapped deer. Madrid Codex, p. 45. Mayan, Post-Classical. Public domain.

22

1.13. Siip (Zip) as black hunter. Madrid Codex, p. 50b. Public domain.

23

Illustrations • ix

1.14. The sun between horns, and neck rings, silver. Ceremonial dress of the Miao minority women of China. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

25

1.15. Gwiazda (star). Paper cut-outs. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

27

1.16. Kołacz/korovai: Sun symbolism, two pairs of breasts, and the four directions, dough. Lviv, Ukraine, 1970s–1980s. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

28

1.17. Deer with corncobs, gold. Costa Rica, Pre-Columbian. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

29

1.18. Naked hunter in front of a deer. Funerary stele, marble. Eleutherna, Crete, Greece, 600 BC. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

34

2.1. Mistress of Animals. Mother Goddess giving birth flanked by two leopards, terracotta. Çatal Höyük, Turkey, ca. 5,750 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

38

2.2. Vase with birds of prey used for funeral ceremonies. Crete, Greece, 1,300–1,250 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

39

2.3. Venus of Willendorf. Austria, ca. 24,000 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

40

2.4. Model of the double Ġgantija temple in the shape of “Fat Goddesses.” Gozo, Malta, first half of the fourth millennium BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

40

2.5. Figurine with diagrams. Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era. Drawing: Olga H. Estrada. Published with permission.

41

2.6. Figurine with plant growing from the pubic triangle. Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

42

2.7. Mayan cross with plants, sun, and quincunx symbols. Chiapas region, Mexico, twenty-first century. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

42

2.8. Figurine of a pregnant woman with corncobs as breasts. Michoacán, Mexico, AD 200–600. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

43

x • Illustrations

2.9. Figurine of a pregnant woman with the Mayan sapo (Turkish “baklava”) motif on her belly, head, chest, and thighs. Mexico, Pre-Columbian. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

43

2.10. Female figurine with body paint, ear spools, and a triangular thong with rhomb design. Costa Rica, AD 500–800. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

44

2.11. Seated female figurine with a hat and symbolic diagrams. Costa Rica, AD 500–800. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

44

2.12. Goddesses with shrines, trees, and life-giving and deathbringing birds, embroidery. Crete, Greece, late nineteenth to early twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

47

2.13. Goddess with birds, flanked by attendants on horses, embroidery. Ukraine, late nineteenth to early twentieth century, © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

49

2.14. Tripartite jar with protrusions for nipples and meanders around breasts. Trypillian-Cucuteni Civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

50

2.15. Jar with vulvas. Trypillian-Cucuteni Civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era, ca. 6,000 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

50

2.16a. and 2.16b. Tripartite jar with depictions of atmospheric phenomena, such as rain. Trypillian-Cucuteni Civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

51

2.17. Sun symbol (cross) with lace diamonds and deer, Easter egg. Poland, early twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

52

3.1. Tamoanchan, Mesoamerican concept of the cosmos, reflected in the central tree—the cosmic axis—with two strands in helicoidal motion within its trunk and four directional trees. Drawing: Olga H. Estrada. Published with permission.

58

3.2. Mayan diagram Pejel (“Anything Square”) in the form of a quincunx, representing space and time. Drawing: Olga H. Estrada, inspired by Morris, Diseño 19. Published with permission.

62

3.3. Embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (I) with quincunx motif. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

63

3.4. Embroidered pillow with quincunx motif. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

64

Illustrations • xi

3.5. Woman’s shirt with embroidered rhomb designs on the sleeves. Hutsulshchyna, Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

65

3.6. Diamond motif with incurving lines on four sides—the “Birth Symbol.” Easter egg. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

66

3.7a. The “saw-tooth edged diamond” motif, weaving. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

67

3.7b. The “saw-tooth edged diamond” motif, weaving. Navajo, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

67

3.8. Plate with a quincunx design. Hacilar, Turkey, 5,750–5,000 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

67

3.9a. Quincunx design. Embroidery. Bulgaria, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

68

3.9b. Quincunx design. Decorative napkin, crochet work by author’s maternal grandmother, Halina Rutte Milencka. Warsaw, Poland, 1950s. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

68

3.10. Quincunx. Madrid Codex, pp. 75–76. Public domain.

69

3.11. “Ikiz idol”—two females holding hands, gold. Alaca Höyük, Turkey, second half of the third millennium BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

71

3.12. “Old European” script. North-west Bulgaria, 5,300–4,300 BC. Drawing: Marta Oleszkiewicz. Published with permission.

74

3.13. Cretan “Linear A” script. Phaistos, Crete, Greece, second millennium BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

75

3.14. Rows of triangles (zig-zags) intercalated with rows of dots, on a wooden rural house. Rawsko-Opoczyński region, Poland, nineteenth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

77

3.15. Statuette with rows of triangles (zig-zags) intercalated with rows of dots. Mexico, Pre-Columbian. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

78

3.16. Vessel with a snake in the form of zig-zags intercalated with dots. Central Caribbean coast, Costa Rica, El Bosque culture, AD 300–3,300 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

78

3.17. Deer and the water serpent. Madrid Codex, p. 14b. Public domain.

81

xii • Illustrations

4.1. Weaving with embroidered deer and birds. Oaxaca, Mexico, early nineteenth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

85

4.2. Doll with fertility symbols. Crete, Greece, 1,050–700 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

87

4.3. Sargadela, traditional necklace in the shape of a comb, porcelain. Galicia region, Spain, 1970s. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

88

4.4. Figurine with a lattice motif. Guanacaste-Nicoya region, Costa Rica, AD 800–1,350. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

88

4.5. Embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (II) with lattice and rhomb motifs. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

89

4.6. Net motif, looms, and weaving. Madrid Codex, p. 102. Public domain.

89

4.7. Fringes and other fertility symbols on a young girl’s garment. Anatolia (Turkey), early twentieth century. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

91

4.8. The Eye Goddess, anthropomorphic pot. Turkey, the Bronze Age. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

93

4.9. Ochipka—head cap of a married Hutsul woman, with wool fringes. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

94

4.10. Tripartite sleeve of a Hutsul blouse. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

95

4.11. Tripartite sleeve of a white-red-black Hutsul blouse. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

96

4.12. Spiral and zig-zag motifs on a gourd. Kenya, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

97

4.13. Red and white Hutsul blouse with rozhanitsas and plants from the “Kupala’s Fires” ceremony. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

97

4.14. Mayan huipil in the form of a rectangle with nine sky and nine underworld levels that reflects the structure of the universe. Chiapas, Mexico, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

101

4.15. Huipil with a tripartite vertical division and horizontal divisions indicating nine underworld levels, four lower sky levels, and nine upper sky levels, reflecting the structure of the universe. Mexico, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba. 103

Illustrations • xiii

4.16a. and 4.16b. Triki huipil (front and back) with four vertical sewn-in ribbons indicating four Cosmic Trees, and swirling colorful ribbons representing the helicoidal motion within the trunk of the cosmic Tamoanchan tree. Oaxaca, Mexico, twenty-first century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

104

4.17. Quechquémitl, a rhomboidal Mesoamerican woman’s garment. Oaxaca, Mexico, twentieth century. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

106

Foreword Alan West-Durán

Aluna’s Threads Sing In her introduction, the author states that her book is devoted to “finding connecting threads and continuity between the symbols, rituals and beliefs that unite humanity across different continents and cultures of the world.” This objective, or perhaps more accurately, longing, reminds me of the Kogi in the film “Aluna” (2012) unraveling a golden thread from the sea all the way into the mountains of Santa Marta, some four hundred kilometers through the ever-changing landscape of northern Colombia. The thread is literally a connection to Aluna, or the Great Mother, that is the source of all life and our world. By unspooling the thread and having it reconnect to all the sacred spots, similar to the Andean notion of the huaca (or gaka for the Kogi), the aim is to repair the damage done to the earth by the Younger Brother (the white man), whose rapacious conduct and blatant degradation of the earth have caused environmental chaos and unbalanced the world created by Aluna. In laying out the thread, the Kogi wanted to show the interconnectedness of the world and warn us that damaging one part of the world wounds all of our planet. In a similar fashion, Prof. Oleszkiewicz-Peralba takes the golden thread of her language and thought to show the interconnectedness of symbols, myths, beliefs and rituals of Eurasia and the Indigenous Americas. These concerns have been part of her scholarship for at least the last two decades, and this current work can be seen as the third part of a trilogy that began with The Black Madonna in Latin American and Europe: Tradition and Transformation (2007), followed by Fierce Feminine Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America: Baba Yaga, Kālī, Pombagira and Santa Muerte (2015). In the first volume, she explores the relationships between the Black Madonna of Częstochowa of Poland, the Virgin of Guadalupe (Mexico), and Iemanjá of Brazil; in the second she explores the fierce feminine deities of Baba Yaga (Slavic), Kali (Hindu), Pombagira (Brazil) and Santa Muerte (Mexico) as liminal figures of great power. These mythic figures that deal with sexuality, transformation, and death elicit awe and respect, and Oleszkiewicz-Peralba brilliantly explains why. In the spirit of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Oleszkiewicz-Peralba recognizes that myth is a type of language, one that offers societies an interpretive grid with which to make meaning and organize their lives. Wendy Doniger, in her de-

Foreword • xv

lightful foreword to Levi-Strauss’s Myth and Meaning, claims that both myth and language are wedded to binaries and that these are linked to the binaries of our brain: right and left, male and female, good and evil, fire and water, the raw and the cooked, cold and hot, stillness and movement, sound and silence, animal and human, earth and sky. But as any good Daoist reminds us, the aspects of yin yang not only include contradiction and opposition but also interdependence, inclusion, complementarity, change, and transformation. Binaries may seem to organize our world and stabilize meaning, but we humans spend our lives eluding, subverting, and snubbing our noses at binaries and the rules that seem to limit or oppress us. The life and work of John Cage equally reminds us that the boundaries between noise, sound, silence, and music are more porous than previously imagined. And it is Lévi-Strauss himself who is fond of analogies between music and myth, especially in The Raw and the Cooked and Myth and Meaning. In the former, the chapters are labeled Overture, Theme and Variations, The Good Manners Sonata, The Fugue of the Five Senses, Well-Tempered Astronomy, and Rustic Symphony in Three Movements. The analogy between myth and music is insightful and intriguing but needs some revising. The French anthropologist’s examples are all drawn from European classical musical forms (although theme and variation would have a wider resonance), which is a bit curious, since the topics of his research are the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon. His love of music was boundless, and he was extremely fond of opera, no doubt a genre that has a longstanding relationship with myth, beginning with Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) to the twenty-first century with Henze’s Phaedra (2007). Unquestionably, some myths have an over-the-top intensity that is nothing less than Wagnerian, and the genre’s combination of word, music, drama, and performance are ideal for embodying and exploring myth. That said, I am not arguing that this book is operatic. If a musical analogy applies, it could be that of theme and variations, where the themes would be the star, the rhomb, the Goddess-flower, the Mistress of Animals, the bird, the deer, the dragon, among others. Their materialization in clothing, paper, pottery, ritual objects, and folk art across cultures would be the rich rendering of variations. The variations are not repetitions or echoes but an unfolding of archetypes that transform themselves. John Cage insisted on not being called a composer but a listener; he claimed that “Music is not a communication from the artist to the audience, but rather . . . an activity of sounds in which the artist found a way to let the sounds be themselves.” In similar fashion, Oleszkiewicz-Peralba lets the myths be themselves and activate our imaginations. As collective creations, they come from nowhere but seem at home everywhere, being both timeless and rooted. In Lévi-Strauss’ music-myth analogy, he argues that music is both “intelligible and untranslatable.” Untranslatable because music has no words, hence

xvi • Foreword

there is presumably no need to translate, but there is a need to interpret, otherwise music can seem chaotic, unmelodic, rhythmically confusing. But myth is certainly translatable; as the likes of Joseph Campbell, Jung (or Lévi-Strauss) would argue, a kind of universal grammar of the mind, the heart, and the cosmos. An example would be the Tree of Life as depicted from the Polish folk tradition and that of Mexico. In the Polish tradition, done with cut paper in silhouette, you have the tree with a cross, birds, angels, roosters, and other animals; it is boldly two-dimensional, with a high contrast that simplifies. On the other hand, whilst in the Mexican tradition the tree also includes crosses, animals, and angels, they are bustling three-dimensional ceramic figures, in an orgy of color; a kind of profusion of figures, animals, and branches that unfold with a baroque sensuality. But both are visual hymns to creation, life, and faith deeply rooted in both pre-Christian and Catholic heritages, and Oleszkiewicz-Peralba carefully traces out these intricate connections. Inspired by the author, let me offer another example: the cosmic analogies between the kantha quilts of Bangladesh and Aztec (or Mexica) codices. Both are laid out as images of the cosmos, leitmotifs of four cardinal points, and a central image, a lotus in the case of Bangladesh, the sun or the Cosmic Tree in the case of Ancient Mexico and Mesoamerica. The lotus in the center of the kantha is the symbol Lakshmi, Goddess of beauty and good fortune; the lotus floats on water, the giver of life and also emblematic of spiritual power. In the Mexica case, it is the sun, fire as the giver of life, pure spirit, the air (the Mexica were seen as children of the sun), but it is also linked to Huitzilopochtli, the God of war. The Mexica codices are framed by animals, all associated with their calendrical system, different from the animals found on kanthas but still a reminder of the link between the natural and supernatural realms. Can the Mexica sun and Cosmic Tree become a lotus? Can the lotus be transmuted into a World Tree or fire? Perhaps only in the language of myth, whose power of transformation is unparalleled. The kantha have an interesting advantage on the codices: they have protective powers: babies are wrapped in them and married men use them when they are off and alone. The Bangladeshi constitution was wrapped in a kantha after it was first written. The author opens her book on the Black Madonna with three quotes, one from the novelist and scholar Antonio Benítez-Rojo: “Culture is a discourse, a language, and as such has no beginning or end, and it is always in transformation, since it is always looking for ways to signify what it cannot manage to signify.” As you immerse yourself in these pages, in that infinite language of culture and myth, follow the beautiful chords, the recurring leitmotifs, the subtle and splendid variations. The variations unspool like Aluna’s golden threads. Each image is a melody, each myth a song that entails a journey. Read, and listen; let the melodic splendor of what is said and unsaid settle and unsettle your mind, your heart, and your spirit.

Foreword • xvii

Alan West-Durán (b. Cuba, 1953), professor, Northeastern University, is a poet, translator, critic, and essayist. He is the author of two books of poems, as well as a book of essays: Tropics of History: Cuba Imagined (1997). West-Durán edited African Caribbeans: A Reference Guide (2003) and Latino and Latina Writers (2004), which includes over sixty full-length essays on Latino/a authors of the US. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the 2011 two-volume reference work titled Cuba. Cuba: A Cultural History was published in 2017. As a translator he has translated the work of Alejo Carpentier, Rosario Ferré, Luisa Capteillo, Nelly Richard, and Nancy Morejón. West-Durán was an editor of the webzine “Cuban Counterpoints” (2015–2018); since 2019 he has been a regular contributor to “Rialta,” an online cultural journal, writing on literature, music, painting, and art. Currently, he is working on a book about Afro-Cuban religions and the arts (literature, music, painting, film), titled El perro tiene cuatro patas pero toma un solo camino.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to all the individuals and institutions who facilitated my research and assisted in this project throughout the years. To Dr. Alan WestDurán for his professional scrutiny of my manuscript and for the Foreword; to my graduate research assistants, Olga Estrada, Sabrina Marcano, and Cynthia Gibson, for compiling materials and the bibliography; to Marta Oleszkiewicz and Olga Estrada for drawing the illustrations; to my anonymous reviewers for their conscientious comments; and to my editors at Berghahn Books, Caryn Berg, for her continuous interest and support of this project, and Caroline Kuhtz, for her guidance through the production process. I owe special thanks to all the institutions around the world that opened their doors and collections to me, making my research possible. To Director Dr. Adam Czyżewski and Mr. Patryk Pawlaczyk from the State Ethnographic Museum of Warsaw; to Ms. Aldona Plucińska and Alicja Woźniak from the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź; to the Łowicz Museum; to the State Archeological Museum in Warsaw; and to the Konstanciński Dom Kultury in Konstancin-Jeziorna, Poland. My warmest thanks to Director Andriy Klimaszevsky, Ms. Iryna Horban, Valentina Teslyuk, Lyudmyla Bulhakova, and Oksana Heriy from the Museum of Ethnography and Crafts; to Chief Curator Danuta Posatska and Ms. Lubava Sobutska from the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum; and particularly to Ms. Luba Swarnyk from the Museum of National Folk Architecture and Rural Life “Shevchenkivskyi Hai,” in Lviv, Ukraine; as well to the Ukrainian Museum of Toronto, Canada. Moreover, I am grateful to all other museums and sites I conducted fieldwork at, such as the ones in Istanbul, Ankara, and Çatal Höyük in Turkey; at Malta and Gozo in Malta; at Crete in Greece; as well as in Mexico City, Oaxaca, and Puebla in Mexico; and in San José, Costa Rica. Thanks to the University of Texas at San Antonio for supporting my research for this book through a Faculty Development Leave in 2016, the INTRA Seed Grant Program Award in 2017/2018, as well as for multiple small awards to conduct fieldwork in Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Mexico, and Costa Rica, and to present my findings at international conferences from 2014 to 2020. I am very grateful to my students from the University of Texas at San Antonio for their curiosity and fascination with this book’s topics; to my friends and family—Dr. Yanko Yankov, Maria Oleszkiewicz, Jan Milencki, Krzysztof

Acknowledgments • xix

Rutte, Dona Bitsy Neuser, Nancy Fullerton, and Diana Roberts, among others, for their interest in this project and their help with various research tasks; and especially to Josep Maria for his continuous encouragement, trust, and his invaluable technical support. This book would not have come to light without your generous contributions. *** All translations from Polish, Russian, and Spanish are mine.

Introduction Worldview

This book is the result of a lifetime spent living in and studying different cultures on several continents, including my earliest experiences and young adult years in Poland, part of my childhood in Uruguay, my adulthood in the United States and Peru, as well as multiple, extensive research trips to southern and central Mexico, northeastern Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine, among others. My first motivation for this fieldwork was the research of different topics connected to my universities’ studies, both in Warsaw, Poland and in New York City; when I settled in San Antonio in the mid-1990s to teach at the Modern Languages and Literatures Department of the University of Texas, my participant observation and research experience culminated in the publication of two scholarly books that make connections between the different worlds I embody, namely The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation, and Fierce Feminine Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America: Baba Yaga, Kālī, Pombagira, and Santa Muerte. The current book constitutes a further development not only in harmonizing different parts of myself but, primarily, in finding connecting threads and continuity between the symbols, rituals, and beliefs that unite humanity throughout different continents and cultures of the world. Through my years of study of the Pre-Indo-European, Neolithic, TrypillianCucuteni civilization from ca. 5,500–2,250 BC, as well as other Eurasian cultures, from the Paleolithic to the present,1 a number of distinct, recurrent symbols and patterns, such as the rhomb/diamond/lozenge, the triangle, the circle, the cross, the “Birth Diagram,” the lattice motif, the Tree of Life, the tri-partite division, and the horned figure, emerged. I discovered similar motifs in the designs of Native civilizations of North, Central, and South America, as well as on other continents. From the symbols and their spatial arrangements, as well as related myths and rituals, the mythic tradition and worldview of these civilizations came forth, speaking across national, cultural, and temporal boundaries. Although in the secularized West this cosmic vision is largely forgotten, the sacred symbols continue to be reflected on garments, folk art, and everyday objects of many traditional cultures, especially in eastern, central, and southern Europe, the Near East, as well as in western, central, and eastern Asia. Many of these beliefs, myths, and rituals are still alive in Siberia and

2 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

Mongolia. To this day, in contemporary Indigenous American cultures, such as the Middle American Maya, the Uto-Aztecan Huichol, Cora, Yaqui, and Hopi, and the Apachean Navajo, we can observe similar symbolism in iconography, myth, and ritual. In this book, I reconstruct the elements that constitute the worldview and religious practices of the above-mentioned civilizations and cultures, based on the analysis of ancient as well as contemporary materials. I am also aware and wish to call attention to the danger of cultural appropriation of designs, such as the predatory use of sacred iconographic patterns from disenfranchised ethnic and minority groups solely for the capital gain of commercial companies, without any acknowledgement and appreciation. An example is the incorporation of portions of these designs as adornments of branded women’s and men’s garments sold at extremely high prices in exclusive boutiques on central plazas of Mexican cities, such as Oaxaca. Interestingly, the same plazas are full of Indigenous vendors wearing their traditional garb that offer garments with the same designs produced by them in a traditional manner, at lower prices. This process of appropriation does not stop there, as these expensive branded garments are exported and sold at other fancy destinations of the world, such as Santa Fe, NM in the United States.2 This book draws on my own fieldwork and research, which repeatedly took me to various areas of the “Old European” civilization,3 such as Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Hungary, Turkey, and Greece (Crete) (1970s– 2019), to Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Malta (1970s–2019), as well as to South, Central, and North America (Peru, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, USA, and Canada [1980s–2018]). I visited museum collections, open-air museums, and archeological sites; interviewed experts; participated in ritual ceremonies; and conducted research in on-site collections and archives. In addition, I attended related professional congresses, such as the ones of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM), the Mediterranean Studies Association (MSA), and the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), exchanging ideas and receiving feedback in different countries. The fieldwork, research, and conference exchanges were greatly facilitated by my crosscultural background and knowledge of pertinent languages, such as Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, French, and Latin, as well as basic notions of Quechua. As I was conducting this fieldwork in European, Near Eastern, and south, central, and north American locations, I started to notice striking analogies in designs and patterns, as well as in legends, tales, and beliefs. Many of the objects I encountered in my travels throughout the world were imbued with the same symbols and motifs I had observed since my earliest years in Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian artifacts and fairy tales. Among them were the star, the rhomb, the Goddess-flower Tree of Life, the Mistress of Animals, the Snow Maiden, the bird, the deer, and the dragon. They were present on weavings,

Introduction • 3

embroideries, paper cut-outs, Easter eggs, and wood and metal-carved objects, to mention just a few. Moreover, I lived surrounded with such designs in my own home. In addition, when I was working with the deer/elk persona, besides the iconography, I started to notice a real deer presence in my surroundings, finding their antlers and skulls nearby, and even deer visiting my back yard. I live in an urbanized area of San Antonio, Texas city limits, and these occurrences point to the likelihood that the deer is my nahual or power animal in the Native American system of beliefs (see Chapter 1, Note 27). Thanks to my particular life history of living in and extensively traveling to pertinent locations, as well as years of intentional study and participant observation, I have been able to witness and relate the beliefs, rituals, and iconography of several traditions, seemingly distant in time and place. In this book, I approach these topics, finding commonalities among the cosmology and symbols of the above-mentioned cultures, and demonstrating that, in spite of appearances, there is more that unites us than divides us. My approach coincides with that of the French structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who in his fieldwork noticed “striking parallels between art and mythology in societies which are widely separated in time and space” (Jacobson, Claire, xiv) and cannot be explained through cultural contacts, diffusion, or borrowings. He concluded that certain designs could only persist through extremely long stretches of time and in distant locations through internal connections that refer to a reality of a different order and have a social, magical, and religious function (Lévi-Strauss 258, 263). This idea is further reinforced by Joseph Campbell’s comparative mythology; he believed that the psychic unity of humankind is interconnected beyond thought and words and that it finds its expression through symbols, metaphors, and myths.4 This symbolic language appears in dreams, visons, religious art, and fairy tales and may be enacted through rituals. Symbols and myths convey sacred meanings and spiritual truths, and according to Carl Jung they are part of our collective unconscious, which is expressed in archetypal images in art, mythology, esoteric teaching, dreams, visions, and fairy tales. Nevertheless, we observe a “progressive impoverishment of symbolism,” as “[d]ogma takes the place of the collective unconscious [creating] dogmatic archetypal ideas.”5 To this view, I am contributing the depth of a feminine sensibility attuned to the dimensions of the “Mistress of All Creation” that appears in images and tales in anthropomorphic as well as zoomorphic forms. Moreover, I add a more precise analysis of the evolution of myth, religious ideas, and imagery throughout different social and economic systems. I am aware that mythology and religion respond to changing socio-economic circumstances and evolve through hunting-gathering, agrarian, pastoralist, feudal, and modern societies. As I pointed out earlier, there are different theories that ascribe the analogies in symbols and myths to various other reasons, such as migrations, borrowings, parallel developments due to similar natural cir-

4 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

cumstances, and human brain neurology. Although this discussion is beyond the scope of the present study, in my view, this phenomenon is largely due to the unity of humanity’s collective unconscious, in addition to the spread of ideas and patterns through migrations, throughout millennia. In Chapter 1, “Cervids and Their Associations,” I discuss ancient and contemporary beliefs related to the deer, elk, and reindeer in Eurasia and Indigenous Americas, including their role as the first parents of humanity, their relation to the earth, the sun, the cosmos, and their liminality. The deer as a symbol of sexuality, abundance, regeneration, and the hunt is also examined. Moreover, the mythical figures of the Mistress of Animals and the Animal Master, and their relation to cervids, are discussed. Chapter 2, “Goddess Civilizations and Their Symbols,” examines the prehistoric as well as the historical importance of Goddesses and women, as expressed in iconography, such as the Bird Goddess and the birth-giving Parturition Goddess. The process of degradation of the female-beast, the Mistress of All Creation, over time and changing economic conditions led to her transformation and replacement with anthropomorphic male images, producing a patriarchal system that incorporated Shamanism. Chapter 3, “Image of the Universe,” focuses on the ancient quadripartite horizontal, and the tripartite vertical divisions of the world—the image of the universe, as seen in the mythology and iconography of Eurasia and Mesoamerica. I pay special attention to the persistence and wide reach of the universal rhomb/diamond/lozenge, the quincunx, the “Parturition,” the Tree of Life, and the snake motifs, as well as to particular symbolic compounds, such as the Aztec Goddess Coatlicue. These ancient, universal ideas, expressed in myths and diagrams, to this day are widespread on different continents, including Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Chapter 4, “Weaving and Embroidery: A Semblance of the Cosmos,” discusses the great meaning of the sacred feminine action of weaving, and designs, embodied in fabrics and embroideries of contemporary Ukraine and of the Mayan people of southern Mexico and Guatemala. I focus on the eastern European Hutsul folk blouse and the Mesoamerican huipil and demonstrate how the main sacred concepts of their wearers’ worldviews are embodied in the woven and embroidered patterns, and how the women wearing those garments are equated with the central sun—the ancient Goddess and life-giving force of the universe.6 This book is intended for scholars and students of anthropology, mythology, ethnography, philosophy, comparative religions, Eurasian and eastern European studies, Latin American studies, Indigenous American studies, Women and Gender studies, as well as for the general public, for all those eager to unravel the mysteries imbued in the designs and patterns of everyday objects, traditional rituals, and their ancient significance.

Introduction • 5

Notes 1. I refer to the Ukrainian-Romanian-Moldovan Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization from ca. 5,500 to 2,250 BC, the Balkan Vinča from ca. 5,500 to 3,500 BC, the Starčevo-KörösCriş culture from the seventh millennium BC, the Karanovo culture from central Bulgaria, the Tisha from northern Greece, and the Anatolian, Çatal Höyük culture from ca. 6,300 to 5,500 BC, among others. 2. The irony is that Santa Fe, NM became a destination for the rich and famous as a consequence of its special Native American cultural appeal (my fieldwork in Oaxaca in 2016, and in Santa Fe in 2001). 3. “Old Europe”—term coined by the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to designate a native European, pre-Indo-European, agricultural, Goddess- and woman-centered civilization, dating from ca. 7,000 to 3,500 BC and characterized by common beliefs, practices, and iconography. This concept encompasses the geographical area of either all or part of today’s south-western Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Greece, and Turkey (see Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe 16). 4. See Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology; Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God; and Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God. 5. See C.G. Jung, Collected Works Vol 9.1: Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. 6. In his Myth and Symbol, Ariel Golan argues that in Neolithic religion the sun was a feminine deity, and the moon a masculine one (see discussion on pp. 54–56). This is confirmed by the gender of these words in Slavic languages, such as Polish, where the sun is neuter, and the moon, masculine. Similarly, in Norse mythology, there is the Sun Goddess Sol, and the Moon God Mani.

CHAPTER 1

Cervids and Their Associations

. . . protective lineage spirits identified with images of the mythical lineage mother and the land (taiga) always had a zoomorphic character. —F. Anisimov, Religiia evenkov . . . the deer image serves as a key to reading history and myth. —Esther Jacobson, The Deer Goddess

Great Animal Deity of the People of Neolithic Eurasia and the Americas The first known deities adored by humans of the northern hemisphere were of animal and animal-human nature. We can see this from the study of iconography on rupestrian art; ancient ceramics; Siberian shamans’ costumes, paraphernalia, and practices; pre-contact and contemporary Native American dances and rituals; as well as weavings, embroideries, paper cut-outs, Easter eggs, wood and metal carvings, and mythology transformed into legends, fairy tales, and rituals. Among them were aquatic birds, female cervid animals, such as doe-elk and doe, the she-bear, and possibly the snake. They represented the forces of nature, such as the heavens, the sun, and the earth itself, with their life-giving properties and heavenly and earthly moisture. The sun and the heavens were of feminine nature and were represented by the bird; the rain clouds were identified with heavenly she-elk udders; and the earth with its fertile waters was personified in earth animals such as the snake/reptile, the deer, the bear, and the dog. Some of these animals had connections both to heaven and to earth, or they were composites. The above is attested by Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic bird and bird-woman figurines decorated with aquatic symbols such as chevrons and meanders, which may be observed on Bird Goddess images with a beak and no mouth, such as those from the Vinča culture in Serbia.1 Moreover, four engravings that combine an elk and a water bird were found in the rock art of Lake Onega, in Karelia, northeastern Russia.2 The birth-giving Goddess had her sacred expression in the doe, and we can assume that the first known figure widely worshipped by humanity was a heavenly Mother of

Cervids and Their Associations • 7

the Universe, as source of life and death, represented by a giant she-elk or doe, and the sun. According to Anisimov (Religiia 103–4), she was the mythical lineage Mother and Mistress of Animals and the forest/land (taiga). On the other hand, Golan argues that the Paleolithic-Neolithic Goddess dwelling was heaven, and the earth belonged to the underworld God. This view was reverted in the Copper and Bronze Age (ca. 3,000–1,000 BC) with the Indo-European invasions, when masculine sky Gods were introduced and the feminine started to be identified with Mother Earth (236, 251). Nevertheless, it is possible that at first all nature—above and below—was conceived as feminine, as we must recall that the sky was considered a heavenly image of the earth—the heavenly taiga. There used to be a belief in a universal clan Mother of People and Animals, embodied in clan totems. In the extant Siberian Evenk culture, the generative elk-cow and the totemic mother was called Bugady Enintyn, and in the Ket culture was known as Khosedam/Tomam. Therefore, it is significant that buga means “strong, large, hoofed animal” (Anisimov, Religiia 104). This mythical animal was represented on the Neolithic petroglyphs on the cliffs of the Lena river as the Cosmic Elk Kheglen (Khelgun), and it refers to the constellation of the Great Bear. The visible sky is the heavenly taiga (forest) that corresponds to the earthly taiga, as it was believed that the upper and lower worlds are a version of the earthly one. The cliffs, trees, and rocks were, in fact, bugady—sacred and generative places where the three worlds—lower, middle, and upper—were joined (Jacobson, The Deer Goddess 212; Mykhailova, “Sex and Transition” 59; Vasilevich 50; Anisimov, “Cosmological” 161). There is a similar concept of wakas—powerful, sacred places and objects, such as caves and stones, among contemporary Indigenous peoples of the Andean region in South America.3 The Evenk Mother of Animals, People, and the Universe, Bugady Enintyn, was an elk-cow. This clan spirit was the Mistress of the taiga and the animals, as well as their mother. It is interesting to note that remnants of this collective memory persist to this day. For example, in the Kyrgyz Bugu tribe, personal stories are being told of a “great-grandmother who had little horns on her head” (Colorado 243), and in Gilyak myths, this horned Mother of the Universe bears heavenly luminous bodies—two suns and two moons—on her horns, and her dwelling is the larch tree (Anisimov, “Cosmological” 168, 172–73). The ancestry of cervids may be traced to the Oligocene mammals, some 24 to 23 million years ago; in the Miocene, 23 to 5 million years back, their fossils appeared in Eurasia; and around 5 million years ago, cervids entered North America, from where they gradually expanded to Central and South America (Looper 22). Deer worship dates back to the Pleistocene-Holocene Era, 2.6 million to 11,700 BC, which corresponds to the end of the Paleolithic and the Ice Age. The veneration of deer may be observed as early as the Upper Paleolithic in El Juyo, northern Spain, where a 14,000-year-old special deer burial

8 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

was found. Moreover, masks and plaques of deer skulls with antlers abound in European Mesolithic and Neolithic sites, such as Star Carr, England. In addition, ancient burials with deer antlers were found in the Balkan Lepenski Vir, Germany, Denmark, and France, among others; deer sacrificial rituals were performed, and rock images of deer and people with deer features exist in Eurasia and the Americas (Mykhailova, “Mify/Deer Myths” 42; Mykhailova, “Deer Offerings” 53, 55–56; Gimbutas, The Civilization 223). As discussed above, an abundance of rupestrian art from caves and rock walls in western Europe and Siberia centers on the depiction of enormous elk figures, as well as reindeer and deer. The figures are clearly magical, as they appear oversized, stylized, or are rendered in curious, symbolic conglomerations. As Jacobson notes, the “most important image . . . carved and painted on the cliffs over the great Siberian rivers . . . was that of a female elk . . . in monumental size” (The Deer Goddess 14). At the center of the tradition of ScythoSiberian cultures, which dominated the Eurasian steppe in the first millennium BC, was also an antlered animal—a deer and an elk. Within the famous frozen Pazyryk burials,4 frequent findings were images of women wearing rich robes and “headdresses of fur, leather, felt, and gold, all ornamented with deer heads, saiga (antelope) heads, and birds” (Jacobson, The Deer Goddess 2, 10– 11). The idea of two celestial life-giving Elk-/Deer-Mothers can also be found in European myths and folklore dating back to the Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic, on Copper Age vessels, shamanic plates and, as late as the first half of the twentieth century, on Polish and Ukrainian Easter egg decorations, the top of which was painted with a cloud with two Heavenly Elks or deer facing each other, later substituted by two horses (Figure 1.1). This transformation

Figure 1.1. Two horses in a cloud, Easter egg. Poland, early twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Cervids and Their Associations • 9

from cervids to horses may also be observed on objects from the Siberian Pazyryk burials, where horse bridles were frequently decorated with images of elks and other animals, and where horse masks were found with antlers suggesting plants.5 Based on headdresses from south Siberian Russia burials of Tuekta and Pazyryk, as well as Issyk (Kyrgyzstan), we observe “[t]he transformation of antlers into tree-like forms, the branches of which end in bird heads, [which] suggests that antlers and wings were a metaphor for trees or for the central axial tree” (Jacobson, The Deer Goddess 77). I discuss the meaning of the deer as well as the Cosmic Tree in Middle American cultures in Chapter 3. The birdheaded antlers insinuate tree branches, and the raptor heads may be seen as a metaphor for death and renewal, as birds of prey seized their victims on earth and carried them to heaven, thus encompassing the cycle of death and regeneration. This metaphor of transformation and regeneration explains the tradition of the “heavenly burial” practice, common in many cultures, where bodies were exposed in high places for boning by birds of prey.6 Another image, on a crown carved with a female bust, found in Pazyryk, was an elaborate large tree in the upper part and, on both of its sides, “antlered deer, horned caprids, smaller trees, and water birds” (Jacobson, The Deer Goddess 81, 83, 86). This scene points to a myriad of iconographic representations in contemporary folk arts from eastern Europe, Anatolia, and the Americas. Examples are the most popular Polish paper cut-outs, and Russian embroideries with a large tree in the center flanked by the oblig- Figure 1.2. Tree flanked by three pairs of atory birds (Figure 1.2), woven birds, paper cut-out. Poland, twenty-first Turkish kilims (Figure 1.3), as century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

10 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

Figure 1.3. Tree with deer and birds, detail at center of a woven kilim. Anatolia (Turkey), twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

well as embroidered or woven Mayan, Nahua, and Navajo trees and plants, flanked by deer and birds (Figure 1.4). In addition, scenes of diverse mythical animals, mainly deer and birds, are still a popular motif in contemporary Middle American folk embroideries. This central axial tree stands for the Goddess of All Creation, later transformed into the Mistress of Animals and Plants. The Sacred Tree, as known in the eastern hemisphere, may be identified with the original Goddess figure, which is similar in shape. Her source is the above-mentioned life-giving sun, and the Deer-Mother who was transformed into a diagram that later became

Figure 1.4. Embroidered blouse, Goddess as plant, flanked by animals. Oaxaca, Mexico, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Cervids and Their Associations • 11

identified with a plant, flower, or vase. The ancient feminine persona, often portrayed giving birth, flanked by animals, evolved into such designs as the Tree of Life (Figure 1.5), the plant (Figure 1.6 and Figure 1.7), the flower (Figure 1.8), and even the cross with angels (Figure 1.9). This image is prominently shown on contemporary wedding garments from the Carpathian Hutsul region in Ukraine, on traditional Polish wardrobes, on the baba/lalka (Goddess) with birds (Figure 1.10), and the Goddess-flower images on Polish paper cutouts, as well as on Ukrainian and Russian embroideries, as discussed above. In western Europe, the Goddess motif was entirely transformed into a flower or a vase design. Cervid imagery has been preserved in scenes showing two deer flanking a tree, or deer with antlers becoming the Tree of Life.7 The deer as the mediator between the worlds of humans, the dead, and the divine may

Figure 1.5. Goddess as Tree of Life, paper cut-out. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

Figure 1.6. Embroidered rushnyk, Goddess as plant with birds and bees. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Figure 1.7. Goddess as plant, with spread arms and legs, metal incrustation in wood. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

Figure 1.8. Goddess as flower. Walls of a rural house. Central Poland, late nineteenth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Cervids and Their Associations • 13

be identified with the Tree of Life as the axis between the sky, the earth, and the netherworld. In fact, among the Nahuatl of Puebla, Mexico, deer antlers are considered branches of the Cosmic Tree, and the covoquichtli (youth of the tree) can turn into a deer (Mateos Segovia, “Venadoserpiente” 45). Moreover, branched deer antlers symbolize seven flowers, and Chicome Xochitl (“Deer”) signifies “Seven Flower” (Looper 159). Indeed, when placed together, deer antlers are hardly distinguishable Figure 1.9. Goddess with birds, transfrom tree branches both in color and formed into a cross with angels, paper consistency. cut-out. Poland, twentieth century. As mentioned above, in Eurasia, © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba. ancient myths talk about the human and animal ancestor as a horned mother, “the Animal Mother: the deer-mother as Tree of Life and as source of life and death” (Jacobson, The Deer Goddess 47). The Mother-Beast is then the primary ancestral totem, the progenitor of humans and animals. This makes sense when we take into consideration that mammals, including cervids, predate humans on earth by millions of years. In addition, myths and legends talk about the fluid boundary between humans and deer, in that they can transform into each other, usually through marriage and through entering the home (Mykhailova, “Mify pro olenya/Deer Myths” 38–40). This threshold constitutes the symbolic boundary or limen8 between the wild and the domestic world that is being trespassed. In the Americas as well, there are myths and rituals that attest to the totemic origin of the mutability between humans and animals, and the limits between humans and animals are porous. According to the Huichol, “[t]he first beings in the world were not Huichol but héwi and naúwata, that were persons and animals simultaneously.” All beings used to talk, and their myths talk about the “quail-men” and the “ant-men.”9 Moreover, in the south-eastern California Coso Range, the greatest concentration of prehistoric rock drawings in the Western Hemisphere, dating from ca. 4,000 BC to AD 1,000, there is a great number of animal-human figures with decorated torsos, as well as similar later conflations of the Kawaiisu (Animal Master) (Mukhopadhyay Prasad and Garfinkel 54, 56–57). In the western Canadian Haida Indian myth “The Origin of the Fire,” a crow that was immaculately conceived and born of a woman married a seashell, had a daughter with her, and repopulated the earth, after the deluge and destruction of the human race. In the Pawnee Indian story “The Bear-Man,”

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we can observe the shifting between man and beast in the identification of both. In this story, the man invented the Bear Dance, and both man and bear die simultaneously.10 Among the ancient and contemporary Maya as well as other Mesoamerican cultures, the boundary between beast and human is also permeable. This is attested by iconography in codices, on stone stelas, ceramic vases, as well as in rituals, such as the hunt, the war, the ballgame, and in dances. There is a connection between this changeability and the discussed later symbolic role of the deer as a liminal being—liminal between the forest wilderness and the culture of human agriculture and the village, between night and day, as it prefers to graze Figure 1.10. Lalka (“doll”)—Goddess at dawn and dusk, as well as between hunter and sacrificial victim, and vice holding birds, paper cut-out. Poland, versa. In the blurring of human and beginning of the twentieth century. non-human, we can find not only dei© Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba. ties as human-animal composites but also animal-humans, as well as zoomorphic headdresses and masks, and animal compounds such as the chiichan or “deer-snake”—a supernatural horned serpent. Moreover, in regard to the hunt, the metaphorical transformation of other into self may be expressed by the killing and consumption of animals, and of self into other by copulation with the deer daughter of the mythical Earth Lord or Animal Owner (Looper 175, 202, 204).

The Mistress of Animals and the Animal Master The origin of the Mistress of Animals and Plants is found in the generative aspect of the Paleolithic Goddess of Life, Death and Regeneration that may have begun as astral and atmospheric phenomena, such as the sun and moisture. This mother was anthropomorphic as well as zoomorphic, represented as deer, elk, and bear, as evidenced in sculptures of pregnant deer, bear mothers, and in myths. 11 A revealing sculpture from early sixth millennium BC, Hacilar, Anatolia, shows the Mistress of Animals seated on a leopard and holding a leopard

Cervids and Their Associations • 15

cub. Other Anatolian and Greek Goddesses from the sixth to first millennium BC are portrayed with beasts, seated between two leopards or lions (see Figure 2.1), or standing, flanked by, or holding two felines, thus expressing their power over life and death as Mistresses of Beasts (Hirsch 39, 83). A series of Eurasian myths focuses on the figure of the Mistress of Animals and culture hero,12 the protector of hunting and wild animals (Mykhailova, “Mify pro olenya/Deer Myths” 40–41). Her origin can be found in the totemic mother, Bugady Enintyn, discussed earlier. The Mistress of Animals motif is widespread in Caucasian folklore, and popular Slavic fairy tales. In the famous Afanas’ev’s collection of ancient Russian tales, the Mistress of Animals as well as the deer motif appear frequently. In the stories, humans and animals can change into one another, and animals have magical powers and speak with a human voice, similar to the above-mentioned Huichol and Mixe myths from the Americas. In “Elena the Wise” (Afanas’ev 545–49), Elena (Jelena/Yelena), whose name is related to olen’ (Russ.)/jeleń (Pol.) (“deer”),13 is the ruler of doves; in “Baba Yaga” (363–65), all nature, including animals, the forest, and the river, acts according to the wishes of a young girl, and in “The Speedy Messenger” (124–30), the young man, Semyon, can turn into a stag, hare or bird, and thanks to these animal abilities he is able to marry Princess Maria. Among Polish tales with magical animals capable of performing miracles are “Złota kaczka” (“The Golden Duck”) and “O wężowej wdzięczności” (“About Snake’s Gratitude”) (Berowska, Polskie legendy i podania 37–40 and 47–50). In the Finnish tale “The Forest Bride,” the young man, Veikko, finds a skillful sweetheart in the forest who is a mouse able to change into a princess (Cole 387–94). Like many other fairy tales, these stories are clearly not just phantasy entertainment for children. On the contrary—they carry vestiges of ancient religious beliefs contained in myths and rituals and may be regarded as proof of their longstanding existence and continuity. Another good example is the Polish “Srebrnorogi jeleń” (“The Silver-antlered Deer”) (Kann, Królewna 101–17). In this tale from south-western Poland, the protagonist is a silverantlered, silver-hoofed, magical deer that has dominion over all nature—the earth, animals, and humans. Interestingly, his antlers are compared to the moon, and his hoofs to the stars—he is indeed a celestial deer. He speaks with a human voice and is in charge of earth treasures and their distribution, as well as being a mediator between marriageable couples. He helps a young woman, Bogna, to be reunited with her love, Sambor. In fact, the relationship between Bogna and the deer resembles that of a couple because of their secret understanding and mutual protection. Thus, the deer may be seen as a substitute for the man of her dreams. These characteristics coincide with Golan’s view of the deer as an earth animal and the master of the lower world who is masculine and in charge of all nature and earth treasures. Nevertheless, he also has command of the heavenly realm, because of his silver antlers and hoofs. The way the deer

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is described in this tale may indicate its very ancient origin; it also coincides with the Middle and North American view of the deer as Animal Master, discussed below. This tale can be considered a remnant of a series of myths that show deer as protectors of fertility, abundance, and marriage (Mykhailova, “Mify pro olenya/Deer Myths” 38, 42–43) that can fluctuate between the animal and the human world. In the ancient Mochica culture from the desert of the Peruvian northern Pacific coast, dating from AD 200–600, the famous tomb of the Lord of Sipán was discovered in 1987. Among the frescoes, there is a scene where deer and felines are throwing flower offerings, begging the God of the Milky Way for the good health of their master, as well as other scenes portraying the deer hunt.14 Here, too, the animals are connected to the earthly as well as to the heavenly realm. Moreover, in Buddhism, the deer represents harmony, happiness, peace, and longevity. A male and a female deer flanking the dharma wheel, as represented atop a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, symbolize the first turning of the wheel by the Buddha while teaching at Varanasi. Tibetan legends also allude to deer helping people solve their problems.15 A personage related to the Eurasian Mistress of Animals is the immortal Animal Master of the Americas, who has been identified in many hunting cultures worldwide as the protector of animals, withholding or offering them to human hunters, and he watches over their regeneration. Interestingly, his daughters are perceived as does. This figure is prominently featured in the Coso Rock Art Complex of eastern California, one of the largest rock art accumulations in North America.16 An example is the Kawaiisu Animal Master of the Back Canyon pictogram in Walker Basin. This supernatural figure is depicted as an animal-human with a feathered or horned headdress, and claw-like feet and hands (Garfinkel, “Myth, Ritual” 2, 8, 10), similar to Siberian shamanic outfits. Moreover, oral traditions from the area of the Coso Patterned Body Anthropomorphs (PBA) talk about an Animal Master or Mistress/Mother (Mukhopadhyay Prasad and Garfinkel 63). There are also animal-human conflations with antlers from the Mesolithic and Neolithic Iberian Peninsula, Germany, France, England, and northern Eurasia. In addition, contemporary hunting disguises, and shamanic dress, in Middle America, North America and Eurasia, include antlered cervid headdresses and coats made from deer hides (Mykhailova and Garfinkel, “Horned Hunter” 6–13). Among the ancient and contemporary Maya, El Dueño de los Animales (The Animal Owner or Earth Lord), a deity that protects them, may be identified with the deer, as seen in the vase from Ixtapa, Chiapas, discussed in the “Liminal Nature of Deer” section. In addition, his daughters are said to manifest as does. The Maya and the Nahua Indians of the central Mexican Puebla state believe that El Dueño de los Animales (The Owner of Animals) or El Señor del Monte (The Master of the Mountain/Vegetation) has to give permission to the hunters to access his daughters—the does. In the Amazonian

Cervids and Their Associations • 17

jungle, the Vaí-mahse or Animal Master dominates the forest, and the shaman or payé is charged with negotiating the number of game animals to be killed in exchange for humans, who would reincarnate as animals. Taking the form of a small animal, The Animal Master may cohabit with women. He is a procreator of the animals, a hunter and a patron of hunters (Campbell, Historical 347). In the mythical world of the Andean region, the Animal Master manifests as Yanaraman, a creature that fell from the sky (Pease 165–67). Another group of myths talks about a voluntary sacrifice of deer to agrarian saints, and saintly figures in different cultures are portrayed accompanied by deer. Examples are The Vision of Saint Eustace by Pisanello (Italy, fifteenth century), Saint Giles and the Hind (France, ca. 1,500), Saint Hubert (Hubertus), a seventh-century German patron saint of hunting who had a vision of a deer, Saint Francis, the Buddha, as well as the Greek Goddess of wilderness and hunt, Artemis (Roman Diana). Both in Eurasia and in the Americas, the pursuit of the magical deer leads to royal power, and the deer may also become a guide to a new land, as in the Iron Age migrations, and a mediator with God (Mykhailova, “Mify pro olenya” 38–44). Such deer may lead heroes to the realms of Gods, and they often have golden or silver antlers and hoofs. In Welsh and Irish contexts, they are considered the “oldest animal” (Ross 334, 338). The identification of deer and sun, and a similar function of the deer as mediator, is also present among the Middle American Maya (Hernández Soc and Galeotti Moraga 59), as discussed below. Nevertheless, the deer seems to be the one who carries the sun through the sky during the day and under the earth at night, rather than being the sun itself (Golan 53). In addition, many flags, coats of arms and heraldic symbols of countries, states, cities, and families around the world contain images of the deer or elk/moose, attesting to the great traditional importance of this animal. Examples are the flags of Ireland, Chile, Grodno (Belarus), and the coats of arms of Argentina, Chile, the state of Yucatán (Mexico), Barbuda and Antigua, Mauritius, as well as Canada’s Ontario Province, and the state of Michigan in the USA. Moreover, as reported by J. G. McKay, there are strong indications in traditions, customs, and tales that in the highlands of Scotland there existed a preCeltic deer cult as well as a Deer-Goddess cult, which was universal in Europe. In England and Germany, there were stag dances performed by men dressed as women. It is also remarkable that the Gaelic word fiadh signifies both “deer” and “god,” similar to the word bugu, which in many northern and central Asian languages means “reindeer,” “elk,” “horse,” and “god,” as well as “supreme being,” “nature,” and “heaven” (Mykhailova and Garfinkel 5). In Scottish Gaelic fairy tales, the female deer is a supernatural animal, and the Deer-Goddesses, the bean-sìdhe, appear as old and gigantic, benevolent or ferocious supernatural women who own, herd, and milk deer. Deer could also change into women, and the Celtic Goddess Flidais, mistress of wild things, could shapeshift

18 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

into a deer. She was the “owner of supernatural cattle and protectress of deer herds” (Ross 336) Nevertheless, currently, the deer-priestesses in tales appear demonized, as witches.17 In this context, the ancient God, Cernunnos, calls our attention. He is gigantic, wears antlers or horns (McKay, “The Deer-Cult” 147–49, 169) and, as the Slavic witch Baba Yaga, he is chthonic and prefers the squatting position. All above indications point to the female-animal origin of Cernunnos. In an opposite view, it is also possible that he is a remnant of the underworld God, represented by the deer.

The Hunt and the Celestial Hunt Among the Evenks of North Asia, the constellation of the Great Bear is called Khelgen (“elk”), as well as the “North Star” or the “Evening and Morning Star” (Vasilevich 50). The concept of the Heavenly Elk chase originated in the context of the sky as the heavenly taiga, discussed earlier. In northern Eurasia, the reindeer pursuit or Celestial Hunting motif—part of the earliest mytho-ritual system—was combined with the idea of regeneration-resurrection and originated the heavenly hunting theme. The cervid worship was linked to the sun cult, and many portrayals of deer with solar and astral symbols can be found in northern Eurasia and central Asia, during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age (Mykhailova, “Celestial” 34, 36). Ernits reports that the idea of the “heavenly hunter” is based on prehistoric myths and tales, and on images in which a giant hunter chases the sun represented as a golden-horned reindeer, or where a hunter chases a predator pursuing a Sun-Elk, among others (Ernits 62). The above suggests a longstanding association of the elk/deer with the sun, manifested in the elk-deer as carrier of the sun or its identification with it. The Celestial Hunting motif is present in the rock art of northern Eurasia from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, as well as in contemporary Bulgarian, Russian, and Georgian folklore. This Heavenly Hunting theme is connected with the deer-sun motif and with the constellations, especially the Big Dipper, identified with the elk-deer, and creating astral myths (Mykhailova, “Celestial Deer” 37). As the deer carries the sun or/and is identified with it, the Heavenly Hunt reflects the chase of the sun that disappears each evening, and each morning is resurrected in the sky, thus being connected to the passage of time. This is reflected in images on Mesoamerican plates and dances, European Neolithic vases, as well as on contemporary Ukrainian Motynka dolls, as described below. In the Americas, the deer is a polyvalent sign, with strong solar and cosmogonic implications, as well. Its significance is reflected in the Deer Dance (“Danza del venado”) of the Pueblo Mayo of Sonora, Mexico, among others, in which the movement of the Deer Dancer takes place around the four positions, marked by four groups of musicians, that indicate the four universal

Cervids and Their Associations • 19

directions. Here, the deer represents the movement of the sun in the daily horizon. The same concept is symbolically portrayed on a plate from Xolalpan, Mexico, from AD 550–650. On this cream-colored plate, one can observe four red deer circling around a central red sun, all framed by a red horizon line around the vessel. The movement of the deer-sun around the four directions indicates the movement of the sun during the year, as well as the passage of time, and the plate constitutes a cosmogonic statement (Reséndiz Machón). Similarly, on a painted Mayan vase representing the ballgame,18 we can see four players with different black, red, yellow, and white deer headdresses converging on a central player—possible hunting deity—also with a headdress and a black face. The scene bears a strong cosmological symbolism. In fact, the deer hunt, the warfare, and the ballgame are related, liminal rituals, and the ball court stands for the cave as portal to the underworld (Looper 110–11): in the Popol Vuh the twins play the ball game with the lords of the underworld, the Xibalbá. The connection of the deer to the hunt, including the celestial hunt and the cosmological combat of the planets, is evident in Mesoamerica, as portrayed in the scenes of the Dresden Codex 60a, 45b, in which God K of the thunderstorm with deer features is portrayed three times—falling from the planets Mars and Mercury, from Mars and the Moon, and from Jupiter and Venus, and in 45c, in which this “lightning animal” (animal del rayo) appears lying knocked down on the ground with its head and tongue up, according to Villacorta (89, 91) (Figure 1.11). In fact, the deer was the primary animal associated with sacrificial offerings for rain among the ancient Maya, and blood was offered in exchange for rain “to restore cosmic and community health” (Looper 107, 188). As the deer is linked to sacrifice and ritual death (Tozzer and Allen 348–51), it is also related to regeneration and fertility. According to Thompson (“The Moon Goddess” 150), the sun, moon, and the morning star are associated with the deer, and the Tzutujil Indians of San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala, believe that the sun God travels across the sky sitting on a deer. God M, classified by Schellhas (“Representations of Deities” 36) as war-like God of traveling merchants, and a God of hunting by Thompson (Maya Hieroglyphic 76), is related to and appears with deer horns in the Madrid Codex. Thompson considers God R to be a patron of deer and other animals, their protection, and their hunt, and Manik—the day of deer and hunting, the third Yucatec month of Zip, is one of the Gods of the hunt—while Ceh—the twelfth month—means “deer” (Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic 76, 108, 111–12, 135; Montolíu 157). Three Mayan ceramic vessels appear to be showing the sacred hunt. On two plates, humans and deer have similar attributes, such as the color black. On the plate from Yucatán, Mexico, hunters are dressed as deer (Montolíu fig. 7); on the other, hunters are shown carrying deer and bundles, circling a central deer (Looper 45, fig. 2.9). The color black symbolizes the hunt and war. The third object, a vase from Actun Balam, Belize, presents a mythic scene in

20 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

Figure 1.11. God K as deer, falling from the planets (b, middle), and knocked down on the ground (c, bottom). Dresden Codex, p. 45bc. Mayan, Post-Classical. Public domain.

Cervids and Their Associations • 21

which two deer are being hunted, both bleeding, and one is on two feet with flowers in its mouth and a woman sitting on its back.19 In addition, a woman riding a deer is represented on a Mayan plate.20 Golan reports that as the sun had a feminine character in the Paleolithic and Neolithic, images of deer and elk carrying a woman or the sun were frequent in Eurasia (see 52, fig. 62). In the Mayan Classical Period (ca. AD 250–900), there is much evidence about deities associated with the hunt, such as the young God CH, connected to wilderness and the night and covered with a jaguar pelt, who may have served as the King of the Forest or Owner of Game Animals in Middle America, as in the painted vase showing him receiving tribute from animals; God S—the youthful, death-spotted, day and community connected hunter; the aged God D, and God N.21 There is abundant data on hunting Gods and rites in the Madrid (Tro-Cortesianus) Codex. There are images of hunting on pages 38–41, of trapped deer on 42–49 (Figure 1.12), and Siip (Zip) is presented as a black hunter with spear, deer headdress, hooked instrument, and a net tunic on pages 50b (Figure 1.13) and 51c. Huk Siip (“Seven Zip”) is probably a guardian of animals, hunting, and warfare, and in Dresden 13c he is portrayed as an aged personage with the hunting camouflage of black body strips and an antler, in front of his wife—the doe (Looper 138). Hunt scenes, as well as heads and other deer parts as offerings to the Gods, can also be seen in other codices, such as Dresden, and possibly Paris (Peresianus), Plate 10. As discussed, deer represent a major cosmological concept in Mayan culture. Primarily, they bear a solar symbolism, being a metaphor for the setting and rising sun. On the Calcethok, Yucatán, vase from the Late Classic Maya period, there are two scenes. On one, an antler is removed from an honored deer, draped in a mantle, by an individual with large black spots, possibly one of the supernatural hunters—aspects of God S. One of them sounds a conch, and a vulture hovers above the deer. On the other scene, two humanized deer are sitting under a personified tree wrapped up by a serpent, while supernatural hunters can be seen in the background. According to Looper, this vase’s images possibly refer to the death and transformation of a mythical paternal figure— God S, solar deity—Piltzintecuhtli, an aspect of the Nahua Mixcóatl, transformed into a deer. In Huichol mythology, he is Kauyumari, the Sacred Deer Person and culture hero. Thus, deer is a metaphor for the setting sun and the death of the father, as well as the rising sun as the apotheosis of the son. Moreover, the cervid animal was associated with the dry season (February–April) and the vernal equinox (21 March), when the antlers were shed and the sun was believed to descend to the underworld. This period also constituted the Maya hunting season. It was believed that the deer bore the sun during dry season (Handbook of the Robert Woods Bliss Collection, plate 78; Looper 154–59, 162, 167–68; Montolíu 152; Pendergast 160). In Maya celestial symbolism, the sun was believed to be chasing the stars at dawn, and among the Cora and the Huichol, stars are understood as deer, and the sun or his assistant—the Morn-

22 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

Figure 1.12. Trapped deer. Madrid Codex, p. 45. Mayan, PostClassical. Public domain.

Cervids and Their Associations • 23

Figure 1.13. Siip (Zip) as black hunter. Madrid Codex, p. 50b. Public domain.

24 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

ing Star—chases the stars each morning. The silver-hoofed, silver-antlered celestial deer from the above-mentioned Polish fairy tale “Srebrnorogi jeleń” is clearly related to the night sky, as well. The shine of his antlers is compared to the moon, and the hoofs—to the stars.

Solar Symbolism and the Sun Diagram During the early agricultural times of the Neolithic, there was a belief in a Heaven Goddess—the Great Goddess—and possibly an Earth God. The Sun was also of the feminine gender and was considered the Heaven Goddess’ daughter. In folklore, she is still perceived as the “Sun Maiden.” In Japanese mythology and the Shinto religion, Amaterasu is the Goddess of Heaven and Sun, and her brother Tsukuyomi is the Moon God. The powerful Neolithic Sun and Heaven Goddess was diminished and transformed into Goddesses of the dawn, noon, and evening. Their Polish remnants, often demonized, are Jutrzenka, Południca, and Wieczornica. Nevertheless, there is a long list of Sun Goddesses across cultures, such as the Hindu Aditi, the Lithuanian and Latvian Saule, the Basque Ekhi, the Germanic Sunna/Sol/Sonne, the Hittite Sun Goddess of Arinna, the Australian Aboriginal Wala and Wuriupranili, and the Alaskan, Inuit Akycha, among many others. In Slavic languages, the sun has a neuter gender (to słońce—Polish, eto solntse—Russian), and the moon tends to be masculine (ten księżyc—Polish). In the Norse pantheon, Sol is the Sun Goddess and Mani—the Moon God. The above concepts are corroborated by the fact that the Siberian Tunguska Evenks gave the sun the feminine gender and called her Enin Shivun (“Mother Sun”), and the sky—Nangny Yaya (“Mother Sky”). The word “mother” is still added to the names of important Russian rivers, mountains, and the land (e.g., “Mother Russia”), attesting to the prominent role of women in ancient Eurasian societies (Vasilevich 52, 75). Similarly, among the Finno-Ugric Sami people of north-eastern Europe’s Finland, Russia, Sweden, and Norway, Biejvve (Sun) used to be considered female and the Mother of all living things. This Mother Goddess brought warmth, healing, and made the grass grow to feed the reindeer. The sun is represented in the center of contemporary Sami shaman drums made of reindeer skin, and its four rays indicating the four directions are called the “reins of the sun” (Joy). Thus, the sun is identified with the reindeer, similarly to Mesoamerican peoples, for whom the deer can also be the carrier of the sun, as seen in myths and rituals described in this book. Moreover, enormous, spectacular silver headdresses with horns and sun rays between them, as well as heavy silver neck rings symbolizing the sun, are still used for special occasions by women of the Miao minority in the southwest Chinese Guizhou province. The surface of the horns is covered with dragons and fish, with a sun disc in their center (Figure 1.14).

Cervids and Their Associations • 25

Figure 1.14. The sun between horns, and neck rings, silver. Ceremonial dress of the Miao minority women of China. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

The sun, as giver of light, warmth, fertility, healing, dynamism, energy, life force, as well as symbolic brightness and order, opposite to primeval darkness and chaos, has been worshipped by many civilizations. In Egypt, the sun symbol accompanied Goddesses and Gods, such as Isis, Hathor, Horus, and Ra—

26 • Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas

the sun God. Moreover, the sun has been regarded as the eye of the Mother of All, the eye of Allah, “the guardian of universal order” and “over millennia, solar rays have seemed to transfer magical properties of fertility, creativity, prophecy, healing and even . . . a living potentiality for wholeness . . .” (Ronnberg and Martin 22; Kopaliński 387). The sun diagram manifested not only as the lozenge in Native American art but especially as the Neolithic and Copper Age circle symbol or round motif with a cross, star, or swastika inside, as well as the votive solar cart with the Goddess, first pulled by ducks or water birds as in the solar carts from Dupljaja, Serbia from 3,500 BC, and later by horses. It is believed that “[d]uring the Neolithic, a boat symbolized the movement of the sun westwards; according to an Egyptian myth, the sun within a boat sails along subterranean waters from west to east at night.” Images of paired birds with a sun in the center are known from Hungary (800 BC), Denmark (1,500 BC), and with paired horses from Crimea (AD 300). The birds and horses look in opposite directions, which may indicate the movement of the sun “forward” to the west, and “backward” to the east (Golan 198–99). Solar signs changed their meaning and acquired even more importance in the Bronze Age, after the invasions of Europe by Indo-European pastoralists from the east, ca. 4,400–3,500 BC, as they were male sun-God worshippers.22 Similarly, pre-Inca and Inca cultures revered the sun, and the Inca himself, as well as other rulers, was identified with the sun (Inti) or considered a son of the sun God. Today, Mesoamerican cultures perceive a diagram in the center of a diamond design as the sun, and among the Huichol, a series of concentric diamonds with a smaller diamond in the center is called nierika, el ojo de dios (“the eye of god”) motif (Mukhopadhyay Prasad and Garfinkel 64). Different variations of solar signs, such as circles, may be seen on female statuettes; circles, crosses, and swastikas appear on ceramics from Neolithic and Copper Age Europe and from the Americas, as well as on contemporary folk utensils and kitchen objects from Poland and Ukraine. An interesting phenomenon is a series of ca. thirty-five circular symbols with different variations of cross-like designs, concentric circles, or sun/star motifs inside, placed on the bottom of Neolithic vessels from the Carpathian-Balkan region (see Sirbu and Pandrea 193–202). The puzzling fact is that these designs were normally not visible to the viewers, so their function could not be mere decoration, and the idea of the “subterranean night sun” hidden from view during the course of the day, suggested by Rybakov and others, comes to mind. The night sun was believed to return from the west to the east, floating on the subterranean river (Kopaliński 389). Interestingly, in Mayan culture, as well, when the sun sets, it is assumed that it travels under the earth as “the night sun” (Morris, Diseño 20). Many vases from the Werteba I assemblage of Bilcze Złote, in the western part of the Neolithic Trypillian civilization,

Cervids and Their Associations • 27

Figure 1.15. Gwiazda (star). Paper cut-outs. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

also have distinct crosses on their bottoms (see Kadrow 187–88). It is remarkable that almost identical but more elaborated circular designs, called Gwiazda (“Star”),23 are perhaps the most common ornamental motif in traditional and contemporary Polish paper cut-out art (Figure 1.15) and are prominently featured on wooden objects such as nineteenth- to twentiethcentury wedding chests from Poland the Ukraine. Similar motifs exist in the Turkish and Greek cultures, as well as on the “rosettes” of Catholic churches, among others. A related tradition in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Serbia—all parts of the Neolithic “Old European” universe—is the elaboration and consumption of ritual bread, called kołacz/korovai. These wheat or rye breads are usually made in the form of a braided circle and may be adorned with suns, moons, birds, and pine cones. The predominant colors of these decorations are red, gold, and silver. Kołacze/korovai are ritually baked and consumed on all important occasions, such as weddings, funerals, Christmas, and Easter, depending on the region. They are considered a symbol of good luck, prosperity, fertility, and eternity. Sometimes a candle is lit in the middle. Particular kołacze I observed at the open-air museum of National Folk Architecture and Rural Life in Lviv, Ukraine, were baked entirely of grain and maintained their natural yellow color; they were formed with four circling swastika-like protrusions, similar to breasts with nipples, and the center was sometimes filled with smaller objects made of the same dough (Figure 1.16). On occasions, the swirl was made by itself and then it resembled a coiled snake. These kołacz forms are a clear remnant of the ancient feminine sun adoration, also reproduced on many other objects, such as wedding chests, paper cut-outs, neck rings, and necklaces. As is the case of many contemporary symbols and rituals, the people currently making, wearing, and performing them are not aware of their ancient meaning, but the tradition is strong enough to

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Figure 1.16. Kołacz/korovai: Sun symbolism, two pairs of breasts, and the four directions, dough. Lviv, Ukraine, 1970s–1980s. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

have them perpetuated as something sacred and indispensable, for thousands of years.

Deer as Symbol of Abundance, Cosmic Regeneration, and Resurrection Both in Eurasia and the Americas, deer were symbols of abundance and cosmic regeneration, while deer and their hunting were metaphors of sexuality and fertility (Looper 71, 77). The hunt as seduction is discussed elsewhere in this book. Deer shed their antlers every year, and the antlers as well as crania and bones underwent special ritual treatment; they were deposited in caves and shrines for symbolic regeneration. Bones were identified with seeds that are

Cervids and Their Associations • 29

reborn to life from a dormant state. Crania and antlers were also used in propitiatory dances, hides constituted part of ritual clothing, and, among the Maya, the meat was consumed, mainly by elites. In addition, among the ancient Maya, deer were symbols of high political status, as well as masculinity. The strong deer sexual energy was enacted in dances and rituals, there was ritual killing and eating of the animal, and the bones and horns were buried and honored in a special way so the animal could be reborn. The self-renewing antlers became a symbol of regeneration and replenishment. This concept persisted in the idea of the deer as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection, as expressed in west Ukrainian and Polish Easter eggs well into the twentieth century (Mykhailova, “Deer Offerings” 56). Among the Hñahñu communities of Hidalgo, Mexico, first conquered by the Aztecs and then by the Spaniards during colonial times, the deer started to be syncretized with Christ as the sacrificial victim. Currently, it is believed that the deer self-sacrifices to protect Christ: “Over time, the deer came to be seen as the quintessential victim of sacrifice, replacing both human sacrifice and divine sacrifice, namely that of Jesus Christ” (Hers Areti and Luna Tavera 63–64, 88). Moreover, Christ, as well as the deer, is widely understood as a symbol of the sun and of maize, and the crucifixion-resurrection is identified with the maize agricultural cycle (Looper 135). A pre-Hispanic, Central American golden statuette, currently at the Museo del Oro Precolombino in San José, Costa Rica, portrays an antlered deer with corncobs in its mouth and at its tail (Figure 1.17).

Figure 1.17. Deer with corncobs, gold. Costa Rica, Pre-Columbian. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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The Liminal Nature of Deer The concept of a state-in-between as “transition” was first introduced by Van Gennep in his 1908 book Les Rites de Passage and was revisited and analyzed as “liminality” by Victor Turner in his 1967 The Forest of Symbols. Liminality occurs when a given person (or group) finds themselves in a state in between structures, which may be equated to “limbo” or “non-being,” a state most unprotected and vulnerable. On an individual level, this can happen during a transition of social status, such as an initiation ritual or marriage ceremony, and, on a collective level, it may be a period of war or unrest, connected to uncertainty. Liminality may happen both on a temporal and a spatial level, such as the transition between day and night, or a boundary between the village and the forest. In abstract terms, it is the transition from one state to another, such as singlehood/marriage or nature/culture. The Mesoamerican rituals of deer hunt, war, and ballgame are expressions of liminality. In all three, their participants leave their familiar civilized world to be confronted with wilderness, foreign peoples and places, or the entrance to the underworld. They are utterly exposed to the uncertainty between life and death, and the fragility of life itself, as only one of the parties in the hunt, war, or ballgame will live. The one who “loses” will be sacrificed. Nevertheless, “losing” and “winning” are not understood here in contemporary Western terms, as both functions are necessary for the world to continue. In this context, the hunt is equated to war, and the ballgame—the “celestial hunt”—is a possible ritual re-enactment of the combat of the planets. In addition, the deer is a major liminal metaphor, as it grazes, especially at dawn and dusk, on the outskirts of the forest and the maize field, trespassing the wilderness/culture binary. The forest and wilderness are also metaphors for the underworld, since they symbolize peril, darkness, disease, and death, contrary to the village, which denotes civilization, light, and security. This context shows that the hunt may be regarded as a dangerous journey to the land of the dead and back (Looper 172). This correspondence of the earthly and the underworldly sphere recalls the earlier discussed Eurasian concept of the earthly, heavenly, and netherworld lands/forests (taigas) as copies of each other. Pre-Hispanic archeological materials such as ceramic vases and temple walls contain images of deer-humans, and deer are considered to have a dual nature. An example is the Mochica ceramic vessel from ca. 200 BC–AD 800, representing “A Captive Deer-Man,” seated cross-legged, with features of a deer and human hands, from the Larco Collection in Lima, Peru (Lothrop 174). Another example is the human with feet, hands, head, horns, and tail of a deer on a monolith from the late Classical period—the Monument 14, Cotzumalhuapa, Bilbao, Guatemala (Montolíu 149–50), and the vase from Río Yaloch, Guatemala, with an image of a deer with human feet and arms; according to Thompson, this is “The sun god disguised as a deer” (“The Moon

Cervids and Their Associations • 31

Goddess” 151). A similar image can be found in the Dresden Codex 14c,24 and on the Calcethok vase, discussed above. On another vessel, from Ixtapa, Chiapas, Mexico, there are humans giving offerings to a cross-legged deer (see Anton 81, fig. 46), as the “Owner of Animals” or another mythical being. The unusual position of these cross-legged deer sets them apart from common animals, both humanizing and deifying them. The fluid border between deer and human is also apparent in the hunt, an action that requires rituals and offerings, and the possible self-sacrifice of the deer. At the San Felipe Pueblo of New Mexico, a mystery play about the willing sacrifice of animals is performed during Candlemas, and at Christmas and other holidays, men wearing enormous antlers or buffalo masks impersonate the hunt at the town square (Leeming 257). Among the Yaqui Indians of Sonora, Mexico, men dressed as deer and considered to be men-deer (maso) perform deer dances as part of the ritual in preparation for the hunt. Deer are also considered to be related to Jesus Christ, the Morning Star, and the Guardian of Animals, and they are seen as brothers by the Yoeme (Yaqui) (Lerma Rodríguez 24, 27). Moreover, among Huichol Indians, there was no ritual performed without a previous deer hunt (González-Torres 77), the animal is considered the hunter’s brother, who sacrifices himself willingly, and the deer is to be reborn from its bones. Moreover, the deer bones are identified with the roots of the sacred peyote plant and, for the Huichol, deer, peyote, and maize are inseparable and are symbols of life and fertility. El Hermano Mayor (“The Big Brother”) is a giant deer and the God of peyote (González-Torres and Ruiz Guadalajara 194; Campbell, Historical Atlas 299–300). As in Eurasia, in Middle America special ceremonies are required to treat the flesh, head, horns, and hoofs of the hunted deer. In the sixteenth-century “Relación hecha por el licenciado Palacio al Rey D. Felipe II” (87–88), a ceremony is described in which a deer is ritually killed, cooked, and its parts are eaten by the priest and his helpers, during the performance of dances, in front of an image of a God (“idol”) of the hunt and fishing, thus experiencing a communion with the God (Dehouve 309). In fact, the deer is the quintessential sacrificial victim, which can be seen in the way that war captives and hunted deer were bundled into balls in Mayan art. This idea persists in the collective unconscious and is manifested in contemporary art; for example, Frida Kahlo’s 1946 The Little Deer painting, in which the artist portrays herself as a deer wounded with nine spears (see Mexico: Splendors 691, fig. 364). In Native American mythology, the Deer Woman/Lady is a prominent figure believed to help women conceive children. Deer are sacred animals to many Native American cultures, and some Mexican and southwestern United States Uto-Aztecan tribes, similarly to ancient Eurasians, believe that deer were the first parents of humanity, and they are associated with creation mythology and the feeding of humans. They can also be considered caretakers of the

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earth, and deer songs and dances are common (“Native American Deer Mythology”). Representations and impersonators of the shape-shifting Deer Lady wear headdresses with deer antlers. The above contemporary practices are consistent with ancestral myths and beliefs, discussed earlier, as well as with the horned figures found on Mayan ceramic and textile designs. The Native American headdresses point to the elechek—the domed head cover of married Kyrgyz women, and to the tsunokakushi, the headdress from the Japanese Shinto wedding ceremonies, said to hide the bride’s horns (Colorado 244, 200). In addition, contemporary Ukrainian Hutsul folk women’s hairdos have “ears” or “horns” on the sides of the head (Woźniak, Wyróżnieni 47–48, 50), and in popular eastern European hair styles, braids are still rolled into two round protrusions on both sides of a woman’s head. The images and rituals described above portray deer in a supernatural way, as seen in their attributes, postures, adornments, offerings, and environment. In this context, it is important to remember the foundational Mexica (Aztec) myth of Mixcóatl, in which he is a Chichimeca hunter turned deer, and his wife, Xochiquetzal, is an earth and water Goddess. He is a prototype of a hunter and a warrior. His wife meets him with flowers, food, and water when the hunter brings the deer-Mixcóatl after the hunt. The hunter introduces himself as the younger brother of Xochiquetzal. It is significant for our discussion that the deer is also presented in the myth as the father of the hunter, and the flower is a metaphor for deer (Dehouve 305, 309, 314, 320).

The Deer and Fertility An important association of cervids with fecundity is the representation of the deer in front of a female figure in a mating position. In Madrid Codex 92d, and in the Dresden Codex 13c, a female deer is shown in intercourse with the black God M, the God of hunting.25 Related is the Mopan Maya and Kekchí myth of the deer-sun as creator of the Moon’s sexual organs so she could cohabit with him. They are believed to be the first lovers. The sun was a “famed hunter” and the moon—the Goddess of weaving, medicine, procreation, and childbirth (Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic 230–31, 11). In fact, most Maya groups consider the Sun and the Moon to be a couple (Hernández Soc and Galeotti Moraga 58; Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic 231). In a Nahuatl religious chant, the Mother Goddess Teteo innan, in the form of a deer, asks Mixcóatl (the sun) to impregnate her: Let my prince Mixcoatl fill me! Our Mother the Warrior Our Mother the Warrior,

Cervids and Their Associations • 33

The Deer of Colhuacan: Of feathers is her dress. In her Xochiquetzal form, she comes “from the place of rain and fog” (Garibay, Historia de la literatura náhuatl I: 121, 123), the mythical creation place Tamoanchan. Interestingly, among the Desana of the Amazon, “to hunt” means “to make love to the animals,” hunting being equated to seduction (Vitebsky 32). As explained earlier, among contemporary Mayas and Nahuas, the Owner of Animals grants hunters access to his daughter-does. This seductive aspect of the hunt is reflected in the following song: At the foot of the hill Where the flowers grow I saw a girl That I fell in love with. O deer, o deer, where have you gone? In the wilderness, I am weeping. O deer, o deer, where have you gone? I am always Weeping for you. (Méndez and Romero 36, 38, 77) This aspect is also dramatized in Guatemalan Ixil dances, attesting to the “widespread Mesoamerican notion of the hunt as a metaphor for the acquisition of wives.” In fact, deer are considered interchangeable with women, and sexual abstinence is part of hunting preparations (Looper 79–80). The legendary sexual role of the deer is deeply embodied in the collective unconscious of different cultures, and to this day many common idiomatic expressions in different languages, such as “horny” in English, cornudo (“deceived”) in Spanish, and “przyprawić rogi” (“to be unfaithful”) in Polish, link the deer’s horns to sexual potency. Moreover, there is a persistent rock art image in Neolithic northern Eurasia of a deer in front of a pregnant woman. The oldest version, from the upper Paleolithic, is the antler fragment from Laugerie-Basse cave in France. Some of the women in these images are depicted with antlers (Mykhailova, “Sex as Transition” 59–60). I also found an interesting depiction of a naked hunterwarrior with an erection in front of a deer, on a 600 BC funerary stele from Eleutherna, Crete. This scene, surrounded by symbols of regeneration such as antlers and spirals, clearly alludes to fertility, death, and rebirth (Figure 1.18). Among certain Siberian groups, ritual marriage relations with a reindeer or elk may still be re-enacted by the shaman (Vitebsky 32). The above is consistent with Middle American beliefs and the totemic myth about a common origin of

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Figure 1.18. Naked hunter in front of a deer. Funerary stele, marble. Eleutherna, Crete, Greece, 600 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

humans and animals. As discussed earlier, the original totemic ancestor was a giant elk-cow that developed into a Hostess of the Forest and the Animals, and then acquired more human features (Mykhailova, “Sex as Transition” 58–59). In contemporary Western images and children’s films, this mythical Hostess of Animals and the Forest was displaced and substituted by male figures such as the Master of Animals or Santa Klaus, portrayed surrounded by wild animals. A good illustration of this distortion are popular Christmas cards.26 In addition, the antlered reindeer that in many popular images conduct Santa’s sleigh are either female or castrated male, as female reindeer, inversely from male, do not lose their antlers in the winter, and castrated males have similar antler cycles (Hoymork and Reimers 75; Roberts; “Reindeer”). Thus, the mythical Eurasian Mistress of Animals, which persists in legends and fairy tales, was displaced and gendered as male on popular Western images. In sum, when examining the place of the deer in the Mayan and other Middle American civilizations, both pre-Hispanic and contemporary, one is struck by the parallels with both ancestral and recent Eurasian images and beliefs. Firstly, in the Americas, the deer is considered a sacred, supernatural animal; it is one of the nahuales27 of the Mayan ritual 260-day calendar, Tzolkin, and the guardian of maize (Hernández Soc and Galeotti Moraga 59). Several deities, such as God M, the black God of the hunt and war, are represented as clearly connected to the deer; there are images of anthropomorphized deer, and humans with deer characteristics; the deer are linked to fecundity, fertility, the snake, renewal, magic, rain, the sun, the sky, the wind, the hunt and sacrifices, as well as to the Owner of Animals, the Big Brother, and the Lord

Cervids and Their Associations • 35

of the Forest. Moreover, the patrons of the Yucatec Zip and Ceh months are connected to the deer. It continues to be one of the most important animals of the Mesoamerican world, and numerous representations of deer appear in Mayan codices, such as Madrid, Dresden, Paris, and Pérez (Chilam Balam). In addition, both the deer and the snake are universal symbols of renewal and fertility, as the deer periodically loses and grows back its antlers, analogous to how the snake sheds and renews its skin. They are both earth animals but also appear in portrayals of the sky as beneficial rain-bringers.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

See Gimbutas, The Language 8, fig. 10. See Ernits 67, fig. 6. Author’s fieldwork in the Andean region from 1987 to 1990. The early nomadic Scytho-Siberian Pazyryk culture from the sixth to first century BC was located in the northern Altay Mountains (Jacobson, The Deer Goddess 5). See Jacobson, “The Stag,” plates # 28, 30, 33, 38. “Heavenly burial,” as opposite to “earthly burial,” in which the dead were placed directly into the ground. Mixed burials, with a combination of several practices, such as those of the central European Bronze Age Urnfield culture, in which the dead were cremated and their ashes were placed in urns and buried in the fields, were also common. The “heavenly burial,” in which dead bodies are being exposed for de-boning by birds of prey is still a ritual practiced in parts of India. See Mykhailova, “Mify pro olenya” 42, table 1:5; and 41, table 2:4. For a discussion of liminality, see “The Liminal Nature of Deer” section of this book, and my Fierce Feminine Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America. López Austin, Los mitos del tlacuache 53–54, 56. See complete texts of these myths in Alcina Franch, Floresta Literaria 30, 36–37, and 41–44. See pregnant deer vase adorned with snakes and triple bands, painted white on red from Karanovo culture, Bulgaria, early sixth millenium BC (Gimbutas, The Civilization 223, 225 fig. 7–3; and 227 fig. 7–7). The culture hero, known in many world cultures, is a “legendary personality who accomplishes a civilizing mission for the good of mankind” (Golan 58). The Russian feminine name “Olena” means “doe.” In Polish, jeleń is “deer,” and there are the nicknames “Ola” and “Oleńka,” which are feminine diminutives of the Russian “olen”—deer—and suggest “little doe.” See Golte, Los dioses de Sipán 18–19, 107, 117, 124. See “Deer,” www.khandro.net, and “Dharma Wheel and Pair of Deer.” According to prehistorians, the Coso occupation began in the Pleistocene/early Holocene Era. The found figures appear to antedate AD 200–300, and the inhabitants were likely speakers of proto-Northern Uto-Aztecan languages (Garfinkel, “Myth, Ritual” 5). For a discussion of the demonization and dulcification of ancient Goddesses, see my book, Fierce Feminine Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America: Baba Yaga, Kālī, Pombagira, and Santa Muerte.

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18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27.

See photo K1871 by Justin Kerr in Looper 111, fig. 5.20. Looper 86; see images in Pendergast 158–59. See photo K3069 by J. Kerr in Looper 86, fig 4.14. See vase with God CH in photo K5001 by J. Kerr, in Looper 136–37. See Gimbutas, The Civilization 352, 364. For a collection of twentieth-century Polish Gwiazdy (“Stars”), see Zaczęło się w Jeziornie by Sledziewski and Demska. I conducted fieldwork on this topic in several museum collections in Poland, such as the State Ethnographic Museum of Warsaw, the Łowicz Museum, and the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź, as well as in Ukraine, such as the Museum of Ethnography and Crafts, the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum, and the Museum of National Folk Architecture and Rural Life “Shevchenkivskyi Hai,” in Lviv. Villacorta calls this personage a “humanized rabbit” (28). Information confirmed by Tozzer, “Animal Figures” 350, and Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic 76. An example is the Christmas card by Elizabeth Goodrick-Dillon, distributed by the National Wildlife Federation. Nahual—symbolic protective animal of a given day of the calendar, and a person born on that day; a human who has the power to shapeshift into an animal.

CHAPTER 2

Goddess Civilizations and Their Symbols

Hunter-Gatherer and Agrarian Society of Neolithic “Old Europe” The social, economic, and cultural context for the phenomena discussed in this book will now be provided. After the retreat of the last Ace Age, a gradual transition from hunting-gathering to permanent settlements and the domestication of plants and animals took place between 9,000 and 6,500 BC. This motion first occurred in the eastern Mediterranean, in southeastern Europe, and the Near East, and ca. 7,000–6,500 BC a food-producing economy with domesticated animals, plants, and the discovery of ceramics took place. This early Neolithic southeastern European culture was strongly connected to Anatolia’s culture and its symbolic language, manifested at the two most famous sites in south-central Turkey—Çatal Höyük and Hacilar. Çatal Höyük, dating from ca. 6,300–5,500 BC, with its estimated 7,000 inhabitants, developed a stable social organization integrating economy, trade, house and temple architecture, religion and art. Its religion appears to be centered around a Goddess of Regeneration and Mistress of Animals and Plants, represented by a twenty centimeter terracotta figurine of a corpulent woman giving birth while seated on a throne between two sacred leopards. She is currently at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara (Figure 2.1), having been found in a grain deposit, and dates to ca. 5,750 BC. Bucrania, horns, triangles, and rhombs symbolized regeneration, and vultures, which de-boned cadavers, represented the Goddess’ death aspect, thus creating the life-death-regeneration cycle (Figure 2.2). Çatal Höyük was a Goddess civilization, reflected in the abundance of statuettes and the prominence of older women and girls’ burials, below floors and near houses. The much smaller Hacilar settlement (ca. fifty houses), dating from the end of the seventh to early sixth millennia BC, was contemporary with the rising Neolithic cultures of southeast Europe, such as Sesklo (northern Greece), Starčevo (central Balkans and lower Danube—former Yugoslavia—southeast Hungary and southeast Romania), and Karanovo (central Bulgaria), as well as the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture of central Europe, the Bukk culture of northeast Hungary and eastern Slovakia, and the Dniestr-Bug culture. The spread of agriculture moved from the southeast to

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Figure 2.1. Mistress of Animals. Mother Goddess giving birth flanked by two leopards, terracotta. Çatal Höyük, Turkey, ca. 5,750 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

the northwest, from the Aegean and southern Balkans ca. 6,500 BC to the lower and middle Danube ca. 6,000 BC, and to the upper Danube in the north ca. 5,500 BC, spreading east and west. The cultural groups of these areas, from the Aegean to central Europe, shared a similar way of life, social structure, belief system, symbols, and rituals for at least a millennium and attained a high point around 6,000 BC. The climax of European civilization may be located in east-central Europe between 5,500 and 3,500 BC, with improvement of agriculture, copper metallurgy, discovery of gold, as well as the flourishing of craft, trade, ceramics, architecture, and the elaboration of sacred objects used for rituals, with symbols and script signs that reflected religious beliefs. Among those objects are richly decorated vases, female statuettes, and temple models. From the eleven cultures that have been identified from that period, some of the most notable are the Balkan Vinča from ca. 5,500 to 3,500 BC—a continuation of Starčevo-Körös-Criş of the seventh millennium—, the continuation of Karanovo culture in Thrace and eastern Macedonia, as well as the prominent Ukrainian-Romanian-Moldovan Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization from ca. 5,500 to 2,250 BC.1

Goddess Civilizations and Their Symbols • 39

Figure 2.2. Vase with birds of prey used for funeral ceremonies. Crete, Greece, 1,300–1,250 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Prehistoric Goddess Figurines Predating these cultures there exists a series of female figurines representing Goddesses or Clan Mothers, sometimes called “Venuses,” going back to the Upper Paleolithic Era (40,000–10,000 BC). The oldest, from ca. 38,000 BC, was found in Hohle Fels, Germany in 2009. They are represented naked, with wide hips and buttocks and prominent breasts, often pregnant. The head, arms, and feet are not developed; sometimes the head is bird-like or there is a special headdress. What is emphasized are the body parts that represent their generative powers. Examples of these figurines are the Venus of Willendorf (Austria) from ca. 24,000 BC (Figure 2.3), Venus of Kostenki (Russia), ca. 22,700 BC, Venus of Vestovice (Czech Republic), ca. 24,000 BC, and Venus of Wilczyce (Poland) from ca. 15,000 BC. They personify the Goddess as giver and protector of life as well as of death and regeneration (Gimbutas, The Civilization 222). Many of these images continue through the Neolithic, the Copper, and

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Figure 2.3. Venus of Willendorf. Austria, ca. 24,000 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

the Bronze Ages. A series of so-called “Fat Ladies” or “Fat Goddesses” with exaggerated buttocks, hips, and breasts, and usually with removable heads, was found in various third and fourth millennium BC sites on Malta and Gozo,2 where the structures of the temples themselves imitate the regenerating body of the Goddess, with egg-shaped buttocks. An excellent example is the double Ġgantija temple in Gozo, from the first half of the fourth millennium BC (Figure 2.4), as well as the seventh to sixth millennium BC temples from Çatal Höyük in Anatolia. In the Neolithic Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization, incisions for the placement of seeds, or decorations made from organic materials, such as feathers, were found on many thin figurines that possibly represent the virgin phase of the triple Goddess, connected to regeneration.3 They may have been planted

Figure 2.4. Model of the double Ġgantija temple in the shape of “Fat Goddesses.” Gozo, Malta, first half of the fourth millennium BC. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

Goddess Civilizations and Their Symbols • 41

into the earthen fields to symbolically and literally fertilize them. In another type of statuette, representing the mature woman, a large belly, buttocks, and the pubic triangle are emphasized, and the body is covered by diagrams, the main one being a rhomb with a dot inside, or a rhomb divided into four parts with four dots. This design, by its location on the belly, represents the pregnant womb and the fertile field (Figure 2.5), reinforcing the idea of the female as identified with the earth, and with life itself. The Goddess, who was the Mistress of Heaven and the Sun, was also responsible for all nature and growth, and symbols of both the earthly and the heavenly spheres appear on the statuettes. Moreover, on some figurines, there is a plant drawn growing from the pubic triangle on the woman’s belly (Figure 2.6). As the human body is identified with the Cosmic Tree and with the cross, it is interesting to notice that many Mayan crosses have the images of plants growing as well as the sun and quincunx diagrams on them (Figure 2.7). In addition, the diamond-shaped “Fertile field” symbol is commonly interpreted as the life-giving sun, among Native Americans. It may still be the design most Figure 2.5. Figurine with diagrams. widespread around the world today. Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization, It is prominently featured on tradi- Ukraine, Neolithic Era. Drawing: tional weavings and embroideries Olga H. Estrada. Published with from east-central Europe, the Near permission. East, Asia, and the Americas. The rhomb motif is discussed in detail in Chapter 3 of this book. Other designs on the Goddesses’ naked bodies are meanders representing protective snakes, and round solar and lunar signs on the legs and shoulders,4 as well as neck-

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Figure 2.6. Figurine with plant growing from the pubic triangle. Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Figure 2.7. Mayan cross with plants, sun, and quincunx symbols. Chiapas region, Mexico, twenty-first century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

laces and head covers. Solar signs, such as the ones found on the female figurines’ bodies, are present throughout the ages on vessels, e.g., seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pitchers from south-eastern Poland and western Ukraine, and twentieth-century wooden kitchen utensils from Poland. Similar female figurines with symbolic designs exist in the Americas; for example, in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, Ecuador, and Arizona.5 According to Campbell, “in Early Formative Middle America, the most typical image is the standing female nude.” Undoubtedly, she is the great Goddess-Mother, comparable to the ceramic figurines of Old Europe, from some 5,000 years

Goddess Civilizations and Their Symbols • 43

earlier, ca. 6,000 BC (Campbell, Historical Atlas 255). A striking figurine from AD 200–600 Michoacán, central Mexico, portrays a naked pregnant woman with a headdress, necklace, and bracelets, as well as swollen breasts in the form of corncobs as sacred symbols of nutrition (Figure 2.8). Other figurines are also portrayed pregnant or giving birth, such as those from Nayarit, and Jalisco, Mexico, as well as those with the Mayan sapo (Turkish “baklava”) motifs on their pregnant bellies, heads, and legs (Figure 2.9). The Mesoamerican and South American native cultures overlapped in the area of present-day Costa Rica. In this region, agriculture, as well as pottery, started to appear ca. 5,000 years ago. As a consequence, we are able to examine a series of statuettes portraying women in their diverse roles, from the Central, the Guanacaste-Nicoya, the Northern, and the Southern Pacific regions of Costa Rica, dating from AD 300–1,550. Similar to Eurasian Goddesses, these figurines emphasize buttocks, breasts, bellies, and pubic

Figure 2.8. Figurine of a pregnant woman with corncobs as breasts. Michoacán, Mexico, AD 200–600. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Figure 2.9. Figurine of a pregnant woman with the Mayan sapo (Turkish “baklava”) motif on her belly, head, chest, and thighs. Mexico, PreColumbian. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

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triangles, and they are painted with black and red symbolic markings and patterns, such as triangles, circles, crosses, squares, rhombs, and nets. They are usually wearing round caps while standing, sitting, giving birth, or holding infants. A particular statuette from AD 500–800 portrays a woman standing with hands on her belly, possibly a female shaman. She has a hairstyle, ear spools, body paint, and a triangular thong with a dot inside a rhomb design (Figure 2.10). Another figurine represents a sitting female with a hat and rich body paint. She has designs on her face, breasts, pubis, upper arms, and lower legs. The pubis is adorned with a triangular design with a double cross inside, and the breasts are painted as black circles divided by crosses into four parts, with another smaller cross each; the lower legs have a chain of triangles, and the upper arms carry a continuous intertwined triangular design (Figure 2.11). These

Figure 2.10. Female figurine with body paint, ear spools, and a triangular thong with rhomb design. Costa Rica, AD 500–800. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Figure 2.11. Seated female figurine with a hat and symbolic diagrams. Costa Rica, AD 500–800. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Goddess Civilizations and Their Symbols • 45

and other statuettes from the Central American region portray women in their diverse societal roles from domestic and religious, to commercial and military, making evident their powerful position in the above societies (Fernández Esquivel 1, 22). Their poses, nakedness, body paint, and adornments make them comparable to “Old European” and other ancient figurines from various areas of the world.

Goddess Poses The Eurasian, Paleolithic Goddesses/Can Mothers/“Venuses” appear in several positions. Annine Van der Meer identified seven distinct body poses of the Ice Age “Venus” that continue until today, embodied in diverse artifacts and diagrams: – Birthing pose – Seating or standing pose of clan mother or dea generatrix – Dea gravida (pregnant) – Dea nutrix (nourishing) or dea lactans (breastfeeding) – Mother of totem animals and plants – Invocation pose (with arms risen) – Androgynous (wide feminine lower body and phallic upper body) (178). They emphasize female sex organs, breasts, and lower body—thighs, buttocks, Venus mound, vulva, and fat posterior; have a small head or no head, a bird’s head, no features, or a head covering, such as a pulled-down cap; their arms are thin, inconspicuous, or absent; their lower legs and feet are neglected. Their nakedness indicates a sacred function in cold times; they have traces of red ochre (indicating menstrual or life blood); they embody three phases of life— youth, maturity, and old age (Van der Meer 108). These poses and characteristics find their reflection in the figurines found in the Trypillian-Cucuteni, in other Neolithic and Copper Age civilizations, as well as in Pre-Hispanic, Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations. The main poses of the Neolithic Trypillian Goddesses, most replicated in contemporary eastern European embroideries and paper cut-outs, are the invocation pose—with arms risen to the sky and the life-giving sun, characteristic for spring rituals (see Figure 1.10)—which corresponds to the young Goddess phase of life,6 and the “blessing or protective pose,” with arms lowered over the earth—found in summer rituals—which reflects the mature phase. A similar diagram was identified on Anatolian kilims as the “Elibelinde” or “Hands on Hips” motif.7 This pose’s significance is reinforced by the fact that it shows protection not only of the fields but also of the pregnant womb. When seen

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out of context, the unusually long, heavily embroidered blouse sleeves that are worn to this day in rural areas of eastern Europe seem counterintuitive, as they would strongly interfere with daily work. Nevertheless, it all makes sense when we realize that they are made for ritualistic purposes. Both the “Invocation” and the “Hands-on-Hips” pose, which show embroidered sleeves, may easily be observed in the gestures of contemporary folk dances; for example, they were prominently displayed during the performance of the Ukrainian National Opera, Zaporozhets za Dunayem, I witnessed in Lviv on 11 September 2016. It was clear that the sleeve decorations were displayed in the same Goddess gestures as shown on weavings and embroideries—in the invocation pose with arms risen to the sky, and in the “hands-on-hips” or “Elibelinde” pose. This display explains the use and stresses the importance of prominent sleeve decorations, described in Chapter 4. In addition to reflecting Neolithic vessel design, the contemporary blouse sleeves echo the profuse tattooed decorations on arms and shoulders found on humans from the Ace Age, such as in a frozen tomb from Pazyryk in Siberia, as well as in the Alps. These decorations may also be observed on Mesoamerican figurines, among others. The tattooing, frequent in many ancient and contemporary traditional societies, has a magical, protective function, and it was transferred from the body to the costume embroidery (Paine 7–8).

The Bird Goddess and the Goddess with Birds in Archeology and Folklore Images of nude females—with pendulous breasts, little wings, and bird masks, as well as parallel lines, representing the water of life—dating from as early as the Magdalenian culture (17,000–12,000 BC) were found on rock engravings in southern France. These characteristics, in addition to beaked faces, bird masks, high cylindrical necks, birds with human masks, and meanders, continued in the Neolithic figurines of “Old Europe,” in such cultures as Sesklo from Greece, and Vinča from Serbia and Macedonia, among others (Gimbutas, The Civilization 230–35). Even today, folk ceramic jars with a female face with a tiny mouth, and little hand-wings on the sides, are popular in eastern and central Europe. There also exists a common motif of the sirin (siren) or woman-bird on Russian embroideries. As the Goddess of Life, Death, and Regeneration, the Bird Goddess appears to have two aspects—the above-mentioned life-giving one, reflected in aquatic birds, and the death-bringing one, portrayed by birds of prey such as owls, crows, vultures, and ravens (Figure 2.12). In this way, she encompasses all the spheres of the world—the earth with its waters and the sky with the sun, clouds, and celestial bodies. Images of enormous vultures with outstretched wings attacking human bodies and

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Figure 2.12. Goddesses with shrines, trees, and life-giving and death-bringing birds, embroidery. Crete, Greece, late nineteenth to early twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

heads, as well as Goddesses holding two vultures at their sides in a shrine full of symbols of transformation, such as spirals, concentric diamonds, and double axes, can be found on wall paintings at the central Anatolian site of Çatal Höyük from the seventh millennium BC; they have been adapted and prominently featured in kilim designs (see Mellaart et al., plates XIII and XIV). The “Double Bird/Vulture” motif—“Gulbudak”—(“Rose Branch”) is considered native (yerly) of central Anatolia. These persistent images have a ceremonial origin, as Çatal Höyük was one of the most important religious centers. Bodies were excarnated by birds, and the bones were buried under platforms on the floor of the homes. Some of the kilims show females with a fetus in their womb flanked by enormous birds of prey, clearly showing the cycle of death and regeneration.8 The Goddess with birds is most often portrayed holding them by their necks, and sometimes in her risen arms. This can be seen on images from Greece and Syria from 1,700–530 BC (see Hirsch 40, 84). Vulture Goddesses and vultures have also been found to relate to funerary objects of the Minoan culture of Crete (see Figure 2.2). The practice of excarnation by birds of prey existed in Europe until the Bronze Age, and skeletons were found in Neolithic and Paleolithic sites. In historical times, these Goddesses continued as Athena in Greece and Morrígan in Ireland and were militarized by Indo-Europeans (Gimbutas, The Civilization 238–40). Similarly, Ross reports that the Gaulish Raven-Goddess, Nantosuelta, was accompanied by raven and dovecote images, the former symbolic of war and

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the latter of fertility and maternity (244, 247). Images of female figurines with birds can also be found from the central European Bronze Age Urnfield culture, among others, and the Indian Crone Goddess, Dhumavati, is portrayed accompanied by crows or carrion-eating birds. In addition, the raven, called kutkh in Kamchatka, was the mythical totemic ancestor in northeastern Asia and North America (Anisimov, “Cosmological” 210). Totem poles representing the raven can be seen to this day in the North American northwest. Interestingly, a widespread image on contemporary Polish paper cut-outs, called lalka (“doll”), is a Goddess figure with risen arms holding two birds (see Figure 1.10). She has a round skirt of a “fat lady” and comes in all colors. She is usually holding roosters and/or doves. On other images, the Goddess takes the form of a Tree of Life with two pairs of birds—one on top and the other at the base. Sometimes the image is a combined Tree-Goddess with birds, and at other times only the birds remain. They include roosters, which represent the underworld, and aquatic ones such as ducks, which symbolize life. The birds in Neolithic frescoes—and, later, kilims, embroideries, and paper cut-outs— always appear in pairs facing each other and are often multiplied (see Figures 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.6, 1.10, 2.12).9 It is remarkable that this kind of representation is also widespread in eastern-European—Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Russian—historic and contemporary embroideries, showing the Goddess in the center flanked by elks, deer, horse riders, animals, or birds (Figure 2.13). In his Iazychestvo drevnikh Slavian, Rybakov comments on large, embroidered feminine figures holding birds in upraised arms, sometimes flanked by another pair of birds at the bottom sides (43, fig. 7). This Goddess pose with uprisen arms is related to the spring rituals, as discussed above. She is often a Rozhanitsa— the Goddess giving birth while holding two birds and flanked by other two (511, fig. 123); she may also be inside her shrine, accompanied by enormous birds (512, fig. 124; 513, fig. 125). On some of the embroideries, the birth-giving Goddess is converted into a plant or a tree or is a hybrid of a Tree-Goddess with birds (513, fig. 125; 531, fig. 132). Many of the above-mentioned embroideries originate in northern Russia. Similarly, in Middle- and North America, contemporary weavings often show a Tree of Life flanked by birds. As seen above, the contemporary folklore image of a female accompanied by birds, seen in paper cut-outs and embroideries in eastern and central Europe, as well as in kilim weavings in Turkey, is without doubt very ancient and persistent, going back as far as the Paleolithic; it has a clear antecedent in a similarly positioned image of a Goddess flanked by birds of prey, shown on Anatolian wall paintings from seventh millennium BC Çatal Höyük. As discussed, initially, the birds had a double meaning, as some, especially the aquatic ones, were life announcers, and the birds of prey, such as vultures, used for excarnation, were death-bringers. To this day, the stork is a widespread symbol of an approaching birth, and on popular eastern European images it is depicted

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Figure 2.13. Goddess with birds, flanked by attendants on horses, embroidery. Ukraine, late nineteenth to early twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

carrying a bag with a baby inside. As has often been the case with the change of religious and social ideas, death, which used to be a necessary and celebrated part of a cycle of life and rebirth, started to be seen as negative, and the vultures were dropped from the images; only the life-bringers, seen as positive, were left to be reproduced on popular contemporary eastern European and Native American designs. As with fierce Goddesses who were demonized, domesticated, or eliminated,10 only the “pleasant” birds were allowed to remain. Sometimes, as in Mesopotamian cultures, the Goddess was depicted with a tree as a symbol of life and rebirth or was transformed into a Tree of Life often flanked by birds, goats, or bulls (see Hirsch 40, 86).

Trypillian-Cucuteni Civilization of Ukraine-Romania The Neolithic Trypillian-Cucuteni of the Ukraine-Romania area may be considered the high point of European civilization. Its Neolithic and Copper Age ceramic production “surpassed all contemporary creations of Old Europe.” Neolithic ware from the area of today’s Ukraine and Romania is dominated by

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painted pottery and stylized female figurines covered with symbolic diagrams. The vessels, of considerable size, represent the world through the female body, specifically the womb. On them, there are usually four clear protrusions with nipples, standing for two pairs of female breasts (Figure 2.14), as well as large vulvas (Figure 2.15), sometimes with a human or mythological figure inside. What reinforces the idea of vessels representing two female Goddesses with nourishing breasts is the fact that many decorated binocular-shaped funnels without bottoms—as to ritually sprinkle the earth with moisture, painted red on white, or black on red—were found at Trypillian-Cucuteni sites (see Rybakov, “Cosmogony” Part II: 36–37; Gimbutas, The Civilization 108–9, figs. 3–70). According to various scholars, in prehistoric times, the generative powers of the Goddess were represented by her vulva, pubic triangle, buttocks, and breasts.11 These elements were clearly expressed on Trypillian-Cucuteni ritual vessels, and on female figurines with emphasized breasts, buttocks, pubic triangles and pregnant bellies portrayed with an image of a plant growing (see Figure 2.6), similar to the plants growing on the visible sky/earth level of their pottery.12 Moreover, the pottery presents complex ornamentation, often denoting a tripartite worldview composed of earth, the middle or visible sky, and the

Figure 2.14. Tripartite jar with protrusions for nipples and meanders around breasts. Trypillian-Cucuteni Civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Figure 2.15. Jar with vulvas. TrypillianCucuteni Civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era, ca. 6,000 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Figures 2.16a. and 2.16b. Tripartite jar with depictions of atmospheric phenomena, such as rain. Trypillian-Cucuteni Civilization, Ukraine, Neolithic Era. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

upper sky (Figure 2.16a and 2.16b). The earth level is usually minimal, shown with two parallel lines, sometimes with plants growing on it, and dogs protecting them. The main level is the visible sky or air, and here we can observe transversal or vertical parallel lines, symbolizing rain watering the earth and allowing the growth of plants, as well as heavenly bodies and meanders, possibly representing the movement of the sun and the progression of time (Rybakov, “Cosmogony” I, 26–31; Iazychestvo 203–5). However, Golan polemizes with this view and interprets the ornamental “running wave” of Trypillian-Cucuteni pottery (see Figure 2.14) as the depiction of snakes (95–97). The upper sky level is also portrayed with a horizontal line, often with dots of moisture or oval protrusions of clouds, from which the rains originate. During the Copper Age, a fourth “world” or level was added, representing the underworld. From this period, we can find images on the bottom of pots that show the “night sun.”13 An identical sun symbol may be found on contemporary Ukrainian Motynka dolls’ faces and on Easter eggs (Figure 2.17). On medieval carved objects, such as amulets, kitchen utensils, and spinning distaffs (prialki), there are also representations of the night journey of the sun floating on the underworld ocean on a boat led by ducks, swans, or horses, as reported by Rybakov (Iazychestvo 249). Similar images, with a boat with a horse’s head on each side, appeared frequently on eastern European embroidery and Easter eggs until the nineteenth to twentieth centuries.14

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The tripartite cosmos, portrayed on pottery decorations, is reflected in the human body. We can easily identify the image of the universe expressed in the vessels—the earth and the sky levels—with the female body and comprehend how these concepts were transferred to traditional shirts with abstract symbols, worn by females on celebratory, ritual, as well as everyday occasions. These patterns, which were first represented on the tattooed human bodies, such as the terracotta figurine with rich patterns on the shoulders and arms found in a 3,000 BC burial site in Turkestan, Kazakhstan (Middle Asia),15 were later transmitted to woven and embroidered garment patterns. Today, these patterns are still widespread in traditional cultures and can be seen on embroidered Ukrainian Hutsul women’s shirts in Europe, and on the woven and embroidered Mayan women’s huipiles in Middle America that also display a semblance of the universe, as discussed in Chapter 4. As seen above, the large tripartite ceramic vessels contain images of rain clouds on their upper part, as well as two pairs of breasts with nipples. According to Rybakov, in Eurasia, clouds were believed to be the breasts of two celes-

Figure 2.17. Sun symbol (cross) with lace diamonds and deer, Easter egg. Poland, early twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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tial Elk-Goddesses who made life possible by pouring life-giving rain on earth. Medieval Russian bliashki or shamanic metal plates have been found that portray a shaman with two Heavenly Female Elks and an iashcher (dragon) underneath. It was believed that the iashcher lived in the lower world and devoured the sun each evening (Rybakov, Iazychestvo 61, 67–69). A similar motif of a dragon-like animal symbolizing the darkness of the underworld who chases the light of the sun was found in the rock art of Siberia (Ernits 61–62, fig. 2). As the sun was also associated with the deer, this animal’s relation to the alteration between day and night is noticeable. Moreover, the iashcher or dragon can be related to the Middle American reptile (serpent). Both are creatures of the night and the underworld, connected to darkness, moisture, and fertility, and may devour the sun at night.

Transition of Power and Shamanism According to Anisimov, the concepts of Siberian peoples about shamanistic spirits derived from Totemism, and “the appointment of the shaman as a specialist of the religious cult and the assignment to him of the prerogatives of ‘communion’ with the spirits and deities were conditioned by the establishment of the patriarchal clan system and the subsequent dissolution of primitive-communal clan society . . .”, and the ancient matrilineal clans (matriclans) (“The Shaman’s Tent” 84). The universe was conceived as a living being, composed of a series of upper and lower worlds whose custodians were the Mistresses of the Worlds of the Universe. They were simultaneously mothers and elk-cows, as evident in the Evenk name Bugady Enintyn, which has a dual meaning—with a possessive suffix meaning “Mother,” and without it “Elk-cow” (Anisimov, “Cosmological” 165–68). The zoomorphic features of this mythical mother-animal, characteristic of Totemism—the first known religious system, corresponding to early matriarchal clan society—were partially displaced in the developed matriarchate and gradually replaced by mothers and sisters of the elements of nature, before finally being supplanted by anthropomorphic ones of a female deity, and later by the male deities of the patriarchal clan society. Those had male ancestors—founders of the clan—and the cult of nature changed into Polytheism. Thus, Totemism was replaced by Shamanism, in which spirit-totems changed into shamanistic spirits: “. . . previously independent totemic cults were destroyed . . . and reduced to the role of spirit-helpers of the shaman. Moreover, individual totems (the elk, the wild deer, and the bear, which become objects of a common tribal cult) were elevated to become the chief shamanistic spirits” (Anisimov, “Cosmological” 180, 184, 190–91, 209).

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The displacement of the power of the Deer-Mother of the “Old European” Neolithic and the Bronze Age cultures started in the Bronze Age and continued into the Iron Age, when she was extremely diminished as a consequence of the presumed Indo-European invasions of Europe by protoIndo-European nomads from southern Eurasian steppes. The culture, lifestyle, and ideology of those semi-nomadic herders was antithetical to the “Old Europe” cultures, as the incomers were horse riding, warlike, patriarchal, and patrilineal, with a pantheon of male sky Gods. With the transition from collective, matrilineal clan organization to a patriarchal social organization and hierarchy, an individual—mediator between people and the spiritual world— emerged. Consequently, the feminine power of the Deer Mother was shifted and reformulated as elements of the shaman’s costume (Jacobson, The Deer Goddess 244; Gimbutas, The Civilization 9), paraphernalia, and his animal spirit-helpers. For example, the female shaman’s cap of the Siberian Enets (eastern Samoyeds) is made of deer hide and fur and sown with deer hairs (Prokofyeva, “Costume” 140–41). Among the Siberian Evenks, as seen on Anisimov’s drawings (Religiia 172, plate 17), the cap was made of metal with deer antlers on top. In addition, in both cases, the caps carry other species of the animal world, such as bear, fox, and dog. The parka was sewn from a deer hide and included pendants manufactured from different animals; for example, wolf paws, polar fox fur, and iron figures of deer (Prokofyeva 125–32). The shaman’s gloves were made of bear paws, and the boots had representations of multiple animal elements, including deer and bear. The cloak also had strong references to the avian world, and it was often fashioned in the form of a bird, or had fringes referring to birds (Anisimov, Religiia 172, plate 17; and 171, plate 16; Prokofyeva 128–29, fig. 2 and 3), suggesting the “flight” of the shaman to other realms during trance. Moreover, the shaman’s breastplate reflected the tripartite division of the world, as discussed below. His/her indispensable attribute—the drum—among the Enets and the eastern Samoyeds in general was made of a hide of a doe for a female shaman and a hide of a buck for a male shaman, and the material used for the frame was usually larch wood. In their shamanism, the drum was a symbol of the universe. The drumstick—another important attribute—was fashioned of a slightly curved birch branch. Significantly, the shaman of the highest category carried an iron animal-staff that ended in a deer hoof (Prokofyeva 147–54), in reference to the animal who gave him power. Thus, while examining the elements surrounding the shaman, the displaced components of the totemic Mistress of Animals can be clearly seen. According to the Scottish anthropologist Alexander D. King, even today “[t]he Reindeer are a dominant symbol of collective identity in northern Kamchatka, Russia.” They can be considered “a root metaphor for Koryak culture”

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. . . and “[a] reindeer herd . . . [I]s a holographic entity providing a scale model of social life of animate beings in the universe . . .” (134–35). In an interview with King, the Chukchi/Koryak reindeer herder Slava expressed the meaning of cervids for his community: “These last deer are everything. Without deer we are not people. Without deer there is no culture, nothing” (King 138), suggesting the longstanding strong bond with, and gratitude people owe to animals. The cultural and material continuity and great meaning of cervid animals among different groups of peoples is undeniable.

Notes 1. In this section, I am indebted to Marija Gimbutas and her The Civilization of the Goddess, Chapters 1–3. 2. Malta and Gozo are the two main islands that compose the southern European country of Malta. 3. It is believed that the prehistoric Great Goddess of Life, Death and Regeneration was represented in her three aspects—as the young virgin, the mature mother, and the old wise woman. This is corroborated by extant belief systems, such as the Yoruba-derived Goddesses Oxum, Iemanjá, and Nanã of the Brazilian Candomblé religion. Figurines of the thin, “stiff nude” type were also found in graves, possibly indicating regeneration and rebirth. 4. See Masson and Merpert, Chast’ I (Vol. I). 5. The Arizona figurines were found in 1924 by Earl H. Morris in the Cañón del Muerto district and are estimated to date from ca. 500 BC (See Renaud 507–8). 6. This pose may have originated in the image of the Goddess holding two birds of prey as a symbol of rebirth and eternal life. Such representations were found on Neolithic Çatal Höyük wall paintings (see Mellaart et al., The Goddess from Anatolia Vol I, 58–59). 7. See Balpinar, The Goddess from Anatolia Vol IV, 81. 8. See Balpinar, The Goddess 57–58; Çatalhöyük Site Guide Book 14–15; Mellaart et al., plate XIV. Author’s fieldwork in Anatolia, 2015. 9. A good source for these images is the book Zaczęło się w Jeziornie by Antoni Śledziewski and Anna Demska. 10. A contemporary example of the fight for exclusion of the idea of death from Western culture is the campaign against the unofficial Mexican saint La Santa Muerte, devotion to whom has been demonized and persecuted. 11. See Gimbutas, The Civilization 109–11, 223. 12. Similar images of growing plants can be observed on contemporary fertility dolls and statuettes from Kenya. 13. See images in Kadrow 187–88 and 244–45; Rybakov, Iazychestvo 246; and Sirbu and Pandrea 196, 199–200. 14. There was a cult of the horse among Kurgan pastoralists of south Russia that spread to eastern Ukraine. Horse and double-headed horse figurines from the fifth millennium BC were found in the Samara culture of the Volga region (Gimbutas, The Civilization 353).

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15. Other human figures with tattooed arms/legs were found in Pazyryk, Siberia (see Jacobson, “The Stag” 168, plate 27).

CHAPTER 3

Image of the Universe

The Four Directions, the Three Vertical Worlds, and the Cosmic Tree According to scholars, the world was first conceived as horizontal with four corners or directions, and it was later divided into three vertical spheres—the upper world, the middle world, and the lower or nether world. Anisimov, referring to the twentieth-century Siberian Evenks, states: . . . the cosmogenic concepts about the worlds of the universe were preceded by a stage of totemic views in which the mythical clan-world remained one and did not move away spatially, but stayed within the limits of the land inhabited by man. The horizontal orientation of the spatial concepts of the universe preceded in time the vertical division into upper, middle, and nether worlds. Even where the mythological concepts have already assumed a clearly expressed vertical division, traces of the horizontal forms of spatial understanding of the universe continued to be preserved . . . quite clearly. (“Cosmological Concepts” 207) This concept of the cosmos is reflected in the Middle American Tamoanchan, which is the cosmic axis and the sum of the four Cosmic Trees. Tamoanchan is the central Flowering Tree, represented horizontally—by four other trees around it, with their four colors: yellow, blue, white, and red—and perpendicularly—by two strands in helicoid motion within its trunk (Figure 3.1). Vertically, it gives an image of the upright concept of the universe, encompassing nine superior skies, four inferior skies, and nine floors of the underworld. Thus, Tamoanchan provides the image of the Middle American cosmos, already present in its first known major civilization, the Olmecs. The horizontal, terrestrial sphere was divided into four parts with their respective colors, and it was inhabited by humans. This cosmic cross indicated the position of the four trees that perpendicularly united the sky, the earth, and the netherworld of the dead. The Gods traveled vertically, in counterclockwise motion, between the sky, the earth, and the underworld, forming the helix malinalli and the hot essences from the Gods of the heavens combined with the cold ones of the Gods of the underworld (Mictlan), and the souls of the dead. The union

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Figure 3.1. Tamoanchan, Mesoamerican concept of the cosmos, reflected in the central tree—the cosmic axis—with two strands in helicoidal motion within its trunk and four directional trees. Drawing: Olga H. Estrada. Published with permission.

of these opposite forces produced the course of time, as well as destiny and flowers. Time passed only in the four lower skies, inhabited by humans, and it was divided into yearly (365-day), monthly (20-day), and weekly (13-day) periods, among others, as the Gods acted in cycles. Thus, Tamoanchan is the central tree—the axis of the cosmos and the sum of the four Cosmic Trees with their four colors through which the forces of time-destiny run in helicoidal motion. It is the flowery tree full of blood (hot) and jewels (cold) inside its trunk, colorful flowers on its branches, quetzal feathers, and birds (López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan 99–100, 118; Tamoanchan y Tlalocan 20, 26, 101, 224–25; Breve Historia 46; The Myths of the Opossum 52–53; Human Body and Ideology I, 60). The fifth, central tree—the Tamoanchan—is portrayed in Middle American codices, as well as in poetry: The Flowering Tree rises up in Tamoanchan: There we were created, there [he] gave us being There [he] connected the thread of our life The one thanks to whom everything lives.1

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In the Mayan Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Códice Pérez), there is a description of the creation of the new world by setting five ceiba imix trees of abundance: . . . after the destruction of the world was completed, they placed [the red imix tree in the east] . . . Then the white tree of abundance was set up. A pillar of the sky was set up . . . that was the white tree of abundance of the north. Then the black tree of abundance was set up [in the west] . . . Then the yellow tree of abundance was set up [in the south] . . . Then the green tree of abundance was set in the center [of the world] . . . . (Roys 100) Images of sacred Cosmic Trees are prominently featured in the Dresden Codex; for example, on pages 26, 27, and 28, often with a serpent, a sacrifice, and a perching bird. The concept and image of the serpent at the bottom of the tree, representing the underworld, and the bird on top, standing for the heavens, are known in many world cultures, including the Scandinavian Yggdrasil tree, as well as contemporary eastern European and Middle American representations. Diego Durán provides an indigenous drawing portraying a ritual honoring Tlaloc—the God of rain, the earth, and the underworld— which depicts a great central tree with four others attached to it by ropes while people play musical instruments.2 Currently, the famous ritual of “Danza de los voladores” (“Dance of the Flyers”), such as the “Voladores de Papantla,” still takes place in the Veracruz region of Mexico, performed by groups of Totonacs, a pre-Aztec culture going back to the Olmecs. In this ritual, a great, ca. thirtyseven-meter-long pole is erected with a square platform on top, from which four voladores or “flying men” are attached by ropes and “fly” down to the ground in helicoidal motion. The fifth volador is placed at the center, plays the flute, and is the last to spiral down to the ground with the accompaniment of wind instruments and a tambourine. In the Nahua descriptions of the creation of the world, there is a supreme God/Goddess, Ometéotl, who creates four Gods, corresponding to the four directions and colors: the red Tezcatlipoca (east), the black Tezcatlipoca (north), Quetzalcóatl (white-west), and the blue Tezcatlipoca (south), which create fire, the sun, humans, maize, days, months, years, water, the place of the dead, and they direct the cosmic order (León Portilla, La filosofía náhuatl 92–97). The arrangement of the five voladores clearly mirrors this ancient Nahua myth of the creation of the world. Moreover, the whole ceremony mimics the display and pays tribute to the five sacred Tamoanchan trees and the currents that move in their trunks in helicoidal motion. This view is reinforced by the fact that the voladores launch down from a diamond-shaped frame made of four wooden trunks, that their outfits are a combination of red, white, yellow, and blue/green, the same as the mythical

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Sacred Trees that are decorated with flowers, and their headdresses are adorned with long colorful ribbons that swirl with movement. It is apparent that they imitate the multicolored tails of sacred quetzal birds, and the spiral movement of the currents, as described in regard to the Tamoanchan tree. In addition, the four voladores circle the pole thirteen times each, which corresponds to both the thirteen skies, as well as to the 13 × 4=52-year “great year” cycle, also called “calendar round” or combined calendar—the time period where the 365-day solar Haab and the sacred lunar 260-day Tzolkin calendars coincide. In this way, both spatiality and temporality are expressed in the voladores ritual as they are in the concept of Tamoanchan. The vertical Tripartite World is an important element shared by Eurasian and Native American cultures, and it is visible on the contemporary Siberian Evenk shaman breastplate, which is divided into the upper, middle, and lower worlds.3 It was already expressed on Neolithic vessels from the TrypillianCucuteni civilization that show the earth level, the visible sky level, and the upper sky, as described in Chapter 2. These three levels may be interpreted as the Middle Plane (the Visible Sky or World)—the world we live in, The Upper World or Upper Sky/Heavens, and the Lower World or Underworld. As stated, Native Mesoamericans identify thirteen sky levels, the lower four of which correspond to the visible sky, as well as nine underworld levels. The World Tree or Tree of Life among the Maya is also symbolized by the cross and the stela as Axis Mundi. The connection between the four directions, four colors, and animals, such as the deer, is confirmed by Nahuatl poetry: You will go towards the direction from which the light originates (East): and there you will shoot the arrows: yellow eagle, yellow tiger, yellow serpent, yellow rabbit and yellow deer. You will go towards the direction from which the death comes (North): also in the earth steppe you will shoot the arrows: blue eagle, blue tiger, blue serpent, blue rabbit, blue deer. And then you will go toward the region of watered sown land (West): also in the land of flowers you will shoot the arrows: white eagle, white tiger, white serpent, white rabbit, white deer. And then you will go to the region of the thorns (South), also in the land of the thorns you will shoot arrows: red eagle, red tiger, red serpent, red rabbit, red deer.4

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As a result, the Mother Goddess turns into a doe: let’s look at her: In the Nine Planes she nourishes herself with deer hearts. It is Our Mother, the Queen of the Earth: with new clay, with new feathers she is plumed. In the four directions the arrows were broken: a doe she has turned! (Garibay, Historia de la literatura náhuatl I, 118) The yellow, blue, white, and red colors of the four directions correspond to the same colors embodied in the four Cosmic Trees, discussed above. The visual portrayal of deer representing the four directions was analyzed earlier in regard to the ritual plate and the “Deer Dance” of Mexico. In addition, it has been noted that the way the Nahua (Aztecs) conceive the universe is included in their literature, chronology, architecture, and art, and that the statue of the Mother Goddess Coatlicue, in particular, comprises their vision of the cosmos. In this massive, pyramidal stone figure full of symbols such as serpents, skulls, and body parts, the four cosmic directions, as well as the central vertical axis that connects the world of the dead below with that of the living above, reflecting the passage of time, is expressed (León Portilla 118–19). Moreover, on the underside of the Coatlicue statue, there is a representation of Tlaloc—the God of rain, earth, and the underworld—with a diagram of a quincunx (see López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan 222, fig. 25a). A similar diagram may be found on the front of the stone image of the earth and fertility Goddess, Tlaltecuhtli.5

The Diamond or Rhomb Motif From pre-historic times to the present, the four directions or corners have most frequently been expressed in the form of a diamond, a rhomb, or a lozenge. This universal motif, composed of two triangles, may be considered the most ancient, persistent, and widespread all over the world. The rhomb form with incised meanders was found on an ivory bracelet at Mezin, Ukraine, from as early as 14,000 BC. Similar forms exist on Eneolithic Balkan, and Neolithic Trypillian-Cucuteni ceramics (see Hirsch 79; and Rybakov, Iazychestvo 93–95, 77). Meanders within rhombs are also displayed on contemporary Russian and Ukrainian embroideries, as well as on ceremonial huipiles from Chiapas, Mexico. In the latter, they symbolize the movement of the sun in the design of the universe (see Rybakov, Iazychestvo 181, 91; and Morris, “Simbolismo,” 50–52). The Mayan Pejel (“Anything Square”) design, in all its variations, represents

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the world as a large diamond with four small rhombs at the corners that correspond to the east and west above and below, and to the north and south on the left and the right corner, respectively, also showing the movement of the sun. This figure has a central lozenge with a cross, and four spiral rhomb-like designs in between the corner rhombs, and constitutes a visual image of space and time, forming a quincunx (Figure 3.2). A related image is the Xocom Balumil (“The Sides of the Earth”), which has a dot at the center diamond and eight spiral rhomb-like designs between the corner rhombs (See Morris, Diseño 19, 42). Moreover, we can observe many variants of this motif that may have originated in nature, namely in the patterns on the skin of the snake, the alligator, and the turtle, as portrayed in the Dresden Codex (17a). In regard to Mayan designs from Chiapas, Mexico, Kolpakova distinguishes three basic types of rhombs: 1) Those with designs inside, such as a dot, a cross, a rhomb, or more complex; 2) rhombs with exterior elements, such as shoots; and 3) combined rhombs in the form of a net or a line (Diseños mágicos 59). The reality is that there are many different combinations of this motif, and most of them have appeared in various parts of the world since the Upper Paleolithic. Starting with rhomb-meander designs on mammoth ivory from Mezin, Ukraine, Neo-

Figure 3.2. Mayan diagram Pejel (“Anything Square”) in the form of a quincunx, representing space and time. Drawing: Olga H. Estrada, inspired by Morris, Diseño 19. Published with permission.

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lithic ceramics from “Old Europe,” and pre-Hispanic Mayan frescoes from Yaxchilán, Mexico, Olmec statues, Mayan codices, and La Malinche/Malinalli’s dress from the Aztec Florentine Codex (Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España),6 to contemporary weavings and embroideries from Anatolia, Ukraine, and Chiapas, the rhomb in its different inflexions may be the most common and continuous design ever recorded. Ukrainian embroideries on ritual towels—rushnyky—and shirts, in particular, as well as Polish designs on traditional embroidered objects, such as pillows, have identical motifs as the above-mentioned Mayan diagrams that represent the universe (Figure 3.3 and Figure 3.4). This fact corroborates their great importance, as they refer to

Figure 3.3. Embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (I) with quincunx motif. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Figure 3.4. Embroidered pillow with quincunx motif. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

the image of the world itself, the fertile plot of earth, and the woman’s fertile womb—synthetizing the continuity of life. The latter is portrayed on Neolithic Trypillian statuettes that represent a stylized female with a diamond divided into four sections containing a dot or another symbol each on her belly (see Figure 2.5), or with diamonds with a dot inside, on her protruding buttocks; here buttocks may symbolize fertilized eggs (see Masson and Merpert, Chapter 3). Thus, the rhomb is the image of the universe and its continuity. Particular attention has been given to the rhomb with a central point, as “the symbol of life.” According to Mellaart et al.: The rhomb with a central point can be considered as the abstract summary of all former images and motifs. It contains images of Mother Earth, the womb, the divine power, the act of creation and the unity of the universe. Rhombs with hooks seem to indicate, in semi-naturalistic way, a pregnant woman or, more generally, fertility. Rows of rhombs are

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believed to multiply its effect; when rhombs are arranged in close proximity and two or all four of the points of each are cut, the resulting hexagons and octagons still carry the same meaning. (The Goddess 22–23) As stated, the rhomb is usually represented with a dot, two or four dots, or a cross inside the diagram, and is often divided into two, four, or eight parts (fields) (Figure 3.5, see also Figures 3.3 and 3.4). The diamond motif with

Figure 3.5. Woman’s shirt with embroidered rhomb designs on the sleeves. Hutsulshchyna, Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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incurving lines spreading from four sides, most popular on Anatolian kilims, is called the “Birth Symbol” in Turkey, the incurving lines corresponding to the spread arms and legs of the woman giving birth (Figure 3.6). A variation of this motif, a “saw-tooth edged diamond design is called the “Baklava,” typical of Anatolia, Ukraine, the Balkans, Greece, and the Aegean Islands (Balpinar 41, 54). It is also prominently featured in Native American designs from Tierra del Fuego to northern Canada (Figure 3.7a and Figure 3.7b). The diamond symbol and its multiple variations have been identified with the vulva, the fertile womb, the fertile field, and the sun, as shown on various ancient objects. Udo Hirsch calls it “the womb of Mother Earth from which every living creature comes and to which it returns” (37). It is remarkable that the diamond design with four lines, diamonds, or triangles at its corners, as seen on the Hacilar, Anatolia plate from the sixth millennium BC (Figure 3.8), is still popular in Bulgarian embroideries and Polish crochet work that clearly represent the image of the universe (Figure 3.9a and Figure 3.9b).

Figure 3.6. Diamond motif with incurving lines on four sides— the “Birth Symbol.” Easter egg. Poland, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Figure 3.7a. The “saw-tooth edged diamond” motif, weaving. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Figure 3.7b. The “saw-tooth edged diamond” motif, weaving. Navajo, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Figure 3.8. Plate with a quincunx design. Hacilar, Turkey, 5,750–5,000 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Figure 3.9a. Quincunx design. Embroidery. Bulgaria, twentieth century. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

Figure 3.9b. Quincunx design. Decorative napkin, crochet work by author’s maternal grandmother, Halina Rutte Milencka. Warsaw, Poland, 1950s. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

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Among the classic Maya, the quincunx—a figure with four corner points and a center—described above was the marker of borders. A large representation of the world as quadripartite may be seen on the quincunx on pages 75–76 of the Post-Classical Maya Madrid Codex (Figure 3.10). Here at the center there is a square surrounding the Cosmic Ttree of abundance, guarded by two individuals (deities?), and from its four corners there are four clearly marked protrusions, possibly indicating inhabited areas with houses, spreading into the four directions, intercalated by four scenes with two humans each, showing human sacrifice, deer hunt offering, a man and a woman, and perhaps presenting symbolic offerings, thus forming a larger square with eight sides. This image may represent a creation scene. Similar images of the quincunx, a diagram formed by four diamonds, indicating the four corners, and a fifth one in the center, enclosed by a circle or an oval, are known from Asia Minor (see Golan 147, figs. 193.5 and 193.6). Some examples of the quincunx de-

Figure 3.10. Quincunx. Madrid Codex, pp. 75–76. Public domain.

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marcation are the house, the courtyard, the town, the plaza, the field, and the world (Looper 197). The quincunx is a pan-Mesoamerican, five-point model of the directions of the sacred cosmic order, symbolized by the five Cosmic Trees, and is re-created in the spatial arrangement of temples, such as those of the Cora in Nayarit, Mexico. It also alludes to the ruler as the Cosmic Tree or axis mundi that mediates in different spheres of the cosmos. In addition, the image of the Teotihuacan God Tlaloc from Nepantitla is portrayed with three quincunxes on his headdress (Tamoanchan, Tlalocan 223, fig. 26), and he is adorned with a quincunx at his center, on the underside of the great Coatlicue Goddess statue (see Lopez Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan 224, fig. 25a). A variation of the quincunx is the division into eight that is probably related to the Maya creation myths, as well as to corn, in which eight rows of grains surround a center (Heredia Espinoza and Englehardt 17–19). Similarly, in contemporary Mayan ceremonies, such as a child’s initiation, the disposition of different color objects, such as candles and flowers and foods on the ritual table, re-creates the four directions and the center of the cosmic order. The ritual table constitutes a liminal space of transition between one stage of life and another. In addition to this spatial arrangement, the godfather of a male child and the godmother of a female one make thirteen and nine circles around the table, respectively. This movement alludes to the thirteen sky regions crossed by the sun during the day, and the nine underworld regions traveled during the night, respectively, and adds a temporal element to the spatial structure of initiation (Craveri 21–24). A related motif is the triangle, which stands for the pubic triangle or vulva that represents the Goddess. On many female statuettes, the pubic triangle is emphasized, and sometimes the Goddess herself is represented in the shape of a triangle (see images in Golan 116, fig. 146). The above is exemplified in Paleolithic cave and figurine carvings, on Neolithic vessels, the Vinča script,7 as well as on contemporary woven and embroidered fabrics, and on carved wooden objects. The triangles on Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery, as well as the ovals, also symbolized rain-bringing clouds. The rhombs of a quincunx image are sometimes substituted by triangles or horned animals,8 and the triangle is a general symbol of fertility.

The Rozhanitsa or Parturition Motif An image related to the above-mentioned two Heavenly Elks, as well as to the rhomb, is the widespread female figure giving birth—the rozhanitsa.9 Rozhanitsas were venerated in many cultures under different names, and they were also worshipped in pairs—as mother and daughter. We can see versions of them on multiple realistic and schematic representations, such as the Anatolian seated Mother Goddess giving birth (see Figure 2.1) and the “double Goddess,” both

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from Çatal Höyük ca. 5,750 BC, as well as the third millennium BC golden “Ikiz idol” from Alaca Höyük that portrays two female figures holding hands— one smaller than the other (Figure 3.11). Double-faced and double-headed Goddesses are also found in the Americas. Examples are the dual-faced “Pretty Lady” terracotta figurine from Tlatilco, near Mexico City, from the Middle Pre-Classic (1,200–700 BC), and the considerably earlier, dual-headed Valdivian stone figure from Ecuador. They may represent the pair of mother/daughter, two sisters, or two different aspects of the same Goddess,10 and/or the dominion of the Goddess over life and death, similar to the case of Demeter and Persephone. The latter concept is supported by such findings as a dual mask from Tlatilco showing a half skeletal and half live face (Campbell, Historical Atlas 253, 255, 361). The double Goddess figures, including the Neolithic representation of double heaven Goddesses represented by two discs, are reflective of a their dual nature that includes heaven and earth, life and death, summer and winter, and construction and destruction (Golan 194, 200). Such con-

Figure 3.11. “Ikiz idol”—two females holding hands, gold. Alaca Höyük, Turkey, second half of the third millennium BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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trasting qualities are embodied today by the Hindu Goddess Kālī—the nourisher and the destroyer. Images of two pairs of breasts on Trypillian-Cucuteni vessels as well as connected “binocular” double vessels without bottoms were discussed earlier. In addition, Neolithic to Middle Age joint double Goddesses were found in Asia Minor, Pre-Columbian America, and Checheno-Ingushetia, among others. Vestiges of the belief in the all-powerful double Goddess can be seen to this day in eastern European fairy tales, in which the powerful witch Baba Yaga is often accompanied by her sister, two sisters, her daughter, her niece, or a young girl. Examples are the tales “Finist—Bright Falcon” and “Tale about the Apples of Youth and Live Water” (Baśnie rosyjskie 38–48 and 142–57). In the tale “Finist—Bright Falcon,” Baba Yaga and her two sisters, one by one, help Mariuszka reach her beloved Finist—a falcon who can turn into a beautiful young man. In her search, Mariuszka is also helped by animals of the forest, including the cat, the dog, and the wolf. She is in possession of magical golden and silver artifacts and is an expert in spinning, weaving, and embroidery. Clearly, she possesses all the legendary attributes of a Goddess and Mistress of Animals. In the “Tale about the Apples of Youth and Live Water,” the protagonists are three Baba Yaga sisters and their niece. Moreover, in many tales, animals are endowed with magical powers, they help humans, and speak with a human voice. In these fairy tales and myths, there is no separation between the animal and the human realm. The concept of birth-giving is reflected in a particular diagram frequently seen on contemporary Turkish, Ukrainian, Polish, and Mayan weavings, embroideries, and carvings that portray the Goddess in the form of a plant, a diamond, or two diamonds with “hooks,” standing with spread arms and legs (see Figure 1.7). The two pairs of “hooks” can be pointed upwards, or the arms upwards and the legs downwards, and vice versa. In Anatolia, this diagram, often found on kilims, was identified as the “Birth Symbol.”11 This pose can be traced back to the Neolithic Frog Goddess of Death and Regeneration represented crouching on the ground and sometimes standing with upraised arms and parted legs.12 Perhaps the oldest known carving of a woman giving birth is from Gobekli Tepe, in south-eastern Turkey, dating back to the tenth millennium BC (see Dietrich et al. 49). An almost identical diagram is widespread on Native American, Navajo weavings and identified with corn. A design portraying a female figure giving birth or with a child inside her belly, in reference to Chiapas, Mexico, was called hocker by Kolpakova. This woven and embroidered figure has different variations that represent a woman giving birth while squatting, standing, or kneeling, according to local customs (Diseños mágicos 84, 90). Similarly, to this day in eastern Europe this diagram is being repeated on embroideries, weavings, paper cut-outs, and engravings by artisans ignorant of its precise meaning but cognizant of its sacredness and importance, as expressed by the persistence of

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this image. It is interesting that, in Chiapas, Mexico, this type of design is also called Toad (Xpococ) or Antonia the toad (Sh’antun), Spider Monkey (Max), Our Holy Mother (Jh’ulme’tic), and Saint (Totik). A similar diagram is referred to as Payaso (clown) (Morris, Diseño 26–27, 32, 41). Toads have been symbols of fertility in many cultures for millennia, as seen on Neolithic statuettes. As discussed earlier, in European myths and folklore, dating back to the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic, on Copper Age vessels, shamanic plates and, as late as the first half of the twentieth century, on Polish and Ukrainian Easter egg decorations, the image of two celestial life-giving Elk- or Deer-Mothers can be found; the top of the ritual Easter egg is painted with a cloud with two elks or deer (later horses) facing each other (see Figure 1.1). On some eggs from Poland and western Ukraine, the deer are substituted with a red rhomb—a “fertile field” diagram—with a net pattern inside that has a rozhanitsa motif on each corner, creating the symbol of two rozhanitsas or the “Birth Symbol” (see Figure 3.6). This design has also been interpreted as the germinating plot of earth by Kolpakova. The net or lattice motif stands for the creation of the fabric of life, and traditionally many Goddesses and saints were portrayed as spinners or weavers. In addition, a chain of the “Fertile Field” combined with the “Birth Symbols” may be painted across a single egg, making clear that the diagram in the cloud represents a “Fertile Field”—the wombs of two rozhanitsas. An identical pattern can be observed on Neolithic vases and in the “row of Goddesses giving birth in mirror image” on Anatolian kilims (Mellaart et al. 41, 47). The rozhanitsa concept possibly evolved into the mother and daughter pair Łada or Did/ Didi/Divo-Łada13 and Lela (Lala), as recorded in multiple versions of popular Ukrainian and Polish songs: “Oi-did-Lado,” “Oi did so Ladoiu,” “Oi didi Lado,” “Doidi Lada” (Ukr.) (Rybakov, Iazychestvo 421), and “Oi didiridi, oi didiridi, oi didiridiridi ukha!” (Pol.). As is often the case, in the widespread Polish version, the name of the Goddess Łada was dropped, but the name Didi remains, while Lela (Lala) was probably transformed into lalka (“doll”), the name given today to feminine figures in traditional paper cut-outs (see Figure 1.10) as well as to children’s dolls. In the Mediterranean, Hellenistic world, the mother-daughter pair was personified by the Goddesses Demeter and Persephone/Kore.

Widespread Sacred Motifs and the Vinča Script According to Anati and Fradkin, visual figurative art was born around fifty thousand years ago, and it was preceded by graphical signs of memorization that may have constituted a semiographic system of communication at least seventy thousand years old, in South Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, among others. The prehistoric art included pictograms, ideograms, and psychograms that communicated actions, ideas, and feelings, respectively, such

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as the ones at La Pileta cave in southern Spain and may have been a form of writing (4, 8, 12, fig. 3). V, X, and Y signs, chevrons, and two lines already existed on anthropomorphized water bird figurines from 17,000–14,000 BC Ukraine, and on engraved bones from the French Upper Paleolithic.14 These designs, as well as meanders and parallel lines, are also known from figurines of the Vinča culture in Serbia, ca. 5,300–5,000 BC. It is believed that they developed into the “Old European” sacred script, which was in common use between 5,300 and 4,300 BC and boomed in the sixth millennium BC, some two thousand years earlier than any other sign system ever found. This script became complex with about thirty core signs, and over a hundred modified signs, including “V,” “X,” “+,” “Y,” “M,” and “N” (Figure 3.12). After the disintegration of the Karanovo, Vinča, and similar cultures ca. 4,300–4,000 BC, as a consequence of IndoEuropean invasions from the east, it survived for two more millennia on Crete

Figure 3.12. “Old European” script. North-west Bulgaria, 5,300–4,300 BC. Drawing: Marta Oleszkiewicz. Published with permission.

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as the Cretan Hieroglyphic, the Linear A, and on Cyprus as the Cypro-Minoan script (Figure 3.13). It is considered a sacred, non-Indo-European sign system that has not been deciphered yet. Inscriptions were made on devotional items such as Goddess figurines, altars, temple models, cult vessels, as well as spindle whorls and loom weights. Altar pieces and table altars with inscriptions from the early Neolithic were discovered in the Starčevo-Criş culture, as well as in Karanovo and Vinča, among others (C-M Lazarovici, “Pre-Writing” 85–96). Around one hundred examples of loom weights with inscriptions were found at the Neolithic tell Samovodene in Bulgaria (Chokhadzhiev 71–77). This script was also used on stamp seals to mark vases at Karanovo in Bulgaria, and Starčevo (Körös) sites in Hungary, as well as the Sesklo culture of Greece. Very prominent among these signs is the “V,” which derives from the vulva or pubic triangle and is one of the most ancient symbols in prehistoric art.15 The row of “Vs” or triangles was also depicted on Neolithic pottery, indicating rain and fertility-bringing clouds, similar to the rows of ovals.

Figure 3.13. Cretan “Linear A” script. Phaistos, Crete, second millennium BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Triangular- and lozenge-shaped designs exist on walls of caves dating back to the Paleolithic. A good example is the Blombos Cave in South Africa from 80,000 BC, where a diamond and a triangular design still exists. Near La Ferrassie, Dordogne, France, dating from the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, some thirty to forty thousand years ago, twenty stone engravings with vulva ideograms and animal heads were found (Anati and Fradkin 17–18). In addition, in Spanish and French caves from the Upper Paleolithic, prominent, multiple clearly designed triangular and oval vulvas, protruding from the stone walls, were discovered. Prehistoric representations of vulvas carved in caves also find a continuity in the widespread phenomenon of Sheela na gigs—stone figures engraved on churches and gates from the Middle Ages throughout Ireland, England, Wales, and Scotland that clearly display their genitals.16 Pubic triangles were often combined with plant motifs, indicating new life, as at El Castillo, Spain (see Goode 1, fig. 20). This design also exists on statuettes from the Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization, as well as on contemporary wooden fertility dolls from Ghana, among others. Interestingly, still in the nineteenth century, in the Rawsko-Opoczyński region of Poland, maidens ready to get married drew a code or diagram consisting of zigzags—bands of triangles— intercalated with bands of circles and accompanied by a triangle from which a plant was growing on the external walls of their house (Figure 3.14).17 In addition, bands of triangles alternating with bands of circles are also present on altar pieces from the neo-Eneolithic Karanovo culture in Bulgaria18 as well as on vases from the Kotos-Wayrajirca period (ca. 1,800 BC) in central Peru (Cáceres Macedo 31–32). These zigzags or wavy lines, intercalated by dots or circles, from the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, are a common motif to this day and may symbolize the snake and the sun, and/or water/river and seeds, as this diagram was found coiled as a snake on objects in the Balkans, as well as in the form of a lineal diagram with waterfowl instead of dots in northern Russia, both from the Neolithic, suggesting the above meanings (Golan 93, 101, 112). Moreover, similar designs exist on Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican statuettes (Figure 3.15), and on Central American ceramics (Figure 3.16). In Mayan iconography, an identical diagram signifies “serpent” and “snake” (see Morris, Diseño 45). The snake is connected to water and to fertility, the seeds grow thanks to water and sun, and waterfowl in a river is another expression of fecundity in nature; therefore, these are not competing but complementary images. Moreover, water was considered sacred, and in Russian fairy tales a frequent motif is the “water of life,” and there is the “holy water” in the Christian tradition. The above-mentioned types of diagrams were transferred to folk costumes with a similar pattern of horizontal and vertical designs, and such symbolic motifs exist to this day on many traditional objects such as wooden cups from Poland and western Ukraine. The resemblance of these contemporary diagrams to Paleolithic and Neolithic motifs is striking.

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Figure 3.14. Rows of triangles (zig-zags) intercalated with rows of dots, on a wooden rural house. Rawsko-Opoczyński region, Poland, nineteenth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Figure 3.15. Statuette with rows of triangles (zig-zags) intercalated with rows of dots. Mexico, Pre-Columbian. © Małgorzata OleszkiewiczPeralba.

Figure 3.16. Vessel with a snake in the form of zig-zags intercalated with dots. Central Caribbean coast, Costa Rica, El Bosque culture, AD 300–3,300 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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The Breasts, the Snake, and the Calendar in Eurasia As described above, the breasts on Trypillian-Cucuteni ritual bowls are often surrounded by meanders of two serpents (grass snakes) facing each other, or a snake entwined around each breast, forming connected spiral and meander motifs. Similar vessels with snakes surrounding them from 300 BC–AD 300 were found on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica (see Figure 3.16), among other places.19 The snake was a symbol of water and a mediator between the sky, with its heavenly moisture, and the earth, as well as a symbol of life energy, with its stimulating and protective powers.20 Additionally, snakes were depicted on naked female figurines, symbolizing regeneration and protecting the womb (see Figure 2.5). There is also a series of female images with snakes and water symbols, such as coils, meanders, and parallel lines, among others, from Neolithic Europe, as well as from as late as 1,600 BC Crete (Gimbutas, The Language 125, 128). In the Americas, multiple Nahua Goddesses, such as Coatlicue, Cihuacóatl, and Chicomecóatl, as well as the Mayan Ixchel, among others, are portrayed with snakes, and the skirt of the Aztec water and fertility Goddess, Chalchutlicue, is adorned with bands of zigzags. According to Rybakov, the spiraling movement around the breasts on Trypillian-Cucuteni ceramics (see Figure 2.14) is believed to have evolved into the depiction of the continuous course of the sun, the moon, and the concept of time. This development led to the representation of an agricultural calendar. A vessel from the eighteenth century BC, found in Hungary, with four little legs resembling a cow’s udder, already shows the four seasons divided by crosses, and the twelve months. A more sophisticated calendar vessel, possibly an urn from AD second to seventh century Cherniakhiv culture, was found with symbolic diagrams and divisions for all twelve months of the solar year, near Kiev, Ukraine.21 These divisions are reflected in eastern European calendar embroideries from the Christian era. To this day, the names of the twelve months of the year, and of the syncretized PaganCatholic holidays in Poland, are taken from the observation of nature and the agricultural cycle.22 Possible earlier calendars are a ceramic ritual plate on legs from ca. 4,500–4,000 BC Berezivka, and an earthenware disc from ca. 2,500 BC Botnychi, both in the Ukraine.23 The aforementioned movement of the sun is best seen when we look at the vessels from above or from below. This is also represented in almost identical fashion on twentieth-century Polish and Ukrainian Easter egg designs (see Figures 1.1 and 3.6), as well as in round dances, accompanied by fire.24 A similar concept may be seen on Mesoamerican plates that represent the movement of the sun-deer, as discussed earlier.

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Plumed, Cloud, Water, Horned, and Deer Serpent in Mesoamerica Perhaps the most widely known representation of the Mesoamerican serpent is the plumed Aztec Quetzalcóatl/Mayan Kukulkan. This mythical reptile is believed to fertilize the earth and thanks to an astronomical phenomenon can be seen descending and ascending from/to the sky on the staircase of the famous Mayan Chichen Itzá pyramid, “El Castillo,” every spring and autumn equinox, respectively. This natural spectacle of light takes about twenty minutes and to this day brings enormous quantities of onlookers. Another famous structure dedicated to Quetzalcóatl is the largest pyramid in the world, in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. Quetzalcóatl is portrayed as a liminal and magical compound of reptile and avian elements, and he is connected to wind, air, the planet Venus, learning, and priesthood. Especially in his final form he was believed to be the civilizing God and was also imagined as an anthropomorphic figure that brought knowledge and culture to Mesoamerica. Nevertheless, there were other serpent divinities, such as Xiuhcóatl or Fire Serpent, Cihuacóatl or Serpent Woman, Coatlicue or Serpent Skirt, Chicomecóatl or Seven Serpents, and Mixcóatl—the Cloud Serpent. In addition, among the Nahua of Puebla, Mexico, the boa constrictor is called Mazacóatl (“Deer Serpent”). This immense snake’s jaw is similar to that of a deer, and the boa is believed to have antlers. The description and pictures of Mazacóatl are found in Book XI of the Florentine Codex.25 In southern Oaxaca, Mexico, the deer is believed to be related to the snake/serpent, rain, lightning, and the richness of the earth (González Pérez 51, 55). It is portrayed in connection with the water serpent in the Madrid Codex 14b (Figure 3.17) and the images on pages 12–18, and page 35b of the Dresden Codex are dedicated to the water serpent. The deer’s association with rain and fertility is especially stressed, and among the characteristics of deer drawings there is an exaggerated tear gland at the corners of their eyes (Tozzer and Allen 348). This may be related to the Mayan belief that this animal “should die crying” because its tears “attract the raindrops from the sky” (Montolíu 154). As pointed out earlier, in Eurasia, there is a similar belief about the rain clouds as breasts of Celestial Elks that produce fertilizing rain. In the Tro-Cortesianus (Madrid) Codex 30b, the deer is represented next to the Goddess from whose breasts and vagina water is springing. This is Ix Chel (“Lady Rainbow”), the dual Yucatec Mayan Goddess of childbirth and creation, of life and weaving, as well as of death and destruction, accompanied by symbols of water (Almere Read and González 198–99). In Thompson’s opinion, the Mayan Moon Goddess is possibly also a rain Goddess, and the Aztec Xochiquetzal—Goddess of flowers, maize crops, and fertility of the soil—is a water Goddess. In addition, among the UtoAztecan Cora Indians of mid-western Mexico, the Moon and Earth Goddess Tatex is definitely a rain Goddess (Tozzer, “The Moon Goddess” 143–44). As

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Figure 3.17. Deer and the water serpent. Madrid Codex, p. 14b. Public domain.

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stated, the name of the God of hunting with deer features, “Mixcóatl,” means “Cloud Serpent,” suggesting that he used to be considered a rain-bringer (Thompson, Maya Hieroglyphic 108), and the deer is closely related to the rain-bringing serpent. Among the Huichol Indians of mid-western Mexico, the Goddess of rain, Na’aliwáemi, is in charge of animal reproduction/procreation, and antlers, hoofs, and horns of animals are deposited in her cave (López Austin, Tamoanchan y Tlalocan 148–49). The Pueblo Indians of the south-western United States also believe in a Horned Water Serpent God that has control over water, fertility, the weather, and war, and the same design is used for snakes and lightning. In addition, in some Hopi songs there is a Snake Virgin or Mother of Snakes persona, and in a related fertility ceremony the largest effigy of the Horned Water Serpent is female; there is also a representation of the “nursing” of snakes by Hahai Wuhti—the mother of all kachinas and serpents (Tyler 234–46). In addition, designs of plumed and horned serpents appear on ceremonial objects of the Zuñi, and they have been found on prehistoric drawings at Puye, and on early historic Tewa pottery. Winged and horned serpents are also present in the Mound culture area, such as the rattlesnakes from Alabama and Arkansas, and they are visible in the decorative art of the modern Indians of the Plains (Spinden 241–43, 246). Moreover, the Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Códice Pérez), a sacred Mayan text compiled during colonial times, contains mystical prophecies of the Thirteen Katuns. The following text is found in the Fifth Katun, corresponding to the year 1620: Fire will be lighted on the horns of the deer . . . The moon will have white circles of rain. The skies will be drenched with rains; the skies will resound with showers; the rains will vex the skies, the heavenly rains, celestial rains of cotton, rains of the cocks, rains of the deer.26 Among the Maya-Quiché from Mazatenango, Guatemala, a story is told in which with the arrival of the first rains and the beginning of the maize agricultural cycle, people exclaim: “The doe is giving birth,” and the deer appears as the protector of fresh water and the land (Hernández Soc and Galeotti Moraga 58). Both the above Mayan and Nahua myths and practices as well as the ancient Eurasian beliefs indicate the connection between deer and life-giving rain. Among the Huichol, the mythical Cosmic Serpent Kuwé Eme is linked to water and rain clouds, as well. She lives in the sea, and her breath ascends to the sky as rain-giving clouds (Dufétel 20). As noted above, this enormous water serpent is portrayed on pp. 12–18 of the Madrid Codex. Interestingly, horned swan or water bird-cervid composite images were found as early as the Bronze Age, in the Urnfield culture of central Europe (see Ross 333–34).

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Notes 1. “El árbol fecundo de Tamoanchan” Cantares mexicanos, Anónimo de Huexotxinco, included in Garibay, La literatura de los aztecas 55. 2. Durán, Fr. Diego, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas de Tierra Firme, ed. A.M. Garibay, Mexico City, Mex.: Porrúa, 1984, Vol. I, Ch. 8; included in López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan 221. 3. See Anisimov, Religiia evenkov, plate 15. 4. Cuauhttitlan Codex, included in Garibay, Historia de la literatura náhuatl, Vol. I: 116. 5. See image from ca. 1,500 Tenochtitlan in Mexico: Splendors 233, fig. 113. 6. La Malinche, Malinalli, or Malintzin—Hernán Cortés’ Indigenous translator and lover—was a central figure in the conquest of Mexico and is portrayed on illustrations of the Códice Florentino (Florentine Codex), and the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, among others. 7. See discussion of the Vinča script further in this chapter. 8. See Golan 154, fig. 208.12, and 147, fig. 193.9. 9. The word rozhanitsa means “the one who is giving birth” in Russian, similar to the later Christian Bogurodzitsa (Russian and Polish), which means “the one who is giving birth to god” or “God Birth-Giver”—a title given to the Virgin Mary, currently used as “Matka Boska” (“Mother of God”). 10. See discussion on double female figures in Gimbutas, The Civilization 176, 262. 11. Balpinar 41–43, 67, 80. This author also describes similar symbols as “[d]ouble sided multiple niches with elibelinde or ‘deity’ forms surmounting every niche” (41). 12. For example, the frog standing in a human posture with upraised arms and spread legs, from the fifth millennium BC Vinča culture. See images in Goode 108; and Gimbutas, The Civilization 152. 13. Łada was a dual Goddess of lack and joy. Her name is widely known in all Slavic and Baltic countries, and it appeared in Polish historical Pouczenia [Instructions] already in the fifteenth century. 14. See Anati and Fradkin 6, fig. 1a. 15. For a more extensive discussion of the Old European Script, see Gimbutas, The Civilization 308–20, and Haarmann 168–73. Nevertheless, Anati and Fradkin believe that this “ideographic proto-writing” had a limited function to transmit phrases and rather appears to indicate mainly adjectives and has a “magical religious function” (4). 16. See images in Jorgen Andersen, The Witch; Goode; and Dexter and Mair. 17. I am indebted to Ms. Aldona Plucińska from the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź, Poland, for being my guide at the Rawsko-Opoczyński region exhibit, on 23 June 2017. 18. See C.-M. Lazarovici 86, fig. 1.9; and 87, fig. 2.6. 19. Author’s fieldwork, Museo del Oro Precolombino Alvaro Vargas Echeverría, San José, Costa Rica, December 2017. 20. For further discussion, see Rybakov, “Cosmogony Part I” 26, and Gimbutas, The Civilization 400. Poisonous snakes represented the Goddess of Death. 21. See Rybakov, Iazychestvo 334, and Gregorovich, The Origin 16. 22. The current names of the months are: styczeń, luty, marzec, kwiecień, maj, czerwiec, lipiec, sierpień, wrzesień, październik, listopad, grudzień. Related are the double names still used for Catholic holidays in Poland, such as “Matki Boskiej Zielnej” (“Mother of

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23. 24. 25.

26.

God of the Herbs”), also called the “Ascension of the Virgin,” on August 15. For further discussion on this topic, see Oleszkiewicz-Peralba 2007, and Ogrodowska. See images in Ciuk 233. Sometimes the skirt of the dancer may actually be put on fire to re-create the sun. The Florentine Codex or Códice Florentino is the name given to Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (General History of the Things of New Spain) compiled by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s indigenous informants after the conquest of Mexico. Mediz Bolio, Libro de Chilam Balam 165.

CHAPTER 4

Weaving and Embroidery A Semblance of the Cosmos

Weaving and the Net/Lattice Pattern Besides its archeological, iconographic, cosmological, religious, ritual, mythical, and literary presence, the deer/cervid figure is an important element in contemporary weavings and embroidery in the Mesoamerican world, as well as in Eurasia (Figure 4.1). Moreover, the quadripar-tite and the tripartite images of the universe embody cosmological knowledge and are among the most persistent ones on weavings, embroidery, and other arts. The actions of spinning and weaving are considered magical and reflect the universe in constant motion (Hernández Soc and Galeotti Moraga 60). Weaving is also a metaphor for sexuality and reproduction. The lattice design can be regarded as a metaphor for the creation of life, the amniotic fluid, and the “water of life,” which is a frequent motif in eastern European legends and fairy tales, such as Afanas’ev’s “Maria Morevna” and “Tale about Apples of Youth and Live Water” (Baśnie rosyjskie 70–82 and 142–57), Figure 4.1. Weaving with embroidered deer and where water is used to bring birds. Oaxaca, Mexico, early nineteenth century. back people to life. The net © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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design often appears on “Old European” figurines, especially on their pubic triangles, from the Starčevo, Tisza, Vinča, and Karanovo cultures (see Gimbutas, The Language 81, 115), as well as from Mesoamerican civilizations. It can also be seen on deer and other animal figurines from “Old Europe” and the Americas. In ancient times, weaving and spinning was regarded as a sacred activity, and it was the domain of women and Goddesses that spun the fabric of the universe. Weaving already existed in Neolithic Anatolia, and the first textiles were used for religious purposes (Balpinar 10). In Slavic and pre-Slavic societies, there were the patronesses of spinning, the Goddess Mokosh—“Wetness” (eastern Slavs and Finns) and Żywa [Zhyva]—“Alive” (western Slavs), and the Ukrainian Matinka-Piatinka (“Mother Friday”). After Christianization, she became Saint Paraskeva Piatnitsa, and later the spinning Virgin Mary, as seen in Medieval religious art. The above Goddesses and saintly personae were often portrayed near wells of water, and round dances, believed to stimulate sexuality and fertility, were performed by girls near bodies of water. This memory is also encoded in folklore, such as the Russian fairy tale “Tale about Apples of Youth and Live Water,” in which the “old as the world” witch/Goddess Baba Yaga is spinning silk and throwing the threads into the loom (Baśnie rosyjskie 147). Holy female figures related to spinning and weaving are known in many cultures around the world, such as the ancient Greek Moerae or Parcae. In the Americas, Aztec Goddesses such as Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina, Teteo-innan, Toci, Temazcalteci, Huixtocihuatl, and Ciuacóatl are portrayed with adornments and strands of unspun cotton, as well as with spindles.1 Tlazolteotl, Goddess of garbage and filth, and patron of birth, cotton, and weaving, in particular, is portrayed with spindles in her headdress, a cotton headband, and a hanging cotton earflap, in the Borgia Codex (Libura 40). The action of spinning and weaving is connected to the sacred Mayan yaxche or ceiba tree, which produces silk-cotton thread, as well as to hair, and implements such as looms, spindles, and combs. One of the symbols for rain on ancient figurines and other objects has the shape of a comb. It is present on different Goddess and feminine figures, such as the “dolls” from 1,050–700 BC Crete (Figure 4.2). These Cretan “dolls” are packed with feminine and fertility symbols, such as round and comb-shaped necklaces, strings, hair, plants, aquatic birds, rhombs, parallel lines, and lattice motifs. The comb design may still be seen on Galician (Spanish) sargadelas (amulets/necklaces)2 (Figure 4.3). This diagram is also linked to moisture, rain, and serpents, symbolizing fertility. In fact, Mexican woven fajas or sashes represent serpents and provide protection for pregnant women. As stated earlier, female figurines from the European Neolithic and later civilizations were also portrayed with protective snakes curling around their pregnant bellies and breasts. Several Nahua (Aztec) Goddesses were connected to and portrayed with serpents. In the Huichol myth “El sueño del telar,” compiled by Fernando Benítez (47), a serpent teaches a young woman how to weave.

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Figure 4.2. Doll with fertility symbols. Crete, Greece, 1,050– 700 BC. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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The concept of heavenly net work as women’s work is transferred to decorations, especially embroidery, where it appears as the cross and the Goddess figure. On pottery, figurines, and Easter eggs, the lozenge, the triangle, and the rectangle with a net pattern inside are frequently seen in Eurasia and the Americas (see Figure 2.17). The action of weaving is reflected in the lattice pattern, symbolic of the Mayan creation of the fabric of life, which appears on Neolithic and Copper Age vessels from Eurasia, and on Middle American ceramic objects, such as bowls from 500–100 BC Guanajuato, Mexico, with a large diamond-shaped decoration filled with a lattice motif, and from preHispanic Costa Rica, with a net pattern creating rhombs with dots inside, as well as designs on female figurines from the Central American region (Figure 4.4). In addition, the net is a frequent pattern on contemporary Ukrainian rushnyky, such as rushnyk II, described below (Figure 4.5), and on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ukrainian and Polish wedding chests. Lattice patterns on Mayan garments and mantas are portrayed on many pages of the Madrid Codex, including pp. 69, 72, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, and the net motif in connection to looms and weaving can be seen on page 102 (Figure 4.6).

Figure 4.3. Sargadela, traditional necklace in the shape of a comb, porcelain. Galicia region, Spain, 1970s. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Figure 4.4. Figurine with a lattice motif. Guanacaste-Nicoya region, Costa Rica, AD 800–1,350. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Figure 4.5. Embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (II) with lattice and rhomb motifs. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Figure 4.6. Net motif, looms, and weaving. Madrid Codex, p. 102. Public domain.

The Meaning of Hair, Hair Styles, and Head Coverings From the earliest images known to humanity, such as the Paleolithic and Neolithic “Venuses” described in Chapter 2, we can observe that hairdos and hair coverings had special significance and their own symbolic language. Although some of the meanings of hair are universal, others are particular to a given place and time. Hair is very significant as it contains DNA, continues to grow after death, and it may be considered the threshold between the internal and the external world. It has been equated with strength, vitality, thoughts, emotions, intuition, and magical powers. Therefore, throughout the ages there have been attempts to curtail this power by coercion or prohibition, especially towards women. Moreover, there was a belief that many Goddesses, such as Isis, Cybele, and Kālī, “command the weather by braiding or releasing their hair” (Walker, Encyclopedia 368), and in Medieval Europe the same belief was continued as

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Inquisitors insisted on shaving presumed witches’ hair. This control continues, as some groups of women such as Catholic nuns and Jewish Orthodox wives are still deprived of hair, and women have been traditionally required to cover their hair in several cultures, either at all times, as in the Muslim community, or when entering Catholic and Christian Orthodox churches. Similarly, shaving the hair of prisoners and soldiers continues to be a method of control. In addition, Siberian peoples, such as the Evenks, and the Nivkhs from the Sakhalin Island, to this day believe in the concept of the Mistress of the Universe who controls the weather: [A]t the edge of the universe and the next . . . sits an old woman at the very rims of earth and heaven. Natural phenomena are linked in the mythology with the image of this mistress of the universe. When she sits at home and sews, the weather is calm; when she goes out of the house, the wind begins to blow; when she urinates, it rains.3 The legendary power of this Mistress and her hair (who is often converted into a witch) has been reflected in fairy tales with a long oral tradition, such as the Polish “Czarownica znad Bełdan” (“The Witch from Bełdany”) (Wortman 163–68), and the German “Rapunzel” (Grimm). The witch from Bełdany lake in northeast Poland makes the fishermen fearful because of her very long hair that she is seen trying to untangle from the bulrushes; when it is loose, she will provoke a powerful storm. This story may also be an allegory of the dangerous anger of women that have been repressed for centuries, as symbolized by their tamed hair. In a similarly symbolic story, the Grimm’s young Rapunzel, imprisoned in a high tower by a sorceress, uses her splendid long hair to liberate herself by allowing an enamored prince to climb up it. Great power has been attributed to female hair. It was believed that the thicker and longer the hair, the more vitality and fertility it carries. The association may come from the fact that pubic hair appears around the time when childbearing ability starts. This is probably the meaning of statuettes with string aprons on their back, such as the “Venus” of Lespunge (France), and at the front, such as the “Venus” of Gagarino (Russia), both from ca. 20,000 BC Paleolithic. Fringes on the head, shoulders, sleeves, aprons, sashes, and string skirts have been recorded on statuettes (see Figure 4.2) and on garments in graves around Europe through the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and they continue to be popular on traditional eastern European dress, especially in the Balkans (see Barber 53, 237–39); they are also frequently seen on traditional girls’ garments in southwestern Asia, such as in Turkmenistan and Anatolia (Figure 4.7). In the Americas, as well, First Peoples believed in the mystical power of hair, and its importance was equated to herbs and grasses growing on earth,

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Figure 4.7. Fringes and other fertility symbols on a young girl’s garment. Anatolia (Turkey), early twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

many of which have medicinal powers. In a Nahua myth, recorded in the early colonial period, the Goddess Cipactli was divided into two parts—the earth and the sky—and the Gods ordered that food would come from her, so they made trees, flowers, and herbs from her hair.4 In addition, early Valdivian culture from Ecuador stone and ceramic figurines are characterized by elaborate hairdos.5 With the belief in its powerful effect, it is no surprise that in many cultures rites of passage involve a change in hair and/or hair coverings. For example, among the Quechua and Aymara of the Andean region, El primer corte de pelo or Rutucha (“The First Haircut”) is an important ceremony in a child’s life and may be equated to his/her introduction into the community or an initiation into adulthood. On the other hand, according to Miller, “hair in Mesoamerica was multivalent, marking age and gender, signaling status and occupation, and possessing magical qualities . . .” Priests and merchants kept their hair long and unwashed to preserve their vital force, and captives were deprived of their hair by having it shaved or ripped out (133, 136). To this day,

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on Lake Titicaca’s Peruvian Taquile island, men indicate their married status by changing their head cover from a chuyo (woolen cap) to a European-style hat.6 Among the Classical Maya, elaborated headdresses that included elements such as feathers, fur, bones, flowers, palm fiber, wood, jade, and shell adornments were used, and every day and ceremonial types were distinct in character. Maya ruling class headdresses can be seen on images at the Yaxchilán, Bonampak, and Palenque archeological sites.7 It was believed that wearers of certain masks and headdresses could be transformed into Gods and supernatural beings, personifying cosmological myths. These elaborate head coverings could include a variety of objects and materials, such as figurines representing humans, serpents, jaguars, fish, and spears (Ruiz Pérez 4–11). Most of the personages portrayed on the lintels of the above archeological sites are male, but females also used head coverings, and various codices include portrayals of Goddesses with elaborated headdresses that contain snakes, such as Chicomecóatl, Cihuacóatl, and Ixchel, as well as bundles of cotton, in the case of Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina and Huixtocihuatl. Contemporary indigenous women in Mexico often wear hair braided with colorful ribbons that indicate their social status, or headdresses that include folded woven fabrics. During the conquest and colonization of the Andean region, Spaniards imposed Peninsular campesino/a (“peasant”) dress and head coverings, and syncretized garments, including European hats, are widely worn up to this day by both women and men. The head cover is a key element of women’s traditional dress in Eurasia as well. Great importance has been attributed to the way the head is presented, and it contains a wealth of symbolic meanings. Earlier in this book, I mentioned that the Paleolithic “Venus’” head was inconspicuous, with no features; it was a bird’s head or was placed under a round braided covering (Venus of Willendorf) (see Figure 2.3) or a net cap (Venus of Kostenki). In addition, the prehistoric “Venus’” head was often concealed by a mask, as in the Vinča culture and on Malta and Gozo. In the Neolithic Greek Sesklo culture, Goddess masks were frequently attached to the necks of ritual vases, and vessels with Goddess faces were a recurrent motif (Figure 4.8). These designs persist in contemporary eastern European traditional art and the collective unconscious, as manifested on current designs. Faceneck vessels, often produced in pairs, were also popular in the ancient Andean Wari culture.8 By covering the face with a mask, the divine being’s spirit or energy was embodied in the statue, vessel, or individual impersonating it during ceremonies. This concept is taken a step further in the Maltese Goddess statues, where the heads are often detachable and interchangeable. Diadems and headbands, and an engraving of a lady with a large headdress with horns dating from the Gravettian Era (25,000–20,000 BC), were also found in the Czech Republic (Van der Meer 101). Later, female statues often wear round caps or small crowns over long hair, similar to the

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one of the Goddess Tanit from fourth and third century BC Ibiza, Spain, and the Medieval statue of the Virgin Mary of Montserrat, Spain, wears over her veil.9 In order to discuss continuity of female head coverings, I will examine traditional headdresses of Ukrainian Hutsul women at different stages of their lives that are used to this day. Unmarried girls and young women do not cover their heads and usually braid their long hair. On some occasions, they wear a wreath made of flowers, indicating their virginity. This Figure 4.8. The Eye Goddess, anthropomorphic pot. Turkey, the Bronze Age. changes as they get married, as © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba. traditionally, in many societies, head coverings indicate the social position of women. In the Hutsul community, there is an elaborated ritual accompanying the passage from maidenhood to marriage, in which a key element is the change of headdress. The head gets ritually unbraided, releasing its procreative power, and covered with a peremitka/namitka, a white head wrap with red embroidery on the edges. This garment used to accompany a married woman until her death, as she was buried with it. Today, it is usually substituted by a kerchief. Another important element is the wedding wreath—a large diadem/crown, or a head cap—ochipka; there is also the headband—bavnytsa, and in addition, wool or silk ribbons are wrapped and attached underneath, imitating long hair. It is believed that hair symbolizes vitality and stamina, and wool stands for good health, life, and strength (Woźniak 125–28; Wolynetz, Invitation to the Wedding 140). In addition, Barber reports that in some areas of agrarian eastern Europe unmarried girls wore one braid, and at their wedding the hair was re-braided into two braids that were wrapped around the head and covered with a cap; this symbolically alluded to their pubic hair, which would be divided by the sexual act and later by bearing babies (53–54). Although the contemporary ochipka has many colorful and shiny adornments that are there to keep away evil forces (Figure 4.9), its shape closely resembles the round caps of Paleolithic and Neolithic “Venuses.” The floral diadem with its wool or ribbons echoes the headdress of various Goddesses and saints throughout history and the long colorful ribbons at the back of the Ukrainian Motynka

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Figure 4.9. Ochipka—head cap of a married Hutsul woman, with wool fringes. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

doll headdresses, and we cannot help but think about the swirling ribbons on the Mexican Triki huipil, described below. These ribbons refer us to the Mesoamerican Cosmic Tree image that represents the sacred forces traveling between the three vertical worlds that encompass the universe.

Symbolic Designs on Traditional Ukrainian Blouses The tripartite and quadripartite divisions of the universe are reflected on traditional women’s garments, such as eastern European folk blouses, and Middle

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American huipiles. On contemporary embroidered Ukrainian Hutsul blouses, the most important spatial arrangement is tripartite vertical, but remnants of the rhomboid composition can be observed in the front-central, most important portion of blouse, which is embroidered in the form of a rectangle. When we examine these women’s shirts, one notices that the most elaborated designs are surprisingly placed on the shoulders and arms, around the cuffs, on the frontal area, and around all openings, and the predominant colors are red, white, and black. This is not a coincidence. These magical patterns and colors are there for protection, and the traditional embroidered sleeves are always divided into three distinct vertical parts, with similar designs to the ones on the tripartite Neolithic ritual vessels (see Figures 2.14, 2.16a, and 2.16b). Interestingly, the Carpathian mountain region of Hutsulshchyna, where these blouses are from, is located in the heart of the Neolithic TrypillianCucuteni culture, and in the geographical center of Europe, in today’s south-western Ukraine, bordering with Poland, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia.10 Because of its geographical isolation in a mountainous terrain, Hutsulshchyna was protected from outside influences and to this day retains the most traditional designs and rituals. Similarly structured blusas (blouses) may also be found in southern Mexico. I will examine three particular blouses from this Carpathian Hutsul region in conjunction with Neolithic Trypillian vases. On the first shirt’s sleeves and shoulders we can observe Figure 4.10. Tripartite sleeve of a Hutthree distinct levels (Figure 4.10). sul blouse. Ukraine, twentieth century. The lower level is a prominent tree of © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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life—a Goddess figure made of a post with five pairs of branches in yellow and maroon—the colors of the sun and the earth. Interestingly, the branches are also made of small horned Goddess figures with extended arms in the color of the sun, alternating with maroon ones with the lozenge symbol of the earth; the central level is entirely made of combinations of large “fertile field” or lozenge symbols; and the upper level is formed with horizontal bands, and garland-like motifs between them, as if belts of drops or clouds of rain hang above, which can also be seen on the vessels. In this example, we notice a recombination of symbols from Neolithic pottery that further shows the evolution of the Goddess/ doe into a plant and a Tree of Life. The horns on the embroidered figures suggest elk/deer Goddesses, which have a long tradition in ritualistic dances in eastern and western Europe and have been found in Star Carr, England (8,000–7,500 BC) as well as in the seventh millennium BC, BalkanDanubian Lepenski Vir culture burials, apparently to increase forces of life and regeneration (Gimbutas, The Civilization 223). As previously discussed, horns are also abundantly featured on hairdos and headdresses of contemporary female folk costumes in many cultures descending from “Old European” (pre-Indo-European) civilizations. For example, one of the ways that a married Hutsul women’s head wrap is arranged is to have two bulky protrusions on the sides.11 In a similar vein, the Chinese Miao minority women use heavy ceremonial headdresses with enormous horns. The second shirt’s sleeves are made of the three basic universal colors—white, red, and black (Figure 4.11).12 The lower and main part shows oblique black bands on a white background, with striking similarity Figure 4.11. Tripartite sleeve of a to the transversal rain lines on Neowhite-red-black Hutsul blouse. Ukraine, twentieth century. lithic vessels (see Figures 2.16a and © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba. 2.16b); the red middle part presents

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meander-like intricate designs of the same color that are not visible from a distance; and the upper—seemingly all black—part on closer inspection denotes small red spiral designs camouflaged below the black surface. The fact that the embroiderers went to such lengths to hide presumed magical designs under the cover of plain black thread speaks to the great importance of these patterns, which acquire even greater power when hidden. Similar spiral motifs that symbolize life regeneration were found on ceramic objects from the fourth millennium BC Egypt, and from Neolithic Malta, Figure 4.12. Spiral and zig-zag motifs among many others, and are still seen on a gourd. Kenya, twentieth century. on painted eastern European Easter © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba eggs and on various contemporary items from countries including Peru and Kenya (Figure 4.12). The third, long shirt, all white with red embroidery, from the midsummer solstice “Kupala’s Fires” or “Wianki”—June’s longest night of the year ceremony—brings us closer to the idea of the Goddess-Tree of Life concept (Figure 4.13). The main, lower part is covered up with embroidered red plants, which reverted in the upper section become rozhanitsas or double-goddesses, one giving birth to the other. The fact that these figures are in the section corresponding to the “upper sky” takes us back to the concept of the two Heavenly Figure 4.13. Red and white Hutsul blouse with rozhanitsas and plants from the “Kupala’s Fires” ceremony. Ukraine, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Female Elks from the hunter-gatherer societies of the upper Neolithic, discussed in Chapter 1. The middle of the shirt sleeve is made of three horizontal rows of red “fertile field” symbols. According to Rybakov, during “Kupala’s Fires,” a straw doll, called Kupala, Morena, Kostroma, Rusałka, Śmierć (depending on the Slavic region or country), which symbolizes the dying and re-birthing of nature, was drowned in a river. Originally, a real naked girl was either literally or symbolically drowned (Iazychestvo 391–93).

Ukrainian Rushnyky Rushnyky, embroidered towels used to this day by Ukrainians, are important ritual objects, heavily decorated with variations of the lozenge motif in combination with the rozhanitsa/birth/horn symbols. According to Olena Nykorak (“The Ceremonial” 120): The embroidered “rushnyk” has become not only a sacred symbol, but also the artistic pinnacle of folk culture in which the material, spiritual, utilitarian, aesthetic and sacred essence has been tightly entwined into a unified whole. Its symbolic function has been so significant that even in the present day it remains dominant: even given the fact that the original meaning and understanding of its symbolism has been lost, the “rushnyk” remains the one manifestation of this long and ancient tradition. The “rushnyk” (along with the “pysanka” – Easter egg and embroidered shirt) to this day is the most powerful symbol of ethnicity . . . Since the early twentieth century, rushnyky have also been commonly used as interior decoration, being hung in the most sacred and sensitive places; for example, above all icons (Christian Orthodox holy pictures), on ritual tables, and around the windows. As protective talismans and intermediaries, they are always present during the most important ritual occasions. They are prominent at all liminal, transitional situations, such as a change of social group or status, as they mediate between the worlds of the living and the dead. For example, rushnyky are prominently used for birth, wedding, and funeral ceremonies. The protective and intermediary role of the rushnyk is part of the magical properties that homespun linen cloth is believed to have been imbued with since as early as the eight millennium BC. The oldest known textiles, found in the Nahal Hemar cave near Jericho, Israel, date from ca. 7,200 BC and are plain linen cloth used for wrapping corpses or bones. The weavings found at the Neolithic site of Çatal Höyük, Turkey are believed to be used for wrapping the bones of the dead, as well (Hirsch 55, 63). The Ukrainian textiles also include plain cloth, the peremitka,13 the kerchief, and the shirt, which are central in

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family transition rituals. On engagements and weddings, a rushnyk is usually secured around the bride’s waist, around the groom’s, bride’s, and their relatives’ hands, around the upper bodies of the bride and groom, and around the kolach or round ritual bread, discussed in Chapter 1. Moreover, the young couple has to stand on a rushnyk, originally homespun plain linen. Other important objects were and still are the obrus (tablecloth) and the shirt. The bride embroiders these textiles herself. After the wedding, they are carefully packed away and only used on the most important occasions, and people are usually buried wearing these fabrics (Nykorak, “The Ceremonial” 100, 106, 116). The embroidered rushnyky contain multiple combinations of motifs—a striking wealth of designs that denote an eagerness to enhance and multiply their magical power. For example, a particular twentieth-century rushnyk (I) from the Hutsul region that I acquired in Western Ukraine in 2016 has a large horizontal lozenge motif (see Figure 3.3). Within each large rhomb there are concentric ones designed with multiple colors until the smallest form a red cross/dot in the center. On the four sides of the lozenge there are four smaller ones, also with red crosses/dots inside, forming a quincunx, while the four corners are crowned by double black “birth symbols” resembling antlers, with tiny red crosses inside—the rozhanitsas or Celestial Elks. This pattern is repeatedly forming two additional quincunx rows in a different color. In addition, the external upper and lower corners of the central, largest, lozenge are crowned by rozhanitsas/horns with two smaller red/yellow/orange/black lozenges on the sides; below them we can observe crouching legs. As if this whole combination of symbols was not clear enough, near both edges of the rushnyk there is a khorovod of female figures dancing with risen arms. Another rushnyk (II) from the same region and period shows a tripartite horizontal division. In the center there is a large fertile field symbol with a smaller one inside that denotes a yellow cross in the center and four smaller ones in the corners (see Figure 4.5). Similar patterns with a cross inside are already known from 6,000–5,500 BC seals from the Sesklo culture from Thessaly, Greece, the Balkans, and Tripillia-Cucuteni.14 These designs are also used on Middle American weavings and embroideries, as in the quincunx—the image of the universe—discussed earlier, as well as in the weavings of South American peoples, such as the Waynuu of northern Colombia. Each corner of this rushnyk is crowned with a figure in the “hands on hips” (Turkish “Elibelinde”) pose. An additional two rows of smaller lozenges that contain a green net pattern with a yellow cross in the center, together with the large central rhomb, form a larger quincunx. The smaller rhombs are intercalated with white/brown net triangles, similar to the rain clouds on Neolithic vessels. As described, there is an accumulation of symbols whose super-imposition is geared towards the multiplication of their strength and power. This design is limited by two horizontal bands and a row of birth symbols alternating with a plant motif above

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and below the bands, forming a large tripartite pattern that also echoes the designs on Trypillian-Cucuteni pottery. In addition, the whole structure recalls a Paleolithic pattern from South Africa, still present on contemporary white and brown African woven fabrics or “mud cloths,” fertility dolls, wooden stools, decorative gourds (see Figure 4.12), on nineteenth-century rural houses from the Rawsko-Opoczyński region of central Poland, discussed above (see Figure 3.14), and on Pre-Columbian figurines from Mesoamerica (see Figure 3.15). The predominant colors on both rushnyky are dark brown/black, orange, yellow, and red, as well as green and/or blue, giving the impression of a brown design on a white background, similar to the Polish houses and the African fabrics. No doubt the intricate designs of the rushnyky portray the image of the universe and are imbued with great power. Runners, similar in form and full of ancient sacred symbols, such as flowers and animals, are also popular in Mesoamerica.

Mayan Huipiles Formerly they used to make the threads as today we make our children/they made them themselves with the force of their flesh. (Lexa Jiménez López)15 The Mayan huipil and the sobre huipil, from the Nahuatl huipilli (“adorned blouse or dress”), a tunic-like woven woman’s garment widely used to this day, primarily in Guatemala and southern Mexico, is the most traditional attire, imbued with sacred meanings. Women’s ceremonial garments with their powerful magical designs were preserved during the conquest and colonization, as Spaniards ordered Native Americans to dress the newly imposed Catholic saintly statues, following a similar custom in the Iberian Peninsula. The difference was that Indigenous peoples used their own traditional garments. For example, to this day, the saints at Magdalenas, Chiapas, Mexico, wear multiple huipiles superimposed on each other (Morris, Diseño 27; Morris, Mil años 17). Huipiles are woven in the form of a square, rectangle, or cross with a square or round opening in the middle—a reflection of an image of the universe with its four directions, its nine skies and its nine subterranean levels, in whose center is the cosmic axe—the woman wearing it (Figure 4.14): When a Maya woman puts on her huipil she symbolically emerges through the collar, the axis of the world. The drawings of the universe irradiate from her head, extending on the sleeves and the bodice of the garment to form an open cross with the woman at the center. Here the supernatural and the ordinary meet. Here, in the very center of a world woven from dreams and myths, she remains between the sky and the underworld. (Morris, Diseño 19)

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Figure 4.14. Mayan huipil in the form of a rectangle with nine sky and nine underworld levels that reflects the structure of the universe. Chiapas, Mexico, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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The head opening is symbolically adorned with the rays of the sun and, among the Maya-Ixil, it is often square, decorated with embroidery, also representing the four directions. This corresponds to the traditional representation of the earth and the womb as a rhomb, and the fertile earth and woman’s womb as a diamond with a dot or a cross in the middle. At the same time, the huipil is woven in the form of a square or a rectangle, usually formed by three pieces of cloth arranged vertically, and the horizontal design may be tripartite as well. Those divisions correspond to the three cosmic levels—the invisible or upper sky, the visible sky and earth, and the netherworld (inframundo), whose center is the human body (Figure 4.15). As discussed elsewhere in this book, these three vertical cosmic spheres were symbolized by a Cosmic Tree that united them, as the sky essences combined with the underworld essences through a spiral movement in its trunk. This vertical world axis is also symbolized by the human body. Moreover, in a huipil from San Pablo Macuiltianguis, Oaxaca, exhibited at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, the upper-central part is made of concentric rhombs that further reinforce the idea of the universe (“Huipil Chinanteco”). In a typical Oaxacan Triki huipil 16 (Figure 4.16a and 4.16b), the four Cosmic Trees, discussed above, are reflected in the four vertical ribbons sewn from top to bottom, and the fifth one—the flowering and most important tree—Tamoanchan—is symbolized by several colorful ribbons that originate on the back of the circular head opening (adorned with triangles and representing the sun) and end near the bottom of the huipil. The ribbons swirl with each movement along the spinal cord of the wearer, echoing the helicoidal motion contained in the trunk of the cosmic Tamoanchan tree. Similarly, the above-mentioned colorful ribbons attached to the Ukrainian Hutsul woman’s wedding headdress swirl with each motion alongside her spine. Moreover, in the most important, central segment of this type of huipil, there is a special rectangular design called Mamá de las mariposas (“Mother of Butterflies”), on the woman’s chest. Its name is due to the perception that the life of a woman mimics the life and transformations of a butterfly (Méndez Zapata and Naumis Peña 378), but the butterfly (pepen) is also used as a metaphor for the sun (Morris, Diseño 20, 42), appearing and disappearing in the sky, marking the passage of time. As previously discussed, the sun was first venerated in Eurasia as a powerful Goddess. Interestingly, during my fieldwork in southern Mexico, the weavers explained to me that there are three versions of the red and white design of the Triki huipil—for the young, the mature, and the old woman.17 This notion is confirmed by an indigenous Bribrí legend in which it is said that: Sibo [God] made butterflies as women. He made them in the shape of women at a place called iLaLelae. There he made them by a natural pool . . . there he commanded the spirit of women, and there he saw they were beautiful.18

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Figure 4.15. Huipil with a tripartite vertical division and horizontal divisions indicating nine underworld levels, four lower sky levels, and nine upper sky levels, reflecting the structure of the universe. Mexico, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

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Figures 4.16a. and 4.16b. Triki huipil (front and back) with four vertical sewn-in ribbons indicating four Cosmic Trees, and swirling colorful ribbons representing the helicoidal motion within the trunk of the cosmic Tamoanchan tree. Oaxaca, Mexico, twenty-first century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

Interestingly, the Miao people of southwest China worship the Butterfly Mother as the most important ancestress from whom all living things descend, and therefore her stylized image is a frequent motif on silver neck rings, among other objects (see Figure 1.14).19 The butterfly as well as the neck ring are symbols of the sun. In addition, both in the Ukraine and in southern Mexico, round bead collars with traditional geometric designs are made and worn as well as the obligatory multiple red coral necklaces in Poland and the Ukraine, and the colorful seed necklaces in Chiapas, Mexico. The above circular adornments around the woman’s neck reinforce her role as a Sun Goddess and the center of the universe. Moreover, it has been reported that the huipiles of Comalapa, Guatemala, indicate the woman’s age through their neckline. The slit is for a mature and an old woman, the square for a young one, and the V-shape for a very young woman or girl (Asturias de Barrios 130). They reflect their reproductive status: the closed womb is indicated with a narrow line for a post-menopausal woman, the fertile womb of a young woman is a square, and the V-shape shows the potentiality of a young girl.

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Taking into consideration that, according to López Austin, in the Mesoamerican worldview temporal currents begin at the four directional trees, where the sky (turquoise place) and the underworld (obsidian place) forces intersect (Human Body and Ideology Vol. 1: 60), we can understand how not only the spatiality but also the human and cosmic temporality is included in this garment’s design. Thus, the four sides of the huipil—the world’s rhomb—are the borders of space and time (Morris, Diseño 19). “The inclusion of time and space in a field of rhombs has been a sacred concept since the Classic Maya period. Lady Xoc of Yaxchilán, was wearing this same motif in AD 709 while performing the blood-letting ritual,” as portrayed on lintel 24 (Morris, Diseño 21; Morris, Mil años 6, 56). Thus, the huipil is a sacred text that synthetizes the Middle American concept of the earth and the universe with its three levels and four directions (rumbos), as well as the passage of time, and corresponds to the image of the Middle American cosmos, as described above. In the center of this universe is the woman wearing the huipil—her head being equated with the central sun, and the sun—with its daily movement through the horizon, also indicating temporality. In addition, the woven or embroidered huipiles are packed with sacred iconographic symbols such as rhombs and their variations, triangles, wheat grains, beans, cotton seeds, and maize (milpa) (Craveri 16–17), as well as flowers, birds and deer, among others. Moreover, many blusas (blouses) from Oaxaca clearly portray the Cosmic Tree adorned by flowers and birds as described and shown in ancient Nahua texts. A similar spatial cosmic design may be observed in the placement of the Siberian Evenk shaman’s tent. The four directions are marked by a rectangle-like design of the surrounding space, with a pole-tree in the chum’s (tipi’s) center (see Anisimov, Religiia 202, plate 32). Furthermore, the pole itself represents the Cosmic Tree with its roots in the underworld, its trunk on earth, and its branches reaching to the sky. Interestingly, Aztec and, because of their colonial influence, some Mayan huipiles were also adorned with feathers.20 This bird-mimicking is characteristic for Eurasian shamans’ dress, as well. In addition to the above correspondences, the statue of the Goddess Coatlicue comprises the Aztec idea of the dimensions of the cosmos, as described in Chapter 3. Another Mesoamerican women’s garment of pre-Hispanic origin is the quechquémitl. This attire, linked to the feminine fertility deities, is explicitly in the form of a rhomb, with a rhomboidal head opening and featuring patterns with their above-mentioned significance. It is imbued with layers of other symbolic meanings, such as the woman’s social status (Figure 4.17). For example, fringes signify that the woman is single, while solid borders indicate marriage. Even at first sight, we perceive the woman as the center of a fertile plot of earth embodied in her flesh. This garment can be used over a naked body or over a huipil, which reinforces its meaning. The main difference between the huipil and the quechquémitl is its spatial orientation. While the huipil is a square or a

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Figure 4.17. Quechquémitl, a rhomboidal Mesoamerican woman’s garment. Oaxaca, Mexico, twentieth century. © Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba.

rectangle parallel to the ground, the quechquémitl points to the earth with its corners. In sum, both Mayan and eastern European textiles, and especially women’s garments worn close to the body, contain an elaborated code of sacred symbols that reflect their cosmology. This vision of the universe, with a woman at its center, is a remnant of the original belief in the Goddess of the Universe and the Sun. Both cultural traditions embodied in symbolic diagrams contain remnants of the quadripartite and the tripartite images of the world with the fertile plot/woman’s womb and its four corners, the central axis, and the three dimensions of the heavens, the visible sky/earth, and the underworld.

Notes 1. For a discussion of spinning and weaving deities, see Oleszkiewicz-Peralba, The Black Madonna, and Neumann, The Great Mother.

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2. Sargadelas, often worn as necklaces, are magical amulets from Galicia—a Celtic, northwesternmost region of Spain. Author’s fieldwork in Galicia, Spain, 1976. 3. Anisimov, “Cosmological Concepts” 168, following Kreynovich, “Ocherek kosmogonicheskikh predstavleniy gilyakov ostrova Sakhalina,” Etnografiia 1 (1929): 80. 4. López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan 13–14, following Garibay, ed., Historia de México 1965: 106. 5. The Valdivia culture of Ecuador is considered the “American Formative Matrix,” the Formative stage of civilization in the Americas, generally considered to correspond to the European Neolithic, as a time when large permanent settlements devoted to agriculture existed (Campbell, Historical 360–61). 6. Author’s fieldwork on Taquile Island, Peru, 1988. 7. Author’s fieldwork in Chiapas, Mexico, 2014. 8. For further discussion on Wari faceneck vessels, see Andrea Vazquez de Arthur, in Tiesler and Lozada, eds. 253–68. 9. Author’s fieldwork in Catalonia, Spain, 1998, and in the Balearic Islands, Spain, 2005. See images in Oleszkiewicz-Peralba 2007: 68, 16. 10. See maps in Nykorak, Hutsul Embroidery 12, and Gregorovich, The Origin of Ukraine 4. 11. See images in Woźniak 47. 12. White, red, and black are considered the three universal colors. White represents purity and fertility; red, life and power; and black, death and decomposition. They correspond to human bodily fluids. In ancient Hinduism, white was the color of original water; red, of original fire; and black, of original earth. For a discussion of colors, see Turner, The Forest of Symbols 59–111, Oleszkiewicz-Peralba, Fierce Feminine Divinities 30–32, and Zaehner 91. 13. Peremitka, also called namitka, is a traditional woman’s white head wrap with red embroideries at the edges. 14. See images in Masson and Merpert 313; Gimbutas, The Civilization 317; G. Lazarovici 60; Dzhanfezova 104, 107; and Kuncheva-Russeva 110. 15. “Antes hacían los hilos como ahora hacemos nuestros hijos. Los hacían ellas mismas con la fuerza de su carne.” Poem “Como la luna nos enseñó a tejer” by Lexa Jiménez López, San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico; transl. from Mayan. 16. Triki is one of the sixteen native groups of the Oaxaca state in Mexico. Triki languages are part of the Mixtec group, which belongs to the Otomangue family (Méndez Zapata and Naumis Peña, “Terminología” 1). 17. Author’s fieldwork, Oaxaca, Mexico, June 2016. 18. Bozzoli de Wille 87. The Bribrí, one of Costa Rica’s indigenous groups, live isolated in the rainforest of the southeast province of Limón and are known for their closeness to nature and for their matrilineal clan system. 19. Author’s fieldwork, Exquisite Adornment. Exhibit, San Antonio Museum of Art, 2 January 2021. 20. According to Walter Morris, Zinacantán, Chiapas, is the last place in Mexico that feathered huipiles are still being worn by the Tzotzil inhabitants (Diseño 29; see image in Mil años 21).

Conclusion

I have examined multiple elements of the Eurasian and the Middle American worldview, as reflected in symbolic designs, myths, fairy tales, and rituals, across time. They correspond to the collective unconscious of humanity that conveys sacred meanings beyond thought and words through a symbolic and metaphorical language. As demonstrated, there is no contradiction between these apparently distant regions’ peoples’ cosmological beliefs and practices. They coincide in their general as well as in their intrinsic notions of the structure of the universe as quadripartite and tripartite, in their representation of the earth, the sky, and the underworld, in the functions of the cervid, the snake, the bird, the world axis/Cosmic Tree, and in their notion of the earth and the movement of the sun. They concur in their relation with the deer and the snake, as well as in the concept of water and moisture, and their vision of the heavens and the sun as an originally feminine, life-giving force that is symbolized by the butterfly and carried under the earth from west to east at night. The motifs of the Mistress and the Master of Animals, the symbolic sexual and regenerative nature of deer and the hunt, as well as of weaving and embroidery that create the fabric of the universe, are further proof of the unity of ideas and practices from ancient times to the present, ideas that to this day are expressed on rock, bone, wood, metal, and with paper cut-outs and woven and embroidered designs on fabric. These practices attest to a common, intrinsic human vision of the universe, regardless of time and place, as pointed out by Lévi-Strauss, Campbell, and Jung. Although many of these myths and designs are still extant among the Huichol and the Maya of Mesoamerica, and the Evenk and Koryak of Siberia and Kamchatka, respectively, in the majority of traditional communities they are reproduced without the understanding of their ancient meaning. Nevertheless, the greatest change has happened in the Western world, as original sacred symbols are progressively emptied of their meaning and replaced by dogmatic representations in monotheisms. Moreover, in the highly industrialized and globalized world, products containing sacred symbols started to be mass-reproduced for profit and with no regard to their deeper significance. Thus, we encounter designer dresses and sweaters bearing ancient symbols, such as the rhomb or the elk, with no other aim but esthetics and monetary gain. Sadly, many designs, such as those of the Maya, are stolen and inserted as decorative motifs for garments sold in expensive boutiques for tourists, such

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as those in San Miguel Allende and Oaxaca in Mexico, and in Santa Fe in the USA. Dangerously, in a world affected by globalization, these “pirate” items are often mass manufactured by slave-like and child labor in China and India for Western companies, who are the beneficiaries. I hope this book will help uncover and relate cosmological symbols and ideas that, because of their very nature and dispersal through time and place, are not easily understandable to the majority of the population, being accustomed to superficial and compartmentalized readings of surrounding phenomena. Moreover, I wish this book to be cognizant of the fact that we need to be vigilant regarding the appropriation of motifs produced by traditional communities, for the sole purpose of profit and exploitation. It is my desire that the data and reflections provided here will inspire readers to pursue their own studies, dig deeper, and ask questions about contemporary reality and the origin of current icons and beliefs.

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Index

Note: Italic page numbers refer to illustrations. Afanas’ev, Aleksandr, 15, 85 Americas: animal deities of, 6–11, 13–14; female figurines with symbolic designs from, 42–44, 43, 55n5; and mystical power of hair, 90–91. See also Cora Indians; Costa Rica; Haida Indians; Huichol Indians; Middle American Maya; Nahua Indians; Native Americans; Pawnee Indians Anati, Emanuel, 73, 83n15 Anatolia (Asian part of Turkey): “Birth Symbol,” 72; Çatal Höyük site, 37, 40, 47, 48, 55n6, 98; “Double Bird/Vulture” motif of kilims, 47; “Elibelinde” or “Hands on Hips” motif of kilims, 45–46, 99; fringes and other fertility symbols on girl’s garment, 90, 91; Hacilar site, 37, 66; Mistress of Animals flanked by two leopards, 14–15, 37, 38, 70; plate with a quincunx design, Hacilar, 66, 67; rhomb/diamond/ lozenge motif with incurving lines on four sides, 65–66, 66, 73; tree with deer and birds, center of woven kilim, 9, 10, 48; weaving in, 86 Animal Master, 4, 13, 16–18 Animal Owner, 14 Anisimov, F., 7, 53, 54, 57 anthropomorphic male images, 4 Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM), 2 Baba Yaga (Slavic witch), 18, 72, 86 ballgame, 19, 30 Balpinar, Belkis, 83n11 Barber, Elizabeth Wayland, 93

bear: “The Bear-Man” story of Pawnee Indians, 13–14; Great Bear constellation, 7, 18; and headdresses, 54; iconography of she-bear, 6; Mistress of Animals as, 14–15 Benítez, Fernando, 86 Bird Goddess: and birds of prey, 46, 48, 55n6; Goddesses with shrines, trees, and life-giving and death-bringing birds, embroidery, 46–47, 47, 48; iconography of, 4, 6, 46; and Tree of Life, 48; and Vinča culture, 6, 46 bird-headed antlers, as metaphor for trees, 9 bird motif, 2 birds: aquatic birds, 6, 46, 74, 86; double meaning of, 48–49; functions of, 108; and horned swan, 82; and shaman’s cloak, 54; sun and heavens represented by, 6; sun and images of paired birds, 26. See also Bird Goddess; Goddess with birds birds of prey: and Bird Goddess, 46, 48, 55n6; and death and regeneration cycle, 47, 55n6; and tradition of “heavenly burial practice,” 9, 35n6; vase used for funeral ceremonies, Crete, 37, 39, 47. See also vultures “Birth Diagram,” 1 “Birth Symbol,” 72 The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe (Oleszkiewicz-Peralba), 1 Blombos Cave, South Africa, 76 Borgia Codex, 86 bread, ritual bread consumption, 27, 28 Bribrí indigenous group, Costa Rica, 102, 107n18 Bucrania, 37 Buddhism, 16, 17

132 • Index

bugady (sacred and generative places), 7 Bugady Enintyn, 7, 15, 53 Bukk culture, 37 burial practices, 9, 35n6 Butterfly Mother, 104 calendar: names of months, 79, 83–84n22; representation of agricultural calendar, 79; in round dances, accompanied by fire, 79, 84n24; and time, 60 Campbell, Joseph, 3, 42, 108 Cañón del Muerto district, Arizona, 55n5 “A Captive Deer-Man,” Mochica ceramic vessel, Lima, Peru, 30 Carpathian Hutsul region, Ukraine, 11 ceramics: “A Captive Deer-Man,” Mochica ceramic vessel, Lima, Peru, 30; iconography of animal deities on, 6; of Middle American Maya, 32; tripartite cosmos portrayed on, 50–51, 52, 53, 56n15; of Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization, 49–50 Cernunnos (ancient god), 18 cervids: ancestry of, 7–8, 13; antlered cervid headdresses, 16; dry season associated with, 21; and fertility, 32–35; iconography of, 6, 11; role of, 4, 55, 108; sun cult linked with, 18, 21; transformation to horses, 8–9 Cherniakhiv culture, 79 Chichen Itzá pyramid, 80 Chicome Xochitl (“Seven Flower”), 13 chiichan (“deer-snake”), 14 Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Códice Pérez), 35, 59, 82 Cholula, Pueblo, Mexico, 80 Christmas cards, 34, 36n26 circle motif, 1 Clan Mothers: elk-cows as, 7, 8, 53; embodied in clan totems, 7; female figurines representing, 39 Coatlicue (Aztec Goddess), 4, 61, 70, 79, 80, 105 collective unconscious, 3–4, 31, 33, 92, 108 Cora Indians: sacred symbols of, 2, 21, 70; Tatex as rain Goddess, 80

Cortés, Hernán, 83n6 Cosmic Tree: deer antlers as branches of, 13; function of, 108; human body identified with, 41; in Middle American Maya cultures, 9, 57–61, 58, 69, 69, 94, 102, 105; Tamoanchan tree, 57–61, 58, 102, 104 Coso Patterned Body Anthropomorphs, 16 Coso Rock Art Complex, California, 13, 16, 35n16 Costa Rica: deer with corncobs, gold, 29, 29; female figurines of, 43–45, 44, 88, 88; female figurine with lattice motif, 88, 88; vessel with snake in form of zigzags intercalated with dots, El Bosque culture, 77, 78, 79 covoquichtli (youth of the tree), 13 Cretan “Linear A” script, 75, 75 cross: in embroideries, 99; Goddess with birds, transformed into cross with angels, Poland, 11, 13; human body identified with, 41; Mayan cross with plants, sun, and quincunx symbols, Chiapas region, Mexico, 41, 42; as motif, 1; and sun/star motifs, 26–28; and weaving, 88 culture hero, 15, 21, 35n12 Cybele, 89 Cypro-Minoan script, 75 deer: abundance related to, 4, 16, 28–29; and agrarian saints, 17; as Animal Master, 16–17; antlers as branches of Cosmic Tree, 13; antlers shed by, 21, 28, 29, 33, 34, 35; branched deer antlers symbolizing seven flowers, 13; and celestial hunt, 18–19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24; Christ associated with, 29, 31; crosslegged deer, 30, 31; deer with corncobs, gold, Costa Rica, 29, 29; as El Hermano Mayor (“The Big Brother”), 31, 34; fertility related to, 4, 16, 19, 28–29, 31– 35, 80, 108; flags and heraldic symbols associated with, 17; flower as metaphor for, 32; fluid boundary between deer and humans, 13–14, 15, 16, 17–18,

Index • 133

30–31, 33–34; four universal directions associated with, 18–19; iconography of, 6; as liminal being, 14, 19, 30–32; and Madrid Codex, 19, 21, 22, 35, 80, 81, 82; as mediator identified with Tree of Life, 11, 13; in Middle American cultures, 9; Mistress of Animals as, 14– 15; as motif, 2; naked hunter in front of deer, funerary stele, Eleutherna, Crete, Greece, 33, 34; and net/lattice pattern, 86; and Polish “Srebrnorogi jeleń” tale, 15, 24; rain associated with, 80, 82; regeneration related to, 4, 16, 19, 28–29, 31–32, 33, 34, 35, 108; rock images of deer and people with deer features, 8; in rupestrian art, 8; and Russian name Elena, 15, 35n13; and sacred hunt, 19, 21; sacrificial rituals of, 8; and shaman’s staff, 54; snakes related to, 14, 34, 35, 82, 108; sun identified with, 17, 18–19, 21, 24, 29, 34, 53, 79; tree with deer and birds, center of woven kilim, Anatolia, 9, 10, 48; veneration of, 7–8 Deer Dancer, 18–19 deer/elk persona, 3 Deer-Goddess cult, 17–18 Deer Mother, 54, 73 Deer Woman/Lady, 31–32 designs, cultural appropriation of, 2, 108–109 Dhumavati (Indian crone Goddess), 48 Dniestr-Bug culture, 37 doe, iconography of, 6 doe-elk, iconography of, 6, 8 dog, iconography of, 6 doll with fertility symbols, Crete, 87, 88 double Goddess figures, 70–73 dragon-like animals, 53 dragon motif, 2 Dresden Codex: Cosmic Trees in, 59; deer with God M, god of hunting, 32, 34; deer with human feet and arms, 31; God K as deer, 19, 20; Huk Siip in, 21; representations of deer in, 35; rhomb/ diamond/lozenge motif in, 62; water serpent in, 80 Durán, Diego, 59

earth, as domain of underworld god, 7 Earth Lord, deer daughter of, 14 Easter eggs: deer as symbol of Christ’s resurrection, 29; Elk-/Deer-Mothers on, 8, 73; iconography of animal deities in, 6; images of boat with horse’s head on, 52; and net pattern, 88; rhomb/ diamond/lozenge motif with incurving lines, 65–66, 66, 73, 79; and rozhanitsas (parturition motif), 73; sun symbol (cross) with lace diamonds and deer, Poland, 52, 52, 88; as symbol of ethnicity, 98; two horses in a cloud, 8, 8, 73, 79 El Juyo, Spain, deer veneration in, 7–8 elk: Elk-Goddesses of Eurasia, 53; flags and heraldic symbols associated with, 17; Heavenly Elk chase in hunt, 18; and rozhanitsa, 70; Heavenly Elks on Easter eggs, 8, 8, 97–98, 99; Kheglen as Cosmic Elk, 7, 18; Mistress of Animals as, 7, 14–15, 34; in rupestrian art, 8; and Sun-Elk, 18 elk-cows: as Clan Mothers, 7, 8, 34, 53; on shamanic metal plates, 53 Elk-/Deer-Mothers, 8, 73 embroideries: calendar represented in, 79; cross in, 99; deer/cervid figure as element of, 85, 85; “fertile field” symbol interpreted as sun, 41; Goddess as plant, flanked by animals, Oaxaca, Mexico, 10, 10, 48; Goddess as plant with birds and bees, 11, 11, 48; Goddesses with shrines, trees, and life-giving and death-bringing birds, 46–47, 47, 48; goddess-flower images on, 11; Goddess poses on, 45–46, 48; and Goddess with birds, 48; Goddess with birds, flanked by attendants on horses, Ukraine, 48, 49; of Hutsul folk blouse, 53, 95–99, 95, 96, 97; Hutsul rushnyk (I), 63, 63, 99; Hutsul rushnyk (II) with lattice and rhomb motifs, 88, 89, 99–100; iconography of, 4, 6; images of boat with horse’s head on, 52; of peremitka/ namitka (head wrap), 93, 98, 107n13; pillow with quincunx motif, 63, 64;

134 • Index

quincunx design, Bulgaria, 66, 68; quincunx design, Poland, 66, 68; and rhomb/diamond/lozenge motif, 61, 63, 63, 64, 65, 99; and rozhanitsas (parturition motif), 72, 99; sirin (siren) or woman-bird on, 46; sleeve decorationsfig4.13, 46, 95–97, 95, 96, 97; tripartite cosmos represented in, 52–53, 85, 88, 89, 95–98, 95, 96, 97, 99 Enet culture, 54 Ernits, Enn, 18 Eurasia: animal deities of Neolithic Eurasia, 6–11, 13–14; and animal-human conflations, 16; Animal Mother of, 13; and Celestial Hunt, 18; cultures of, 1, 5n1; Elk-Goddesses of, 53, 80; iconography of image of the universe in, 4; and Mistress of Animals, 15; and net pattern, 88; rock art image of deer in front of pregnant woman, 33; role of women in, 24; Sun and Heaven Goddess in, 24, 102; women’s head coverings in, 92 Evenk culture: and Bugady Enintyn, 7, 53; and feminine gender of sun, 24; and Heavenly Elk chase, 18; and image of the universe, 57; and Mistress of the Universe, 90; and shaman’s tent, 105; traditional designs of, 108; and tripartite cosmos, 54, 60 Eye Goddess, anthropomorphic pot, Turkey, 92, 93 female figurines: designs on, 41–43; female figurine with body paint, ear spools, and triangular thong with rhomb design, Costa Rica, 43–45, 44; female figurine with lattice motif, Guanacaste-Nicoya region, Costa Rica, 88, 88; figurine of pregnant woman with corncobs as breasts, Michoacán, Mexico, 43, 43; figurine of pregnant woman with Mayan sapo motif on belly, head, chest, and thighs, Mexico, Pre-Columbian, 43, 43; figurine with diagrams, TrypillianCucuteni civilization, 40–41, 41, 45–46, 64, 79; figurine with plant

growing from pubic triangle, TrypillianCucuteni civilization, 41, 42, 45–46, 50, 76; headdresses of, 39; poses of, 45–46, 48; seated female figurine with hat and symbolic diagrams, Costa Rica, 44–45, 44; solar signs on, 41–42; and triangle, 41, 50, 70; of Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization, 40–41, 41, 45–46, 49–50, 50, 51; “Venuses,” 39–40, 45–46, 89, 90, 92, 93. See also Mistress of Animals “Fertile Field,” 73 Fierce Feminine Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America (Oleszkiewicz-Peralba), 1 Flidais (Celtic Goddess), 17–18 Florentine Codex, 63, 80, 83n6, 84n25 Flowering Tree, 57–59, 58 flowers: Aztec Xochiquetzal, 80; Chicome Xochitl (“Seven Flower”), 13; Goddess as flower, rural house, Poland, 11, 12; goddess-flower images on Polish paper cut-outs, 11; as metaphor for deer, 32 four universal directions: deer associated with, 18–19; huipiles representing, 100, 102, 105; and image of the universe, 18–19, 57–61; and rhomb/diamond/ lozenge motif, 61–66, 69–70 fox, and headdresses, 54 Fradkin, Ariela, 73, 83n15 Frog Goddess of Death and Regeneration, 72–73 Ġgantija temple model, Gozo, Malta, 40, 40 Gilyak myths, 7 Gimbutas, Marija, 5n3 Goddess of Life, Death and Regeneration (triple goddess), 14, 40–41, 46, 55n3 Goddess of Regeneration, 37, 39–40 Goddess of the Universe and the Sun, 106 Goddess with birds, 46–49, 55n6 Goddess with birds, flanked by attendants on horses, embroidery, Ukraine, 48, 49 Goddess with birds, transformed into cross with angels, Poland, 11, 13 Golan, Ariel, 5n6, 7, 15, 21, 51 Gravettian Era, 92

Index • 135

Great Bear constellation, 7, 18 Haida Indians, myth of “The Origin of the Fire,” 13 hair and hairdos: control of, 89–90; in fairy tales, 90; fringes and other fertility symbols on girl’s garment, Anatolia, 90, 91; hair as threshold between internal and external world, 89; Hutsul folk women’s hairdos, 32, 93–94, 96; power attributed to, 89–92; pubic hair, 90, 93; and rites of passage, 91, 93; and social status, 92, 93; symbolic language of, 89 head coverings: colonial imposition of, 92; continuity of, 93; and Goddess masks, 92, 93; and rites of passage, 92, 96; for women, 32, 90, 91, 92–93, 96 headdresses: antlered cervid headdresses, 16; and bear, 54; and Celestial Hunt, 19; deer heads ornamenting, 8, 9, 21, 23, 24, 32; of female figurines, 39; horned headdresses, 16, 32, 92, 96; of Hutsul women, 93–94, 94, 96, 102; and Kawaiisu Animal Master, 16; Maya ruling class headdresses, 92; of Motynka dolls, 93–94; quincunxes on, 70; spindles in, 86; and sun, 24, 25; zoomorphic headdresses and masks, 14 heaven, 6, 7, 9, 18, 35n6, 108 Heaven Goddess, 24, 102 Hinduism, 107n12 Hirsch, Udo, 66 Hñahñu communities, Hidalgo, Mexico, 29 Hohle Fels, Germany, 39 Hopi, 2, 82 horned Mother of the Universe, 7, 13 horned serpents, 14, 82 horns: golden-horned reindeer, 18; horned headdresses, 16, 32, 92, 96; iconography of horned figures, 1; regeneration symbolized by, 37 horses: Goddess with birds, flanked by attendants on horses, Ukraine, 48, 49; images of boat with horse’s head on embroidery, 52; and Indo-European nomads, 54; Kurgan pastoralists’ cult of

the horse, 56n14; sun and images of pair horses, 26; transformation from cervids to horses, 8–9 Hostess of Animals and Forest, 34 Huichol Indians: Cosmic Serpent Kuwé Eme, 82; on fluid boundary between humans and animals, 13, 15; Goddess of Rain, Na’aliwáemi, 82; Morning Star of, 21, 24; Sacred Deer Person of, 21; sacred symbols of, 2; serpents associated with weaving, 86; and sun symbolism, 26 huipiles: feathers adorning, 105, 107n20; four universal directions represented by, 100, 102, 105; head opening of, 102; and image of the universe, 53, 94–95, 100, 101, 102; Mamá de las mariposas (“Mother of Butterflies”) design, 102; neckline indicating status of woman, 104; quechquémitl compared to, 105–106; rhomb/diamond/lozenge motif of, 102, 105; and sacred concepts of wearers’ worldviews, 4, 100, 105; Triki huipil with vertical ribbons, 94, 102, 104, 107n16; tripartite cosmos represented in, 102, 103, 105, 106; weaving of, 100, 102; woman wearer as axis of the world, 100, 105, 106 human body, tripartite cosmos reflected in, 52 hunting: and Animal Master, 16–17; and celestial hunt, 18–19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24; and deer, 28–29, 31, 32, 33, 34; liminality of, 30; and metaphorical transformation of other into self, 14; and Mistress of Animals, 15; as seduction, 16, 28, 33 Hutsul folk blouse: colors of, 95–97, 96, 107n12; and quincunx motif, 63, 63, 99; rhomb/diamond/lozenge composition in, 95, 96; and sacred concepts of wearers’ worldviews, 4; and transition rituals, 98–99; tripartite cosmos represented in sleeves, 53, 95–99, 95, 96, 97 iashcher (dragon), 53 Ice Age, 7, 37, 45, 46

136 • Index

“Ikiz idol”—two females holding hands, gold, Alaca Höyük, 70, 71 image of the universe: and four directions, 18–19, 57–61; and huipiles, 53, 94–95, 100, 101, 102; iconography of, 4; as living being, 53; and quadripartite cosmos, 4, 69, 85, 94–95, 106, 108; and rhomb/diamond/lozenge motif, 61–66, 69–70; and rozhanitsas (parturition motif), 70–73; and shaman’s drum, 54; and tripartite cosmos, 4, 50–51, 52, 54, 56n15, 57, 60, 106, 108 Inca cultures, 26 Indians of the Plains, 82 Indigenous peoples of Andean region in South America, 7 Indo-European invasions, 7, 54, 74 Iron Age migrations, 17 Isis, 89 Issyk culture, 9 Jacobson, Esther, 8 Jung, Carl, 3, 108 Kahlo, Frida, The Little Deer, 31 Kālī, 72, 89 Kamchatka culture, 48, 55, 108 Karanovo culture, 37, 38, 76, 86 Karelia, Russia, Lake Onega rock art of, 6 Kawaiisu (Animal Master), 13, 16 Ket culture, 7 Kheglen (Khelgun), as Cosmic Elk, 7, 18 Khosedam/Tomam, as Clan Mother, 7 King, Alexander D., 55 kołacz/koravai (bread), 27, 28, 99 Kolpakova, Alla, 62, 72, 73 Koryak culture, 55, 108 Kotos-Wayrajirca period, Peru, 76 “Kupala’s Fires” ceremony, 97, 97, 98 Kyrgyz Bugu tribe, 7 Kyrgyz women, domed head cover of, 32 Łada, and rozhanitsas, 73, 83n13 lalka (“doll”), Goddess holding birds, Poland, 11, 14, 45, 48, 55n6, 73 La Malinche/Malinalli, portrayals of, 63, 83n6

La Pileta cave, Spain, 74 lattice: female figurine with lattice motif, Guanacaste-Nicoya region, Costa Rica, 88, 88; Hutsul rushnyk (II) with lattice and rhomb motifs, 88, 89, 99–100; and Middle American Maya, 88; motif of, 1; and “Old European” civilization, 86 Laugerie-Basse cave, France, 33 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 3, 108 Lienzo de Tlaxcala, 83n6 liminality, deer as liminal being, 14, 19, 30–32 Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture, 37 Looper, Mathew, 21 López Austin, Alfredo, 105 McKay, J. G., 17 Madrid Codex: deer and the water serpent, 80, 81, 82; God M in, 19, 32; net motif, looms, and weaving, 88, 89; quincunx, 69, 69; representations of deer in, 19, 22, 35, 80; Siip (Zip) as black hunter, 21, 23; trapped deer, 21, 22 Magdalenian culture, France, 46 masculine sky gods, 7 Master of Animals, 34, 108 matrilineal clan society, 53–54 Mediterranean Studies Association (MSA), 2 Mellaart, James, 64–65 metal carvings, 6 Mexica mythology, and deer hunt, 32 Miao minority, Guizhou province, China, 24, 25, 96, 104 Middle American Maya: Calcethok, Yucatán vase, 21, 31; celestial symbolism of, 21, 60; Cosmic Tree in, 9, 57–61, 58, 69, 69, 94, 102, 105; cultural appropriation of designs, 108–109; and deer as mediator, 17; deer associated with sacred hunt, 19, 21, 31, 34–35; deer associated with sacrificial offerings for rain, 19, 34; deer as symbol of political status, 29; deer iconography of, 9; and El Dueño de los Animales (The Owner of Animals), 16, 21, 31, 33, 34; embroidery of, 4, 10; fluid boundary

Index • 137

between humans and animals in, 14; horned figures on ceramic and textile designs, 32; lattice patterns on garments and mantas, 88; Mayan cross with plants, sun, and quincunx symbols, Chiapas region, Mexico, 41, 42; MayaQuiché, 82; and night sun, 26; Pejel (“Anything Square”) design, 61–62, 62; plumed Aztec Quetzalcóatl/Mayan Kukulkan, 80; and quincunx motif, 69–70; sacred symbols of, 2; and snake iconography, 76, 80, 92; and spinning and weaving, 86, 88; Sun and Moon as couple, 32; and Tree of Life, 60–61; vase representing ballgame, 19. See also huipiles migrations, 3–4 Miller, Virginia E., 91 Mistresses of the Worlds of the Universe, 53 Mistress of All Creation, 3, 4 Mistress of Animals: and Baba Yaga tales, 72; beasts flanking, 14–15, 37, 38; components transferred to shamans, 55; motif of, 2; as mythical figure, 4, 34, 108; origin of, 14–18; she-elk or doe representing, 7, 14–15, 34 Mistress of Animals and Plants, 10, 14, 37 Mistress of Heaven and the Sun, 41 Mistress of the Universe, 90 Mixe culture, 15 Mochica ceramic vessel, Lima Peru, “A Captive Deer-Man,” 30 Mochica culture, deer in, 16, 30 Monument 14, Cotzumalhuapa, Bilbao, Guatemala, 30 moon: lunar signs on female figurines, 41; Sun and Moon as couple, 32 Moon Goddess, 80 Morris, Earl H., 55n5 Morris, Walter, 107n20 Mother-Beast, 13 Mother Earth, 7 Mother Goddess: she-elk or doe representing, 7; sun as, 24 Mother of Snakes, 82 Motynka dolls, Ukraine, 18, 52, 93–94

Mound culture, 82 Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, 37 mythology: Elk-/Deer-Mothers of, 8; evolution of, 3; on fluid boundary between deer and humans, 13–14, 15; iconography of animal deities in, 6; of Mistress of Animals, 15 Nahua Indians: and deer associated with rain, 82; and El Dueño de los Animales, 16; and four directions, 60–61; Goddesses portrayed with snakes, 79, 86; hair of Goddess Cipactli, 91; Mazacóatl (“Deer Serpent”), 80; myth of creation of the world, 59–60 nahuales (power animals), 3, 34, 36n27 Nahuatl of Puebla, Mexico: deer antlers as branches of Cosmic Tree, 13; huipilli (“adorned blouse or dress”) of, 100; religious chant for impregnation, 32–33 Nantosuelta (Gaulish Raven-Goddess), 47 National Folk Architecture and Rural Life, Lviv, Ukraine, 27 Native Americans: civilizations of, 1–2; Deer Woman/Lady of, 31–32; “fertile field” symbol interpreted as sun, 41; iconography of animal deities in dances and rituals, 6; Spanish imposition of dress of, 100; and sun diagram, 26; symbolism used by, 2 nature, as feminine, 7 Navajo: sacred symbols of, 2; “saw-tooth edged diamond” motif, 66, 67 Nivkh culture, 90 Nykorak, Olena, 98 Oaxaca, Mexico: cultural appropriation of designs from, 2, 109; Goddess as plant, flanked by animals, 10, 10, 48 ochipka (head cap), 93, 94 “Old European” civilization: consumption of ritual bread in, 27; displacement of power of Deer-Mother, 54; folk costumes of, 96; geographical composition of, 2, 5n3; Neolithic

138 • Index

figurines of, 46; Neolithic huntergatherer and agrarian society of, 37–38; and net/lattice pattern, 86; and rhomb/ diamond/lozenge motif, 63; script, North-west Bulgaria, 74, 74 Olmecs, 57, 58 paper cut-outs: Goddess as Tree of Life, 11, 11; goddess-flower images on, 11; Goddess with birds, transformed into cross with angels, Poland, 11, 13; Gwiazda (star), Poland, 27, 27; iconography of animal deities in, 6; Lalka (“doll”), Goddess holding birds, Poland, 11, 14, 45, 48, 55n6, 73; and rozhanitsas (parturition motif), 72; tree flanked by three pairs of birds, Poland, 9, 9, 48 Paraskeva Piatnitsa, Saint, 86 Paris Codex, 21, 35 Parturition Goddess, iconography of, 4 patriarchal clan system, establishment of, 53–55 Pawnee Indians, “The Bear-Man” story, 13–14 Pazyryk, Siberia: frozen tomb from, 46; human figures with tattooed arms/legs in, 56n15 peremitka/namitka (white head wrap), 93, 98, 107n13 plants: embroidered rushnyk, Goddess as plant with birds and bees, Ukraine, 11, 11, 48; on fertility dolls and statuettes from Kenya, 55n12; figurine with plant growing from pubic triangle, TrypillianCucuteni civilization, 41, 42, 45–46, 50, 76; Goddess as plant, flanked by animals, Oaxaca, Mexico, 10, 10, 48; Goddess as plant, with spread arms and legs, metal incrustation in wood, Poland, 11, 12, 72; from “Kupala’s Fires” ceremony, 97, 97, 98; Mayan cross with plants, sun, and quincunx symbols, Chiapas region, Mexico, 41, 42 Polytheism, 53 poses of Goddesses, 45–46, 48, 55n6 Pueblo Indians, 82

Pueblo Mayo of Sonora, Mexico, Deer Dance of, 18 quadripartite cosmos, 4, 69, 85, 94–95, 106, 108 quechquémitl, 105–106, 106 quincunx: embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (I) with quincunx motif, 63, 63, 99; in Madrid Codex, 69, 69; on Mayan crosses, 41, 42; Mayan diagram Pejel (“Anything Square”) in form of, 62, 62; as model of directions of sacred cosmic order, 69–70; and Nahua Indians, 61; persistence of, 4; pillow with quincunx motif, 63, 64; plate with quincunx design, Hacilar, Turkey, 67; quincunx design, Bulgaria, 66, 68; quincunx design, Poland, 66, 68 raptor heads, 9 reindeer: and Celestial Hunt, 18; in rupestrian art, 8; sun identified with, 24; as symbol of collective identity, 55 rhomb/diamond/lozenge: and Blombos Cave, South Africa, 76; on Easter eggs, 65–66, 66, 73, 79; in embroideries, 61, 63, 63, 64, 65, 99; and fertility symbolized by, , 41, 41, 66; of huipiles, 102, 105; in Hutsul folk blouse, 95, 96; as image of the universe, 61–66, 69–70; meanders within, 61, 62; motif of, 1, 2, 4; regeneration symbolized by, 37; and sun diagram, 26; types of, 62; in weaving, 63, 66, 67, 88 Río Yaloch, Guatemala, vase from, 30–31 rock images: and Celestial Hunt, 18; of deer and people with deer features, 8; of deer and pregnant woman, 33; of dragon-like animals chasing light of sun, 53; of Karelia, Russia, 6; of Magdalenian culture, 46 Ross, Ann, 47 round dances, 79, 84n24, 86 rozhanitsas (parturition motif): double Goddess from Çatal Höyük, 70–71; on Hutsul folk blouse sleeve, 97–98, 97; on Hutsul rushnyk (I), 63, 63, 99; “Ikiz

Index • 139

idol”—two females holding hands, gold, Alaca Höyük, 70, 71; and image of the universe, 70–73; and Łada, 73, 83n13 rupestrian art, 6, 8 rushnyky: colors on, 100; embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (I) with quincunx motif, 63, 63, 99; embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (II) with lattice and rhomb motifs, 88, 89, 99–100; embroidered rushnyk, Goddess as plant with birds and bees, 11, 11, 48; protective and intermediary role of, 98; as ritual object, 98–99, 100; and rozhanitsa/birth/horn symbols, 98 Rybakov, B. A., 26, 48, 52, 53, 79, 98 sacred symbols: of Cora Indians, 2, 21, 70; cultural appropriation of designs, 2, 108–109; of traditional cultures, 1–2, 108, 109 Sacred Tree, original Goddess figure identified with, 10 Sahagún, Bernardino de, 84n25 Samara culture, Volga region, 56n14 Sami people, 24 San Felipe Pueblo of New Mexico, 31 Santa Fe, NM, 2, 5n2, 109 Santa Klaus, 34 La Santa Muerte (Mexican saint), 55n10 sargadelas (amulets/necklaces), 86, 88, 107n2 Schellhas, Paul, 19 Scytho-Siberian Pazyryk culture, 8, 9, 35n4 Sesklo culture (northern Greece), 37, 46, 75, 92, 99 shamanism: and Animal Master, 17; drums and drum sticks of, 54; headdresses of, 16, 54; patriarchal system incorporating, 4; placement of shaman’s tent, 105; Russian bliashki (shamanic metal plates), 53; and transition of power, 53–55 Sheela na gigs, 76 Shinto religion, 24, 32 Siberian shamans’ costumes, paraphernalia, and practices, iconography of animal deities in, 6 Siberian Tuekta culture, headdresses of, 9

snakes: chiichan (“deer-snake”), 14; as creatures of night and underworld, 53; deer related to, 14, 34, 35, 82, 108; functions of, 108; iconography of, 6, 35; meanders representing protective snakes, 41, 79, 86; Mexican woven fajas representing serpents, 86; in Middle American Maya iconography, 76, 80, 92; motifs of, 4; plumed Aztec Quetzalcóatl/Mayan Kukulkan, 80; serpent divinities, 80, 82; as symbol of water, 76, 79, 80, 82; and TrypillianCucuteni ceramics, 50, 51, 79; vessel with snake in form of zig-zags intercalated with dots, Costa Rica, El Bosque culture, 77, 78, 79 Snow Maiden, 2 South Africa, “mud cloths” from, 100 spinning, 85, 86 spiral and zig-zag motifs on a gourd, Kenya, 97, 97, 100 star, motif of, 2, 26–28 Star Carr, England, 8 Starčevo-Körös-Criş culture, 38, 75, 86 sun: butterfly as symbol of, 102, 104; crosses with sun/star motifs, 26–28; deer identified with, 17, 18–19, 21, 24, 29, 34, 53, 79; dragon-like animals chasing light of, 53; feminine gender of, 5n6, 6, 21, 24–26, 27, 108; “fertile field” symbol interpreted as, 41; and kołacze/korovai, 27, 28; masculine gender of, 26; movement of, 79, 108; “night sun,” 51–52; solar signs on female figurines, 41–42; solar symbolism and sun diagram, 24–28; Sun and Moon as couple, 32 Sun and Heaven Goddess, 24, 102 taiga: as forest/land, 7, 30; sky as heavenly taiga, 7, 18 Tamoanchan tree, as concept of the cosmos, 57–61, 58, 102, 104 tattoos, 46, 52, 56n15 Thompson, J. Eric, 19, 30–31, 80 threshold of home, as symbolic boundary, 13

140 • Index

time: concept of, 79; passage of, 18, 19, 51, 58, 60, 61, 105; quincunx representing, 62, 62 Totemism, 53–55 Tree of Life: deer with antlers becoming, 11, 13; Goddess as, 11, 11, 48, 49, 96; as recurrent symbol, 1, 4 triangle: and female figurines, 41, 50, 70; fertility symbolized by, 70, 76; figurine with plant growing from pubic triangle, 41, 42, 45–46, 50, 76; motif of, 1; pubic triangles, 41, 45–46, 50, 70, 75, 76, 86; regeneration symbolized by, 37; rows of triangles (zig-zags) intercalated with rows of dots, on a wooden rural house, Rawsko-Opoczyński region, Poland, 76, 77, 100; statuette with rows of triangles (zig-zags) intercalated with rows of dots, Mexico, Pre-Columbian, 77, 78, 100; vessel with snake in form of zigzags intercalated with dots, Costa Rica, El Bosque culture, 77, 78, 79; and Vinča culture, 70, 75–76, 86; in weaving, 88 tripartite cosmos: on ceramics, 50–51, 52, 53, 56n15; conception of, 1, 57, 60, 108; in eastern European folk blouses, 94– 95; in embroideries, 52–53, 85, 88, 89, 95–98, 95, 96, 97, 99; in huipiles, 102, 103, 105, 106; on shaman’s breastplate, 54, 60; and Trypillian-Cucuteni vessels, 50–53, 60, 72, 99, 100; in weaving, 52–53, 85 Trypillian-Cucuteni civilization: ceramic production of, 49–50; crosses on bottom of vases from the Werteba I assemblage of Bilcze Złote, 26–27; figurine with diagrams, 40–41, 41, 45– 46, 64, 79; figurine with plant growing from pubic triangle, 41, 42, 45–46, 50, 76; jar with vulvas, 50, 50; prominence of, 38; and rhomb/diamond/lozenge motif, 61; tripartite cosmos represented on ritual vessels, 50–53, 60, 72, 99, 100; tripartite jar with depictions of atmospheric phenomena, 50–51, 51, 53, 95, 96; tripartite jar with protrusions for

nipples and meanders around breasts, 50, 50, 51, 53, 79, 95 Turner, Victor, 30 Tzutujil Indians, San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala, 19 Ukraine: embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (I) with quincunx motif, 63, 63, 99; embroidered Hutsul rushnyk (II) with lattice and rhomb motifs, 88, 89, 99–100; embroidered rushnyk, Goddess as plant with birds and bees, 11, 11, 48; embroidery designs of, 4; Goddess with birds, flanked by attendants on horses, embroidery, Ukraine, 48, 49; Motynka dolls, 18, 52, 93–94; and rhomb/diamond/lozenge motif in embroideries, 63; “saw-tooth edged diamond” motif, weaving, 66, 67 Urnfield culture, 35n6, 48, 82 Valdivia culture of Ecuador, 91, 107n5 Van der Meer, Annine, 45 Van Gennep, Arnold, 30 Venus of Kostenki (Russia), 39, 92 Venus of Vestovice (Czech Republic), 39 Venus of Wilczyce (Poland), 39 Venus of Willendorf (Austria), 39, 40, 92 Villacorta, Carlos A., 19 Vinča culture of Serbia: and Bird Goddess, 6, 46; frog standing in human posture, 72, 83n12; and Neolithic “Old Europe,” 38; script of, 73–76, 83n15; and triangle, 70, 75–76, 86; “Venus” head concealed by mask, 92 Virgin Mary, 86, 93 voladores ritual, 59–60 vultures: and Bird Goddess, 46–47; as death-bringers, 48–49; and life-death regeneration cycle, 37, 39, 47 wakas (sacred places and objects), 7 warfare, liminality of, 30 Wari culture, faceneck vessels of, 92 Waynuu culture, 99

Index • 141

weaving: deer/cervid figure as element of, 85, 85; doll with fertility symbols, Crete, 87, 88, 90; “fertile field” symbol interpreted as sun, 41; Goddess poses in, 46; of huipiles, 100, 102; iconography of animal deities in, 6; in Madrid Codex, 88, 89; as metaphor for sexuality and reproduction, 85; and net/ lattice pattern, 85–86, 88; and rhomb/ diamond/lozenge motif, 63, 66, 67, 88; and rozhanitsas (parturition motif), 72; as sacred feminine action, 4; “saw-tooth edged diamond” motif, Navajo, 66, 67; “saw-tooth edged diamond” motif, Ukraine, 66, 67; serpents associated with, 86; Tree of Life flanked by birds in, 48; tripartite cosmos represented in, 52–53, 85

women: control of hair, 89–90; head coverings for, 32, 90, 91, 92–93, 96; headdresses of Hutsul women, 93–94, 94, 96, 102; Hutsul folk women’s hairdos, 32, 93–94, 96; role in Eurasia, 24. See also huipiles; Hutsul folk blouse wood carvings, 6 Xololpan, Mexico, plate with deer and four directions, 19 Yaqui Indians of Sonora, Mexico, 2, 31 Yggdrasil tree, 59 Zaporozhets za Dunayem (Ukrainian National Opera), 46 Zuñi, 82