https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-ancient-technology/unbreakable-story-lost-roman-invention-flexible-glass-009453https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/stone-egg-lake-winnipesaukee-003622https://phys.org/news/2021-06-geochemical-end-permian-mass-extinction-event.htmlhttps://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/croatian-necropolis-0015477https://newatlas.com/science/brain-implant-instantly-detects-relieves-chronic-pain/https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/did-egyptian-mummification-descend-more-ancient-and-perhaps-reversible-020971I never knew about this celebration until one year when I visited my family in Ukraine during the time of this event?have any of you participated in this outside of Ukraine? (I missed most of the fun and bonfire because I got food poisoning from mushrooms I ate earlier in the day at a restaurant?but I did get to hear all the drunks singing all night?😉)
IVANA KUPALA
The feast of Ivan Kupala is a traditional and most mysterious and magical Ukrainian holiday.
Kupala Night is an ancient pagan celebration dedicated to the summer solstice when the day starts to decrease, and the night increases.
In addition, it is associated with the end of the summer solar cycle of pre-Christian holidays, and eventually, after the adoption of Christianity, it transformed to some extent into a church holiday.
According to ancient traditions, Ivana Kupala is the festival of the sun, and the most important role in mystical rites belongs to the power of fire. Our ancestors believed that the fire is the sun-embryo in the womb.
In Christian times, the church tried to suppress the tradition, substituting it with the feast day of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist but it remained firmly part of folk ritual as the festival of Ivan (John, from Saint John) Kupalo.
Thus, the ancient folk feast of Kupaila began to be called the holiday of Ivan Kupala. It is the celebration of the birth of the John Baptist, and as often happens in Ukrainian culture, the pagan and Christian traditions have come together again.
But folk memory preserved the Kupala ritual and songs that belonged to ancient times, to the original poetry and rituals. This day has always been associated with many beliefs, attributes, traditions, ceremonies, and even prohibitions, and that is why ahead of Ivan Kupala Ukrainians have long adhered to the traditions of celebration.
Thus, in Ukraine, from year to year, it comes on July 6 and on July 7 on the Julian calendar and June 23 and 24 on the Gregorian calendar. It is believed that on this day rituals protect homes and beloved ones, strengthen health and bring happiness. Not surprisingly, it has always been associated with various traditions, superstitions and beliefs that appeared in pre-Christian times.
Written references to the festival date from the 11th century. Its origins are much earlier, however. On a 4th-century calendar pot found in the middle-Dnieper region once inhabited by the Slavic Polianians, for example, the time of the festival was already marked by two crosses. The term ?Kupalo? was itself first mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle under the year 1262. In medieval and early-modern church documents?eg, ?The Sermon of Saint John Chrysostom? and the ?Epistle of Hegumen Pamphil? of Pskov Monastery (1515)?there are fairly detailed descriptions of the lascivious festivities.
Despite the efforts of the church and secular rulers?eg, Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky issued a decree in 1719 categorically forbidding it, and many similar decrees were later issued?the tradition proved too old and too well rooted to disappear. By the late 19th century most of the pagan beliefs connected with the Kupalo rituals had vanished, but the festival was still widely celebrated to mark the beginning of the harvest.
Most of the traditions for Kupala Night trace back to the pagan past. For instance, one of the most widely adhered to ones is that all the possible evil spirits like witches, snakes, water, mermaids, and werewolves awaken at this time. Therefore, you shouldn?t sleep on Kupala Night. It is customary to go to a pond, a river or a lake and celebrate the holiday there. However, males should stay away from the water and not swim in it, or a ?Mavka? could seduce a male walking along the water and then drown him.
The herbs for Kupala Night are imbued with a special healing power, so witch doctors collected them in the forest. Bunches of grass, gathered on the holiday, hung in the house and acted as a charm for the whole family.
Kupalo was also believed to be the god of love and of the harvest and the personification of the earth's fertility. According to popular belief, ?Kupalo eve? (?Ivan's eve?) was the only time of the year when the earth revealed its secrets and made ferns bloom to mark places where its treasures were buried, and the only time when trees spoke and even moved and when witches gathered.
The fern flower brings fortune to the person who finds it.....the fern flower brings luck, wealth, or the ability to understand animal speech. However, the flower is closely guarded by evil spirits and anyone who finds the flower will have access to earthly riches, which have never benefited anyone, so the decision to pick the flower or leave it alone is left up to the individual.
According to folklore, the flower is the Chervona ruta. The flower is yellow, but according to legend, it turns red on the eve of Ivan Kupala Day.
On the eve, unmarried young men and women gathered outside the village in the forest or near a stream or pond. There they built ?Kupalo fires??a relic of the pagan custom of bringing sacrifice?around which they performed ritual dances and sang ritual songs.
On the eve female participants wore scented herbs and flowers to attract the males and adorned their hair with garlands of freshly cut flowers. Traditionally, unmarried women, signified by the garlands in their hair, are the first to enter the forest. They are followed by young men. Therefore, the quest to find herbs and the fern flower may lead to the blooming of relationships between pairs within the forest.
On the evening of July 6, unmarried girls look for their future husbands.
A popular tradition is to weave a wreath of wildflowers while making a wish, later in the evening they let it go on the river. They divined their fates according to what happened to the garlands which they had sent flowing on the water.If the wreath floats far away, the wish will come true, and if it is beaten to the shore or sinks, then you should forget about your dream for a while. Romantic fate was played out according to which male picked up girls crown.... young men would go and try to pull the wreaths out of the water. The girl whose wreath a young man captures, is to kiss him and then they are paired for the rest of the evening.
Another of the rituals was leaping over the fires. young people jump over the flames of bonfires in a ritual test of bravery and faith. The males who jumped the highest and cleared the fire would have good good fortune for the year. If you did not clear the fire you would have misfortune. Couples would jump together holding hands. The failure of a couple in love to complete the jump, while holding hands, is a sign of their destined separation. They also all bathed in the water (an act of purification), and played various games.
The fires were also used to burn herbs gathered in the previous year and various items of no further use, particularly those that had been blessed with holy water and could therefore not be discarded by normal means. The fires were never extinguished, but were always allowed to smolder out.
On the morning of that day girls washed themselves with the dew that had fallen on Kupalo eve, which they collected in a bowl left outside overnight, and then ran barefoot through the bedewed fields in the belief that doing so would accelerate their opportunity to get married. The sick would roll naked in the dewy meadows in the belief that this action would help them get well, and farmers would run their cattle through such meadows in the belief that this routine would prevent disease.
On Ivan Kupala day itself, children engage in water fights and perform pranks, mostly involving pouring water over people.
Kupala - Slavic midsummer celebration
Summer solstice has many names in Slavic lands. In some countries it is known as Kupala night, in others Ivan Kupala day. Christian name Noc Świętojańska (St. John?s Night) is also common. In Warmia and Mazury it is known as palinocka (burning night). In Śląsk (Silesia), where I live we call summer solstice sob?tka, after nearby, sacred mountain Ślęża (to which Sob?tka is currently something of a common pet name). It is also the center of local Rodnover (Slavic paganism, literally ?Native Faith?) activity. While the shortest night of the year falls on 20-21st June Kupala is in some places celebrated on 24th June to match the winter holiday of Koliada celebrated on 24th December. In some countries people don?t have to go to work on that day!
Kupalo, god of summer solstice.
13th century sources confirm the existence of summer solstice celebrations called ?Kupaly? among the people of Rus. 17th century folk stories are already referring to Kupalo as god of sun, fire and summer, a personification of the solstice holiday. Kupalo is usually viewed as male but in Poland where ?kupała? is a feminine noun the deity is sometimes depicted as female. The winter counterpart of Kupalo is Koliada, personification of winter solstice. Eastern Slavic folk tales often pair Kupalo with Kostroma, a goddess of spring and abundance, depicted in white clothes, with an oak branch in her hand. Kostroma?s name is derived from a word meaning ?bonfire?. In rituals connected with the seasons, solstice and crops Kupalo and Kostroma were often represented by dolls or scarecrows, carried around and sometimes symbolically burned.
Kupalo and Kostroma are said to be twin deities of summer and spring, fire and water, light, sun, happiness, crops and wealth. They are the children of a fire god Simargl and Kupalnitsa, a goddess of night (while Simargl is indeed mentioned in the ?Tale of Bygone Years? as one of the gods worshipped by prince Vladimir and became a popular decorative motif in boyar art, I couldn?t find any non-recent mentions of him being a god of fire, in fact scientists seem to connect him with family and rye; then again my sources are limited and I don?t know the opinion of every etymologist and folklorist out there).
A popular folk myth describes how young Kupalo and Kostroma went into the fields to listen to the song of magical birds: Kupalo listened to Sirin, the bird of sorrow and Kostroma to Alkonost, the bird of joy. But the twins didn?t realize the magical songbirds can be dangerous. By the order of Chernobog Sirin abducted Kupalo and took him to Nav, the Underworld.
Many years later Kupalo managed to finally find his way out of the Nav and he traveled to his home country by boat, up the river Ra. Suddenly he saw strong winds blow a floral wreath off a beautiful girl?s head and into the water. He retrived the wreath and returned it. In Slavic culture the wreath symbolized maidenhood and unmarried status; during certain holidays the girl would place her wreath in the river and the boy who would pick it up waiting down the river?s run was meant by gods to marry her. And so Kupalo and Kostroma fell in love and married. Only after their wedding gods revealed to them that they are actually brother and sister. The twins were so heart-broken they decided to comitt suicide - Kupalo threw himself into the fire and died, while Kostroma tried to drown herself in the river and became a mavka, a restless spirit of a girl who died prematurely.
Gods, feeling guilty about the sad fate of the twins transformed them into a flower with petals of blue and fiery yellow to represent each of the siblings. That flower was at first called Kupalo-da-Mavka but after christianization the name was changed to Ivan-da-Maria.
The Goddess Kupala
Kupala, also known as the water mother, is a Slavic goddess associated with water and springs, healing, herbs, purification, and midsummer. She represents both the water and fire elements, particularly the aspects of healing, purification, and transformation. Some additional associations are joy, health, and cleansing.
She is relevant to many regions of Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Ukraine, and Bohemia.
Kupala is essential to the midsummer eve festival in these regions, known as Noc Kupala (нос купала), or post-Christianity as Ivan-Kupala (Іванa-Купала). This festival is celebrated differently in different places, but there are some common elements:
-jumping over a bonfire for wishes/good luck
-decorating a female effigy representing Kupala and releasing her into the water (preferably a river). This is only done by the women and girls
-decorating oneself with flowers
-sending a candle down the river
-feasting of course!
Legend has it that at midnight on Noc Kupala, the magical plant blooms and whoever finds the flower receives good luck, prosperity, and potentially supernatural power.
Some other plants particularly sacred to her are birch, loosestrife, and flowers. Wildflowers gathered at dawn are an appropriate offering - though do be sure to use sustainable harvest practices and not offer too many! One or two will do.
One way to connect with Kupala is to leave a cloth out overnight to collect dew (especially during the month of June). In the morning, you can wash your face and hands with the dew water to receive Kupala's blessings.
A ritual to ask Kupala's blessing on a new venture, such as the new year, a new relationship/marriage, or lifen transition, is to light a small fire (like a candle, uor loose incense in a cauldron) and step or jump over it, asking Kupala to burn away the old and refresh you for the next phase.
Oblutions with water, especially in a river, are also a good way to connect with her. I like to say a prayer to Kupala in the shower for example.
Traditional celebrations
The most common way for Slavs to celebrate summer solstice was lighting the sacred bonfires, often on tops of mountains and hills. Regional traditions relating to those fires vary: in some places they had to be made of the sacred oak wood in other the bonfire was composed of ash and birch. Most curious way to light the fires uses a large wheel covered in tar and wrapped in hay. It was placed on a birch pole and spinned fast until the friction sparked fire. Then the burning wheel was rolled around lighting bonfires one by one. That?s also how the wheel became one of the symbols strongly associated with midsummer in Slavic countries.
Various herbs, believed to hold magical properties, were burned in the fires to grant the celebrators health and wealth. Burning cattle bones was meant to ensure that the cows and bulls will be reborn in great number. People (especially young men) would also jump over the fires to ward off sickness and grant themselves luck and protection. Sometimes young couples jumped together over the flames while holding a small effigy of Kupalo - if they dropped it into the fire their love would not last.
Kupala was connected with water almost as much as with fire. Girls made herbal wreaths and wore them throughout the celebration. At the end of the night they?d float the wreaths down the river with little torches attached in the middle. Young men in turn would wait down the river and try to capture the wreaths. It was believed that the boy was meant to marry the girl who?s wreath he caught. If the wreath sunk or got stuck in the reeds the girl would never marry. In many regions people believed bathing in rivers, streams and lakes before Kupala to be dangerous. Rusalkas, wodniks and other water demons were particularly active in that time and they could kidnap and drown anyone who got nearby. On midsummer night however, the water was ritually blessed and made safe to bathe in. In some regions people performed water scrying in wells to learn their future.
Another type of love divination associated with Kupala was collecting twelve herbs (as rare as possible) in complete silence and putting them under your pillow to see your future and spouse in your dreams. If one spoke even a word while collecting herbs the spell was broken and the vision would not come.
Women rubbed themsleves with adder?s tongue herb to put on a beauty glamour for the night. It was believed that during Kupala magical fern flower grows in the woods and whoever finds it will be blessed with great riches, strenght and wisdom. Searching for the flower was also a great pretext for men and women to head into the woods alone.
Midsummer poles, deity effigies.
Deity effigies seem to be a common theme in the Kupala. As I already mentioned small figurines or dolls of Kupalo were held by couples jumping over the flames. Bigger effigies of Kupalo and Kostroma are also popular in some regions. Interestingly enough an effigy of Morana (Marzanna, Mara, Marena) usually associated with spring equinox rituals also features in many midsummer celebrations. In Ukraine a pole of maple, birch or willow was set up on a hill and adorned with flowers and ribbons - that pole, called Morana or Mara was the center of festivities and round dances. In some parts of Russia a straw doll of Morena was made and burned at the end of the night, the ash was then sprinkled over the fields to ensure fertility and good harvest. Those traditions seem to point to Morana originally being the deity of agricultural cycles, also connected with fertility, new life, planting and harvest - not just a deadly winter goddess. In later times that doll would be sometimes called other female names such as Marina or Katerina. Sometimes the midsummer pole was decorated with aforementioned wheel or with cow or horse skull (Belarus). At the end of the night that pole was thrown into the river.
How to celebrate?
? make a bonfire
? party with your friends
? prepare a feast (or you know, nice dinner) and invite your family to share it with you
? make offerings to the solar deities you follow and spend some time with them during the day
? search for the fern flower with your partner (or just take a walk in the woods together)
? try fire and water scrying
? at night collect 12 herbs and stick them under your pillow (even you speak out and don?t receive any visions you can still dry the herbs and use them later to give an extra kick to your spells)
? perform a blessing ritual by a nearby body of water and bathe in it for good luck
? make offerings to local nature spirits
? burn herbs for good luck! (you can also try smoke cleansing with herb bundles or DIY herbal incense)
? wear a wreath
Have a blessed sob?tka!
Sources:
?Slavic folklore, didactical guidelines? by Laima Anglickienė
?Mity, podania i wierzenia dawnych Słowian? by Jerzy Strzelczyk
?Religia Słowian? by Andrzej Szyjewski
Kostroma
This is a reconstruction of an SHG (scandinavian hunter-gatherer) woman known as F 295, found at Kanaljorden, Motala, Sweden.
The 7700 year old skull looks quite masculine, with strong brow ridges, a well developed glabella (the area above the nasal root) and distinct muscle attachments. Mesolithic humans seem to have been more muscular, and robust, even the women.
The human remains were found together with jawbones from a number of animals: bear, wild boar, elk, deer, and badger so the artist gave her a badger hat.
The DNA analysis showed that she carries the genes for blue eyes, blond hair and slightly darker skin that her male friend F296. Also, her hair was slightly coarse in texture.
We can only make inspired guesses about the meaning of this. But a qualified assumption is that these specific animals had a very special role in their lifes, culture and beliefs. Accepting this, ideas of shamanism and totem animals seems not that far fetched.
he young woman known as F 295 or individual No 1, found at the well known Stone Age site at Kanaljorden, Motala, Sweden.
The 7 700 years old cranium carries a lot of features that would pass for typically male: a well developed glabella (the area above the nasal root) and distinct muscles attachments. In fact this is not unusual to find in the remains from Stone Age. We seem to have been more muscular, stronger and more fit to cope with the challanges living as hunters/gatherers.
A few words about the elephant in the room, or more precisely: the badger on top of her head. Just like the male I reconstructed, F 296, this skull was found at what could be described as a ritual Stone Age cemetary. The human remains were found together with jawbones from a number animals: beer, wildboar, elk, deer, and badger. We can only make inspired guesses about the meaning of this. But a qualified assumption is that these specific animals had a very special role in their lifes, culture and beliefs. Accepting this, ideas of shamanism and totem animals seems not that far fetched.
The DNA analysis showed that she carries the genes for having blue eyes, blond hair and a bit darker skin that her male friend F296. Also, her hair probably was a bit coarse in texture.
Both reconstructions, F295 and F296, are now at display at Charlottenborgs Slott, Motala, Sweden.
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/eridu-0010528https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/097508-000-A/the-nobles-of-prehistory/?cmpid=ENd&cmpsrc=spin&cmpspt=socialhttps://phys.org/news/2021-06-anglo-saxon-ancestry-mutable.html
