From Harva's Survey of Permian Religion
This is the third part of a three-part translation from Uno Holmberg's Permalaisten uskonto (The Religion of the Permian Peoples; Helsinki, 1914) — the foundational Finnish-language survey of Votjak (Udmurt) and Komi-Zyrian religion. The first part, "Komi-Zyrian and Votjak Sacred Cosmology," covers the three-layered cosmos, the sky gods Inmar and Jen, and the water spirits. The second part, "Forest Spirits and the Sacred Bear," covers the nules-murt, the malign forest beings, and the sacred bear. This third part translates the chapter on nature spirits — the non-human deities born from the sanctification of natural forces: the sky god's agricultural worship, the sun-mother, the thunder-mother, the earth-mother, the grain-soul, the river-mothers, and the spirits of wind, frost, fire, and twilight. Together these three files present the complete structure of Permian religious life as Holmberg described it.
At the heart of the Permian nature religion stands a distinction that Holmberg draws with great care: the human-like spirits (korka-murt, nules-murt, vu-murt) are the ancestral dead, worshipped in their dwelling-places as guardians of home, forest, and water. The nature deities are something else entirely — they are the natural forces themselves, made animate. The sun-mother is the sun. The earth-mother is the earth. The thunder-mother is the thunder. The Votjaks do not conceive of these as persons but as powers, and they address them not as "murt" (person) but as "mumi" (mother). The sacrifice customs differ accordingly: nature deities receive offerings of a colour matching their element — white for the sky and sun, black for the earth, grey for frost. The sacrificial animal's blood and bones are returned to the element itself — burned for the sky, buried for the earth, cast into the water for the rivers.
The most extraordinary rite described here is the grain-soul search: when the harvest fails, a seer leads three boys and three girls, each mounted on a white horse and dressed in white, slowly around the grain fields, seeking the grain-soul — d'u-urt — which has departed the failing field. When the seer catches it, in the form of a white butterfly, in a white cloth, the procession returns singing to the sacrifice place. After a week of safekeeping in the grain storehouse, the soul is returned to the field and set free. No English translation of this ceremony has ever been published.
I. On the Nature Deities
The spirits of the preceding group — household spirits, forest spirits, water spirits — we have collectively called human-like, because they appear in the Permian imagination in human form. Among them we have also counted the bear, since natural peoples generally do not regard it as an ordinary animal but rather as a kind of forest-person. The human likeness of these spirits has been explained as arising from their original nature as spirits of the departed dead, who came to be worshipped, according to their dwelling-place, as guardians of various livelihoods.
Alongside these, however, the Permian divine hierarchy contains another significant group of beings, which may most fittingly be called nature spirits. These differ from the above in that they do not, like the former, have human origin and are therefore not — at least originally — human in form. The nature spirits have arisen from the animation of natural forces and objects themselves, which, insofar as they can either advance or hinder human life and well-being, have become objects of worship.
II. The Worship of the Sky God
Foremost among the nature spirits is the sky god, whom the Votjaks call Inmar. This word is generally understood as referring to the divine being who dwells in the sky, but it also appears to have originally meant the perceptible sky itself. Traces of this survive to the present day in expressions such as inmar zore ("it is raining"), and in the Votjak claim recorded by Rogaevskij: "Everything luminous that we see, we call inmar" — from which it clearly appears that the Votjaks originally meant by inmar above all the daytime sky.
It is natural that the mysterious sky — with its light, its rain, its lightning, and its other wondrous forces and phenomena, all of which touch earthly life most intimately — should have become the object of special attention among natural peoples from an early time. Yet it was not originally conceived as a personal being, nor was it worshipped with prayers and sacrifices. This is plainly demonstrated by the fact that sky god sacrifices among the northernmost peoples, such as the Lapps and the Ostyaks, have not been common. One may therefore suppose that the worship of the sky god came to the Finno-Ugric peoples along with later cultural influences.
In seeking this foreign influence, our gaze falls nearest upon the surrounding civilised peoples, who in their time have held corresponding beliefs and sacrifice customs. Just as the Votjaks, so too their neighbours — both the Chuvash and the Tatars — have worshipped a sky deity under the name of "sky" itself. The Tatars' pagan tängere ("sky") deity has already been displaced among Muslim converts by Allah, but Christians still use the word as a name for the Christian God.
That the Votjak Inmar has indeed been under the influence of the Turkic-Tatar supreme deity concept is plainly shown by the fact that the sacrificial animal from that quarter — the horse, which in Finno-Ugric worship is of late origin — is specifically the offering consecrated to the sky god. Moreover, the Votjaks at their great sacrifice festivals, where it is customary to slaughter several animals, call Inmar's sacrifice by the name kurbon, which derives from the Chuvash word kurban ("sacrifice"). Additionally, among the late features of Inmar's worship is the burnt offering (tilaskon) belonging to this deity's sacrifice rites, which, as we have already noted, is the most recent of the Votjak sacrifice customs.
Does Inmar's worship therefore date only from the time of the Bulghar domination, or is there reason to conclude that it existed among the Votjaks before they came into contact with the Turkic-Tatar peoples? In favour of the latter supposition speaks a sacrifice custom which, judging by its wide distribution, appears quite ancient and which at the same time shows that the sky worship of many natural peoples in both Europe and Asia shares a common origin. This custom, which connects the Votjak Inmar worship to the sky worship even of the Altai regions, is this: that the sacrifice priest's face and the sacrificial animal, which in this case must be white, are to be directed eastward during the ceremony — in distinction from the sacrifices to the spirits of the underworld, which are performed in the opposite direction. Even today the Votjaks observe this distinction carefully, although Muslim influence has changed the original compass points, so that Inmar has come to be worshipped facing south, the dead facing north. Each sacrifice custom has its own name: the former vallan vandon ("upward-slaughter"), the latter ullan vandon ("downward-slaughter"). This custom must certainly once have been known to the Komi-Zyrians as well, since even the Samoyeds, who live still further north, know it. This sacrifice custom appears to have been in practice even before the burnt offering, for the oldest sources say specifically of the Samoyeds that they ate the sacrificial meat raw. So that the offerings — which in those days were not yet borne to the heights of heaven by the smoke of fire — might be closer to the god and at his disposal, the bones and head of the white sacrificial reindeer were placed on the summit of the highest mountain. The head was set upon a pole with its muzzle facing east.
From the etymological correspondence between Inmar and the Finnish Ilmari, we may conclude that our kindred peoples already possessed a personal sky god in the distant Finno-Permian era — that is, in the second millennium before our reckoning — and that our ancestors were already at that time striving beyond the primitive level at which the Persians still stood in the time of Herodotus, when they honoured as their god "the whole circle of heaven."
The oldest account of Inmar worship is Rytshkov's description: "The chief god Ilmer (Inmar) dwells in the sky and has created all things. His feast is celebrated in spring, when the worship takes place in the midst of the fields. There come both men and women, praying him to increase the fertility of their farmlands. The sacrificial animals — horse, cow, sheep, or calf — must be white."
In more recent times the Votjaks do not always strictly observe the old rule regarding the colour of the sacrificial animal; they only ensure that the victim is under no circumstances black. The most common animal consecrated to Inmar today, especially in the southern and eastern regions, is a brown foal. In the ceremony it is customary to place the offerings destined for the sky god into the fire; however, alongside the burnt offering, the older vile-mit'son sacrifice method has sometimes survived.
Whether the Votjaks have made images of the sky god, there is no information whatsoever. We may probably apply to the Votjaks what Tacitus said of the Germanic nature gods: "They do not consider it worthy of the heavenly powers' greatness to confine the gods within walls or to fashion for them faces resembling those of men."
III. Shundi-Mumi — The Sun-Mother
After Inmar, the most powerful among the Votjak nature deities are the spirits of the sun, the thunder, and the earth. These spirits too have arisen from the animation of the natural phenomenon or object itself, and therefore are not human-like. The Votjaks call them "mother" (mumi), whereas they call the human-like spirits "person" (murt).
The spirit of the sun and of its wondrous light and warmth is shundi-mumi ("sun-mother"). The name means nothing other than the sun itself, as perceived by the senses. Gavrilov, it is true, reports that shundi-mumi is a goddess who takes care that the sun shines as it should and knows the time to rise and set — but Votjak conceptions and customs clearly show that by shundi-mumi they mean the sun itself. Among other evidence, this is shown by their custom of turning toward the sun when worshipping shundi-mumi. The animation of the physical sun is further attested by their belief that the eye disease trachoma — called shundi-mumi-kuton ("sun-mother's touch") — is caused by shundi-mumi having seized the patient's light-sensitive eye. Jelabuzhskij further reports that shundi-mumi walks before the sun like a black bowl showing it the way; yet he remarks that the Votjaks manifestly animate the sun itself.
The oldest description of Votjak sun worship is Rytshkov's, who calls shundi-mumi a goddess: "She is worshipped during smallpox and other childhood illnesses. Her general feast is celebrated on Easter Day, when the offerings are rye bread and barley porridge. The ceremony takes place among the villagers, who in a field or forest choose a clean spot where both men and women gather at daybreak. The eldest man of the company takes the bread and porridge cup, all kneel down, and gazing toward the sun they pray: Shundi-mumi, deliver our children from disease!" Having uttered the prayer, the worshippers press their faces to the ground; then, rising, they begin to eat the sacrificial food together. The feast ends in drinking and merrymaking.
In modern times the Votjaks pray to shundi-mumi both at their regular festivals as the bringer of light and warmth, and on special occasions — especially on account of eye disease. In the latter case a white duck is sacrificed in the farmyard. For the sake of vegetation the Votjaks sacrifice to shundi-mumi in the grain fields, and sometimes also in the great communal sacrifice groves. Most commonly a white sheep or goose is slaughtered for her. In Staraya Kyrga of Osa district it was formerly the custom sometimes to slaughter a white horse as well. The offerings destined for the sun, in the Votjak understanding, must always be cast into fire.
IV. The New Fire
To sun worship Montelius also assigns a peculiar custom found among many peoples: that the old fire must be extinguished once a year and a new one kindled, which is started by rubbing two dry sticks together. Traces of this ancient custom have survived among the Votjaks as well.
Aptiev reports that the Votjaks of Birsk district celebrate on a certain spring evening a festival they call vil'-til ("new fire"). In the village of Kaimashebash I heard it celebrated in summer around St. Peter's Day, called pudo-tet'shaton ("cattle-leaping") or val-tet'shaton ("horse-leaping"). On that day the cattle are driven home, a friction-fire is kindled, and a great straw bonfire is lit at the gate leading to the village pasture, around which both people and animals gather. While the fire burns, the young people leap over it in succession, and the horses, cows, and sheep are driven through it. When the fire has died down, a dog is brought to the place, dragged to the fire-pit, its belly is cut open, and it is then buried in a specially dug hole. In some places it was formerly the custom to burn the dog in the fire. No prayers of any kind are recited during this ceremony. In Kaimashebash a black lamb is also slaughtered later on the feast-day evening, and its bones are either buried in the earth or burned in the bonfire.
In Sarapul district, according to Vereshtshagin, it is customary to kindle vil'-til only in the case of some misfortune, such as illness, striking the household, for the "new fire" supposedly restores health.
Among the Komi-Zyrians too a similar custom appears to have existed. Smirnov reports that at a fixed time in autumn, or whenever the cattle fall sick, they make "living fire" or "wood-fire" by friction, light a peat bonfire with it, and drive their cattle through the fire. This rite is also known to the Russians and the Chuvash. Smirnov considers it fire worship, but evidently its original purpose was not worship but the universal belief of natural peoples in the purifying power of new fire. The Finnish midsummer and helka-fires may have the same origin.
V. The Sacred Calendar — Vozho and Invozho
According to the sun's cycle the Votjaks divide the year, in the manner of eastern peoples, into two halves bounded by midsummer and midwinter. To these turning-points human attention is drawn more than to any other time of year. The Votjaks call them vozho-dir ("the wrathful time").
The winter vozho season is connected with Christmastide. The summer vozho, called invozho-dir, is reckoned in Glazov district to begin at the summer solstice and to last an entire month or until the end of the current moon. In Sarapul district, Vereshtshagin says it extends from the twentieth of June to the twentieth of July. Vasiljev calls it the two hottest months of summer. In Kazan province I heard it said to begin after Whitsun and end when the fallow ploughing begins at the end of June. Although this period varies somewhat by region, it is everywhere centred on the time when the rye is in flower.
During invozho many activities are shunned: one does not bathe, does not rinse dirty clothes, does not wash dishes, and makes no noise near water. The rule applies especially to the noon hour, when no work that might produce even a little noise is done — one does not even pick a flower or speak aloud. If anyone violates the prescribed customs, the whole village suffers the punishment, for the consequence is a severe hailstorm or downpour.
The Komi-Zyrians, too, have a corresponding period. Nalimov reports that during the rye-blossoming season "people fear to offend by washing a special female being, peleznit'sa, who dwells in the rye." Kandinskij considers peleznit'sa a special guardian-goddess of the rye and says that the belief in her was formerly so strong that no Komi-Zyrian dared to touch the rye before St. Elijah's Day for fear of terrible punishment. Today only children fear her, but the old people still say that when peleznit'sa guarded the rye, the grain was better.
VI. Gudiri-Mumi — The Thunder-Mother
The thunder deity is called by the Votjaks gudiri-mumi ("thunder-mother"). By this, too, they mean not any personal being but the natural phenomenon itself, worshipped as the giver of warm and refreshing rain. As with the other guardians of agriculture, sacrifices to the thunder-mother take place chiefly in the grain fields. The sacrificial animals are generally the same as those used when sacrificing to Inmar. A white colour is not always required. The offerings are burned in fire, just as when sacrificing to the sun.
Connected with the veneration of thunder among the Votjaks are several peculiar magical customs. So, for example, the inhabitants of Birsk district have the custom, upon hearing the first spring thunder, of throwing themselves flat on the ground wherever they happen to be standing, and sometimes even turning a somersault. The people can no longer explain the purpose of this custom. The same is done in Sarapul district, according to Vereshtshagin.
Another magical practice directed at thunder, common throughout all Votjak regions, is "rain-making." It proceeds as follows: during prolonged drought the village folk gather at the bank of a nearby stream and splash one another with water. Among the Osa and Birsk Votjaks it is additionally the custom to collect crayfish from the stream and smear them on the windows and walls of buildings, and even to smear one another and anyone encountered on the village street. At the same time one of the women plunges into the sheep flock, seizes a sheep, and throws it into a water hole. Whatever colour happens to fall into her hands is the one later sacrificed to gudiri-mumi.
When they have sufficiently smeared one another with crayfish-clay, the young men and women finally gather at the streambank, where they pour water over one another and playfully push each other into the stream. When the ceremony is concluded, each returns home, washes, and puts on festive clothing. The sacrificial sheep, purchased with communal funds, is slaughtered in the spring-sown grain field. In the prayer, warm refreshing rain is asked of Inmar and gudiri-mumi. The bones of the slaughtered animal are burned in a bonfire.
Often the "rain worship" (zor kuriskon) is performed at a spring, stream, or riverbank. The prayer-place is usually very ancient and well-known. The sacrifices, especially when annual, sometimes draw a great many villages. Aminoff reports that in the village of Parvu in Bödja of Sarapul district there is such a famous rain-worship place that fifteen villages come there annually to sacrifice. The worship place is in a grove by a spring. In the sanctuary the priests are two sacrificers chosen by lot and two slaughtermen. The sacrificial animals are a red or white bull and two sheep. In Mamadysh district great inter-village rain sacrifices are also held. The worship place is always at a river or streambank. A black bull is the most commonly used sacrificial animal there.
In examining the Votjak zor kuriskon rites, one notices that the "rain-making" and the sacrifice ceremony do not always necessarily belong together. Very often the Votjaks "make rain" without any sacrifice at all. The magical rain-making is probably more ancient than the sacrifice ceremony. That water held a very important place in rain worship even alongside sacrifice is shown by the fact that the oldest zor kuriskon places are regularly situated at a river or streambank. Even the sacrifice itself, which today from the prayers appears to be for the sky god's benefit, originally had the purpose of strengthening the spiritual power of the water itself. This is shown by the dark colour of the sacrificial animal, which the Votjaks generally use when sacrificing to water. In former times the offerings were, according to tradition, cast into the water rather than burned.
VII. Muzjem-Mumi — The Earth-Mother
The earth spirit is called by the Votjaks muzjem-mumi ("earth-mother"). Jelabuzhskij, who mentions it also by the synonym muzjem-anai, says it is the chief deity of agriculture. The Votjaks generally believe it dwells in the earth, where offerings to it must also be made. In Mamadysh district I heard it said that muzjem-mumi resides in mounds that have formed in the earth, which for that reason must not be dug up.
Nowadays the old muzjem-mumi appears only rarely in Votjak sacrifice prayers, for throughout all Votjak regions it has been displaced by the previously mentioned mu-kilt'shin, or, as it is also often called, mu-kilt'shin-mumi. The exchange of names has not, however, in any way changed the Votjaks' old conceptions or former sacrifice customs. The old muzjem-mumi is still recognisable even in gender in the mu-kilt'shin-mumi goddess, for Aminoff says the Votjak priests themselves declared that the latter is nothing other than "earth-mother."
The very fact that the Votjak earth goddess has no form whatsoever in their imagination points to the probability that muzjem-mumi was originally the earth itself, conceived as animate. This is also shown by the sacrifice custom of placing muzjem-mumi's or mu-kilt'shin's offering — which must necessarily be black, that is, earth-coloured — in the bosom of the earth itself; and by the widespread belief that one ought not to sacrifice to mu-kilt'shin very late in autumn, because by then the earth is already sleeping. Further evidence is a prayer I recorded in Mozhga of Birsk district, in which it is asked that mu-kilt'shin not grow angry when people are compelled to dig and plough the earth.
The oldest known prayer addressed to the earth deity is the following, recorded by Satrapinskij in Glazov district at a spring-sowing festival in 1854:
"O earth-mother, we thank you for having fed us this past year. Do not now be stingy either — grow grain for us this summer too!"
The Votjaks worship muzjem-mumi or mu-kilt'shin principally at their summer field festivals. The sacrificial animal's blood must be poured during slaughter into a pit dug in the earth, where also the corresponding organs, entrails, and bones are buried. The most commonly used animals on this occasion are a black bull or sheep. Later additions, such as the horse, are not sacrificed to muzjem-mumi. The Votjaks do not consider it necessary to sacrifice only female animals to the earth-mother.
VIII. The Underground Bull
The Votjaks of Yelabuga district additionally believe that beneath the earth dwells a great black bull, muzjem-ut'is-osh ("the earth-guarding bull"). In their understanding, beneath the earth lies a sea; in the sea a fish-monster; and on the fish-monster's back an immense bull which supports the earth on its horns. The Votjaks of Sarapul district also, according to Vereshtshagin, have stories of the underground bull muzjem-osh. Earthquakes are believed to be caused by the bull-monster stirring. It fears the light of the sun, for the sun's rays would kill it. This apparition, of course, has never been an object of sacrifice worship.
IX. D'u-Urt — The Grain-Soul
The grain spirit is called by the Votjaks d'u-urt ("grain-soul"), sometimes also busi-urt ("field-soul"). Today it appears to be known only to the eastern Votjaks. This spirit too was originally nothing other than the grain itself, made animate. For this reason d'u-urt cannot take any form in the Votjak imagination. Only one peculiar ceremony performed in the field attests that the Votjaks believed the grain-soul, upon departing the grain, appeared in the form of a small white butterfly — just as, in their understanding, the human soul appears after leaving the body.
Happy is the person in whose field d'u-urt thrives, for there the grain grows well and yields abundantly. When, however, the grain does not sprout or otherwise grows poorly, it is proof that d'u-urt has left its former dwelling and moved to a neighbour's grain field. In that case it must be sought and brought back.
The ceremony, called d'u-urt-kuton ("grain-soul search"), involves, besides the actual searcher — a sinad'dzis ("seer") — three boys and three girls. The latter each mount a white horse, dressed in white clothing. One of the boys must be a violinist. With solemn hearts the procession rides slowly around the grain fields seeking the grain's "soul." At last it is seen fluttering as a white butterfly in the grass. The seer then captures it in a white cloth which he holds in his hand. After this the procession returns rejoicing to the sacrifice place at the field's edge, where the elders have meanwhile slaughtered a white sheep. Upon arriving, the young men and women sing a special urt-kuton song. The person whom the butterfly approached during the search now receives it into his keeping, to preserve it for seven days in his grain storehouse, after which time d'u-urt is carried back to the grain field and released.
At no other time do the Votjaks presently sacrifice to d'u-urt. In its place has come another, known throughout all Votjak regions: d'u-kilt'shin, also worshipped as spirit of the grain field. To it the Votjaks sacrifice white sheep, geese, and ducks during the agricultural festivals, sometimes also in communal sacrifice groves. The offerings are burned in fire.
The archaic word urt, which only in this connection has survived with the meaning of "object-soul," testifies that d'u-urt or busi-urt descends from very early times. The same spirit appears to be known to the Mari (Cheremis) as well, under the name pasu-ört ("field-soul").
X. The River-Mothers — Water Worship
Just as the Votjaks consider the earth a living being, so too they regard water. From this arises the worship of lakes, rivers, streams, and springs — which must not be confused with the worship of the human-like water spirits, though the two are not always easily distinguished. When worshipping rivers, lakes, and springs, the Votjaks address them directly by name. As with nature deities generally, they often use the word mumi ("mother") when speaking to them. The Votjaks worship lake-mothers and river-mothers for the sake of fertilising rain and abundant fish-catch, and to prevent the arising of fog, floods, storms, downpours, hailstorms, and water-borne diseases.
The first general sacrifice festival of the year in honour of the water and the water spirits is je-kel'an ("ice-sending"). Nowadays it is celebrated in spring in connection with the ploughing festival, but judging from the name and from tradition, it was formerly held at the time of the ice-breaking. The oldest account of this worship runs thus: "In spring, when the ice begins to move, the master of the household goes with his family to the riverbank or bridge, carrying ale and brandy, pours a glass of ale and a measure of brandy into the water as if to feast it, and asks that the water flow happily without causing damage or carrying anyone into its waves." According to Pervuhin, bread and pancake are also thrown into the water, while it is asked that spring be calm, that the river's flood do no harm, that the ice carry away the diseases of people and animals, and that no one drown. In the prayer that Pervuhin recorded on this occasion, the worshippers address both the local river-mother and vu-murt (the water spirit).
Vereshtshagin says the purpose of the sacrifice is to ask that the river god water people and cattle with its waters during the coming summer and moisten the fields and meadows with its life-giving moisture. When throwing the sacrifice bread into the water, the worshippers turn to the river itself: "River Tshura! We have come, all members of the same family, with one mind to honour you!" Then they taste brandy for the river's health. Upon returning home, the sacrifice folk turn once more toward the river and, baring their heads, bow three times and say: "We thank you, Tshura river! We have eaten and drunk enough. From all diseases protect us!"
At the same time as the Glazov Votjaks, the eastern Votjaks living on the banks of the Buj River also celebrate a river festival, even sacrificing animals. Tezjakov says they sacrifice a foal's bones and hide into the water, so that no fogs will come and the fish catch will be abundant. In Staraya Kyrga I had the opportunity to attend the Buj River festival. When the young sacrificial foal had been slaughtered and cooked on the very bank of the river, the worship folk knelt with faces toward the water and the sacrifice priest read a lengthy prayer, asking Inmar and the river for every manner of prosperity. During the prayer the animal's bones, hide, and pieces of the noblest organs, and even a new bast-fibre bandage, were cast into the water, into which the blood had already been channelled along a groove dug in the bank during slaughter. In the said village the sacrificial animal alternates yearly: one year a brown foal, the next a black bull. The villagers are firmly convinced that if they do not sacrifice to the river, it will cause damage with its floods, form dangerous tears in the banks, and send storms and destructive hailstorms. In one village the spring sacrifice was once omitted, and in punishment the hail beat the village's grain to the ground.
In Glazov district a regular sacrifice festival is held in honour of the river again in summer after the hay harvest, when a brown bull is sacrificed into the water and the river-mother is asked to guard and strengthen the cattle and protect people from fires. A third festival is held in autumn just before the rivers freeze. The offering is usually a duck or goose. According to Pervuhin, the river and vu-murt are thanked on this occasion for not having destroyed the cattle but having given them good hay for food. The Votjaks ask the same for the coming year, promising then to give a greater sacrifice.
The Komi-Zyrians too have preserved traces of river-mother worship. Zhakov says that when the people of the Vym River go fishing, they spread butter on bread and cast it into the water, saying: "Vörik-va mother, carry us in health, take care of us, protect us, and give us many fish — a full boat!" When setting out on water journeys they also sacrifice bread and money into the water, asking the river for success and health. They do this every time they come to a new river. Nalimov reports that the Komi-Zyrians, when traveling across the Sysola, ask it for success, saying: "Sysola mother, grant good fortune as we row across!" With the same request they address the Vychegda when crossing it.
XI. Wind and Frost
The Votjaks further worship the wind (tel) and the hoar-frost (puzhmer), the latter of which I heard called by the name of "mother" — puzmer-mumi — in Birsk district. To the wind a duck is sacrificed in the grain field during the general field-sacrifice season, and it is asked not to rage overmuch and thereby damage the grain, but to move gently over the fields. The colour of the sacrificial bird is not precisely fixed, but one must not sacrifice to the wind a white or black bird. The animal, purchased with communal funds, is slaughtered on spruce boughs, which are finally burned in a bonfire together with the bird's blood and bones. In some places it is the custom, when sacrificing to the wind, to sprinkle blood into the air. Occasional sacrifices to the wind are also made, especially during storms.
A later and foreign conception is the belief that a whirlwind contains a devil (tel-peri, also tel-murt — "wind-person"). The Votjaks believe they can stop a whirlwind by throwing edged weapons into it. When they need wind — especially when winnowing grain outdoors — they have the custom of "making" it by whistling.
Frost (puzhmer) is worshipped today only by the eastern Votjaks, who sacrifice to it whenever frost appears on the grain field during cold spring nights. The most common sacrificial animal is a grey lamb or duck. In Staraya Kyrga of Osa district it was formerly the custom to sacrifice an annual offering to puzhmertile in spring just after Easter. The sacrificial animal, slaughtered in the grain field, was a grey sheep. In the sacrifice prayer the Votjaks turn, as when sacrificing to the wind, to the natural phenomenon itself. In many places, however, Inmar has already displaced this special deity as well.
XII. Fire, Twilight, and the Moon
Some writers mention still other natural phenomena that the Votjaks deify. Aminoff reports that they worship fire (til), though he notes that no special sacrifice is performed for it. Vereshtshagin, however, reports that in Glazov district porridge, bread, ale, and brandy are sacrificed to fire, placed in the hearth flames.
Among the Komi-Zyrians, Kandinskij considers evidence of fire-worship the fact that one must not spit into fire, nor throw dirty objects into it, nor trample it with one's feet.
Vereshtshagin further speaks of a spirit called akshan which, in the Votjak understanding, rules during the time of morning and evening twilight. This time is therefore called akshandir ("akshan-time"). No sacrifice is performed to it; only the conception exists that during this time one must not make noise or carry out any tasks. Akshan, which is a Tatar word, means twilight.
Of other notable natural phenomena — the moon (tolez), the stars (kizil'i), the rainbow (vu-juis, "water-drinker"), the Milky Way (kir-dzhadzheg sures, "wild-goose road"), the clouds (pil'em), and so forth — the Votjaks hold generally the same conceptions and stories as their neighbours and many other surrounding peoples. None of the above do they approach with prayers; only upon seeing the new moon (vil'-toles) do they bare their heads and, gazing at the moon, say: "Inmar, grant health."
XIII. On the Colour Symbolism of Sacrifice
In comparing the nature deities described above with the present and former deities of the surrounding peoples, we find correspondences not only in the deities themselves but in the sacrifice worship directed toward them. Just as the Votjaks, so too the Slavic peoples have called the natural phenomena they worship "mother." A noteworthy and significant feature of all nature worship is that the sacrificial animal must, as far as possible, be the colour of the natural phenomenon or object itself. So it is common in the religions of various peoples that, for example, to the sun and the daytime sky a white offering must be given; to the earth-mother, a black one; to the hoar-frost, a grey one; and so forth. While this attests to a shared foundation of thought in the nature worship of different peoples, it also shows that even the nature gods of the old civilised peoples — which had already developed into more or less human-like and personal beings — were once nothing more than perceptible, animated natural phenomena.
Colophon
Translated by Vös, the Uralic Beta Translator tulku (New Tianmu Anglican Church), March 2026.
Source language: Finnish. The source is Uno Holmberg (later Harva), Permalaisten uskonto (The Religion of the Permian Peoples; Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1914). Project Gutenberg edition (ebook #61164); Finnish plain-text file consulted at gutenberg.org/files/61164/61164-0.txt. This English is independently derived from the Finnish. No English translation of Permalaisten uskonto was consulted.
Note on the author's name: Holmberg later changed his surname to the more Finnish form Harva. Both names refer to the same person.
Translation method: This is a translation of the Luonnonhaltiat ja niiden palvonta (Nature spirits and their worship) chapter from Holmberg's Finnish scholarly text. Holmberg's text is a secondary ethnographic account, drawing on Russian and German primary fieldwork by Rytshkov, Georgi, Aminoff, Vereshtshagin, Pervuhin, Gavrilov, Wichmann, Jelabuzhskij, Miropoljskij, Tezjakov, Vasiljev, Moshkov, Potanin, and many others. The prayer texts embedded in Holmberg's account are transcriptions of actual Votjak and Komi-Zyrian prayers recorded by field researchers.
On coverage: This file translates the full nature-spirits chapter, covering: the sky god Inmar's sacrifice customs and antiquity; shundi-mumi (sun-mother); the new-fire ceremony; the vozho and invozho sacred calendar; gudiri-mumi (thunder-mother) and the rain-making rites; muzjem-mumi (earth-mother); the underground bull; d'u-urt (grain-soul) and the grain-soul search ceremony; the river-mothers and seasonal water worship; wind and frost spirits; fire, twilight, and moon. This completes the three-part translation of the core chapters of Permalaisten uskonto.
On relation to other files: This is the third of three files translating selections from the same source. The first, "Komi-Zyrian and Votjak Sacred Cosmology," covers the three-layered world, the sky gods Inmar and Jen, and the dualistic mythology of Omel'. The second, "Forest Spirits and the Sacred Bear," covers the human-like forest spirits and the sacred bear. Together the three files present the full religious structure described by Holmberg: ancestor-spirits, human-like spirits, and nature deities.
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Source Text
The Finnish source text is Uno Holmberg, Permalaisten uskonto (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1914), chapter Luonnonhaltiat ja niiden palvonta, available in full at Project Gutenberg ebook #61164 (gutenberg.org/files/61164/61164-0.txt). The chapter begins at the words "Edellisen ryhmän haltioita olemme yhteisellä nimellä nimittäneet ihmisenkaltaisiksi" and continues to the end of the chapter. All prayer texts in the translation correspond to prayers quoted by Holmberg from fieldwork sources.
Source Colophon
The source text is the Finnish scholarly text of Uno Holmberg (later Harva), written and published in Finnish in Helsinki in 1914, based on field reports in Russian and German. The prayers embedded in the text were originally spoken in Votjak (Udmurt) or Komi-Zyrian and were transcribed by various fieldworkers (Rytshkov, Aminoff, Pervuhin, Vereshtshagin, Wichmann, Nalimov, Zhakov, and others) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Holmberg's Finnish text translates these prayers from their original languages via Russian and German scholarly intermediaries. The present English derives from Holmberg's Finnish, which is the only language in which the complete synthesis exists.
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