Chapter IV of Holmberg's survey reveals the sacred grove — the lud — which stood at the heart of Votjak religion. Fenced and feared, hidden in the taiga or standing alone on the open steppe after the forests had been felled, the lud was a place where no branch could be broken, no animal hunted, and no woman or child might set foot. The grove-spirit within was "stern and demanding," yet also the giver of good harvests and fair summers. Worship was by clan: each family line had its own grove, its own hereditary keeper, its own ancestral fire. The sacrifice ceremonies — the slaughter of unblemished horses, the fire-offering of blood through birch leaves, the "high offering" of meat placed on altars of green branches — preserve a ritual grammar that Holmberg traces back to the common Finno-Ugric past. In the lud, the ancient and the foreign meet: the grove-spirit appears in Tatar dress, bears the Arabic title "Sultan," yet the deepest stratum of worship points to the Votjaks' own ancestral dead.
I. The Lud — The Sacred Grove
The Votjaks celebrate their clan sacrificial feasts not only at home shrines but also in sacred groves. Russian writers describing their religious customs do not usually distinguish between the different kinds of sacrificial groves, calling them all by the common borrowed term keremet. This is doubtless because the Votjak sacred groves resemble one another greatly, both in appearance and in the worship performed within them. Some, like Bryzgalov, even apply the name keremet to the bone-throwing place (li-kujan-inti) described in the previous chapter.
However, setting aside those offering-places dedicated solely to the promotion of particular livelihoods or the appeasement of disease-spirits — where persons of different clans may worship together — the Votjaks make a sharp distinction between groves where worship is conducted within a single clan or clan-group. The former are found in nearly every village, sometimes several in one village; the latter are rarer, usually found only in old mother-villages where the surrounding communities come to sacrifice. The former the Votjaks call lud; the latter budzim kuriskon-inti ("great worship-place").
The Physical Grove
The word lud means generally a meadow or grove beyond the village, but specifically also a designated sacrificial grove. In former times all Votjak groves were fenced off within the forest. The oldest available sources describe them thus. Müller, who traveled the Votjak lands earlier than most, reports that the sacrificial groves were mostly in remote forests. Pallas, describing the groves of Ufa province, says they were usually situated in spruce forests, particularly in beautiful places where tall and stately silver-firs grew. Georgi confirms this, noting that the Votjaks called them lud. In the Sarapul district, according to Koshurnikov, they stood in naturally beautiful forest places, often beside a murmuring brook.
In modern times, as the forests of eastern Russia have greatly diminished, the sacred groves have emerged from the depths of the wilderness and remain as memorials of the vanished forest upon the open steppe. Thus near pagan Votjak villages one sees here and there splendid sacred groves whose untouched, towering trees guide the traveler across the plain.
Already in the 1700s, when Müller traversed the Votjak land, some groves stood in open country as well as forest. In the Kazan province, with its high sand-ridges, they usually sit on the highest, most visible summit. Where forest has survived, the lud may still be hidden deep in the woods — Wichmann describes searching for one in the Yelabuga district's Bussurman Mozhga, where the grove was well concealed amid dense, uncleared forest on a hillock surrounded by bushy hollows.
The trees in a lud depend on the local forest: in some places the grove is deciduous, in others coniferous, most often mixed. The oldest writers say the groves were generally in spruce stands. Behterev says they were of linden or birch. Haruzin mentions pine, oak, and linden. Ostrovskij describes small clusters of birch, linden, and oak. Bogaevskij says simply that all kinds of trees grow in them.
The Taboos of the Grove
Wherever the lud stands — in forest or on open ground — it is always surrounded by a fence, and the people regard it with superstitious dread. Scarcely any of their many holy places do the Votjaks fear to the degree they fear the lud. No one goes there without cause, not even on a feast day without an offering. Cattle may not graze there; no branch may be broken, not even a twig taken home; all noise is strictly forbidden; and a hunter may not pursue an animal that has entered the grove. Women and children avoid it altogether — they do not set foot in it but even when passing give it a wide berth. Strangers too should not enter. Whoever offends the grove-spirit is unfailingly punished by misfortune.
The Votjaks tell many cautionary tales. Vasiljev relates that a church servant who went into the lud to pick mushrooms found himself held by some invisible power when he tried to leave, and had to abandon his mushrooms to escape unharmed. The same writer tells of a soldier who, having learned in foreign lands to scorn his ancestors' customs, boasted he would fell trees from the lud without harm — but when he had brought the logs home and began building, he struck his foot with the axe and his horse, which he had used to haul the timber, vanished. Buch records an even more terrifying case: a Russian who cut a tree from the lud immediately fell ill and died, and later his whole family sickened and perished. In the Yelabuga district it is believed that whoever breaks a branch from the grove is punished by a bear-shaped keremet. A very common belief is that if a tree is felled from a lud, a hailstorm will arise, and if the wood is burned in a house, the building will catch fire.
The Enclosure and the Sacred Tree
The fence surrounding the grove is made of rails or planks, sometimes woven from branches. A small plank gate on wooden hinges leads in, open only during sacrifice. The gate's orientation varies with no fixed compass direction; it usually faces the village or the road leading from it.
Within the enclosure, in most groves there is nothing remarkable except the fence itself. Only in a few does one find a decaying bench, a mossy stool, or a narrow table used as a sacrificial altar. The altar is usually placed at the foot of some great ancient tree, where the sacrificial priest recites his prayers. The worship appears to center on one particular old tree. Buch reports that in the middle of a Sarapul grove stood an old tree whose lower branches had been cut away for easier access, with an open space cleared around it. Bogaevskij says the Votjaks gathered to sacrifice in the shade of a favorite tree.
The Lud-kuala
In former times, and occasionally still today, the lud contained a small hut-like structure called the lud-kuala. Müller already observed buildings in sacred groves. Shestakov records hut-like shrines in the Glazov district forests. Gavrilov describes the lud-kuala at Novaya Utsha in the Mamadysh district: a building in the center of the enclosure, with both the grove gate and the hut's door facing east. Inside are a table, a cupboard, and a shelf. The fireplace is outside to the right of the hut.
At Staraya Jumya in the same district, the writer photographed a lud-kuala — a tiny hut too small for habitation, with a backward-sloping roof. Its small door, like the grove gate, faces west toward the village. Inside there is nothing but a plank shelf in the far right corner. The fireplace is outside, between the hut and the gate. The elders say that in former times the hut was not empty but served as a repository for sacred offering vessels, towels, coins, and other objects. Old fallen trees, whose trunks rot undisturbed on the ground, show that the Votjaks have worshipped in this grove for many generations.
Today lud-kuala buildings have become rare. In groves where tradition says they once stood, no trace remains. Their disappearance is due above all to the scarcity of timber.
II. Clan Worship and the Grove-Keeper
We have already noted that the Votjaks worship in the lud by clan. Just as with the prayer-kuala, the obligation of lud-worship passes by inheritance from father to children. Members of one clan never come to worship in another clan's grove. A lud may belong to one family, several families, the whole clan that forms a village, or sometimes to two or more villages collectively. If a village has several lud-clans, there are as many groves near it. Gavrilov mentions one Mamadysh village with four groves. Small Votjak villages usually have only one or two.
Wichmann also records villages without any lud, which sometimes occurs when the villagers worship in a neighboring village's grove — settlers from a new village do not always establish their own grove but continue worshipping in the mother-village's lud. Bogaevskij explains that in the Sarapul district, several village-communities worship in the same lud when emigrants to different areas have not founded new groves. This has become customary especially in treeless regions where establishing a new grove is already difficult.
If a village has several groves, in some areas the oldest is most esteemed and called budzim-lud ("great lud"). It has more worshippers and traditionally contains a kuala building, which the lesser groves do not always have.
The Grove-Keeper
The guardianship of the lud resembles that of the kuala: the office of lud-ut'is ("grove-keeper") passes by hereditary succession from father to son. Ostrovskij reports from the Kazan province that each grove has its own guardian who alone performs the sacrificial rites and whose office passes directly by inheritance. Wichmann says that in the Urzhum district, when the grove-keeper grows old, he passes the care of the lud to his favorite son, or failing that, to some other favored person among the worshippers. When no heir exists, a general clan assembly designates a new priest from among the relatives.
In the Sarapul district, according to Vasiljev, three officiants participate: the lud-ut'is (high priest and chief), the tere (his assistant and feast-master), and the part'tshas (who slaughters and flays the animals and otherwise serves the ut'is). All three together clean the sacrificial meats, cook them, and pray.
No special vestment is required, but the grove-keeper's clothing must be clean and white at the time of sacrifice. Vereshtshagin says the priests must wear a white robe, white cap, clean leg-wrappings, and new bast shoes. Purity is also demanded of the worshipping public — no one may enter the grove without first bathing in the sauna. Whoever breaks this rule is punished by the grove-spirit with illness or other misfortune.
Founding a New Grove
The Votjaks establish groves for various reasons: to seek freedom from a severe illness, because the grove-spirit has appeared in a dream demanding it, or most commonly when families move to a new area. A new grove cannot be founded just anywhere — the site must be chosen with the help of a seer (tuno). Buch reports that in the Sarapul district, the tuno mounts an unbroken young colt and rides without reins toward the forest; where the colt stops, the lud is established. Jelabuzhskij says the tuno marks the site by drawing a circle around it with a sword.
A new grove does not begin service, however, until the spirit has been brought from the old mother-grove. This is done in the same manner as the mudor-wedding. The eastern Votjaks say their ancestors, founding groves in new territory, brought ash from the home village's grove. Bogaevskij reports that when the tuno has designated the site, the shrine is "moved" there with wedding ceremonies — the chief rite being the bringing of ash from the old worship-place to the new, where it is set at the new fireplace.
III. The Sacrifice
Once the lud is consecrated, it is a shrine where annual worship is obligatory — not only for the founder but for all descendants. Miropoljskij says that even when the Russians have destroyed a lud, the Votjaks continue to worship at the site. Whoever neglects the prescribed sacrifices is harshly punished by the grove-spirit, whom the Votjaks regard as stern and demanding.
The Timing of Sacrifice
Sacrificial seasons vary by location, but the general lud-feast is never held in winter. Reported times include: summer around St. Peter's Day; autumn in November; spring before sowing; a week after St. Peter's Day; twice yearly in spring and autumn; or as many as three times — in spring after plowing, in summer around St. Peter's Day, and in autumn after the fieldwork. The two most common times appear to be summer before the hay harvest and autumn at the end of outdoor work.
Occasional sacrifices are performed whenever the tuno declares that a misfortune — especially a severe internal illness (lud-mizh, "grove-sickness") — is caused by the grove-spirit's demand for an offering.
The Ceremony
Only the elder men go to the grove. Sacrificial foods, vessels, kettles, and troughs are brought along, as well as the sacrificial animals, for the keremet always demands a blood sacrifice. When the company reaches the gate, they bare their heads in greeting to the grove-spirit. The lud-ut'is himself opens the gate and enters first; the others follow silently. A fire is kindled at the old fireplace, using fallen wood and rotted stumps from the grove — never freshly cut timber. Towels brought for wiping hands are hung on the branches. The sacrificial table is covered with green branches — birch in summer, spruce in autumn — and over these a white cloth is spread, upon which the brought breads and pancakes are laid.
Before the slaughter, the customary offering-test is performed. Water is poured from a spring through green leaves over the back of the sacrificial animal — which must be unblemished, untouched, and of a single color — from head to tail. The lud-ut'is prays quietly during this procedure, which is repeated until the animal shudders, signifying that the offering is acceptable to the lud-kuzo.
Upon receiving the sign, the priests bind the animal's legs, lay it on its left side, and cut the jugular veins without prior stunning. During the slaughter the grove-keeper prays earnestly in an undertone, holding sacrificial bread. After slaughter the hide is removed and the meat carved in a prescribed manner. If there are multiple animals, each is cooked separately.
Fire-Offering and High Offering
The consecration of the meat to the grove-spirit proceeds in two ways. Part is thrown into the fire (tilaskon); part is set on an altar for the spirits to take (vile mit'son).
In our time the fire-offering has taken precedence. Already Müller noted that before eating, the Votjaks threw small portions of cooked meat — ears, eyes, feet — into the fire, and similarly with the heart, intestines, and other organs. Pallas reports that the eastern Votjaks burned the blood, abdominal fat, and bones. Georgi says that after the meat, pancakes, honey, and drink were also offered, each small portion set in the fire by the tuno with the words: "Fire, convey these to Inmar." Wichmann says that when sacrificing to the lud, parts of the heart, liver, snout, and hooves are thrown into the fire, along with blood. A universal custom is to pour the animal's blood into the fire immediately at slaughter, through birch leaves or spruce needles.
The vile mit'son ("high offering") is set upon a small altar-table made of birch branches at the foot of an old tree, covered with a cloth. In earlier times this offering consisted mainly of meat — pieces from the animal's most important organs. Among the eastern Votjaks, those organs cooked in a separate kettle — the head, heart, neck, right foreleg, and three ribs of the same side — are called vile mit'son meats, and only the officiating priests and eldest guests may eat them. Women may never taste them. Today small pieces are cut and thrown into the fire, but the name betrays an older practice: the meat was once threaded onto a cut branch and fastened to the sacrificial tree — a practice also found among the Lapps, suggesting it goes back to the common Finno-Ugric era.
The Communal Meal and Prayer
When the grove-spirit has received its portion, the part'tshasit divide the meat and porridge equally among all worshipping households. Each sits on the turf beside their food-bowl and eats. In the Sarapul district, the tere and elders taste the sacrificial meat first; only then is it distributed to the rest.
After eating, the worshippers form a line and the grove-keeper prays in an undertone. Miropoljskij says they pray for protection from hail, storms, diseases, and all evil. After each petition the worshipping company, kneeling, touch their foreheads to the ground and say: "Amen." Sometimes musical instruments accompanied the feast — Haruzin records the gusli. Upon leaving, the worshippers bow deeply toward the grove and say: "Live in happiness and protect us."
The Direction of Worship
The direction faced during prayer reveals both older and newer strata. Under Tatar influence, the southern direction has been widely adopted. Already Pallas and Georgi record the Votjaks praying southward. The ut'is set the animals by the fire facing south and said: "Inmar, Saltan djes, we sacrifice to you a red stallion or white sheep for the grain harvest — free us from disease, make us rich, grant health, bless the ruler."
Alongside this, the eastward direction — toward sunrise — was very common until recent times. Müller records that both Votjaks and Cheremis turned their faces east during prayer. In the Yelabuga district, Potanin says they prayed to "Sultan" facing east.
A third direction — westward — is also attested. Bogaevskij reports that in parts of the Sarapul district the worshippers faced west, and the same was true in the Birsk district's Mozhga. The westward orientation, associated with the realm of the dead, points to the connection between grove-worship and ancestor veneration.
IV. The Grove-Spirit
The spirit inhabiting the lud bears several names. The most universal, known in all Votjak areas, is lud-kuzo ("grove-master"). Some also call it lud-asaba ("grove-lord"). When speaking with Russians, the Votjaks call both the grove and its spirit keremet, but never use this term among themselves.
The nature of the grove-spirit is disputed. Many writers characterize it as an evil being. Shestakov says the keremet-grove is dedicated to an evil spirit. Bogaevskij calls the lud a "terrible tormenter of people." Wichmann says the Votjaks assured him that lud-offerings are made to an evil spirit and that "God is not mentioned in these prayers."
Yet this does not prove the grove-spirit was considered purely evil in the original Votjak conception. Pagan spirits often acquire evil reputations only under the influence of higher religions. Even now, in some places better views of the grove-spirit persist. Potanin noted early on that the keremet is "a god" and must not be confused with the devil. Jelabuzhskij, opposing the view of Gavrilov and Smirnov, says the Yelabuga Votjaks call the grove-spirit a deity. Bogaevskij himself admits that although the lud is stern and demanding, it also grants prosperity — sometimes abundantly. He records a sacrificial song: "Dzets Sulton received our offering, promised a good summer, and lightened our labor." The very name dzets Sulton ("good Sultan") shows that this is not a spirit of pure malice.
The grove-spirit usually appears in dreams in human form — typically dressed as a Tatar. In the Mamadysh district, one sick Votjak elder saw three figures — one woman and two men in Tatar dress — enter his locked room at midnight and vanish through the ceiling like wind. The belief that the grove-spirit appears in Tatar garb is universal among the Votjaks.
V. Origins — The Ancestral and the Foreign
Many features of lud-worship point to a connection with ancestor veneration. The grove-spirit appears in human form and is bound to a particular territory. Worship is by clan, and the grove-keeper's office is hereditary. In some regions the old westward prayer-direction and black sacrificial animals — both associated with the realm of the dead — have survived.
At the same time, there are clear marks of foreign influence. The Votjaks themselves believe the grove-spirit appears as a Tatar, and they understand lud-worship to have once been practiced by the Tatars as well. Bogaevskij records a legend: "In the old days, when the Tatars did not yet have their present religion, they too worshipped the lud. But upon converting to Islam they were forbidden to use candles in worship, and therefore had to abandon the lud. The lud became sorrowful, wandered through the world with its marvelous cloth, and wept, saying: 'Who will receive me? Who will worship me? To that one I will give endless prosperity.' Then the foolish Votjak, enchanted by the beautiful towel, began to worship it." According to another tale, the Tatars once slaughtered a horse for the lud but threw the head into the forest; the Votjaks found it, and from then on worshipped the lud.
The requirement of ritual purity, the prohibition against pork for the grove-keeper, the horse sacrifice — all suggest foreign strands. The word keremet itself, meaning "sacred, inviolable" in Arabic, was likely originally the name of the grove itself. The title "Sultan" or "Sulton," also Arabic in origin, is shared with the Chuvash kirämät-spirit and points to Turkic-Tatar cultural influence. The Votjaks, under the rule of Turkic-Tatar peoples, worshipped in their groves a foreign lord.
Yet we cannot conclude that grove-worship among the Votjaks is entirely of foreign origin. The Votjak's own settled name lud, and the reasonable assumption that in their days of freedom they had heroes and chieftains for whom they established sacred groves, suggest an indigenous foundation. Wichmann records that in Bussurman Mozhga, eleven village-communities honor the memory of their ancestor Mardan — a hero who once came from the north and chose that place as his dwelling. Every third year a horse is sacrificed to him and a cow to his wife. The annual sacrifice is a sheep. The words of thanksgiving spoken when sacrificing to Mardan are: "Together we now give you a horse. For the good children and good grain harvest you have given us, we thank you, our father Mardan!"
As for the Zyrians, whether they too had grove-worship comparable to their kinsmen's is uncertain. However, the Life of St. Stephen mentions idols not only in villages and houses but also in forests and on hilltops — and the idol-houses he destroyed and burned, containing images, offering-tables, and offerings, may well correspond to the Votjak lud-kualas.
Colophon
Translated from the Finnish by the New Tianmu Anglican Church as a Good Works Translation. The source text is Chapter IV ("Lud-palvonta," Grove-Worship) of Uno Holmberg, Permalaisten uskonto (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1914), pages covering lines 3564–4611 of the Project Gutenberg digital text (PG #61164). Holmberg (later Harva) compiled this work from the ethnographic reports of Wichmann, Gavrilov, Bogaevskij, Vasiljev, Vereshtshagin, Müller, Georgi, Pallas, Buch, Shestakov, Behterev, Haruzin, Ostrovskij, Miropoljskij, Aminoff, Potanin, Jelabuzhskij, and others. No complete English translation of Permalaisten uskonto has been previously published. This translation was produced independently from the Finnish source text. This file is the sixth in a series translating the full contents of Holmberg's survey of Permian religion.
Scribed for the Good Works Library by Vös III, the Komi + Estonian Translator, March 2026.
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Source Text
The Finnish source text is Uno Holmberg, Permalaisten uskonto, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Toimituksia 137 (Helsinki, 1914). The complete text is freely available at Project Gutenberg: PG #61164. This translation covers Chapter IV ("Lud-palvonta") — lines 3564–4611 of the digital text, corresponding to the full chapter on the Votjak sacred grove, its form, taboos, clan worship, grove-keeper priesthood, sacrifice ceremonies, the nature of the grove-spirit, and the origins of grove-worship.
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