Contributions to the Study of the Religion and Beliefs of the Finno-Ugric Peoples in Eastern Russia

Albert Hämäläinen's monograph on the sacred wax fire (das kultische Wachsfeuer) is the only comprehensive study of the ritual candle cult among the Volga Finnic peoples — the Mordvins (Erzya and Moksha) and the Cheremis (Mari). Published in Helsinki in 1937 as volume XLVIII of the Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne (MSFOu), this work draws on Russian-language manuscripts, Finnish fieldwork, and the author's own ethnographic observations to reconstruct a religious practice that linked fire worship, ancestor veneration, fertility rites, and brotherhood ceremonies across an immense cultural zone stretching from the Baltic to Central Asia.

The study is dedicated to the memory of Heikki Paasonen, the great Finnish linguist and fieldworker among the Mordvins and Cheremis. It opens with Goethe's verses from the West-östlicher Divan — "Orient and Occident can no longer be separated" — a fitting epigraph for a work that traces the threads of fire veneration from the Mordvin štatol candle through Russian bratčina brotherhoods, Mongol fire sutras, Estonian Peko worship, and the ethical teachings of the Cheremis Kugu Sorta sect, finding in them the outlines of a great east-west cultural circle.

This is the first English translation. It was produced by the New Tianmu Anglican Church as a Good Works Translation from Hämäläinen's German text, with all embedded Mordvin, Mari, and other indigenous-language prayers preserved in their original forms.

I. Introduction

The outcome of the World War substantially reshaped the political map of Europe. The consequences of the new political circumstances have in certain cases extended even into the domain of scientific life. Quite significant are the changes that can be observed in the political position of the Finno-Ugric peoples. The political rebirth of the brother peoples of the Finns and Estonians meant for them their elevation to fully sovereign peoples and states, but on the other hand this event entirely altered the political relationship of these countries to the state in which the greater part of the Finno-Ugric peoples continued to remain. The consequence of this was that the direct connections and research opportunities that, for example, Finnish scholars had enjoyed before that transformation were restricted to a small measure, and in many respects became entirely impossible.

Before the aforementioned political changes, those who occupied themselves with Finno-Ugric linguistics and ethnography moved unhindered even among the most distantly related peoples, in order to collect material and pursue research. The results of these research journeys are attested by the circumstance that, in continuation of the already earlier published noteworthy investigations based on material collected directly in eastern Russia, the fruits of these journeys have continued to reach publication in our country in various forms down to the most recent times. It is, however, natural that for the resolution of numerous scholarly questions and the development of many fields of research, it would be necessary to continue reaching the immediate sources of investigation — in this case the relevant Finno-Ugric peoples — in order to procure new primary and supplementary material. In this regard, it would already be of great benefit if researchers could work unhindered in the archives, libraries, and museums of Soviet Russia, in which, as is well known, much excellent and hitherto unused material for Finno-Ugric research is to be found.

In the study of the religion and beliefs of the Finno-Ugric peoples, noteworthy results have already been achieved. The field of research is, however, so comprehensive and wide-ranging that, as regards specialised questions and especially the cultural-historical perspectives of these questions, it stands in many respects only at its beginnings. Nor need one wonder at this. The study of the religions and beliefs of the Finno-Ugric peoples is in its nature a part of Finno-Ugric ethnography, and although it has been taken up since Castrén's time by linguists or folklorists or representatives of other fields and has partly developed into an independent discipline, its territory is so extensive and its research objects so diverse that only a few questions could become the object of specialised treatment. When one considers the Finno-Ugric ethnic complex as a whole, it soon becomes clear that many questions of the religion and beliefs of these peoples belong directly to different cultural circles, or that many cultural elements originally foreign and new to them have reshaped the original stock in many directions or have merged with it. The ancient relationships with the Altaic peoples still mostly await their resolution, but it is precisely from this direction that one may well expect much that can enrich our understanding in many ways. And even though, for example, the northern Arctic culture and the shamanistic religious form belonging to its circle have not as such belonged to the fundamental elements of the religions and beliefs of the Finno-Ugric peoples, some of these tribes — above all the Lapps and the Ob-Ugrians — have, especially in their later periods, fallen into this cultural circle and appropriated substantial components of it. By way of cultural diffusion, even the more distant Finno-Ugric peoples could incorporate into their religious views and customs traits originating from this side.

According to the testimony that linguistics has furnished us, it is evident that already the common Finno-Ugric people stood in close cultural connection with the Indo-European peoples at an early period. It is to be assumed that the cultural exchange was not limited to the linguistic domain alone, but that other cultural spheres also participated in it.

In the later periods, the Finno-Ugric ethnic sub-groups and finally peoples stood in cultural exchange with quite many cultural and ethnic circles of different character. The old Indo-Iranian contacts may go back to very early times, but later the Permian peoples in particular were culturally oriented in this direction. The Volga peoples, especially the Mordvins, were affected by a particularly noteworthy Indo-Iranian influence — not only in terms of the terminology belonging to the domain of mythology but also in terms of the concepts themselves. The Indo-Iranian loanwords in Mordvin point to quite old connections, but some Finno-Ugric peoples have undeniably also been subjected to later cultural influences from this direction.

In any case, it is precisely important Indo-Iranian loanwords pointing to the domain of religion that have entered the Finno-Ugric languages, even if they have spread within them only to a limited extent. Of these, first to be mentioned is Erzya Mordvin pas, Moksha Mordvin pavas (bavas), which is connected above all with the name for the sky deity (škabavas, škajbavas, etc.) and is the same as Indo-Iranian bhagas "lord, god, fortune." One finds it as a compositional element in very numerous names of Mordvin divine beings, but among the Moksha Mordvins, as in Old Indic, also in the meaning "fortune" (Paasonen). Another old Indo-Iranian name of a divine being is Mordvin azar "lord, deity" (Old Indic asuras "wonder-working god"). The word also appears in Mordvin in other than mythological meaning (Moksha Mordvin kud-azoro "master, head of household," in-azoro "emperor"), and with this has been connected Zyrian azir "rich" and Vogul atar. At least one Indo-Iranian name of a god is to be found in Cheremis: Cheremis mardeẑ "wind," mardeẑ-aßa "wind-mother, goddess of the wind"; hereto Samoyed (Yurak) mearcen, mertea, mërcea, merla "wind, storm" and Old Indic marut "wind, the wind god," plural marutas "the storm gods."

According to the view of our linguists, these words entered the Finno-Ugric languages very early, probably already from the proto-Indo-Iranian or Aryan language form. It has been surmised that, although they occur on the Finno-Ugric side only in a limited area, they may already have been adopted during the common Finno-Ugric period (Paasonen). Some other old Finno-Ugric words of mythological origin, such as koljo, kalma, have also been treated in the light of the oldest Finno-Ugric and Indo-European relationships, but regarding these no certainty is likely to exist.

Without further pursuing the Finno-Ugric, Indo-European, and Indo-Iranian linguistic relationships, one may consider it probable that the ancient cultural connection between these ethnic entities also extended to the domain of religion and beliefs. Thus it is to be expected that in the religious views of certain Finno-Ugric peoples both very old Indo-European and specifically Indo-Iranian elements are to be found.

The great age of the relationships from which the linguistic and possibly also the other proto-Indo-European or Indo-Iranian and Finno-Ugric common elements derive is already attested by the linguistic evidence reflecting them. But many views and customs belonging especially to the sphere of divine belief among Finno-Ugric and Indo-European peoples seem to connect with still more far-reaching cultural circles. Thereby these questions gain even greater importance and scope, for in considering their origin and character one cannot, for example, pass by the questions concerning the geographical localisation of the Indo-European (respectively Indo-Iranian) cultural contacts. With this question are in turn linked the relationships to the Altaic world. In this way, some of those problems that treat the location of the Indo-European and also the Finno-Ugric so-called original homeland are also drawn into that circle, and further, the relationship to the cultural complexes originating from that time and connected with those localities.

The location of the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans has been, despite the brilliant results of Indo-European studies, a contested question down to our days and evidently still awaits a final resolution. From the linguistic and cultural-historical domain, the question has now been drawn into the circle of ethnology, from which it is expected that it will speak the decisive word. At present the problem would seem to concentrate around the so-called "Northern thesis" and "Eastern thesis." The adherents of the former are to be found chiefly among researchers of prehistoric archaeology, while the latter relies on the views of eminent linguists, ethnologists, cultural historians, and even racial researchers.

Most recently, Wilhelm Koppers has probably been the last to treat the question of the location of the Indo-European homeland, primarily from the perspective of certain religio-historical and sociological circumstances.

Koppers decidedly inclines toward the Eastern thesis. His view — which, incidentally, stands in evident agreement with the earlier conclusions of Schrader — is as follows: "Thus also today — given the present state of research — the ethnologist has no other choice and possibility than to locate the homeland of the Indo-Europeans somewhere in the East, in territories more or less neighbouring the Inner Asian herding tribes."

Koppers defends the ethnological Eastern thesis against the Northern European thesis with some arguments that touch quite closely upon the question of the Finno-Ugric homeland, the Finno-Ugric–Indo-European relationships, and some fundamental features of the religions of the Finno-Ugric peoples. Therefore it seems appropriate to examine his views on this matter somewhat more closely.

To motivate the Northern theory, in which one was compelled to explain the cultural correspondences between the Northern Germans and the herding nomads of Inner Asia, a mediating theory was put forward — that is, on the one hand it was assumed as possible that an old Arctic culture had been the mediator of the connections, and on the other hand that especially the Ugric peoples had to a certain degree been the mediators between the Altaic peoples of Inner Asia and the proto-Indo-Europeans of Northern Europe. As regards the latter hypothesis in particular, Koppers holds that the Ugrians received the relevant cultural elements (for example horse-breeding) from the Iranians. On the other hand, in his opinion "the overall cultural habitus of the Finno-Ugric (Uralic) peoples is of so thoroughly distinctive and different a character that they cannot seriously be considered as such mediators or donors of those things to the Indo-Europeans."

From the standpoint of Finno-Ugric research, no particularly weighty objections need be raised against Koppers' view as such in its broad outlines. The mediating role of the Ugrians between the proto-Germanic cultural elements assumed to be in Northern Europe and the Inner Asian ones is, however, to be excluded both temporally and geographically, for the relevant cultural elements do not in fact present themselves as commonly peculiar to the Ugric peoples as a whole or as typical and belonging to them in their entirety. True horse nomadism, for example, was characteristic of only one Ugric people — the Hungarians — and they could appropriate it only in a later period, when they lived on the steppes in the neighbourhood of Turco-Tatar and Iranian peoples. Alongside this, it cannot be denied that some cultural words pointing to horse-breeding are common to the Ugric languages. Thus, for example: Hungarian ló "horse" = Vogul lo, lu, etc., Ostyak iau, lau, etc.; Hungarian nyereg "saddle" ~ Vogul nayr, Ostyak noyer, etc.; Hungarian fék "bridle, halter" ~ Ostyak pax "(reindeer) rein, (horse) bridle"; Hungarian kengyel "stirrup" ~ Vogul keš, köng "leather stocking with half hair," Ostyak kent "stocking, a kind of shoe of reindeer hide."

From the standpoint of Finno-Ugric cultural history, it cannot be doubted that the original cultural condition of the Ob-Ugrians was different from that of later times and that an evident regression occurred here. To what extent horse-breeding culture as such characterised the Ugric unity-people is a question that for the present cannot be definitively answered.

As regards the earliest Finno-Ugric (Uralic) and Indo-European cultural contacts, the Indo-European Eastern thesis is the natural starting point for any consideration — indeed, given the present state of research, perhaps the only one to which a certain justification can be conceded. Linguistics, both Indo-European and Finno-Ugric (Uralic), has through ever more probative and numerous evidence demonstrated the close relationship of these language groups. Even a linguist of our time considers the original kinship the most satisfactory explanation for the common features of the Uralic and Indo-European languages. Though linguistics at its present state has not been able to establish bindingly a kinship of the Uralic and Indo-European language families, at least the claim has been made that the opposite opinion is less probable.

However matters may stand with the kinship, already from the standpoint of the linguistic evidence it is incontestable that these groups of peoples once — and precisely at such a time when their internal process of dissolution had not yet begun or was only commencing — were either a common primal people or at least stood in close cultural interaction with one another. The Indo-European Eastern thesis — that is, the localisation of the homeland in the vicinity of that geographical area in which the Finno-Ugric homeland is sought — already receives from these facts a noteworthy support. The ethnological-cultural-historical facts also speak, as we shall see further on, incontrovertibly for this assumption, and many problems in this domain are best illuminated in the light of this fact.

From the fact that one places the homeland of the Indo-Europeans in the territory that the Eastern thesis presupposes — that is, in West Turkestan and from there further into the South Russian steppe region — it follows quite naturally that the Indo-European linguistic and cultural unity is geographically and historically connected with the entities that lie closest to this territory. Although research may not have definitively determined the homeland of, for example, the Turkic tribes, it is certain that the mentioned territories and those neighbouring them have been dwelling and migration areas of the Turco-Tatar peoples since time immemorial. Thus the homeland of the Indo-Europeans comes into the neighbourhood of the Central Asian herding tribes, and the cultural perspectives widen to Turco-Mongolian (Altaic)–Indo-European–Finno-Ugric (Uralic).

Neither linguistics nor ethnography has hitherto been able definitively to clarify the relationship of these groups of peoples to one another or to carry out a thorough sorting in the domain of their central cultural elements. Our famous scholar G. J. Ramstedt has indeed demonstrated the connection of even so distant a language as Korean with the Altaic languages, but his view of the relationship of Altaic to the Uralic cultural circle has for the present found no written formulation. In his previously cited article, W. Koppers has attempted to sketch some special common features between the Indo-European, Mongolian-Tatar (Altaic), and partly also Finno-Ugric cultural elements — ideas that may here be very briefly considered.

In attempting to set forth the common Indo-European cultural elements, Koppers first establishes their character pointing to the circle of nomadic culture, as well as the fact that the greater part of these cultural elements points to a specific Inner Asian ethnic and cultural complex — namely the Turks (Turco-Mongols) and, more distantly, the Manchu, the Chinese, and the Northern Tibetans. Since these Altaic peoples have never essentially lived further west, "the assumption of an eastern homeland of the Indo-European unity-people follows of itself."

Koppers further motivates the herding orientation of the proto-Indo-European culture with certain facts highlighted by Schrader belonging to the domain of divine belief and economic life (special deities for animal husbandry, specific gods for oxen, horses, sheep; the predominantly animal diet of the earliest times, etc.). "In economic terms, the sheep in any case occupied the first place; it surpassed cattle and horses in importance in this regard." But the horse also already belonged among the domestic animals in proto-Indo-European times, and this circumstance, according to the author's view, connects the proto-Indo-European economy especially with the Turco-Mongolian world.

From the standpoint of our task, it is not necessary to cite all those facts in which the Indo-Europeanists — especially the ethnological cultural historians — see a connection between the proto-Indo-European and Inner Asian (Turco-Mongolian) cultural elements. In the domain of the phenomena of primitive economy referred to above, many common sociological features occur. When one considers them from the angle of the Finno-Ugric cultural elements, one can immediately identify among them many features which — again as such and considered in their general character — undoubtedly fit into the latter-mentioned cultural picture, while one cannot yet recognise some of them as belonging to it even provisionally.

Thus the sheep as a domestic animal belongs, at least linguistically but without difficulty also on substantive grounds, to the oldest Finno-Ugric cultural period; on the other hand, the horse — so important from the standpoint of the relevant cultural connections and cultural type — does not derive demonstrably from this early period.

Especially among the sociological constituents, one could find many general features which — again as such and considered in their general character — would fit equally well into the Finno-Ugric as into the assumed proto-Indo-European–Inner Asian cultural complex. Of these, one need mention as an example only the patriarchal family form and the extended family, which, to judge from the far-reaching differentiation and richness of kinship terms, already existed in the Finno-Ugric period, and of which the extended family has been typically pronounced and dominant down to the present, especially among the Permian peoples, the Mordvins, and the Karelians, among others, and upon which the older family structure of the Finns is also based. Of the marriage customs one could enumerate many (the threefold leading around the hearth, the bringing of fire from the father's house to the new home of the married woman, and other ceremonies relating to the domestic hearth and fire, the bride-purchase, the exogamous concepts based on blood-kinship, etc.), but the evidential force of many of them is, at least from the Finno-Ugric standpoint — insofar as one compares them as such with the Indo-European ones — slight if not nil. First, some of them belong to those cultural elements whose geographical boundaries and connection with specific ethnic circles are quite difficult to establish. Therefore, even in the present case, their occurrence in the conceivable Indo-European–Inner Asian–Finno-Ugric cultural circle does not in itself directly prove that they are specifically internal common elements of this circle. Furthermore, at least certain of the marriage customs mentioned, considered as a whole and in their common form, are not common Finno-Ugric phenomena but are in many cases later borrowings from or adaptations to the custom-complex of other Indo-Europeans, such as the Slavs and Germans.

From the standpoint of the present investigation, those common cultural elements deserve the greatest attention which the Indo-Europeanists and the representatives of the cultural-historical–ethnological school have identified between the proto-Indo-European and the Inner Asian (Turco-Mongolian) religions and beliefs. Koppers regards the following characteristics as particularly common to all Indo-Europeans: (a) the sky-god belief as such — the names of the deities (the Zeus of the Greeks, the Jupiter, *Diespiter of the Romans, the Dyauspitā of the Indians) all agree well, and their basic meaning was "the bright sky"; (b) as a second characteristic, the tendency toward hypostasis-formation is added to the sky-god belief — that is, the development of new gods through the independent formation of individual attributes of the old sky-god or high god; (c) the veneration of the well-known Dioscuri (brother-) pair (Castor and Pollux among the Romans, the Aśvinau or Nāsatya among the Indians, etc.) is also considered common to all Indo-Europeans; (d) "the horse sacrifice appears in full form or at least in remnants and suggestions so widely among the individual peoples that its belonging to the Indo-European unity-culture is as good as certain"; (e) a characteristic fire cult (especially at marriage ceremonies) also seems to have been common to all Indo-Europeans — an old sacrifice to fire, the fire- or hearth-deity, was butter.

Just as Koppers wishes to show correspondences in the circle of the Altaic, especially the Turco-Mongolian peoples, to the phenomena of economic (primarily horse-breeding) and social life, so too does he wish to show them for the religio-historical characteristics common to all Indo-Europeans. In this way, the sky-belief of the Indo-Europeans already "finds its first and best connection in Inner Asia, and indeed primarily among the Altaians." In citing the authority of Professor A. Gahs, an expert in the study of the religions of Central Asia, Koppers especially emphasises that, according to the latter, "the highest Being (in the sky) and the visible sky (itself) are so closely connected that both can and actually do bear one and the same name everywhere, at least originally."

The aforementioned researcher assigns great significance to the so-called horse-sacrifice complex, on the one hand as a Turkic-Tatar and Central Asian, on the other as an Indo-European cult form. On the former side, both the original home of horse-breeding and of the horse sacrifice are to be sought, but certain details are already to be found in the Indian Aśvamedha sacrifice; in the corresponding sacrifices of several other Indo-European peoples, too, one can observe far-reaching correspondences with those of the Turco-Mongols.

Furthermore, according to this researcher, strong relationships prevail between the fire worship of the Mongols, the actual Turkic peoples, and the Indo-Europeans. He seems thereby to have had in mind chiefly the fire ceremonies to be found in marriage customs.

To a greater degree than the socio-historical and sociological comparisons, the circumstances treated above, belonging to the domain of divine belief and cult, deserve attention also from the Finno-Ugric side. In the belief in the sky-deity, one observes the same general features: on Finno-Ugric ground, the physical sky or its "soul" was the object of worship before the process of personification of the sky-deity began. Therefore, many names occurring in the Finno-Ugric languages for the universal deity have the original meaning "sky" or "air." As hypostasis-formations, one could without difficulty regard the innumerable further gods that arose alongside the supreme god and the deities in general, above all the numerous "mothers" (Finnish emot). It is, however, to be noted that, for example, in the divine world of the Mordvins and Cheremis, the general "mothers" (the Mordvin-Cheremis ava, aßa, etc.) could also be relatively late borrowings, because they are mostly to be found (aside from alongside the supreme god among the Cheremis) alongside household and nature deities. Such "mothers" of nature are also possessed by the Turkic-Tatar and Indo-European peoples.

The Turco-Mongolian and Indo-European cultural complex has for its part such clear and detailed correspondences (the colour of the horse to be sacrificed, its consecration by sprinkling with water, the hanging up of the hide of the sacrificial horse, etc.) on the Finno-Ugric (primarily Ob-Ugric and Volga-Finnic) side that nothing stands in the way of the assumption that this cult practice belongs to the same cultural circle. A more detailed examination shows, however, that the Finno-Ugric customs point primarily toward the Turco-Mongolian direction as well as toward the peoples of northern Asia.

As regards, finally, the points of contact to which Koppers draws attention in the fire worship of the Mongols, the Turkic tribes, and the Indo-Europeans — insofar as it concerns the general forms of fire worship or the ceremonies explained in this way — one can find numerous points of comparison on the Finno-Ugric side, and specifically in the domain of marriage ceremonies. But a summary generalisation and conclusions drawn on the basis of such are not in order here either. Closer investigation irrefutably shows that several ceremonies relating to fire and the hearth in the marriage customs of the Finno-Ugric peoples dwelling in eastern Russia are Slavic borrowed material.

On the other hand, the most obvious correspondences to many other ceremonies are to be found in the customs of the Altaic and North Asian peoples. Furthermore, one must consider that many so-called fire ceremonies belong to those universal purification and solidarity-creating ceremonies whose starting point and point of origin, insofar as individual peoples and also larger groups of peoples are concerned, is difficult to determine.

However, common elements can also occur in the cult fire-worship ceremonies of the Finno-Ugric and Indo-European, respectively Indo-Iranian, peoples, but their mutual relationships and relative ages can only be established through individual case studies.

In the following, I attempt, on the basis of the perspectives set forth above, to elucidate a domain belonging to this belief-complex — the cult of the sacred wax fire, or "great candle," among the Mordvins and the Cheremis.

II. The Mordvins

The Wax Fire in Religious Cult Practices

In the cult practices of the Mordvins — but also in nearly all the more noteworthy customs and ceremonies connected with the course of human life — one finds as a more or less central cult object the sacred štatol, the "wax fire."

In some places, as in the Moksha territory of the Governorate of Penza, the wax fire in the form of a large ritual candle is the central cult object of the religious celebrations, sacrifices, and other ceremonies observed by brotherhoods. According to Jevsevjev, the štatol is a "brotherhood candle" or "candle of the brotherhood" (bratskaya svecha), which is in use at the ozarnama festival or the important prayer and sacrificial celebrations of the brotherhoods.

The Valgapino Moksha of the Krasnoslobodsk district in the Governorate of Penza were divided into eleven brotherhoods for the practice of the štatol cult (the village comprised 162 houses). To each brotherhood belonged only the members of such a group of households whose owners traced their lineage back to the same clan chief. The number of houses belonging to the brotherhood circle therefore varies. There are "poor" ones, to which only 10–15 houses belong, and "rich" ones, where the number of houses amounts to 30–40.

Each brotherhood circle has its own clan-owned (rodovaya) wax candle, štatol, which is held to be sacred. The candle is kept for one year at a time, in turn, in each house of the brotherhood circle. The storage place is the granary, in which the candle is kept in a narrow box or basket fashioned from the bark of the basket willow. One does not take it out unnecessarily; rather, it is brought into the house immediately before the prayer ceremonies. The prayer festival, in turn, is held on Trinity Day (Troitsa) in the house where the candle was stored over the winter.

At the prayer festival, the štatol hung from the handle of a vessel filled with festival beer. The housewife lit it with a splint fire, after which she directed her prayer to the candle as to a personal being, a deity (kormalets vosk, "our Nourisher Wax," etc.). Gifts were brought to the candle (pieces of linen and money), with which it was touched. The woman leading the prayer act moistened the candle with beer. Afterwards, the candle was carried in a festive procession to another house, where it was placed in the granary and stored until the next Trinity Day. After the ceremony, all those present bowed before the candle.

Such was the štatol cult in Valgapino up to the time when Jevsevjev collected reports about it. In earlier times (according to the accounts of old men), two candles, keremeden štatol, were in use, of which one was kept on the icon shelf and the other in the middle of the room; the latter was called simply "wax" (šta). At its flame they singed their hair.

Nowadays the old štatol have in some brotherhoods perished (for example, in conflagrations) and been replaced by church candles. Of their sanctity bears witness, among other things, the circumstance that they were not permitted to be lit more than once a year, and that disturbing their peace brought misfortune upon the entire brotherhood circle. The keremet-štatol was also lit at the communal keremet festival. The length of the candle was 3½ vershok, the cross-section 1⅕ vershok, and the weight one pound (425 grams).

Also in the village of Mordovskoje Večkenino, Narovčat district in the Governorate of Penza, štatol festivals were formerly celebrated by brotherhoods. Each festival community had two candles, and these had approximately the form of a halved sugarloaf.

In these brotherhood-celebrated cult practices, the štatol was the central object of the ceremonies, while the ceremonies otherwise had no other special character.

Besides this, the sacred wax candle was in use at the general great sacrificial festivals of the Mordvins and in the sacrificial prayers directed to particular deities. It seems to have belonged to the fixed components of the sacrificial rite relatively late wherever the Mordvins practised their old divine cult. The Mordvins of the Khvalynsk district in the Governorate of Saratov sacrificed at a sacrifice called vini-čin kilijinj osks at a spring where a birch and an oak grew, either a bull or a sheep. Before the sacrificial prayer, a candle made of wax was lit. In Valgapino, at communal keremet festivals, the keremet-štatol was lit.

According to Melnikov, during the sacrificial proceedings at the great sacrificial festival, the wood of the sacrificial fire was lit with sacred štatol. Some persons entrusted with this task fastened, at the command of the chief leader (pfavt) of the sacrificial celebration, the burning štatol to the rear part of frames that stood before the sacred trees. During the second part of the sacrificial ceremonies, some men brought a large door (usually a gate-wing) and placed upon it the barrel with the sacrificial drink. One of the officials of the sacrificial ceremony (the reciter of the sacrificial prayers, vozata) fastened burning štatol to it. After the prayer, the implements used in the ceremonies (ladles, sacrificial knives, etc.), as well as those remains of the štatol that were fastened to the "barrel of the lord" (gosudareva bočka), were handed over to the pfavt; the stumps of the other štatol were distributed among the householders.

From a passage in Melnikov's description, it emerges that the štatol was stored with the chief leader of the sacrificial ceremonies, who was the oldest inhabitant of the village or the volost.

According to Mainov, the custom of the Mordvins of using at their ceremonies a candle of the village commune (mirskaya svecha), which is lit at nearly all communal prayer festivals, is proof that they venerated celestial bodies; the circumstance that the soltan-štatol is found everywhere where Mordvins dwell testifies to the antiquity and originality of this sacred ceremony.

At the sacrificial festivals of the village commune among the Mordvins in the Governorate of Penza, celebrated on St. Florus's Day (v Frolov den), 18 August Old Style, a "perpetual candle" was in use, for which wax was collected from every householder in a special vessel. Citing another source whose reliability the author has not been able to verify, Mainov speaks of the mother-deity of the Sun (šibavas) and the moon goddess (od-kou-ava), in whose honour a "perpetual candle" was kept burning at the sacrificial festivals.

At the general sacrificial festivals, too, a large candle constituted the central communal cult object of the sacrificial circle. Its offerings and the food needed for them were common property of the sacrificial circle, so that no single family, for example, was permitted to eat of the sacrificial food by itself; rather, it had to be contributed by every family and eaten communally. He in whose care and keeping the communal sacrificial animal was placed was, if the animal died before the appointed time, obliged to procure an entirely similar one in its place. According to similar principles the saltan-štatol is also maintained — a candle that is lit in honour of "the strengthening, from the fettering dark night liberating young deity, of fire, the god of fertility and wealth." The soltan-štatol is kept in a tub or barrel (kadka), which must be renewed every year. It is stored in turn, now in one house, now in another, which does not prevent anyone from keeping a private soltan-štatol. When the honey harvest time approaches, one first throws the collected wax into a tub, in the middle of which a thick flaxen rope is fastened, to which every house has contributed a thread, so that the wick of the candle possesses as many threads as there are houses in the village. Thus the candle can assume extraordinary proportions. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), when the informant made his observations among the Mordvins, enormously large candles were produced; the reporter claims to have seen ones whose weight amounted to 20, even 25 pud, whose wick diameter was a quarter of an arshin (chetvert), and whose value at local selling prices was 250–300 rubles.

According to the same author, the štatol candle was also in use, though smaller, at the women's sacrificial festivals (baban ke), likewise at the festival of maidens held in honour of the water goddess, and further at the prayer of the young men directed to the thunder deity (purgine-paz). Furthermore, štatol were set up during general calamities such as famine, typhus, and cattle plague.

In the handwritten description of the village schoolteacher V. Savkin it is mentioned that around Pentecost, at the sacrificial festival for the keremet, as "personification of the keremet" there served a spirally twisted wax candle, one end of which stood upright and was lit. To the keremet deity prayed especially the women, imploring it for easy childbirth and good fortune in the rearing of children.

From the above (Jevsevjev, Mainov, Savkin) it has already emerged that the štatol was used as a cult object especially in the ceremonies dedicated to the keremet deity. The deacon Vasilij Orlov makes in his extraordinarily valuable manuscript, which treats the religious ceremonies, beliefs, and customs of the Mordvins, detailed and interesting reports about this side of Mordvin (Moksha) worship. Since Orlov's description offers the most competent and reliable material that exists on the old cult ceremonies of the Mordvins, both in substance and linguistically (the Mordvin sacrificial prayers with Russian translation), it should be appropriate to follow his account here in detail.

According to him, the Mordvins venerated the deity saltan-keramat as the highest god after the škai. "The Mordvins believed that he dwelt in the earth, chiefly on Mordvin territory. For this deity the Mordvins built, not far from the village, in the forest or in the field, usually near a thick elm, windowless huts furnished only with doors, after the manner of an idol-temple, and surrounded them at a considerable distance with a fence. Whether images of the idol were to be found in the hut of the saltan-keramat is not known. The Mordvins of the Governorate of Nižnij-Novgorod report nothing of the kind. But only in such huts did the Mordvins have two or three wax candles hanging, dedicated to the saltan and the azar-ava, in which flax cords were placed instead of wicks. These candles were not made in the form of ordinary ones; rather, they were twisted in a circular fashion, so that they took on the following appearance: (ɔ). Those made in honour of the saltan-keramat weighed three pounds and even more, but those fashioned for the azar-ava one and a half pounds. They were kept in bark baskets that hung in the deity's chamber of the saltan and around which linen cloth was wound."

The saltan-keramat festival was celebrated after the grain harvest. For it, the Mordvins purchased the necessary quantity of honey and brewed from it many barrels of honey-beer (pure). As a sacrificial animal, a piebald yearling foal was purchased and slaughtered in the courtyard of the hut of the saltan. The hide they hung upon the elm near which the hut was built, and made several holes in the leather with a knife, so that no one could use it. The blood of the foal was poured during the slaughtering into a clean vessel, and after the foal had been slaughtered in the courtyard of the prayer-house, they cooked it, while great devotion prevailed, in a large cauldron with wheat porridge, into which they poured the foal's blood. "When the whole village was assembled in the prayer-court, some went into the hut. They poured the honey-drink into large tubs and placed one of them in the hut, but the others they left standing in the prayer-court." Then they ladled porridge into a vessel or a large bowl, took the head and the feet of the foal from the cauldron, cut a part of the flesh into small pieces, laid them in the bowl filled with porridge, and placed the whole with bread and salt on the table in the hut of the saltan. They hung the saltan candle on the honey-drink vessel standing in the hut and lit it, after which the eldest Mordvins, following a prayer directed to the škai, in the hut, and the younger ones in the prayer-court, prayed to the saltan with the following words:

«Soltan! keramat, Akša keramat! Mastyr kirdi keramat! Mazut marta šačima! Mastyr marta kasyma! Tet asandtama, tet šukunksindtama, vanymast.»

(Soltan-keramat, white keramat, world-ruling keramat! Born with the world! Grown with the world! We pray to thee, we bow before thee, save us.)

"After the prayers, an old man went to the table, took the baked bread that was upon it into his hand and broke it into two parts. One of the old women took the porridge vessel from the table and strewed salt into it; another took the bowl in which the head and feet of the foal were from the table and also ladled honey-beer from the tub standing in the hut."

Now offerings were made to the saltan-keramat by laying a piece of bread, foal-meat, and porridge at the door-hinge; at the door-hinge one also poured a little beer. After that, one went to the tree standing in the prayer-court and offered to the soltan-keramat anew, laying the same offerings under the tree as at the door-hinge. The remains of the offering were distributed in small portions among all those attending the prayer, who consumed them with great devotion. Then the gifts brought for the soltan-keramat by the worshippers were collected — such as sacking, furs of predatory animals, and the like. The candle was placed in its position and wrapped again in linen. The honey-beer that was in the tub to which the candle had been fastened was poured as a sacred drink into all the other vessels, but a large portion of it was sold for money. The bones of the foal were brought to the river or lake and thrown into the water, so that no unclean person might touch them.

Besides at the keremet sacrifices, the sacred candle was, according to Orlov, also in use at the sacrificial festival of the female deity azar-ava ("Mistress"). Likewise, the candle was probably employed at the sacrifices offered to the water deities otšu-vedazar and otšu-vedazarava, which were of a similar nature to the sacrifices for saltan-keremet and azar-ava.

The sacred wax candle thus seems to have been a central cult object especially in the sacrificial rites performed for the keremet deity of the Mordvins. The veneration of this deity has attained a special importance and extent in the ethnic cult ceremonies of several Finno-Ugric peoples in eastern Russia (the Mordvins, Cheremis, and Votyaks). In two studies on the keremet veneration among the mentioned peoples, I have attempted to demonstrate that the cult of the deities appearing under the Arabic-Turkic-Tatar name keremet among the Finno-Ugric peoples was in its initial stage a veneration of the spirits of the deceased, probably especially of deceased heroes. Just as, for example, in the mythological conceptions of the Ob-Ugrians, in the cult of the above-mentioned peoples the spirits and shades of heroes, after the consciousness of their human origin had been effaced, transformed themselves into gods. At the same time, it has been shown that the keremet veneration especially of the Chuvash, but in part also of the Tatars, rests on the same foundation.

The use of the sacred wax candle as an object of keremet veneration already points to its significance in the ceremonies of the cult of the dead. It has also belonged more directly to the cult objects used in the veneration of the dead among the Mordvins. At the memorial celebration held on the first Easter day within the clan for the deceased, two tables are set in the house whose turn it is to hold the festival — one on the right side for the male ancestors, the other on the left for the female. Near a bed prepared for the ancestors, the atan-štatol is lit — the ancestor candle, which is an enormously large wax candle mounted on a wooden stand. This candle is lit once a year, on the first Easter day. Later, new wax is added, as much as was burned from the candle during that day. The candle is held to be sacred, and there are as many of them in the village as there are oldest families; thus each clan has its own candle, and it is stored in each house for one year. In the house where the candle is kept, the whole clan gathers on the first Easter day to commemorate their dead. In the same house, on Easter Saturday, "the honey-beer for the ancestors" is prepared. During the prayer, one bows first before the male ancestors, and then all turn to the table for the female ancestors and bow before it. After that, one moves to another house. The master of the former house takes the aforementioned candle, goes ahead with bared head, and behind him follow all the guests as well as the supposed dead. The candle is then placed again on the bed erected for the dead (such a bed is prepared in every house).

The Sacred Wax Fire in the Oath Ceremonies

Orlov's manuscript contains, among other things, also a description of the oath ceremonies of the Mordvins, in which the wax fire likewise occupies a central position. According to his description, the Mordvins swore an oath in three ways, namely "by calling as witnesses of the truth the škai, the soltan, and the departed ancestors. By the škai the Mordvins formerly swore by looking at the sun and saying: 'Punish me, highest God (otsu škai), with the destruction of my eyes and with blindness, so that I cannot behold the sun with its shine.'" "By the name of the soltan the Mordvins swore by drawing a figure on the earth in the form of a soltan-keramat candle. The Mordvins compelled the accused or the witness to kiss this figure and at the same time to speak: 'Punish me, saltan! keramat azar-ava, with death, so that I die within this year and the earth enclose me in its interior.'"

When the Mordvins swore in the name of the departed dead, they formerly took earth from the grave, mixed it with fresh water, and compelled the accused or the witness to drink this water and at the same time to speak: "The dead shall take me to themselves, so that in the course of this year I die and am buried."

The Wax Fire at the Special Celebrations of the Women and at the Fertility Ceremonies

Jevsevjev relates that in the village of Mordovskoje Večkenino, Governorate of Penza, Narovčat district, about 14–15 years before his visit to the locality, special women's festivals were held at which, as outward implements of the ceremonies, sticks of a special form and štatol were employed. These ceremonies, too, were observed by brotherhoods, of which there were two in the village. Each of the two brotherhoods had two candles, which had the form of a halved sugarloaf. The height of the candles was somewhat over half an arshin, and their circumference was below about two quarter-arshin, but above they were somewhat thinner. Each candle weighed approximately 6–7 pounds. The candles were kept in special birch-bark baskets, one year in each house.

A peculiarity of these prayer festivals was that only women participated in them, and that when transferring the štatol from one house to another, so-called alašat — "horses" or lulama — were used. Some of the women rode on sticks; others held "horses" in their hands — crooked pieces of wood decorated with colourful ribbons, from which clattering pieces of metal (bells) were hung. Around the neck of such a "horse" hung a pouch filled with millet and decorated with ribbons. Under the pouch of one "horse" two balls of red fabric were sewn on, representing the testicles (testiculi) of the "foal."

These brotherhood festivals were held on the first Sunday after Easter, and as already mentioned, only women participated in them. For the refreshments there served, among other things, beer and egg dishes. In the prayers, the ancestors were remembered and growth for grain and livestock was implored ("Škabavas, our nourisher, give us health; may the grain grow, may the livestock multiply, so that we may honour our ancestors").

At the festival ceremonies, the older women and the younger girls each formed their own group, as did the young women, in whose honour the old women cut the eggs collected for the festival and, while eating them, wished them health and abundance of children.

These women's festivals had in the village of Kargašej in the Gorodiščensk district an equally marked character of fertility ceremonies, and in them the štatol occupied an even more central position. The celebrations were held at Easter, the youth going during the fasting week every evening from house to house and greeting with song every home in which there was an unmarried son or daughter. On Maundy Thursday night, the young people held a special festival in honour of the vermava, the "Willow Mother." An old woman spoke a prayer in which she asked that "the grain might thrive and the livestock multiply for the blessing of the young maidens." With these celebrations was connected the "switch-beating" generally customary at Eastertide.

At these celebrations, too, the dead were commemorated, being specially invited and having a "bathhouse for the dead" prepared for them. On Easter Saturday, the atan-štatol, the "ancestor candle," was brought into use — a candle with a diameter of about 1½ vershok and 3–5 vershok in length, which was fastened to a stick one arshin long. Every clan had its own atan-štatol, and around it were always wrapped red-striped cloths donated by the young women.

A description of the women's festivals in the Narovčat district, Governorate of Penza, is also contained in Smirnov's work, according to which sticks ("horses") and ritual candles also served as implements of the ceremonies. The stick-knobs were fashioned in the form of a horse's head. The ceremonies were held during Thomas Week, and their chief event was the bringing of the sacred candles from one house to another. At the head of the procession rode three women on alašat, one of whom carried the candle, the others the refreshment paraphernalia; then followed three more women riding on alašat. The crowd sang coarsely erotic songs during the procession. After the candle had been handed over to the person whose turn it was to receive it, the old women rode their sticks along the village street. The men took care not to come into contact with them, for he who fell into their hands was subjected to malicious mockery. He was stripped naked, lifted onto shoulders, and carried along the village street; at the same time, very free remarks were made about his physical prowess.

The Sacred Wax Fire at the Marriage Ceremonies

At numerous points in the Mordvin marriage ceremonies, the štatol is used as a protective and blessing-bringing implement. According to Bishop Jakov, when setting out to fetch the bride, the mother-in-law placed a wreath on her head, then a man's hat on top of it, and drove to the bride with a štatol candle in her hands. Before the departure from the parental home, the bride is blessed by her father, among other things, with the štatol, and the bride takes this as a blessing from her father in her bosom on the bridal journey. When the house of the father-in-law is reached, the bride speaks at the gate: "Stop, guide, let us halt at the gate of the father-in-law; urvedei, stop the pair of horses; light my štatol, my candle, the blessing of my father; I ride into the court of the father-in-law, with my own light I illuminate myself." After arrival in the courtyard, the bride is led from east to west around all the bridal escorts, and the ureeder gives her the lit štatol in her hand and prepares to lead her in to the father-in-law, while the bride resists. Finally, the ureeder, with the štatol in hand, brings the bride into the room.

Orlov, too, tells of the blessing of the bride with the štatol. "Even on the wedding day itself, a sacred act took place in the house of the bride, at which the parents blessed their child with the candle of the saltan keremet for the marital union. After the relatives had been invited, the parents offered sacrifice to the gods of the house and the home — the jurt-azyr, the jurt-azyrava, the kud-azyr, and the kud-azyrava — while on the vessel for the honey-drink standing on the table a saltan wax candle of a quarter-pound weight and more was fastened. After the sacrifice, the father and the mother, first the former, then the latter, handed the candle to the bride and said: 'May the saltan keremet and the azyr-ava protect thee from all evil in marriage! Love thy husband! Honour thy father-in-law and mother-in-law! Obey them, whatever they bid thee do.'"

According to the description of Archimandrite Makarij, the ritual wax fire was used in the bride's house during the prayer ceremonies that preceded her fetching. When "the bargain was concluded," the father of the bridegroom spoke a prayer here to his own household gods and brought the bride into his house. In place of a blessing, the father gave his daughter a specially prepared saltan candle (izobraženie saltanovoj svečki). This small torch the young woman preserved as a blessing from her parents until her death, so that it was also placed in the coffin of the deceased. According to an account of the Moksha of the Governorate of Nižnij-Novgorod, the bride's father, when he sent his daughter from the house, gave her as a blessing a štatol, a shell-shaped soltan candle, which was the highest sacred object, a palladium (amulet) of the Moksha. With this the bride entered her new home. When one had gone into the room, the imbaba offered sacrifice to the jurt-azyrava, the kud-azyrava, and the ancestors, and then extinguished the candle in a schnapps glass. Both at the lighting and at the extinguishing of the candle, the soltan was called upon for help and asked to free the young woman from all evil, from the šaitan, and from wicked sorcerers. The bride kept the candle with her, and it was lowered with her into the grave.

III. The Cheremis

The "Great Candle" (kuyu sorta) in the "Reformed" Pagan Worship of the Cheremis

In the pagan religious practice of the Cheremis, a remarkable reform movement or sectarianism had been observable since the 1890s, which attracted the attention of the Russian authorities as well as the clergy under the name "Religious Community of the Great Candle" (kuyu-sorta), and about which a fairly extensive literature consequently exists. This religious tendency or reform movement, which arose on the ground of the pagan worship of the Cheremis, derived its name from the fact that wax candles in general and especially a great "main candle" played a central role as the outward implements of the ceremonies.

The most noteworthy publications on the kuyu-sorta sect are: S. K. Kuznecov, "The Cheremis Sect of Kugu Sorta" (Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie 79, 1909); V. M. Vasiljev, "The Mari Religious Sect 'Kugu Sorta'" (Yoshkar-Ola 1928, which also contains a bibliography); Yrjö Wichmann, "Folk Poetry and Folk Customs of the Cheremis" (MSFOu LIX, Helsinki 1931); and the same author's "On a Reform Movement of the Pagan Cheremis" (JSFOu XLV, Helsinki 1932).

The designation was given, according to Wichmann, not by the Cheremis themselves but by Russian missionaries. The Cheremis call their religion the "Faith of the Ancestors," the "Original Faith of the Forefathers," the "Old Faith." According to Kuznecov, the Cheremis who had converted to Christianity gave the sectarians this mocking designation, having at first observed nothing else noteworthy in the new faith.

Around the year 1880, the Russian clergy in the district of Jaransk, Governorate of Vjatka, began to direct their attention to a religious movement appearing among the local Cheremis, which was neither Christianity nor ordinary paganism. Some regarded it as a religio-national reform movement; others construed it as a "Pan-Mongolism" based on paganism. The majority of the adherents of the new faith officially belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church, which in this region had accustomed itself to finding a compromise relationship with paganism, but the most zealous advocates of the reformed paganism refused to submit to ecclesiastical acts such as baptism, marriage, and burial, and ceased paying their dues to the clergy. When the clergy could not lead the sectarians onto the "right path," they turned to the official authorities and invoked the law, and the result was continual frictions and persecutions, which reached their climax in 1893. At that time, ten leading sectarians were banished to Siberia, from where, however, they were able to return to their homeland as early as 1896, having been amnestied.

In this religious movement one can observe various tendencies. What is characteristic of the "purest and most developed" of them is that blood sacrifices are entirely forbidden. Instead, various grain and beekeeping products are used as offerings. On the other hand, the adherents of the more conservative tendency also permit the bringing of certain blood sacrifices, but only for the supreme deity or some good guardian spirits. In their conduct and habits of life, the purest of the Reformed display great self-control and restraint. This rests upon their ethic, which forbids hatred and persecution, strife and intolerance, idleness and luxury, and exhorts to peace and love, unanimity and tolerance, diligence and a simple way of life.

These "reformed pagans" acknowledge only one beginning and primal ground of life, the white great God (jumo). A good spirit is the guardian angel of man, who watches over him from birth to death. Like the old pagans, the Reformed are animated by the strong belief that nature is alive, and since God has given life to nature, it may in no way be harmed. These Reformed have no actual clergy. When praying, one stands facing southeast and does not kneel, but bows standing before God.

The most radical representatives of the sect follow an ascetic way of life, which is evident from the abstinence rules they observe in daily life. They may neither smoke nor drink tea or alcoholic beverages; certain vegetables and herbs they may eat just as little as factory-produced foodstuffs in general. Of these variously graded tendencies, three belong to the Kugusorta sect. Those who wish to be admitted to the sect must submit to probationary and preparatory ceremonies, which include a seven-month fast that can, however, be reduced to forty days. During the fast, the proselyte must abstain from the consumption of the foods and beverages forbidden in the sect and must generally practise great moderation. In addition, he must wash his entire body daily and speak the prayers connected with this observance. Besides this, he must also practise spiritual moderation: he may not quarrel, may not speak anything unseemly, and may not dance; furthermore, he must avoid all luxury, all amusements, and so forth. During the probationary period, the proselyte makes himself a special prayer garment from a fabric that he obtains from his fellow believers.

Among the dogmas of the Kugusorta sect belongs further tolerance towards other religions. All religions, seventy-seven in number, are of equal value among themselves. All men are brothers, and if someone must be helped, one may not ask to which faith he professes.

Concerning the universe and the creation of the world, according to the account of one of their representatives, there prevails among these sectarians the conception that God first created a great sun, the "Sun Prince" (keĭš-on). This was greater than all other suns, of which our sun is one. The Sun Prince is still somewhere in the cosmos. There are several solar systems. Above the earth there are seven layers of air, each better than the last: these constitute heaven; but beneath the earth there are likewise seven layers of air, each worse than the last: these form hell. Fire and air are the primordial substances, which are everywhere. — The veneration of images is strictly forbidden, and Friday is celebrated as the holy day.

Candles at the Sacrificial Ceremonies in General

Although the ritual "great" candle is mainly to be found in the cult practices of the adherents of the Kugusorta sect, let us first consider the use of candles in the religious and general ceremonies of the Cheremis.

Even in those religious observances of the Cheremis that take place on the ground of the "old" pagan faith — that is, outside the kuyu sorta sect — wax candles often occupy a noteworthy position. At the general sacrificial festivals, according to Znamenskij, all who participate in the sacrifice seat themselves around the sacrificial objects, facing east. Each has a bag with him, in which a bowl and a spoon have been brought, and holds a wax candle in his hand. These candles are fixed upon the sacrificial tables and burn for the entire duration of the ceremonies. Among the cult implements of the sacrifices offered at the sürem festivals were candles that were fastened to specially made sticks of linden wood.

During the general sacrificial festivals of the Meadow Cheremis in the Governorate of Kazan, prayer candles were used, and wax belonged among the offerings.

At the aya-pairen sacrificial festival celebrated by the Meadow Cheremis of the village of Rusroda, district of Carevokoksaisk, in the same governorate, one took, besides foodstuffs and other offerings, self-made wax candles to the sacrificial site. As stands for them served sticks of linden wood, whose surface was made colourful by removing the bark in places. One end of the stick was split and the candle fastened in the cleft. When the sacrificial priest (kart) is chosen, all worshippers light their candles and place them next to the foodstuffs. The kart also lights a candle and places it before him. When the prayers for the gods have been spoken, the kart takes a loaf of bread and his assistant a beer vessel, and both then approach the sacrificial fire, while all rise. Then one prays to the Fire Mother (tul-ava), that she may convey the offerings to the individual gods. All step up to the open fire and throw some of their foodstuffs into it.

The Cheremis in the Governorate of Kazan arranged, in the event of "great misfortunes," a communal sacrificial ceremony. To this sacrifice each participant brought a small staff to which a wax candle was attached. This he stuck into the ground before the prayer tree standing right in the middle. For the time when the sacrificial animal is slaughtered, the candles are extinguished, but while the flesh of the animals is being carved and the kettles set up for cooking, the candles are lit again. When one begins to cook the meat, the candles are extinguished anew and lit again when the meat is done. Each time the candles are lit, prayers are spoken. It should also be mentioned that the eastern Cheremis laid the hide of the sacrificial animal beside the sacrificial candle.

Candles at Burials and at the Memorial Ceremonies for the Dead

The most extensive use of ritual wax candles among the Cheremis is to be found in those customs and ceremonies that are connected with death. The eastern Cheremis of the Birsk district arrange for their deceased, as soon as they have been washed and dressed after their passing, a ceremony. At the head of the corpse, which is laid on a felt blanket upon the bench, one places two bowls, one containing pancakes, the other airan drink. On these bowls small wax candles are fastened. In his speech dedicated to the deceased, the clan elder speaks: "We have placed candles for you, so that it may be light for you in the world beyond..." On the freshly covered grave a candle is lit. After the return from the grave, a prayer is held. A large trough and some other vessels are set beside the threshold, and on the rims of the trough one fastens ten to fifty wax candles. When the candles begin to burn down towards the end of the funeral meal, one pours a portion of the foodstuffs and beverages into the trough. For three days the family of the deceased keeps a candle burning above the vessel standing on the threshold. When the three days have passed, the relatives are called together and the candles are set up again. The same happens on the seventh day and during the great memorial ceremony held five weeks after the death, at which the clothes of the deceased are hung in the corner of the doorway near the threshold, where candles must also burn.

It is also quite general that one fastens candles on the rim of the vessel into which portions of the food and beverages are placed for the gods of the realm of the dead and the deceased. But in addition, the candles dedicated to the deceased can also be placed on a special base — for which a piece of wood or a log can serve — or on a pine chip stuck into a crack in the wall above the offering vessels. The number of candles usually corresponds to the number of deceased of the clan who are commemorated on the occasion; sometimes one also sets up a candle for a "non-relative," that is, for persons who were closely befriended with the deceased, indeed even for those with whom he presumably forms a friendship in the realm of the dead. At the communal ceremonies for the dead, as many candles can be set up as there are families assembled at the memorial celebrations.

The Cheremis in the Governorate of Kazan fasten candles at the memorial celebrations not only to a special stick but also to the doors and windows or on a rope stretched for this purpose. The largest candles were dedicated to the father and mother, the wife, the husband, the brother and the sister, the smallest to the children and the more distant relatives.

The Cheremis in the district of Jaransk, Governorate of Vjatka, commemorate the deceased first on the third day after his death. On the table a bowl full of pancakes is placed, and on the rim of the bowl three self-made candles are fastened. He who attaches them says: "The third day has come; I give you a candle, I light it; may the candle come to you, so that it may be light." On the seventh day after the death a new ceremony is arranged. On the rim of the pancake bowl one now fastens seven wax candles.

In the Governorate of Kazan, the Cheremis arranged in honour of their dead a ceremony called "Candle Day" (sorta ke). For this, as many candles were made as there were deceased, and the size of the candles was determined by the stature of the deceased. The family elder drove a wooden wedge into the wall near the door, fastened the candles upon it, and placed two bowls beneath — one empty, the other filled with pancakes, beer, and other things; beside them he also set out spirits and beer. From all the foodstuffs, pieces were broken into the empty bowl, and likewise a few drops of the beverages were poured in, while at the same time prayers were directed to the deceased.

At the kuyu ketša ceremonies ("Great Day," i.e. the Easter festival) of the Cheremis, according to the description of Jevsevjev — setting aside other rites — the dead are also commemorated. The Wednesday before the fasts was called üš mari kon ečö, "Day of the Old Dead." After the bath in the bathhouse, the Cheremis calls the dead to bathe. The men call their grandfather and father, the women the female deceased. After the meal, during which a portion of the food is laid down with the wish: "May these memorial gifts reach you," or: "May my memorial gift come to you," one escorts the deceased "into the other world," after which pancakes are prepared and spirits are brought out. On a pine chip one fastens as many candles as one commemorates deceased relatives, one for each deceased. The first candle is set up in honour of the kiamat-tôrə, the "Lord of the Dead"; the others in order of age. The pine chip with the candles is stuck into a crack in the wall. On a bench beneath the candles one places two vessels, one empty, the other full of beer. Then the eldest member of the family lights the candles in order of age, beginning with the candle for the "chieftain." Into the vessel one throws a portion of the foodstuffs that are meant to benefit the deceased. The following Thursday is called sorta ist org, "Candle Thursday." On another occasion one commemorates the deceased with candles on the Wednesday of Whitsun week, which is called sorta pôr ketšo, "Candle Wednesday."

From the meritorious description of the burial and death-cult ceremonies among the Cheremis by Kuznecov, the central position and significance of candles emerges clearly and convincingly. Together with the deceased, wax candles were placed in the grave. In the district of Krasnoufimsk and among the pagan Cheremis of the districts of Birsk and Malmyz, it was the custom, before the coffin was lowered, to light three wax candles at the northern end of the grave in honour of the rulers in the world beyond, kiamat töra and kiamat sauš. At the burial and memorial ceremonies there appears a special functionary, the sorta pueĝeso, "candle distributor" — a male person, "a special sacrificial priest for the deceased, just as there is a sacrificial priest for jumo and for the other deities." When the praying begins, the master of the prayer house takes a bundle of candles from the tablecloth and hands it to the "candle distributor," who places them one after another on the bench, on a log lying behind the table, or on a rotten piece of tree trunk. The first three candles are thicker than the others, and one dedicates them to the gods of the realm of the dead, to whom at the same time the words of prayer are addressed. But for each deceased, the candle dedicated to him is also set up.

Since ancient times the Cheremis have held general memorial ceremonies twice a year. The end of the first nearly coincides with the Christian Easter festival, but according to Kuznecov's view it must not be confused with it. It is called sorta tšuktôš, "Lighting of the Wax Candle," and here the candle is the principal cult object. As a special functionary, a sorta pueĝeso, "candle distributor," also appears at this ceremony. In his prayer he speaks: "Ancestors of father and mother, grandfathers, grandmothers! Here Ivan gives you a candle; may you wander in the light of the bright sun." While he addresses his words to his deceased wife, the master of the house sets up candles and speaks, among other things: "Wander there in the light of the clear sun..." But with the candle all the deceased of the clan are also commemorated, as one speaks in the prayer: "Old Cheremis! May this candle illuminate the dark world for you."

From these ceremonies it becomes evident, among other things, that the candle is conceived as the illuminator of the darkness of the realm of the dead. According to the prayer words cited above, it furthermore serves as the representative of the sun in the realm of the dead.

Another great and general memorial ceremony for the dead (semak), celebrated around Whitsuntide, is observed by the Cheremis in the manner that a certain number of clans belonging to the paternal blood-kinship join together to celebrate at a common festive table, sharing common foodstuffs. Thus a Cheremis village divides itself into circles for the observance of the celebrations.

One celebrates in every house belonging to such a circle. When the participants have assembled in the festive house (where a boy serving as "runner" has invited them with the call: "Come, to light the candle and to drink beer!"), the master of the house brings in from outside on a shovel snow or a piece of turf, which he lays upon the bench in the room and spreads before it a felt blanket or a tablecloth, upon which one places beer, honey, and other foodstuffs for the refreshment. On the same base he also lays thin birch sticks, at one end of which candles made of yellow wax, one vershok long, are fastened. To this festive table for the deceased steps the "candle distributor." While the pueĝeso sticks the first and second candles into the snow or turf, he turns in prayer to the "Lord of the Dead" and to his "assistant." After the third candle, the master of the house approaches the leader of the ceremony and begins to whisper to him the names of the deceased relatives, going back to the progenitor if he can remember the names; at the naming of each name, the sorta pueĝeso proceeds to a new candle and speaks the same prayer.

Candles at the Oath Ceremony

Of those customs of the Cheremis in which the ritual candle was used in general outside the ceremonies of the Kugusorta sect, the oath ceremony must still be mentioned. According to Magnitskij, the Cheremis in the village of Pomjal took the oath in the courtyard, while in the dwelling room wax candles were lit.

Candles Especially at the Ceremonies and Customs of the Kugusorta Sect

From the foregoing it has emerged that even in the religious ceremonies and customs of the Cheremis who do not belong to the Kugusorta sect, candles have been in use as cult implements, for which reason the application of the ritual candles of the Cheremis in its origin is not exclusively peculiar to this school of teaching or traceable to its circle. Especially the candles at burials and at the memorial ceremonies for the deceased have found a firm and clearly defined application with a distinctly recognisable ideological foundation. One imagines that the candle reaches the dwelling of the deceased, which one usually thinks of as dark or dim, and shines there. When setting up the candles, the customary saying is: "I set up the candle, so that it may be light there."

In the ceremonies of the Kugusorta sect, the ritual candle comes first into use at the sacrificial prayers held in the sacred groves. The requisite candles are made in advance at home and brought together with the other objects necessary for the sacrifice into the sacrificial grove, and at the sacrifice one lights them with fire produced by friction.

At the cult practices in the house, the candles appear to have an even more central position. For the prayer ceremonies held on Fridays in the family circle, the men make candles while the women are busy preparing the dishes used in the sacrificial act. One of the men hangs on a rafter suspended in the room the strands of hemp fibre used as candle wicks. The fibres must without fail be "female," not "male" — in other words, no fibres from male hemp. The wick material of the great main candle can, depending on the type of prayer, also be straw and hay. One of the worshippers spreads melted wax on a board in the form of tree bark or a pancake. After one has laid the hemp strand upon the melted wax, two makers roll the candles and make them all nine and a half vershok long and one middle finger thick; the others are made thin, and their number is unlimited. The length of the candles is in general the same, but their thickness varies. Depending on the number of participants in the prayer, the great candle can reach enormous dimensions in weight and thickness. Thus such candles could weigh up to three pud.

For the prayer, one places upon a cleanly washed table facing southeast the prayer implements, the principal object among which is a box of birch or linden bark (odak) set in the middle of the table. Into the box one pours rye, oats, or hemp seed and sets the candles upright in the seed. In the middle of the vessel one places three candles dedicated to the three "Creators" (püirəkšo); six candles in turn are erected for the "Angels" (sukso-šamats), of whom each Creator can have two. Of these central boxes there is always only one. To the right of them one places on the prayer table another vessel containing seven similar candles, of which one has the same circumference as the great candle in the previous box and is dedicated to the Primordial Mother of Life (tür, tünaltas, tin, olaks ile apa), the other six to her angels.

Of such seven-candle vessels there can be several, depending on the importance of the prayer and the number of worshippers. In such a case one table does not suffice, but two are present. But there can also be more of them — five, six, and above that. When two tables are present, one of them is of birch, the other of linden wood (they can also both be of birch, but not of linden), with nine candles on the birch table.

To the left of the second box, at the family prayers, one places a bowl "for the health of the family members" with candles that are somewhat thicker than goose quills. There are as many candles as there are family members.

At the prayer ceremonies, after the relevant prayer one makes friction fire, even if there should be fire in the oven or the hearth, and lights the candles. The prayer is followed by a meal, after which the candles are extinguished in the manner that one presses out the flame between two pine chips. If the candles have not burned down to half their height, one uses them at the next family prayer; if, however, they have burned past the halfway mark, the remainder is melted down for the making of new candles.

At a scientific trade exhibition held in Kazan in 1890, one of the founders of the Kugusorta sect, Jakmanov, had displayed an interesting collection of the objects used in the prayer ceremonies of this denomination, which aroused considerable attention. Kuznecov describes these objects precisely and communicates an explanation of their use at the sacrificial ceremonies and of the main points of the Kugusorta teaching, written by Jakmanov in faulty Russian. In Vasiljev's view, Kuznecov's description and explanation is incomplete and in some respects erroneous, and he therefore corrects and supplements it.

We follow these accounts mainly insofar as the "great candle" or candles in general appear in them.

On display were two tables, one of birch, the other of linden. According to Vasiljev, on the birch table were: 1. A low candle stand made of wax in the form of a cylinder, diameter five to six and thickness three-quarters of a vershok. 2. On this stand nine self-made wax candles, of which three were about one vershok and the others one little finger thick, and whose length was nine and a half vershok. 3. A wooden vessel of four vershok diameter with oat groats. Further, two vessels of birch bark, of which one contained beer, the other honey water. On the linden table was: in its centre a similar wax candle stand as on the previous one, and upon it seven wax candles, of which one was thick and six thin and of corresponding thickness to those described before; further, two vessels of birch bark — one for honey beer, the other for honey water — though without contents on account of the easy spoilage of these liquids. In addition, the implements for making fire — that is, two birch-wood blocks, one a vershok thick, five quarter-ells long, rectangular, the other thinner and longer, measuring one and a half arshin and flat. On the latter one rubbed with the former.

The honey used in the prayer ceremonies, as well as the wax, is taken exclusively from living bees. If one has no wax of one's own, one buys it from others, but only from acquaintances, so as to be sure that it is fit. One does not haggle over the price, but pays what is demanded. The wax is boiled with water in the honey kettle, whereby one obtains a round piece from whose bottom one scrapes off the black residue.

From Jakmanov's explanation of the exhibition, one learns further that when a wax ball was not to serve as a candle stand, the candles were stuck into a loaf of bread. The candle wicks may be neither braided nor twisted. According to Kuznecov, the diameter of the wax cylinder is seven vershok and the number of candles on the linden table seven, on the birch table nine; these numbers would be connected with the Cheremis conception of the structure of the universe (nine worlds, among which the earth occupies the last place).

Besides at the actual sacrificial and prayer ceremonies, one finds candles as cult objects at the marriage ceremonies of the Kugusorta people. On the journey to the parental house of the bride, the bridegroom has a candle in his bosom. After the arrival at the house of the bride, during the reception ceremonies he takes the candle from his bosom and holds it in his right hand, in his left a honey-beer vessel. Then the bride steps out of the house, a candle in her left hand, in her right a honey-beer vessel. After the greeting words have been exchanged, the bridegroom and the bride touch their vessels together and bring the candles into contact with each other (these are not yet lit). When one has entered and the guests have greeted the parents of the bride sitting at the table and clinked glasses with them, the guests place their cups on the prayer table. On this table the bridegroom and the bride also set their cups side by side and their candles in a special vessel.

At the sacrificial rites connected with the wedding in the sacred grove, seven tables are set up before the sacrificial tree (una pu) at a distance of seven paces, made of a material corresponding to the seven organic primordial substances. "On each table candles are placed and offerings for each of the seven primordial substances." The candles are lit before the recitation of the "great prayer." During the prayer, all the principal persons of the wedding ceremony walk seven times from east to west around the sacrificial tree and all seven tables. After the seventh time, the bride gives the bridegroom her candle, and the headdress of the married woman is placed upon her head. Then the bride is seated to the right of the bridegroom, and she takes her candle from him; thereupon the bride and bridegroom kiss each other seven times.

During the prayer meal, both the candles burning on the tables and those in the hands of the couple being married are extinguished with special small shovels.

After the meal, one proceeds to the house of the bridegroom. Having arrived before the front steps, one alights from the carriages, while the father of the bridegroom holds in his hand a birch-bark box containing nine candles. During the reception ceremonies, the young couple lets the candles touch each other and kisses seven times. Finally one enters, the newlyweds at the head with candles in their hands. Inside, the father and the mother (of the bridegroom) go from east to west around the table, after which the father places the candle box at the spot where the prayer implements are kept.

At the burial and memorial ceremonies for the deceased, the Kugusorta sect also has candles as cult implements. Before one prepares to carry the deceased from the mourning house to the grave, the box of birch bark, on which seven candles are fastened, is placed on the prayer table. One of these candles, which is thicker than the others, is dedicated to the "guardian angel" of the deceased. One carries these seven candles, holding them in one hand, with the coffin to the grave.

At the memorial ceremony arranged seven days after the death, seven candles are also lit for the duration of the prayer, and one implores the guardian angel of the deceased to ask God for the forgiveness of the sins of the dead.

IV. The Wax Fire of the Mordvins and Cheremis in Its Relation to Other Ethnic Domains and Its Religio-Historical Significance

Above it has been shown that the wax fire, which in concrete terms is most frequently represented by various kinds of candles made from wax, plays a role in the religious conceptions and social customs of the Mordvins and Cheremis that radiates in very many directions and is deeply grounded. Especially among the Mordvins, the ritual wax candle occupies a very central position in both the religious and the social ceremonies, both as an object of cult and as a cult implement. But also in the old national-pagan sacrificial ceremonies and in the worship of the Cheremis, candles are implements of sacrifice and prayer and are indispensable objects in the cults connected with death; furthermore, one encounters them in their social customs (e.g. at the marriage ceremonies and at the oath). The greatest and most extensive use of the ritual candles has been found, however, in the ceremonies of the sect of the "great candle," the Cheremis reformed pagans.

The sacred wax fire of the Mordvins has hitherto received no special attention in the study of their customs and beliefs, and in the religious ceremonies of the Cheremis, attention has been paid to it in the proper sense only thanks to the special religious tendency in question — the reform movement in the domain of paganism. When one considers the position of the ritual wax fire in the ceremonies of both peoples simultaneously, common features soon emerge that justify us in seeing in them either traces of a parallel development resting on a common origin, or possibly traces of influences of the same provenance. On both sides the ritual wax candle has in certain cases obviously become an extraordinarily significant institution through being a central common cult implement of a larger community. On both sides the close relationship of another old implement common to the national sacrificial and prayer ceremonies — honey and honey beer — precisely with the wax fire and its use (the fastening of candles to the honey-beer vessel, their appearance together with the honey beer on the sacrificial table, etc.) is to be noted.

When we attempt in the following to find an explanation and a connection for this phenomenon of the Volga-Finnic cult and social ceremonies and institutions, we can already consider it established in advance that the search must extend in many directions and that in the analysis various cult ideas and possible foreign cultural influences must be taken into account. It is certain that the beliefs, customs, and practices of the surrounding ethnic units and circles of other stock have also influenced this form of cult, just as they have the religious, social, and economic life of the peoples in question, but it can also rightly be assumed that they may have very ancient roots going back to the original beliefs of the peoples under discussion.

The Candle Ceremonies of the Chuvash

Before we actually set about seeking possible correspondences and points of comparison in the ceremonies of the more distant peoples, it seems appropriate to connect the corresponding customs of the Chuvash — who live in close proximity to the peoples investigated here — with the same complex of customs.

One may in any case expect to find among the Chuvash counterparts to the customs and conceptions of the Volga Finns, for especially as regards the Cheremis, the millennia-old close proximity as well as the common conditions of life and historical relationships have shaped the culture of the two peoples to the very greatest degree alike. Particularly in customs and in beliefs about the gods, one encounters very deep-going correspondences, which together form a separate circle. Therefore the Chuvash parallels can often be the result of a later local common development, and they do not always help in clarifying, for example, the Turkic-Tatar connections. It should be noted, however, that the Chuvash in their origin, as their language also proves, go back to quite ancient Turkic times and that, subjected to the cultural influences coming from the east, they formerly professed Islam in part. In this way, the very strong Islamic character of their worship may in part originate from this direction.

In the ceremonies of the Chuvash one finds, for example, the ritual wax fire in quite the same use as in the cult of the Mordvins and Cheremis. For instance, candles occupy the same position in their veneration of the dead as among the Cheremis, and their setting up takes place under the same formula of wishes. The candle used in the cult ceremonies for the deceased among the Chuvash in the Governorate of Saratov can be placed beside the štatol of the Mordvins and the great candles of the Cheremis in terms of its size and form: its height was two arshin, and it was spirally twisted in the form of a bow.

Such close parallels between the cult customs and beliefs of the Cheremis and the Chuvash could be cited in yet greater number. They help, however, actually only little when the cultural-historical basis of the customs to be investigated is to be found, because it is sometimes very difficult to decide which features were originally peculiar to the one or the other people. Such comparisons show, however, that the candle ceremonies in their concordant form are common to the Volga Finns and the Chuvash, at least in the cult for the deceased.

Wax and Honey in the Cult Ceremonies

When one wishes to search for the conceptual origin of the ritual wax fire and to analyse it in terms of cultural history, it would probably be right, however doctrinaire it may perhaps appear, to direct attention to the nature of this cult implement itself, as it confronts us as fire produced by wax.

One can indeed already consider it very natural in itself that the Mordvins and Cheremis use wax as the material for their cult sacrificial and prayer fire — wax that was easily and abundantly accessible to them as a bee-keeping people. But at the same time one must not forget that beekeeping occupied an extraordinarily important position in the original economy of these as indeed of the Finno-Ugric peoples in general, so that it is without doubt to be reckoned among their most ancient branches of livelihood, whose roots are to be found in the common period of the Finno-Ugric peoples and which are connected especially, as linguistic evidence shows, with other peoples and complexes — the Indo-Europeans and the Turko-Tatars. A circumstance that must not be forgotten here is the use of the old national drink prepared from honey (Mordvin pure, Mordvin-Moksha mut, "mead, honey beer"; Cheremis puro, pürs, "beer mixed with honey") at most candle ceremonies alongside or in connection with the candle or candles.

But as is to be expected, one also finds honey as such as an offering. The district surveyor Mikovič mentions in his richly informative report of the year 1783, pertaining to the customs and religion of the Mordvins, that to the "God of the Foals" a foal was slaughtered in the field and honey was offered. At the baban-kaša offering of the Mordvins of the Governorate of Saratov, which was arranged at a spring, honey served as an offering.

From the detailed and reliable description of Kuznecov it emerges that the Meadow Cheremis brought to their keremet sacrifices, besides actual livestock and products of agriculture, also honey beer and honey as offerings to this deity. Into the sacrificial fire, besides other gifts, honey beer was also poured. Most clearly of all, however, the role of the honey products — honey and wax — as offerings emerges from the religion of the eastern Cheremis, in which, on the whole and for the most part, compared with the Meadow and especially the Mountain Cheremis, the most ancient religious condition pointing to the most original forms has been preserved.

From the account of the religion and religious customs of the eastern Cheremis by H. Paasonen, which despite its relative brevity belongs among the best and most informative treatments of this subject, one learns that the eastern Cheremis held every year before the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, shortly before the beginning of the hay harvest, a great sacrificial festival called küsö. On its fifth day, a cow was sacrificed to keč(e) awa ("Mother Sun"), likewise to mardeŋ awa ("Mother Wind"). Offerings included, among other things, honey beer and honey as well as wax candles. In the sacrificial prayer one spoke: "O good, great God, receive your great horse with glittering hair and silver hooves together with your sacrificial breads, your sacrificial money, your sacrificial mead, your silver candle and your silver candlestick."

Especially, a brief prayer was held to the Mother Fire (tol-awe), that she should convey the offering to God. One spoke: "Receive the sacrificial bread, the sacrificial mead, the silver light and the silver light-stand..." Everyone present at the prayer places in the hand of the priest one or more wax candles and a copper coin. Even the poorest person offers at least one candle and one coin. Usually, however, several candles are brought, and the person making the offering expressly tells the mullah at each gift what he demands from the god. The mullahs pray: "O good, great God! Offering his sacrifices, Almakaj implores health. Receive his sacrificial candle and the sacrificial money!... Almakaj prays with a silver candle before your sacrificial tree, asking health for the family and the hearth..." After the prayer, the sacrificial priest sprinkles honey water from a ladle upon the sacrificial tree.

Of the special importance of bees and their products in the economy of the eastern Cheremis, the circumstance bears very vivid testimony that, to an even more noteworthy extent than in the religious ceremonies of the Meadow Cheremis, their numerous deities have their own offerings. The Cheremis of the village of Cigajeva hold at the end of June a special sacrifice for the deities of beekeeping; Paasonen was present at one such occasion. There, a sheep was sacrificed to mükš-šočen and mükš-püijarše each, a ram to mükš-perke and mükš-pijambar each. After these offerings had been made, a duck was further sacrificed under one tree to mükš-sukšo and mükš-sauš, likewise under another tree to mükš-kaznačij, mükš-šəra wočəš, and šište-korno-palaštar-še each. According to the assurance of the sacrificial priests, even more bee deities were worshipped in other villages.

When one knows that the utilisation of beekeeping products belongs to the most ancient branches of livelihood of the Finno-Ugric peoples and that it has been preserved, namely as forest beekeeping, among the eastern Finno-Ugric peoples as well as among some Baltic Finnish peoples down to the most recent times, it is not surprising that among these peoples, already in very ancient times, they also belonged among the implements of the religious ceremonies precisely as offerings, like the livestock products and, after agriculture had attained a predominant position, the grain and the foodstuffs produced from it. Honey and wax have accordingly also found a distinct sanctity in the religious ceremonies and beliefs of the peoples practising primitive beekeeping. Quite apart from the fact that numerous beliefs and customs attach to the bees, the wax, and the honey that express their special sanctity and purity, the bees and beekeeping have their own deities and sacrificial practices. Thus the pure drink in the worship of the Mordvins is a central implement of the cult and is in many descriptions of the sacrificial acts specifically designated as "holy." The Cheremis hold honey and wax in especial honour, and the beekeeper does not call the bees by the ordinary name mükš, but uses for them the designations tei kaiök, "little bird," or iŋyŋeš-jal, "little-footed one." Beekeeping has its own protective goddess, mükš-šočen-aba, "Mother of the Fertility of the Bees," to whom a special offering is made by sacrificing to her, as the chief deity, a sheep. In the village of Rus-roda in the district of Carevokoksaisk there was formerly a special grove in which sacrifices were offered to the protective goddess of beekeeping. Moreover, at all Cheremis sacrificial observances, both the individual and the communal sacrificial festivals, one prayed in the prayers, alongside the most important necessities of life, for bees.

On the basis of these cultural-historical facts, the cult significance of these products becomes to some extent understandable, just as they justify seeing in them, for the Finno-Ugric peoples in general and for the Volga Finns in particular, conceptions that go back to quite ancient times. But as is to be expected, the use of wax as a cult implement in its more original form — as an offering in and of itself — is by no means limited to the Finno-Ugric domain. Above it was already noted that in the cult ceremonies for the deceased, the correspondence of the Chuvash candle cult with the Cheremis one has been established. In the keremet worship of the baptised Tatars, among the offerings that must be brought to this god is a small piece of linen in which wax is wrapped, or a similar piece without wax. In the year in which a blood sacrifice is brought in honour of a keremet, from the pieces of wax that are placed alongside some other gifts, two wax candles are made when animals are sacrificed; these are lit and fastened before the images on the icon shelf. In the language of the baptised Tatars, the prayer before the holy images with the burning candles made from the wax that belongs to the gifts offered to the keremet has received the name ešam astyndu, "the standing under the candles."

However much the church ceremonies of the Greek Orthodox religion may have influenced these candle rites, there yet emerge in them at the same time in interesting fashion features going back to an older state, which help to understand the origin of the Mordvin-Cheremis wax fire. The wax therein is in its original form simply an offering to the keremet deity, but at the same time receives, as a cult implement, a form fitting to the church ceremonies. It can scarcely be doubted that wax as an offering in the old cult ceremonies of the Turkic-Tatar peoples is an ancient inheritance, for forest beekeeping has also held a fundamental position in their earliest economy.

According to the above expositions, one can consider it certain that the bee products as such belonged to the implements of the old religious ceremonies of the Volga Finns. In its more modern forms, however, wax appears in these ceremonies quite generally in a special shape — as candles made from wax, as wax fire. This circumstance gives occasion to consider the cult use of the wax fire especially from the standpoint of the fire ceremonies for the heavenly bodies and also of fire worship in general.

The Position of Fire in the Cult Ceremonies and Sun Worship

The nature-mythic-symbolistic school in the study of beliefs and customs was inclined to see in many fire ceremonies, and precisely in the candle ceremonies, a symbolic worship of the heavenly bodies, above all the sun. However little founded it may be, in the author's view, to tread this path — now mostly overgrown with grass — let certain points belonging to this context nevertheless be subjected to consideration for the sake of clarification.

Beginning with the so-called sun worship, one could adduce not a few facts and circumstances in the domain of the religion of the Finno-Ugric peoples showing that the Volga Finns in particular paid veneration to the sun, and indeed to such an extent that a special sun deity belonged to their world of gods. Most authors of the eighteenth century who contain reports about the Mordvins mention that they worshipped the sun. In the preface to the manuscript dictionary of Bishop Damaskin of 1785, it is stated of the Mordvins that "they live not in towns but in small villages, which, like those of the Cheremis and Chuvash, are so situated that the doors always face east, and as soon as the sun rises and casts its rays through the small door-window, they bow and speak their prayer." Of the Cheremis it is related that the doors of their houses are low and always face east, furnished with a small window, so that they can immediately see the rising sun and pray to it.

The reports of Damaskin concerning the family worship of the Mordvins and Cheremis were, however, not the earliest. P. J. von Strahlenberg mentions of the Mordvins: "Morduiner. A heathen people in Russia, dwelling in the Nizhegorod Governorate. What curious dress their women wear has already been described by other authors. They set their house-doors, just as the Chuvash, towards the south, so that they may perform their prayers towards the sun... They, the Mordvins, sacrifice to their god Jumis-hipas (which is the same as Jumala) an ox, asking him therewith for all that is necessary for their sustenance."

This report by Strahlenberg appears to have awakened the attention of the ethnographers in the eighteenth century, and even aroused a discussion. G. F. Miller maintains that he received no confirmation for this custom insofar as it concerned the Chuvash. He admits, however, at the same time that he himself had been in not a single Chuvash village and that he had his reports from a Chuvash interpreter. J. Lepechin took Strahlenberg's report into account and writes that he finds, after comparing it with Miller's assertion and obtaining an explanation on this matter from many persons, that Strahlenberg was right. Besides the confirmation that the Mordvins and Chuvash worshipped sun and moon as deities, one learns from him further that they not only held sun and moon to be gods but also sacrificed to the sun at the time of sowing at the onset of spring, likewise to the moon at the new moon, but that they had not brought to them their most important sacrifice — a fattened stallion — but other animals such as sheep and geese. During the prayer the Mordvins turned to the sun with the words: "Kebedt Walpigi kaubavas trjäda, winda Šchipavas kubawas," which meant: "The highest sun illuminates the entire kingdom; illuminate us and our community."

To what has emerged from the foregoing concerning sun worship among the Mordvins, very many other reports are also available. According to the old sources cited above, the Mordvins expressed their veneration of the sun in their family prayers and offerings. To this must be added the reports of Mikovič on the Mordvins in the Governorate of Simbirsk from the year 1783. According to these, the Mordvins sacrificed on the first of October "to the chief god of the entire house and of the animals" a white goose. In the middle of the courtyard, a board was placed facing sunrise, and on it a stone; before it, a goose and a pie were laid. At the family sacrifices one offered to the dawn and to the fire small unleavened cakes. To the sun, Si-Pas, the master of each family sacrificed small livestock, poultry, pies, and beer; during the prayer the door of the dwelling was opened. When the sacrificial animal had been prepared — its head and its legs, as well as the pies — candles were set up. In autumn, a special house sacrifice was held for Si-Pas, and he was asked to grant a happy winter.

According to Bishop Jakov, the Mordvins of the Governorate of Nizhny Novgorod prayed in the morning after rising and in the evening before going to sleep, facing the dawn. The worshippers raised their hands to heaven and implored their gods for help ("Tšanpas, Nazorom-pas, have mercy upon us"). At the day prayer they brought out porridge, went around the table, bowed (the whole family) towards the window down to the earth, and called upon the gods for help ("Toi-pas, Velenbas, and Niski-pas, have mercy upon us"). After the midday meal they bowed once more three times towards the window down to the earth and dispersed.

Georgi relates of the sun worship of the Mordvins: "To the sun, which they call Tschi-Pas, every householder sacrifices, with the ceremonies of the Chuvash, poultry, pastries, and strong drink." The Mordvins in the Saratov district venerated the sun (ši), the moon (kov), and the stars (taŋé).

But besides at their family festivals and prayers, the Mordvins also prayed to the sun out of doors in nature, where they arranged sacrificial ceremonies, as already emerges from the above-cited report of Strahlenberg. From the description by Jakov one learns that during the prayer ceremony arranged near springs, which took place after one had prayed in the house the whole night, upon arriving at the springs one fell on one's knees and bowed towards the east. On Flora's Day, at the prayer held outdoors ("at a height"), they faced east.

Both the Erzya and the Moksha worshipped the sun also at the village festivals, according to Paasonen. The offering was brought into the forest, so that the sun could claim it with its first rays. The Moksha of the Insar district, at the sacrificial festival held after the grain harvest, turned "in the direction of the rising, setting, and circling sun god." The Moksha women prayed: "Sun god wandering in the heights, grant me good fortune." The oath was likewise taken primarily in the name of heaven and the sun god ("ši-pas may destroy me"). Even in later times, the Mordvins (Moksha) still addressed themselves to the sun god according to Paasonen ("Si-pavas, bless us for our work").

In the worship of the Mordvins, the sun god thus occupied an important position. A much lesser significance attached to the moon. Lepechin and Mikovič, however, speak of its worship; the latter expressly mentions that one bowed before the moon when the new moon was first visible and that one asked it "during the time of its dominion" to bestow good fortune. The kaubavas, kubavas appearing in a defectively translated prayer to the sun by the latter is evidently kou-bavas, "Moon God." At the same time Lepechin mentions that the new moon was worshipped with the words: "Kebedt Waljugi Schipavas trjäda, wanda kubawas" — "The moon shines over the entire kingdom; shine upon us and our grain." Quite similarly, Georgi tells of the Mordvin custom of paying their veneration to the new moon: "When they first see the new moon, they bow to it and ask it for good fortune under its reign."

According to the material of Paasonen, the Moon God is mentioned only once at the communal sacrificial festivals, and in general only individual persons bowed before him and worshipped him at the family prayers. Especially to be noted is the report, also cited by Paasonen, that an eternal candle was kept in honour of the new moon.

The relationship of the ritual wax fire to the worship of the sun and the moon among the Mordvins thus remains, on the basis of the foregoing, limited to only a few references (Mikovič, Mainov, Paasonen). Beliefs of a corresponding kind among the Cheremis also show firstly that they too worshipped the sun as a deity. According to the list of gods compiled by Jakovlev, their world of gods included oš-ketše kuyu juma, "the great God of the bright day"; oš-ketšo kuyu püirše, "the great Creator of the bright day"; oš-ketšo šočon ava, "the God of the birth of the bright day"; ketšə-paŋ kuyu juma, "the great God, Creator of the sun"; ketš on, "the Lord (Ruler) of the sun"; ketša ava, "the Sun Mother" — and still further special "forenoon deities."

In his reports on sun worship among the Cheremis, N. Ryčkov mentions their sun god as Kitscheba. This was the Sun Mother, the goddess of family concord, of happiness and wealth. She dwelt, according to the conceptions of the Cheremis, in the sun itself, and in her honour all Cheremis women arranged a public festival at which a calf or a sheep was slaughtered as a sacrifice. Alongside this, the Cheremis worshipped special fire deities: tol-ava, tol (tul) on kuyu juma, tol püirše.

In the above descriptions, one cannot help directing one's attention to Ryčkov's statement of how the Cheremis imagined the Sun Goddess as "dwelling in the sun itself." This appears to accord with the original religious conceptions of the Mordvins and Cheremis, according to which physical nature as such, unpersonified, was worshipped. There is clear evidence that, for example, the Mordvins originally venerated the material, "sensible" sun as such, so that the personified sun deity is the result of a later development. These conceptions must be taken into account when one wishes to judge the significance of the ritual wax fire as a possible representative of heavenly bodies in the cult ceremonies, beliefs, and customs.

The Fire as Mediator in the Sacrificial Ceremonies

Let us also consider the fire and the position of fire in the cult ceremonies and beliefs of the Mordvins and Cheremis in general. A pervasive general feature of the sacrificial ceremonies of both peoples is the role of fire in the sacrificial acts. From the oldest descriptions of the sacrificial customs as from the most recent, it emerges that one threw offerings into the fire and that the indispensable implement of sacrifices is the open sacrificial fire. Besides the fact that the flesh of the sacrificial animals is cooked over the sacrificial fire, one throws portions of the sacrificial animal into the sacrificial fire. G. F. Miller tells of the Cheremis that they cut small parts from the sacrificial animal — namely the ears, eyes, feet, and more — and threw them into the sacrificial fire, likewise the intestines and the other entrails. The hide of the sacrificial animal is either hung on the trees of the sacred grove or burned in the sacrificial fire. Concerning the latter procedure, which is customary among the Mountain Cheremis, Znamenskij reports: after one had thrown parts of the flesh of the sacrificial animal and of the sacrificial cake into the fire, one still burned the bones, the entrails, and the hide. According to Jakovlev, the sacrificial priest kart first threw a ladleful of parts of the sacrificial animal into the fire, likewise a ladleful of honey beer and sacrificial cakes. The hide of a sacrificed horse or foal was not taken away by the sacrificers but was burned in the sacrificial fire. According to Šitič, the offerings were thrown into the fire and the hide of the sacrificial animal burned. In the district of Carevokoksaisk, Governorate of Kazan, the kart took from each of the cooked entrails a small piece on a pointed little stick. On the stick were fastened in order seven pieces of the rectum, the heart, the liver, the diaphragm, the lip, and the lung. The little stick (jepš) is fastened to a bast band wound around the sacrificial tree. After the sacrificial ceremony the stick is burned in the sacrificial fire, as are all the bones of the sacrificial animals and the hides of the sacrificed horses. Also on the grave, into which the blood of the animals is poured, a fire is lit and everything burned down to the bare earth.

Likewise at the keremet sacrifices, parts of the lips, the tongue, the throat, the ears, the heart, the lungs, the liver, and the feet of the sacrificial livestock are thrown into the sacrificial fire. In the prayer that follows the sacrifice, one asks the fire to convey also the words of prayer to the deity: "Keremet on the mountain! If you torment a Cheremis, then heal him also again... Your tongue is sharp, your smoke is long; you yourself, fire, speak: Have mercy upon us, mighty mountain keremet." The contents of the vessel containing the offerings are thrown after the prayer into the fire, into which one further throws pieces of bread and eggs, as well as honey beer, kumys, and beer. Likewise the head of a foal that has served as a sacrificial animal and the halter of bast bark are thrown into the fire; at the same time one speaks: "See, there you have, Tšumbulat (name of the keremet), a horse and reins." Thereupon one betakes oneself home, fully convinced that the tul-Bodaš, the "fire spirit," has reported the sacrifice to Tšumbulat.

Most clearly of all, the significance of fire as mediator of offerings appears in the sacrificial ceremonies of the eastern Cheremis. First, during the great sacrificial festivals a special offering is made to the "Mother Fire" (tol-awa), with the request that she convey the offerings to the gods. In addition, in the sacrificial prayers, mostly at their conclusion, one specially addresses tol-awa with the same request. In doing so, one customarily uses the phrase: "Kindly fire spirit, your smoke is long, your tongue sharp; interpret (our prayer) to the good, great God!" — or: "...your smoke is long, your tongue sharp; convey (the offering) to the good, great God." When one sacrifices to the Old Man of the Frost or the Old Woman of the Frost, one speaks: "You fire spirit, your smoke is long, your tongue sharp; with your steel tongue convey this to the Old Man (or Old Woman) of the Frost, amen!" On "Sheep's Foot Day" one prayed at the sacrifice: "Fire spirit, convey and interpret (everything) to the Sheep's Foot Day. Your smoke is long, your tongue sharp; interpret you!"

According to some features of the Cheremis sacrificial ceremonies, fire appears to have been conceived especially as a mediator between the gods and the sacrificers. Already the circumstance could point to this, in our view, that the parts one throws from the animals into the sacrificial fire represent the sacrificial animal itself as variously as possible anatomically. But even more clearly this idea finds expression particularly in the sacrificial ceremonies of the Cheremis. Ryčkov mentions that the Cheremis, when they throw parts of the sacrificial flesh into the fire, speak: "Fire, bring our sacrifice to God." According to Jakovlev, the Cheremis address the following prayer to the fire deity: "Spirit of the fire, your smoke is long and your tongue sharp; what is not right, take it away made right, and bring it there." And further: "Fire Mother, you repeat (our words); what is not right, set it right, and what is not clean, purify it; take it away, and having offered it, present it."

In these religious conceptions of the Cheremis, fire appears in general already anthropomorphised as "fire spirit," "Fire Mother," although one can also observe in them in many cases a veneration directed at the fire itself — a state which, with regard to the Finno-Ugric beliefs, must be held to be more original. But alongside this, there exist in the beliefs of both the Volga-Finnic and the Finno-Ugric peoples in general numerous proofs that fire in and of itself was venerated and that worship was bestowed upon it. Of this, firstly, several precautionary rules and prohibitions against harming fire or treating it badly bear witness. It is especially forbidden to spit into the fire, as is careless treatment of the hearth fire (throwing with the fire-hook, digging, defiling with dirty water and sweepings, etc.). These precepts are found not only in the moral code of the Volga Finns, but also of the Ob-Ugrians, Permians, and Baltic Finns; among the last-mentioned, they have also become a noteworthy source material for the treasure of fairy tales and legends. In the customs of the Ob-Ugrians, the name of fire is "taboo," and one brings it offerings by separating portions of the offerings at the sacrifices for the guardian spirits and either laying them beside the fire or throwing them in.

From the above expositions, the central significance of fire and of fire ceremonies in the cults and beliefs of the peoples studied here should have emerged sufficiently clearly. Their consideration will also probably show that the use of fire for the burnt offering is not, as is sometimes maintained, of late origin, and it is in no case to be traced to the custom of burning the remains of the sacrificial meal because they are "dangerous"; rather, its reason was the actual propitiation — the veneration of fire, later of the deities of fire; in the latter respect, the conceptions of the Ob-Ugrians are especially clear and characteristic.

The Conceptions of the Wotjaks Concerning the Fire of the Domestic Hearth

This standpoint of the beliefs is also well illuminated by the conceptions of the Permian peoples — firstly the Wotjaks — concerning fire, especially the hearth fire, which may therefore be briefly touched upon here.

In the blood sacrifices of the Wotjaks, fire is assigned a role; pieces of flesh were thrown into the sacrificial fire and kumyska and beer were poured in. The domestic hearth had its special sanctity: the evil powers could do it no harm. In the name of fire oaths were also sworn, but the pagans also swore by "God... bread... the sun... the moon... the stars."

Of the Wotjak attitude to the fire of the hearth, Bogajevskij mentions: "The fire, as well as the chain of the pot-hook hanging above it, belong to the most principal sacred things. One must not step across either the former or the latter. It would be considered a great sin that could bring the vengeance of the deity. The veneration of the chain of the pot-hook is even stronger. Its grasping in the hour of need protects against the enemy... The most noteworthy sacred object of the budzim-kua is the hearth ash, whose carrying away to another place means a removal of the entire sanctuary. The budzim-kua is thus a place where an ancestor — indeed possibly the whole line of ancestors — is venerated." Just as the chain of the pot-hook and the fire of the clan sanctuary enjoy the very greatest veneration, so among them also in the sacred house of the voršud is the place of the highest sacred object. The chain of the pot-hook may not be unnecessarily removed from its place, nor may one touch it with unwashed hands. The chain on the pot-hook of the hearth is at the same time a saving object that protects against lightning strikes and against the evil eye. When one goes out visiting, one touches the chain of the pot-hook and speaks a prayer in which one asks the voršud to protect "from the eye of a hostile person," and so forth.

Of great interest are the customs that reflect the attitude of the Wotjaks to fire and to the domestic hearth in their social and family-law practices. When the extended family dissolves, those departing from it receive a portion of the voršud — that is, ash from the former hearth of the home, which they place in the hearth built in the new house as a sanctuary. At the farewell feast the new family goes with some girls and young men to the house of the original family. Here the sacrificial priest performs a sacrifice and speaks: "Here, voršud, accept; we sacrifice to you for the last time; be not angry!" Thereupon the former sacrificer takes a clean garment, puts hearth ash in it, and hands it to the departing ones with the words: "Your voršud I leave in your hands, but my own I leave here." After that, those departing from the family go away and sing: "Come with us, come behind us, do not remain; my share, come behind us; their share, let it remain in its place." If one will not willingly hand over the hearth ash to the departing person, he steals it. When, conversely, an entire family moves to a new dwelling place, the ash of the old home is carried to the new place in the bridal procession. According to the description of Vereščagin, when moving from the old sacrificial hut to a new one, besides the hearth ash of the old hut, shavings scraped from its pot-hook were taken along, which were thrown into the hearth of the new hut.

The features last described, appearing in the old worship, cult, and customs of the eastern Finno-Ugric peoples — primarily the Volga Finns — justify without doubt the recognition of a strong tendency in their spiritual culture toward the veneration of fire, a tendency that clothes itself in various forms. Among the most original conceptions is the veneration of fire as such, as a physical body. Numerous fire deities are certainly the result of a later development. But even when fire is conceived as a deity, the degree of its anthropomorphisation varies. In the oldest Cheremis sacrificial prayers (e.g. in those communicated by Ryčkov), one addresses fire as such, without designating it as a deity. Yet even when one calls the deity of fire "Mother Fire" (tol-awa, Paasonen), "fire spirit," its anthropomorphisation or its transformation into a deity with personal features is only just beginning.

As a pervasive, though presumably secondary, feature of the sacrificial ceremonies, it has emerged that fire conveys the offering to the deity.

Fire in general, but especially the hearth fire, which the hearth ash and the pot-hook identify, is conceived as the dwelling place and protector of domestic happiness, whereby its treatment, the attitude towards it, and its division have stamped not only the customs in general but specifically the family law of the Wotjaks. The domestic fire identifies the togetherness of the family — indeed of the entire clan.

Conceptions of Fire and Especially of the Hearth Fire Among the Peoples of North and Central Asia

To this cult, these customs and conceptions, one could find more or less broadly drawn counterparts on the Indo-European side. Before we draw such parallels, however, the correspondences that seem to lie closest — both formally and conceptually — to the fire worship of the eastern Finno-Ugric peoples must be considered, namely in the corresponding cult of the peoples of North and Central Asia.

The worship of fire as such is one of the most widespread and oldest expressions of the cult inclination of humanity, for which reason it is unnecessary to wish to regard it in its entirety as peculiar to any one ethnic group or cultural circle. For fire and the use of fire belong to the earliest cultural goods of humanity, so that this mighty natural force as such and its role in the struggle for existence of primitive humans have already at early stages called forth superstitious veneration and worship. Especially for people dwelling in cold regions, fire as a provider of warmth and economic aid was an indispensable sustainer of life, for which reason it is natural that it became especially here an object of veneration.

On the other hand, the role of fire in customs and beliefs among various peoples and in certain cultural circles shows special features, between which research can establish correspondences and connections that are to be interpreted now as results of the internal development of these circles, now as cultural migration or as borrowing from one circle to the other, from one ethnic group to another.

Among the reindeer-herding Chukchi, the hearth is considered the most central place of every family, and therefore persons from different clans may not use the same fire, out of fear of contamination, however many inconveniences it may lead to. To every festival belongs, as a ceremony, the offering. The hearth and at the same time the chief sanctuary of the family are symbolised by the implements used for making fire (the fire drills), of which there are two kinds — those used in daily life, to which no special sanctity attaches, and others used for kindling fire for cult purposes. Of the latter, some pass from generation to generation for very long periods, and each of them has a special relationship to an individual person, whose particular guardian spirit it is. When a child is born, a fire-making implement that is not in use is assigned to it. When a person dies, his fire implement becomes free.

According to the Ainu conception, the sun goddess is regarded as the head of the second-rank deities because she is considered the ordainer of all good things in the universe. The moon, too, has its deity. Closest in rank to the sun deity stands the fire deity. In the corresponding conceptions of the Gilyaks, the view of the unity of fire first commands attention — a view that must certainly be connected with the customs and conceptions of the Wotjaks discussed above. Fire symbolises the unity of the clan and is the clan deity. In every hearth, according to some views, there dwells the Fire Woman, the foundress of the respective clan, or, according to others, a man and a woman and their descendants. The lord or lady of the fire is thus not only a deity who warms humans and protects their home from all the machinations of the evil spirit-beings, but also a mediator between all members of the clan and all the numerous deities who have an influence on the destiny of humans. In all important cases of life — illness, departure for the hunt, beginning of a perilous journey — the clan member throws his offering into the fire: a tobacco leaf, a sweet root, a drop of arrack, and asks the Fire Mother to fulfil his request. Outwardly, the clan community of the fire (rodovoe edinstvo ognja) finds expression in the fact that only a member of one's own clan may kindle the fire in the hearth of another clan member. Only a member of one's own clan may carry fire out of the yurt. If a member of an alien clan has lit his pipe at the hearth fire of the house, he may not leave the yurt before he has smoked his pipe. Every clan has its own fire-making kit, which is kept by the eldest member of the clan. When the clan must dissolve — that is, when part of it must move to another dwelling place — the clan elder breaks off a piece of the fire-making kit, hands the fragment to the elder of the separating clan, and only then is the clan officially divided.

The Altaians and Teleuts venerate above all the hearth itself, but also the material and visible fire, which they take care not to injure with an iron knife or an iron fork. With this animatistic conception of fire there mingles the notion of the fire spirit who dwells in the hearth or, covered with talc-like ash, descends upon the sacrificial place, and of the "thirty-headed Mother Fire," of the "forty-headed Virgin Mother" who comes down along seven steps and sways up and down on seven peat-moors. The form of the Lord of the Fire is already always anthropomorphic.

According to the Yakut views, fire has its own deity (an darhan tosn). One brings it no special offerings, but throws into the fire what one eats oneself (the first morsel, the first spoonful, or the first sip of brandy, before one begins to eat oneself). During epidemics, one makes a new fire with the fire-making implements and fumigates the dwellings and the livestock with it. One does not extinguish fire with water and may not stamp on it with one's feet nor stir it with sharp objects. At the old wedding ceremonies, the bride knelt before the fire and threw three pieces of butter into it, set up three candles and blew into them several times, so that they began to burn. The "fire spirit" is a grey-bearded, garrulous old man, constantly hopping about. What he continually chatters and hisses can only be understood by a few, such as the shaman and small children who do not yet comprehend the speech of humans. But the fire itself understands excellently what is spoken and what goes on around it. Therefore it is dangerous to offend it or to abuse it, to spit into it or to relieve oneself into it. One may also not strike the fire with a sharp iron, etc. Furthermore, there are many kinds of fire: the useful fire of daily use, to which one offers a white foal; the sacred fire, which is struck over a shaman who has fallen into a faint; and "the terror-inspiring fire," which destroys everything and to which one sacrifices a blood-red, dark-backed foal with a white muzzle.

The conceptions of the peoples of North Asia just presented clearly reflect, among other things, the family-law significance of fire as a symbol of clan unity. Fire is just as much an indispensable member of the entire clan as of the individual family. When a clan was extinguished, the fire in the last yurt was put out. Every clan guards its fire and does not entrust it to any other clan. The Altaian, like the Teleut, never lets anyone carry fire from the yurt or from the house. Even where this custom is already disappearing, at certain times even today one does not leave one's own fire to another — for shamanising and after one has offered to the fire. From sunrise to sunset, a stranger is not entitled to carry fire out of the yurt. When guests light their tobacco at the hearth of the host, they must knock out their pipes when leaving the yurt.

To this clan-specific character of fire it is to be traced that when moving to a new dwelling place, the fire of the old homestead, even if only in the form of a firebrand, was taken along; likewise one transferred the fire when one moved to another house. When the brothers dissolved the community of goods, the old fire remained in the possession of the youngest brother; the elder ones, however, made a new fire with the fire-making kit. But in certain cases each one took a firebrand from his father's house. At the wedding, a fire is kindled in the yurt of the young couple with the fire-making kit, likewise at sacrifices, and only in rare cases, when someone of the clan lives nearby, does one take the fire from him. One's own fire is the clan fire. At the wedding ceremonies, when the daughter leaves her own hearth and becomes a member of a foreign clan, a ceremony takes place that brings about the union (obrjad priobshchenija), and she is handed over into the protection of the new domestic hearth. In the process, one walks, among other things, three times with song around the fire. When the bride's hair is braided, horse fat is thrown into the fire, so that it flares up above the yurt with a great flame.

Fire Ceremonies of the Kalmucks and Mongols

The Mongolian literature possesses, besides the Buddhist religious and philosophical books, historical works, and the like, a great quantity of popular manuscripts and prints. Among these are medical writings, books of magic, and others; a great number of this kind of writing contains hymns addressed to the fire of the domestic hearth, while others contain sacrificial rules (yal sudur, "fire sutras" or "fire books"). In these fire hymns one encounters a whole series of divine names: Lord, King, Mother, God of the Fire, etc. Among them are such designations as: 1. yalagan (yalayvaγan) eke, "Mother Galašan," where γalaγan < γaalä-an, galä a genitive of yal, "fire," γan, "king" — thus Mother Galaγan = "Mother, King of the Fire." 2. odγan γalaγan, "youngest son," earlier meaning "King of the Fire." 3. γolumta eke, "the Mother of the Hearth." 4. γalun tuγri, "the Tengri (God) of the Fire." 5. eke yal-un tuγri, "the Mother of the Fire, the Tengri," or "the maternal Fire God." 6. yal eke, "Mother Fire, Fire Mother." 7. čwa ökin tuγri, "the virginal Tengri of the Fire." 8. yal-un γaγan, "the King of the Fire." 9. yal-un tuγri-yin γaγan, "the King of the Fire Deities." 10. yal-un burγan, "God of the Fire." 11. arši tuγri, "God of the Hermits (Rishi)."

In its outward essence, the fire deity of the Mongols is to be regarded as a flame, which is why one also says: "Between the fire god and fire there is no difference." The deity has a thick or yellow tongue in Vajra-form.

The conceptions of the Mongols regarding fire itself recall in several respects the views of the peoples of more northerly Asia and of the eastern Finno-Ugrians. Fire also represents among them the unity of the clan. Whoever wishes to become a member of any clan must above all pay his veneration to the fire of the house that belongs to the clan. Therefore the Mongolian bridegroom and bride must on their wedding day perform a fire-cult ceremony, which among them corresponds to the wedding. Fire is also protected in every way; one throws no things that cause bad odours into it, nor things that weaken its strength and flame. It is held to be a sin to pour water into the fire, to spit into it, etc. For the offerings thrown into the fire — such as wine, butter, and fat — its flame must be strengthened. It is forbidden to step across it, likewise to strike into it with a sharp object. Plano Carpini assures that the Mongols held it to be a sin to chop anything with an axe near the fire, or to take meat from a kettle with a knife under which the fire burned, or to stab into the fire with a knife.

Among the deities of the Buryats belongs the "Lord of the Fire," and the worship of fire is very developed in their religion. The object of this worship is in its original form the material fire, the flame. To the "Lord of the Fire" in the yurt, beside the three stones of the hearth, a tolγan or kirik, prepared from a sheep or a mare, is sacrificed. Even a poor Buryat, when he ate a slaughtered sheep, threw large pieces of meat into the fire for the "Lord of the Fire." It was also held to be a sin to poke in the fire of a hearth with a sharp object.

The above analysis of the fire cult and fire ceremonies of the Asian peoples allows indisputably noteworthy correspondences to emerge between the conceptions and customs of these peoples and of the peoples studied here. Quite apart from the fact that fire on both sides is the mediator of offerings between the sacrificers and the deities, a clear parallel development in regard to the object of fire veneration is to be observed — that is, in the old form fire is worshipped in an animalistic, physical manner; later one has begun to venerate "fire spirits," which then, with progressive anthropomorphisation, have assumed ever clearer human form and have developed into numerous persons such as "Mother Fire," "Lord of the Fire," "King of the Fire," and so forth. Although such a development could take place everywhere that fire was the object of cult veneration, yet certain obvious correspondences are to be noted, which, for example, even the nomenclature of the fire deities of the eastern Cheremis and of the Mongols reveals, though in the case of the former, influence from the neighbouring Turko-Tatars must also first be reckoned with. But also certain details connected with the form of the fire deity in the conceptions of the Cheremis point in this direction. The phrase occasionally encountered in the prayers of the Meadow Cheremis and regularly appearing in the sacrificial prayers of the eastern Cheremis — "Your flame is long, your tongue sharp" — is found, for example, in the Gilyak conceptions of the fire deity, and the Mongol views also point thereto.

But above all, those similarities are suited to awaken our attention that one observes in the conceptions on which the unity of fire and its character as clan property rest, as well as the customs and views pertaining to the fireplace, its ash, and certain objects connected with fire (the pot-hook chain, fire-making implements). The similarities in the body of customs and beliefs of the Wotjaks and certain North Asian peoples are so striking that one could derive them not only from a common world of ideas but also from a common cultural possession. When one further considers that the complex of customs and concepts in question belongs by its nature to the quite primitive, one can stretch the cultural perspective all the more widely, both temporally and locally.

At the same time, however, one must recall that also precisely on the Indo-European side a veneration of fire and of the domestic hearth is to be found that in several respects must be placed beside the cult of the eastern Finno-Ugrians — indeed even of the Finno-Ugrians in general.

A fire cult similar to the candle cult would also be found in the east, in the Buddhist cultural circle. In his description of the sacrificial ceremonies of the Kalmucks, Pallas mentions that candles burned before the burhan. During the festival ceremonies connected with the entry of the new moon, the Buryats bring out their burhan, their images of the gods, light a fire before them in the offering bowls into which cow's butter has been poured, set up lit yuda — candles made from aloe — and pray as families, bowing and saying: "O-ma-ni-bei-me-gum." The Mongols, according to Pallas, place a quantity of thin incense candles (küdschi) before their idols in small cones, since they can obtain them very advantageously through the Chinese trade. The Chinese manufacture these candles the thickness of a thin pencil and about one foot long. The Volga Kalmucks hold the Chinese and especially the Tibetan incense candles very dear; the Tibetan küdsche are even thinner than the Chinese, red or yellow in colour. In the Kalmuck idol-hut a special small candlestick is customary, on which a piece of a single candle burns as a rarity.

Russian and Other Indo-European Parallels

After our excursions into the northern and eastern world, we turn to the west and south. It is to be expected without further ado that especially for the Mordvin customs and views, points of connection will appear in the corresponding conceptions of the Indo-Europeans and especially on the Russian-Slavic side. And particularly in the latter direction, perspectives are to be found in the domain of candle rituals that in themselves appear, at least at first, to place the Mordvin-Cheremis candle cult — indeed even its origin — in a special light.

First, on this side one can establish the same respect for fire and the same precautionary measures as were mentioned above in the Finno-Ugric domain. The Russians, like many other Slavic peoples, give fire, especially fire produced by friction and fire caused by lightning, the epithet "living," and fire still finds the most manifold magical application, especially in cathartic or purification ceremonies. With fire one must deal cautiously in every way, for it can take revenge. The conceptions of the Ukrainians especially clearly reflect the sanctity of fire. Every good housewife must behave with reverence and caution towards the fire of the domestic hearth. Of fire one may say nothing unseemly; one may neither spit into it nor throw anything dirty into it; one may not play with the fire — indeed one may not sweep it with the same broom as the room. Every good housewife must cross herself before the fire and lay a water jug and a piece of firewood beside it, so that it may have something to eat and to drink.

In many Russian-Slavic complexes of popular customs, fire — especially the hearth fire and the hearth in general — is the central object of the ceremonies performed. This is the case to a very noteworthy degree in the marriage customs. Many of these customs belong as such and from the standpoint of their general content of ideas to the syndiasmic ceremonies, but in their consideration it is impossible not to notice that they relate especially extensively precisely to the domestic hearth.

As such they are often at the same time common Indo-European, so that one can find for them numerous parallels in India, Greece, Rome, and in the customs of many other Indo-European peoples. The circumambulation of the fireplace and the fire sacrifice belong to the most important ceremonies at the ancient Indian weddings. Before the fire sacrifice, the bridegroom and the bride went around the fire, which occurred three times, alternating with repeated fire sacrifice and with the ceremony of stepping on the stone. The Romans, at the confarreatio, sacrificed in the house of the bride a far bread to the fire, after the participants had gone in procession around the sacrificial altar. The most general form of the circumambulation of the fire or the fireplace among the present-day Indo-European peoples is the leading around or going around of the bride or the married couple around the fire or the fireplace.

Also among the Russians, ceremonies relating to the oven occur in the wedding customs, although not very commonly. In the Governorate of Novgorod, the young wife, after being brought to the bridegroom's house, is led first to the oven, where the dress of the married woman is put on her. In western Russia, the young wife, after her arrival at the new house, takes a black chicken from her skirt and throws it under the oven.

On the Finno-Ugric side, ceremonies relating to the fireplace (the oven) are found in the wedding customs of precisely those peoples who have been subjected to the influence of the surrounding Indo-European peoples to a greater extent. Thus, for example, in the Mordvin ceremonies in the bridegroom's house, the leading of the bride to the oven or the performance of certain ceremonies (the conferring of a new name, the entertainment of the bride by the mother-in-law, etc.) near the oven occurs. Among the Estonians, the fire ceremony presents itself in a much more characteristic form: the entire wedding company went to a tree designated for burning, which was chopped up and lit; then the peiopois led the bride three times around the fire, while three weapon-bearers held their swords crosswise three times above the bride's head.

In the corresponding features of the Cheremis wedding customs, such ceremonies are generally absent, and one cannot find that they had a fixed place in the wedding customs of the Wotjaks either. On the latter side, however, two quite special accounts of the circumambulation of fire are to be noted. One such confronts us firstly in Buch's description of the procession around the fireplace. This took place in the summer dwelling, the kugla, whose fireplace was circumambulated three times in procession. Each time one stopped before the icon in the corner and made the sign of the cross. From the same source we learn that in the bride's house, before the departure for the bridal journey, one went three times with songs around a candle fastened in the centre of the room in the pine-chip holder. A confirmation of this latter report is found in the description of a wedding custom by Kožomnikov, which refers to the Sarapul district, where it is related that the Wotjaks, before the departure for the bridal journey, set up in the centre of the room a candle fastened on a pedestal, around which they went three times with song. Then oste inmar was asked for good fortune, and one wandered three more times around the candle.

The ceremonies relating to the oven in the Mordvin wedding customs stand evidently in close analogy with corresponding Russian-Slavic ones. They, as well as many other ceremonies connected with the oven appearing in the wedding customs of the Slavs and also of other Indo-Europeans, often no longer relate to the hearth, still less to the veneration of fire, but belong to the long syndiasmic series of wedding ceremonies, whose purpose is to acquaint the bride with those places in her new home with which she will have most to do, so that they are to be compared, for instance, with the leading of the young wife to the well or into the cow shed. In this context the belief in spirits must also be considered, for the oven and the space beneath it are often regarded as the dwelling place of the house spirit (the domovoy) and of the ancestors.

In contrast, the corresponding customs of the Estonians and Wotjaks, in which the candle appears as the central point, can reflect more original conceptions relating to fire and the domestic hearth, which need not be Russian nor Indo-European borrowed goods. In the ceremonies of the Wotjaks, the candle has evidently become a substitute for the hearth, after the Wotjaks had passed from the original open hearth of the hut to the dwelling house equipped with an oven.

The Actual Candle Ceremonies in West and South Russia

In the Russian-Slavic and especially in the west and south Russian customs, quite interesting points are to be found in the actual candle ceremonies and in the use of the ritual candle, which are to be brought into a closer connection above all with the candle ceremonies of the Mordvins. Among the latter, a cycle of ceremonies practised by the Moksha in the Governorate of Penza is to be found, to which it was peculiar that they were observed as central ceremonies of certain brotherhoods, according to which the štatol candle was called "Brotherhood Candle" or "Candle of the Brotherhood." The brotherhoods rested for their part, in their composition, upon the clan order of the Mordvins.

According to Ankhnotku, among the popular annual festivals of the Slavs there were, among others, "brotherhood festivals" (bratčiny), for whose celebration foodstuffs were collected from the whole village community and beer was brewed in common. When the respected members of the community in White Russia wish to celebrate together the festival of some saint, they do it as a brotherhood (bratčina). The members of the brotherhood manufacture for the festival at their own expense a great candle, hold a prayer, and arrange a feast. The brotherhood festivals, which are mentioned in the manuscripts of the monasteries frequently up to the seventeenth century, were celebrated both in the towns and in the village communities; often they were also celebrated in the pogosts, and they took place mostly in the autumn.

These candle celebrations held by brotherhoods are evidently very old on Russian-Slavic soil. It is especially to be noted that they were celebrated chiefly in south and west Russian territory. Their designation could simply be svecha — "candle" — and the persons who celebrated the candle festival were called "brotherhood members" (bratčiki). The brotherhood members in the Governorates of Smolensk and Kaluga procure the wax necessary for the candle and knead (roll) it in common, and in common they brew beer and malt drink (braga). In some descriptions it is asserted that the candle manufactured by the members of the brotherhood had the form of a human being, whose eyes were made of copper coins: it had hands and was clothed in a small shirt.

Among the peasants of the Governorate of Mogilev, it was the custom to celebrate a candle festival in the house in honour of a saint. The celebration is usually held in the autumn — for example, on Michaelmas Day (September 8th), Gregory's Day (November 26th), Barbara's Day (December 4th), or St. Nicholas' Day (December 6th). One or more householders arrange a collection, buy wax, and on the eve of the day designated as the festival, they call together people who are to manufacture the candle. The candle is placed on a rye bin beneath the icons. The "community candle" belonging to several householders passes at the end of the year, in turn and with festive ceremonies, into the keeping of one householder for a year. Every year the candle is renewed — that is, before the festival one adds wax to it, and in the course of some years it reaches a weight of over one pud. Then it is brought by the householder, if the candle belongs to one person, or by the comrades, if it is the property of several, to the priest and with common consent sold as utility wax, while the proceeds are given to the church fund.

For St. Stephen's Day (December 27th), funds are collected for a "Stephen's Candle." For the money that has flowed in, a candle of yellow wax is procured, the weight of which amounts to one to two pud. The candle is brought into the church and placed on a specially made candlestick before the image of St. Stephen and lit. It is the duty of the "householders" to light this candle on all feast days during an entire year until December 27th, when it is replaced by a new one. For the Annunciation (March 25th), the maidens procure a candle for the icon of the Mother of God. The money for procuring the candle is obtained by collection, and the weight of the candle amounts to one to two pud. On the feast day, the girls bring the candle into the church before the commencement of the service and set it up on a specially prepared base before the image of the Mother of God. It is the duty of the maidens to light this candle on all feast and holy days during one year, after which a new one is procured in its place.

In the volosts of Igumensk and Pogorelsk in the Governorate of Grodno, celebrations called bogači are arranged for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (September 8th). The centrepiece of this festival is the bogač or bogatec, which consists of a grooved disc of bast bark filled with rye, into which a wax candle is set. The householder whose turn it is keeps the bogač for a whole year, and the place of the bogač is beneath the icons. On the feast day the candle is lit and the priest called to read a mass, which is held first in the house where the bogač happens to be. Thereupon the householder, walking behind the priest, brings the bogač to another house, where the residents await him. For the reception, a table covered with a white cloth is set up in the yard, upon which are placed discs of bast bark with rye, wheat, and other grain. The bogač is set in the grain lying on the table, and thereupon a short mass is held. The priest and all those present are invited to the feast in the living room, while the bogač is placed in the corner by the head of the table. In this manner, all houses are visited in turn. When this is done, the bogač is led around the livestock. Thereupon it is brought to the householder whose turn it is, and remains there the whole year. In some localities, the rye and wax necessary for the bogač are collected throughout the whole village, and they are only exchanged when the bogač has been in turn in every house, or when the candle has burned down. Elsewhere, the householder whose turn it is exchanges the rye and the wax every year, the requisite rye being shaken out from the first "harvest sheaf."

For these communally celebrated candle ceremonies of the people, correspondences can be found in the ceremonies of the guilds that were celebrated in the west Slavic towns. In White Russia, the merchants of almost all White Russian towns and of the populous localities called the clergy into their houses at the time of the great church festivals during the period of Polish rule and held banquets, for which mead drink was specially prepared. Since the brewing of mead was a royal prerogative, the merchants and citizens of the towns of Vilno, Minsk, Vitebsk, Orsha, Mstislavl, Krichev, and others petitioned the King of Poland for permission to brew mead themselves tax-free for certain feast days and to use it solely and exclusively during this time and for this purpose. The members of the candle community collected for each festival up to ten pud of honey. From these communities, brotherhoods were formed that had community houses (obščestvennye domy) in which they gathered. In order to obtain means for increasing the income of the candle communities, in the large towns these brotherhoods also turned to the Orthodox and founded schools, charitable institutions, and other useful establishments.

Later there have been two kinds of "candle prayer celebrations": first, private ones, wherein the head of some family, on account of an occurrence in his life, makes the sacred resolve to hold such a festival every year. He takes from the priest a church candle stub for the candle and adds wax. The candle he sets up in the room beneath the icons on a small disc of bast bark filled with rye or wheat. Then he holds the celebration, to which relatives and acquaintances come. The guests bring wax for the enlargement of the candle or give money for the purchase of wax. Since the householder adds wax to the candle year after year, it weighs no less than two pud after the lapse of four years. When the candle becomes very heavy, the householder removes its upper part, where it is lit, and brings everything else to the church, and finally, when the candle has been further and further enlarged, he sells the wax on the advice of the priest and uses the money to purchase a new Gospel book, a chalice, or other church equipment, for the acquisition of a church bell, or for the repair of the church.

Another kind of candle festival takes place among several persons living in the same place or market town. The candle used therein is called a "community" or "village community candle"; it is procured communally and passes annually from one house to another. The participants are called (Governorate of Mogilev) "brotherhood members" (bratčiki), and the candles are kept in rye-filled vessels of bast bark.

In a handwritten description of the brotherhood celebrations in the village community of Luznick, Zizdrin district, Governorate of Kaluga, the conjecture is expressed concerning these festivals that their origin goes back to the time when the Lithuanians passed through these regions. In order to thank God for having saved the people from the enemy, a peasant began collecting candles and wax from all the heads of families for a common so-called Brotherhood Candle. This Brotherhood Candle was kept for one year in turn by each householder. The candle sometimes weighs four pud and even more, and it is "very ugly." On church feast days it was brought into the church and placed before the image of the saint whose feast day it happened to be. When it was brought from the church into the festive house, the householder added half a pound or even more of wax; the invited guests did the same. The candle was kept in some cold room or storeroom. When the brotherhood candle has gone around all the houses of the village (that is, for example, after a hundred years if there are a hundred houses in the village), it is brought into the church, and a part of the wax is sold for the procurement of an icon, a part is melted down into candles of ordinary size, and the foundation is laid for a new Brotherhood Candle.

As regards these east and west Russian candle rites, the communal character of these celebrations emerges clearly from the descriptions, and, especially with regard to those celebrated among the people, the circumstance that in this connection various kinds of grain (rye, wheat, and others) appear very regularly as a closely connected accompaniment of the candle and as a concrete attribute of the ceremonies.

From the foregoing it has also become clear that in the old White Russian territory, the candle ceremonies celebrated by brotherhoods appear as a kind of guild rites of the merchant and citizen class. We shall first consider the brotherhood and guild character of these celebrations and ceremonies.

The name Brotherhood (bratčina) and the associations and unions so designated are evidently very old on Slavic-Russian soil. This name was used for the old Russian communal festivals. Old Russian sources report on them — for example, episcopal pastoral letters already from the twelfth century onward. The bishops inveighed against the holding of these festivals, which with their drinking bouts, brawls, and antiquated customs were in their view pagan. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, the period about which reports exist, these drinking bouts and the bratčiny seem to have been connected with certain annual and saints' festivals of the Catholic Church. For this purpose, a common fund was established in the village from which the means for the banquets were procured. As central festivals of the village community, they could certainly bear a very ancient character resting on social customs. This is evident, on the one hand, from the fact that at their arrangement communally collected food and drink were used, and on the other, from the fact that within the circle of these communities and brotherhoods their own legal practice also existed. Customs and ceremonies reaching back to ancient times are further indicated by the fact that they seem initially to have had the character of drinking bouts at which games and brawls took place and jugglers, soothsayers, and bear leaders appeared.

In the Nestorian Chronicle, mention is made of jugglers and of such communal festivals that were celebrated when the churches were empty. A peculiarity of these festivals was also the use of masks, various kinds of disguise, the performance of song and music, and dances. All this has also given the Russian scholar A. N. Popov occasion to see the origin of the bratčiny festivals and drinking bouts in old Russian pagan ceremonies. Their development into ceremonies taking place in connection with the annual and church festivals would then also not be difficult to trace, proceeding from this ground.

From the foregoing it has already become clear that the bratčiny festivals in the Polish-White Russian territory also appear connected with the guild system of the towns and market towns.

The Russian scholar J. A. Srebnickij has directed his attention particularly to the Little Russian church brotherhoods, whose field of activity and "historical arena" he considers to be the right bank of the Dnieper. According to his view, their origin is connected with the guild system of the towns there, which arose from the organisation of industrial conditions after the German manner, through the influence of the so-called Magdeburg Law. The craftsmen's guilds (remeslennye cechi) originated in Germany and came from there with the Magdeburg Law into the Polish-Lithuanian realm. The guilds (cechi) formed associations of compatriots practising the same trade and living near the same church. In southwestern Russia, the guilds did not organise themselves by nationalities, but precisely here the religious principle had great significance among them. Within them the Catholic and the Orthodox faiths clashed. Each guild had its own chapel, into whose funds the guild dues and monetary fines flowed (most commonly in the form of wax).

According to the same author's view, the victorious Catholic doctrine and its cult, as well as the general aspiration in the towns to organise corporatively, also awakened among the Orthodox the desire to form their own guilds and brotherhoods. The guilds to be found in Little Russia in later times appear in two forms. First, as actual church brotherhoods, which are found primarily in church villages, peasant villages, and other peasant settlements. Precisely these brotherhoods correspond, at least in their form, to the old Orthodox church brotherhoods. Second, in the towns and market towns, church brotherhoods occur that arose after the model of the old craftsmen's guilds, such as existed in the west Russian towns.

Among the ceremonies observed at the "brotherhood meals" of these brotherhoods is the brewing and drinking of mead. From the means of the brotherhood, a sufficient quantity of honey is purchased, from which the mead is prepared. It is brewed without hops and is therefore only "honey water." The necessary honey is bought in the form of honeycombs, and the wax remaining from these is used for the manufacture of candles for the church as well as for the making of the candlesticks that the members of the brotherhood place in the church during mass. In addition, some brotherhood members have special candles of their own, which they light before the icons.

Although at some later communal celebrations of ecclesiastical character the so-called Brotherhood Candle (bratskaja svecha) is still in use, it is to be regarded as an accidental and isolated case. On the other hand, the brotherhoods are a permanent institution that with its definite organisational form has existed for decades, if not centuries.

The Relationship of the West and South Russian Candle Ceremonies to the Corresponding Mordvin Ones

From the above consideration of the customs in south and west Russia, it has thus first emerged that in these areas since ancient times, both in the countryside and in the towns, the custom has prevailed of celebrating certain communal festivals, among whose central features belong the use of mead and wax candles. They seem to be founded partly on the ancient Russian popular drinking bouts celebrated within a certain community, and partly to have formed themselves after the model of the occidental guild system. In their later form they have attached themselves to the ecclesiastical annual and saints' festivals, but especially as candle ceremonies they have also here preserved their communal, brotherhood character. The central outward attribute of the general brotherhood ceremonies has been the wax candle of the "village community" or "brotherhood," which according to the nature of the ceremonies has reached quite large proportions, so that it could with full justification be called "great."

Already these circumstances justify one in seeing in the Mordvin štatol cult and in the veneration of the "great candle" of the Cheremis an undeniable connection with the corresponding brotherhood candle celebrations in south and west Russia. Especially as the Mordvin candle ceremonies appear, according to the description of Jevsevjev, among the Moksha in the Governorate of Penza — evidently celebrated in brotherhood fashion, as well as otherwise in the details — they correspond to the Russian ones described above. The ceremonies of the "great candle" denomination among the Cheremis also move, at least partially, into a new light when supported by this mode of consideration.

Before, however, a final assessment of the ceremonial wax fire of the Mordvins and Cheremis is undertaken, some special features of the candle cult must still be considered.

The customs of the Moksha in the Governorate of Penza described by Jevsevjev deserve attention especially because they, celebrated particularly by the women, evidently appear as phallistic and fertility rites. Among the implements of the ceremonies were peculiar crooked sticks, on which there were, among other things, a bag filled with millet corn and balls made of red cloth that represented the testicles of a foal. In the prayers, one asked especially for growth for the grain and for rich increase of the livestock. Connected with this was also the flogging with willow branches pertaining to fertility rites, and so forth. The candle was kept in storerooms or otherwise in connection with grain, and the livestock was blessed with it (cf. above, pp. 31 ff.). In the Russian-Slavic candle ceremonies, the ritual candle is set upon a disc of bast bark (a box of bast bark) containing grain (rye, wheat, etc.). The connection of the ritual candle with the fertility rites is thus evident on both sides. This side of the candle cult, too, shall be subjected to a more detailed consideration.

The White Russian bogač stands, already by its designation and its application, clearly in a close connection with the fertility rites. This ritual candle, too, is kept on a grain-containing base; the livestock is also blessed with it, whereby one certainly thinks first of their increase and thriving. Bogdanovich, the describer of the bogač celebrations, has already assumed that "the bogač is a deity of agriculture of pre-Christian times, a variety of the sun god Dažd-bog, to which its name also points." The bogač celebrations coincide with the autumnal equinox, which points to sun veneration.

The relationship of the candles and candle ceremonies to fertility rites has already been established by the Russian scholar A. Afanasiev, and indeed again in west Russian territory. In Srjeteni in the Governorate of Vitebsk, a festival is celebrated that in the western governorates of Russia is called gromnica; for this, every householder consecrates a wax candle for himself, which he keeps in the grain storehouse. During the sowing and the harvest, this candle is brought out to the fields.

Fire, particularly the fire of the homestead, seems also to have had its use and its special significance in the fertility ceremonies of the Russians as well as of the other Indo-European peoples. On the days when the fields are manured and ploughed, the peasants under no circumstances give fire from their house. They believe that the grain of the person who gives fire to a stranger does not grow, and that conversely the grain of the person who receives the requested fire thrives well. But also at all other times, the peasants are reluctant to give fire away, from fear of damage to house and livestock. When they yield fire to someone, they do so on the condition that the burning coals, as soon as the fire has been kindled with them, are returned to them immediately. The person who never refuses fire to his neighbours loses his fortune, and his grain cannot hold its own against the weeds in the field.

Baltic Finnish Parallels

Especially within the circle of the fertility rites, we also find in the customs and religious conceptions of the Baltic Finns — first among the Estonians — features that simultaneously connect themselves in the most interesting manner with the candle cult.

In the well-known catalogue of Karelian gods by Agricola, one encounters as a special deity of the growth of barley pellonpecko. M. J. Eisen in his time directed attention to pellonpecko and to the connection with the peko of the Setukese in Estonia. The peko of the Setukese is, however, not exclusively a god of barley, but a deity for all kinds of grain and even for cattle-raising. "Peko appears not merely as a deity but at the same time also as an idol." Peko is usually made of wax. He is given the form of a child, sometimes of a three-year-old child. According to another tradition, Peko is said to have been provided with a calf's head and painted with colour. Peko is kept in the grain barn, specifically in the grain bin. In special cases, however, he also undertakes wanderings — that is, he is led out to the fields.

Peko is venerated within a special group. The worshippers of Peko often form a special circle. About twenty persons are admitted to such a circle. Peko himself lodges in turn, now with one, now with another worshipper. In honour of Peko, two festivals are celebrated annually, one in the spring, the other in the autumn. At the spring festival, only the men participate; at the other festival, the women as well. However, the women dress as men for the Peko festival. Before the autumn festival begins, the women go to all the worshippers of Peko and collect gifts for the festival. Money, eggs, butter, brandy, cloth, and so on are donated. The Peko festivals always take place at night. Soon after sunset, all the worshippers of Peko gather for the merry festival at the home of the one with whom Peko is located. When all have assembled, the Peko keeper covers the windows so that no uninvited eye may behold the guests. The keeper takes a small bedsheet with the assistance of two guests and betakes himself to Peko. In the barn, the householder approaches Peko with reverence, wraps him in the sheet, takes him in his arms, and brings him to the guests. Peko is set up in the middle of the room. While the guests initially showed the newcomer reverence, they soon behave quite tactlessly towards him, take their places in a circle, and turn their backs to Peko. Each takes out his food supplies and begins his meal. Nothing is given to Peko.

Of the other ceremonies of the festival, it may be mentioned that one dances round dances and sings:

Peko, our deity,
Protect our herd,
Guard our horses,
Watch over our grain!

Further, it is to be noted that among the ceremonies of the Peko festival belong running, fighting, jumping, and so on. According to the author's view, the purpose of these ceremonies is "to draw blood." The blood is to decide which of the guests may claim to harbour Peko the entire next year. That guest from whom the blood first appears has the right and the duty to open his premises to Peko for the next year.

So that Peko may give the fields more prosperity, he must sometimes betake himself to the field together with his householder. According to the belief of the Setukese, the presence of Peko in the field has a blessed effect, especially during the sowing season. If sowing takes place under Peko's presence, the Setukese hope for an especially rich harvest.

According to the above, the visible object of the Peko cult of the Setukese was a wax image in the form of a child. In the year 1933, a wooden image was found in the Setukese country, which is preserved in the National Museum of Estonia. This image had been kept by its owner in his storeroom and was called Peko. Here special attention is drawn to seven depressions in the head of the image, which were evidently holes for the fastening of candles. All seven openings are plugged with candle stubs, which have remained principally from tallow candles and to a smaller extent from wax candles such as are burned before the icons of the Russian church. The idol itself is very primitively carved from birch wood, forty-eight centimetres high including the cross-shaped base. The last owner kept the idol in the grain bin.

As regards the Estonian Peko cult in general, it may be concluded from the descriptions of the Estonian Folklore Archives that only very few of the correspondents of the museum who collected the reports about Peko have themselves seen a Peko. The oldest report (1888) mentions no form of Peko at all; it speaks only of candles that are lit for the Peko festival. These Peko festival candles also remain the link that connects all further descriptions in their content. Besides wax and tallow candles, tar and resin candles are also mentioned. According to some reports, Peko is a formless piece of wax; according to others, a teapot, a spinning wheel, or a candlestick; he is also said to have had animal form, or to have been made of straw coated with wax. Very consistently, the reporters assert that Peko was a human form moulded from wax and had the size of a three-year-old child (cf. above, the description of M. J. Eisen). According to the newer "fairly credible" reports, it may be established that Peko, at least in more recent times, was carved from wood.

The Estonian-Setukese Peko cult is celebrated annually on several feast days — namely, at Pentecost, at Midsummer, in the autumn after the harvest, and at Candlemas. In addition, Peko is carried out to the field at the time of sowing. The greatest significance seems to have been attached to the spring festivals and the harvest festivals in the autumn. Since Peko was the property of a certain community, he was kept each year alternately in the grain storehouse of one of the members of the community concerned. He changed his current keeper usually during the autumn festivities. The feast was followed by a fight, whereby the members of the community sought to wound one another. Whoever bled first — into that person's keeping Peko betook himself for the next year (cf. above, Eisen). The homeland of Peko is the northwestern part of Setumaa (Setukesia) on the old Livonian border, where the Peko worshippers are all inhabitants of a certain group of villages.

When one compares the Peko cult of the Setukese especially with the south and west Russian candle ceremonies celebrated by brotherhoods, the close connection becomes entirely evident. On both sides, the central objects of the ceremonies are the wax and the candles made from wax, and the cult takes place as a principal ceremony within a certain community. The candle, the wax image, or the image of Peko is kept for one year by each member of the cult community. At the same time, from the Setukese-Estonian cult, the fertility-ritual character of the Peko veneration doubtless emerges: the cult object is, on the latter side, just as in south and west Russia, kept in the grain storehouse; the celebrations for it take place principally at the time of sowing and of the grain harvest, and it is brought to the fields for the time of sowing.

The closer consideration of the cults of the two ethnic circles also reveals still other noteworthy parallels. For the oldest communally celebrated Russian candle festivals, evidently already reaching back into old Russian times, it was peculiar that they were especially connected with primitive national festive customs, to which games, masquerades, disguises, bear exhibitions, fights, and drinking bouts were proper. In the customs of the Setukese, where blood had to flow during the fights taking place during the festivities, there are also in this respect points of contact with the former.

But even more decisive does the similar character of these communal wax or candle ceremonies become in the light of one detail. Based on the description of the Setukese-Estonian Peko ceremonies, one can conclude with considerable certainty that the oldest outward and sensibly perceptible objects of the Peko cult were wax, images made from wax, or human-shaped images containing wax only as supplementary material. Similarly, it was also in the west Russian candle cult celebrated by brotherhoods. The ritual candle in the Governorates of Smolensk and Kaluga had human form, with eyes (copper coins as eyes), hands, and a small shirt.

Without for the present looking into the manner in which the wax and candle cult (or the Peko veneration) has become linked with the Orthodox church and annual festivals, let us still discuss "Ukko's Bushel" (Ukon vakka) among the Finns, the vakkove of the Ingrians, and the so-called tönn veneration of the Estonians.

Ukko's Bushel

The Finnish research into ancient pagan religion and religious conceptions has already very early and innumerable times later directed attention to "Ukko's Bushel" (Ukon vakka) among the Karelians, which is mentioned in the metrical introduction to the Finnish Psalter translation of Agricola from the year 1551. Reports about it as a special sacrificial festival or a procedure pointing to sacrifice, as well as the people's memories relating thereto, have been preserved into late times. A festival corresponding to Ukko's Bushel, by the name of vakkove festival, was celebrated in Ingria more widely than in Finland, and since the 1850s there have been records of it.

Peculiar to the Finnish vakka celebrations was that they were connected with agriculture. In Rautalampi, around the mid-1850s, it was told that in a very dry summer, on the advice of a traveller, one began "to hold Ukko's Bushel" so that the thunder god Ukko would be appeased. The narrator himself had heard of Ukko's Bushel that on a certain day in early summer, as an offering to Ukko or to the thunder, the best sheep of the farmstead was slaughtered. The cooked meat of the sheep, as well as a little of all the other foodstuffs of the house, was placed in a bushel-shaped box made of birch bark, which, together with the things necessary for the actual feast, along with brandy and beer, was brought to Ukko's hill and there left untouched for the night.

Many other accounts, too, speak of Ukko's Bushel being set up in order to avert drought that had occurred. At the Ukonvakka festival, which was celebrated every year, lots were drawn as to in which farmstead it should be celebrated the next year. It was the duty of this farmstead, in the spring, when it did not rain for a long time, to place rye and barley in vessels on the roof of the dwelling house. From the grain, malt and beer were then made, which was regarded as especially blessed. Then the prayer day (the prayer festival) was held in the open. The men and women of the whole village, the older ones especially, gathered at the farmstead. The tables, chairs, and benches were carried outside. They ate piroggi, sweet kissel, milk soup, milk, and butter and drank beer. A prayer was also said — one prayed for the field crops, that God would give the necessary weather. The festival took place during the rainless period in June, and in Ukko's Bushel nobody ever placed anything edible. For the person who was permitted to hold it, it was an honour, and all went there willingly.

The celebration of the vakkove festival among the Ingrians had become established on certain days of the Greek Catholic Church. The houses of the village used to hold, though more rarely, vakkove drinking bouts in turn. More common was it that the village elder collected the means necessary for the communal festival in each house according to the number of inhabitants. As a disappearing custom, it has been observed several times that the banquets took place in a fenced sacrificial grove. The usual procedure was that the festival participants, after the divine service, proceeded under the leadership of the clergyman to the festival ground; sometimes one went around the fields of the village for the purpose of blessing. At the festival ground, the clergyman blessed the beer vessels. The actual festival ceremonies began with the girls striking up, as the case might be, the Petra or Ilia melody. In the festival song, a detailed enumeration was given of what one had to offer to the saint to whom the festival was dedicated. In Lenttinen, in the parish of Hevaa, according to the record of V. Porkka, the entire festival and the festival song were dedicated to Ukko. When the drinking bouts had lasted a while, the participants moved into individual houses to continue the festival. To this it is to be added that in some places the blessing of the livestock, and indeed even animal sacrifices, belonged to the festival programme. A communally procured ox was slaughtered and eaten; the head, hooves, and entrails were thrown as a sacrifice into the river, so that nobody would be drowned there. On the fifth and also on the sixth day, drinking was sometimes continued, and a cock was sacrificed, which was prepared for a meal in which only the men participated.

Even if the immediate purpose of these ceremonies seems to have been especially the bringing about of rain for growth, they are yet in a more general sense connected with fertility rites. From the standpoint of our theme, what interests us about them is the bushel dedicated to Ukko, the thunder deity, and its generalisation into a communal sacrificial and drinking festival. According to Korhonen, the area of distribution of the custom in Finland is geographically unified and as such relatively narrow, for it is known only in Karelian-Savoian territory or at least in the border district thereof. In western Finland it is completely unknown, as is also the whole Ukko cult. The Ukko cult in Finland was, however, not limited only to Karelia but was also practised in Häme, as evidenced, for example, by a trial document from the year 1662 in the parish of Hauho. The Finns in Värmland in central Scandinavia have preserved the Ukko cult, where it finds expression as a fertility festival and sacrifice for the conjuring of rain. It is to be assumed that this cult, like many other phenomena of Finnish ethnography, was originally Common Finnic and has been preserved in later times chiefly among the Karelians.

The Estonian tönn Cult

Stimulated by the research into Finnish mythology and Finnish religious conceptions, and following the Finnish example, the Estonian scholars in the first period of their national awakening wished to see in the past of their own people Common Finnic, indeed even such features as were traced back to the assumed primordial Altaic state of the Finnish peoples, and above all they wished to find in their own folk poetry the same mythical personages as had been encountered in Finnish folk poetry. On this literary-historical path, there probably also arose in Estonia Ukko and Ukko's Bushel (Ukkowakk), which E. B. Kreutzwald first transplanted into Estonian folklore. Of Ukko's Bushel, the aforementioned scholar knew to relate, among other things, that such a one, dedicated to Ukko, had to exist in every house, that it was made either of birch bark or of thin splints of resinous wood and was provided with a lid. In the bushel there always had to be a candle stub as well as various sacrificial offerings, for which small coins and miniature articles of clothing served, which looked like doll's clothes. The researcher of the Finnish vakka institution, Arvi Korhonen, has attempted to demonstrate the inauthenticity of Kreutzwald's reports, or at least that some scholarly theories had coloured them.

Recently, O. Loorits has sought to show, on the basis of data collected by the Estonian Folklore Archives, that the view of Estonian uku as a common heritage from Finno-Estonian religion is entirely to be rejected. First, it should be noted that the Estonian term uku has also been conflated with the word family hukk, hukkama — "to perish." In the folk speech on the coast of Virumaa, ukku occurs in any case also in the meaning of thunderstorm. In Virumaa, the conceptions of uku-bushel, uku-stone, uku-trees, uku-grove, and uku-festival are also known. The name uku appears sporadically also elsewhere in Estonia, from which fact one may conclude that the Finnish ukko has spread, not merely through literary mediation or from the Ingrians, as was formerly assumed, but probably also through Finnish colonists in Estonia.

As regards the term ukko, it may really be so. What seems to remain, however, is the fact that the Estonians have had sacrificial vessels called vakka, that the bushel has been attributed an influence on fertility, and that in the middle of winter a vakka festival was arranged.

If, therefore, with regard to the Estonian ukonwakk, insofar as it concerns the authenticity of the reports and the designation ukko, matters may stand as indicated above, the Estonians have had a vakka cult that appears under the name tõnn bushel and that must be brought into connection with the Finnish-Ingrian bushel.

The Estonian doctor Erwin Jürgens published in 1900, stimulated by the Finnish doctor Max Buch, an article in which he brings both concrete and vivid reports on the tönn cult of the Estonians. In this description, too, there are probably deficient and incorrectly grasped observations, indeed even points that approach suspiciously near the character of falsifications. But it is not to be denied that Jürgens at the same time adduces extremely important arguments concerning the tönn bushel of the Estonians. He was able, namely, to recover in the commune of Vändra the probably only tönn bushel to have reached the hands of researchers, and also in many other respects his data give a factual and reliable impression.

Besides the description of Jürgens, there also exist a quantity of other depictions and reports concerning the Estonian tönn. According to them, the name for that bushel cult appears as tönn, which is a derivation from Antonius and is to be found in manifold variants. The data on the external appearance of the tönn are quite variable. According to most reports, the representative of the tönn was a piece of a wax candle, of which it is sometimes mentioned that it must have come from a church, or was merely a stump of wax in the form of a candle. Sometimes a candlestick also belonged to this candle. At times the wax was shaped like a small doll. Furthermore, the tönn could be a simple piece of wood in the form of a candle stub. In other cases — except when the tönn was a usable candle — it was dressed in doll's clothes. As clothing, shirt, skirt, trousers, and stockings are usually mentioned. Sometimes the clothing could also be limited to the image being wrapped in a cloth rag with the garments lying beside it. The clothing was in places considered so essential for the image of the tönn that even a mere rag doll could pass for him. Firmly connected with the tönn were his place of storage and his offering vessel, the bushel. This was a small vessel in which the tönn was placed and into which one also generally put the offerings. In form it was square, woven from pine splints, birch bark, or straw. The vessel was designated either simply as vakk (bushel) or with the name of its spirit — thus tönn-vakk, küünlavakk ("candle bushel"), or tondivakk. According to one report, one dared not call it a tönise bushel, but used only the name küünlavakk (candle bushel). Corresponding to the significance that the bushel was supposed to have for its owner, the name õnnevakk ("fortune bushel") was also employed.

It is reported that the bushel was generally kept either in the house — more precisely, in the attic of the dwelling house — or, most frequently of all, in the storehouse, preferably on the upper floor. Besides this, it is unambiguously attested that the tönn and his bushel were placed out of doors. One informant reports that all offerings were brought to the tönn hill, as the stone heaps in the middle of the fields were called. Of the bushels of the tönn, it is stated that they were long to be found in every house and that the tönn veneration in every house of the villages where this cult prevailed was practised separately.

For the assessment of the nature of the tönn worship, those observations are especially decisive that the Estonian linguist M. Weske has made in this regard. First, the tönn according to his observations was represented by a wax candle, and among its cult ceremonies belonged not only that this candle was burned, but above all that it was dipped into liquid wax. The older the candle, the thicker it was, and the more effectively it could help its worshippers. In every village there was one tönn that was the oldest and most esteemed. At his master's, the others gathered to speak of tönn. According to another report, the most esteemed tönn of the village was also offered to by others than the people of its own house. The tönn deity was later also called Jüri and Katri and so forth, and offerings were made to it on the days dedicated to these saints. The saints were also brought to visit one another.

When one compares the Setukese-Estonian peko cult with the general Estonian tönn veneration, so many palpable connections and points of reference emerge that in my opinion nothing prevents seeing in them one cult form going back to a common foundation. The most central outward object of both is, in the initial stage, wax or human-shaped images made from wax; later, wax or other candles. Both, but above all peko, have a clear relationship to fertility, to the growth of grain, and to prosperity: they are for the most part kept in the grain storehouses, and they are (especially peko) brought to the field for the time of sowing and of the grain harvest, and so on.

Besides this, one can observe in the veneration of peko and tönn also divergences, although closer consideration can reveal them rather as a gradual difference of some aspect of the veneration than as a conceptual or fundamental distinction. In the Peko cult, the communal, "brotherhood" side emerges much more clearly and strikingly than in the tönn veneration. But neither does the tönn cult lack indications thereof, as may be concluded from the above description by Weske, according to which others besides the people of one's own house also offered to the most esteemed tönn of the village.

In the foregoing, the close correspondence of the Setukese-Estonian peko veneration with those west and south Russian wax and candle ceremonies has been established whose origin they evidently derive already from the old Russian popular communal village festivals, which on both sides, as a result of later development, have assumed a strongly ecclesiastical character, so that they are celebrated as ecclesiastical saints' and annual feast days or combine with other ecclesiastical rites of those days. It seems entirely unventuresome to see in the peko veneration of the Setukese a cult going back to the same root as, for example, the veneration of the west Russian bogač, which, concentrating itself generally on wax and candles, appears first in the form of fertility rites and is practised communally. Geographically immediately bordering on the Russian habitation area, the inhabitants of Setukesia have incorporated into their culture in numerous other ethnographic respects many Russian features, a process that has also been facilitated by the common Greek Catholic religion.

In the other parts of the Estonian territory, where the religion is Lutheran and which have been subject for centuries to cultural influences from the south and west, this cult, evidently sprung from the same root, has assumed other forms and lost many original features. There are naturally various stratifications and moments pointing to different religious directions. Among other things, features of the saint veneration of the Catholic Church have evidently been interwoven, to which the designation (Antonius > tönn) also points. This seems also to have been linked with the veneration of the house spirit, for the name tönn alternates also with the designation tont (house spirit). Finally, it may also have had a relationship to the belief in the dead. But the most original forms of the tönn as well as the peko veneration do not permit the conjecture to be uttered that they might derive from the Catholic sphere of belief; rather, they entitle us to seek their origin in the same direction in which our investigation has chiefly moved.

Before, however, we develop a final view of the peko and tönn veneration, the origin and significance of the cultic wax fire in the entire circle to which our investigation has hitherto extended must be set forth.

The Cultural-Historical Layers of the Candle Cult

When we take into account everything that has emerged above concerning the fire and especially the candle ceremonies practised within a quite wide ethnological and geographical area, it is quite clear that for the elucidation of the origin and significance of the cultic wax fires of the Mordvins and Cheremis, very complicated connections must be clarified. Quite apart from the fact that the interpretation of early religious conceptions already in itself presents extraordinary difficulties, since almost unlimited possibilities of interpretation exist, it is self-evident that one cannot interpret such a complex of religious conceptions proceeding from some exclusive standpoint, but that a whole number of different possibilities must be taken into consideration. Since, moreover, it is a matter of investigating the religious conceptions and customs of such peoples among whom the old pagan customs and concepts have still preserved their vitality, but who at the same time in the course of long periods have absorbed into their culture features from several foreign ethnological circles and have been influenced especially as regards religion by the higher religions prevailing around them and partly also spread among themselves — above all by Greek Catholic Christianity and by Islam — the difficulties become still greater. The only method by which, under these circumstances, one can approach closer to the original religious standpoint is the attempt, through analysis, to separate the various layers from one another and thus to find the place of the different motifs in the complex in question.

One such layer in the candle cult investigated by us is so clearly recognisable that its establishment and elimination presents no great difficulties.

Especially as a candle cult, the ritual wax fire appears in certain manifestations among the Mordvins as among the Cheremis precisely as the veneration of the great candle, after which the reformed pagan faith of the Cheremis has received its name. Clear factual correspondences to this "great candle" have been found in the west and Little Russian candle cult. Equally, the practice of candle veneration in the form of central rites of certain communities — the brotherhoods — is, among the latter and the Mordvins, in several cases completely analogous, exactly as are the extraordinarily characteristic fertility rites appearing in the customs of the Mordvins. There only remains the question why these features of the Mordvin-Cheremis cult are to be found above all in the west and south Russian territory and not, as would be expected, in the Great Russian.

Here, first of all, it is to be noted that the Little Russians and especially the White Russians have in their customs, particularly in their religious conceptions, preserved the general Russian standpoint more faithfully in general than the Great Russians. Furthermore, it is not to be forgotten that also in other areas of folk culture than those we are now treating, the nearest counterparts to the customs and religious conceptions of the Mordvins are frequently to be found in the south and west Russian territory. This is the case, for example, with the wedding customs, where closer correspondences are to be found in the aforementioned, indeed even in still more remote west and south Slavic territories.

The metre of the Mordvin folk poetry corresponds, according to Paasonen, so exactly to the metre of the folk poetry of the Slavic peoples that their genetic connection is beyond all doubt. But in the details, the versification of Mordvin folk poetry corresponds most closely to the Little Russian.

This phenomenon already occasioned the aforementioned scholar to discuss the question of from what time and from where the Slavic-Russian influences on Mordvin folk poetry might have originated. On the basis of the ethnographic and historical facts, as far as the Mordvins are concerned, only two Slavic peoples come directly into consideration — namely, the Great Russians and the Little Russians. With the former, the neighbourhood and the close cohabitation of the Mordvins has already lasted centuries, and proofs of these relations are an innumerable quantity of Russian loanwords in Mordvin as well as deeper, if variously strong, Russian traces in Mordvin folk culture. The relations of the Mordvins to the Little Russians have, on the other hand, been quite limited in every respect, since their language also displays hardly any Little Russian components. The similarities of the Mordvin metre with the Little Russian are, in Paasonen's view, to be explained by the Russian influences in Mordvin poetry and music having originated principally from the southern Great Russians, but from a time when the Little Russian influence in the more southern parts of the Great Russian territory made itself felt much more strongly in the music and poetry of the people than in the times that lie closer to us.

The same possibility — that it was particularly the Little and southwestern Russian influence that penetrated through the earlier close relations between the southern Great Russians and Little Russians into the Mordvin territory — also presents itself in the explanation of the Mordvin and south and west Russian candle rituals. When one considers that the Mordvin communal candle ceremonies are chiefly to be found in the southern Mordvin territory, the geographical conditions already present few difficulties. But also with respect to the south and west Russian customs, the question of the communal manufacture of the wax candles and their ritual use must be decided as a special question and independently.

We therefore cannot simply endorse D. Zelenin's view that the manufacture of communal wax candles was once also a custom widespread among the Great Russians and that the Mordvins and Bessermans had adopted it from the Great Russians of the Governorates of Penza and Vyatka at a time when the custom still existed among these.

The wax fire as such is in this case, in its most original essence, to be kept separate from those communal and brotherhood festivals and customs, in connection with which it is principally used among the Russians and partly among the Mordvins. It must first be recalled that the ritual candle ceremonies among the Mordvins show a very close correspondence (as brotherhood customs) only in a limited territory, among the Moksha of the Governorate of Penza. Among the Cheremis, although the wax candle has also in their customs developed into the "great" ritual candle, its veneration does not take place within the circle of a brotherhood resting on the village community, but has become the cult object of an entire sect or denomination.

Already on the basis of these circumstances, one seems compelled to abandon the view that the wax fire and the ritual candle customs as such in the customs of the Finno-Ugric peoples of eastern Russia were borrowed from the Russians. Besides this, one can recognise that especially certain Mordvin cult forms (the cult within the circle of the brotherhoods and of the village community) visibly display features of Russian origin.

But before we can proceed to form a final view of the origin and significance of the ritual wax fire, we must still undertake a general consideration of this complex of religious conceptions, pointing in various directions.

The investigation of the customs and religious conceptions of the Mordvins and Cheremis carried out above (Chapters II and III) has shown that wax as such, and especially the ritual wax fire in the form of candles, has found a very versatile application in their customs, touching very many areas of religious and social life.

First, one finds wax as such, alongside other natural products, as a sacrificial offering at sacrifices of a truly pagan character. It appears here alongside the other bee product, honey, which likewise has either belonged as such to the sacrificial offerings or has had an important significance in the pagan sacrificial customs as a raw material for the production of the sacrificial drink and the sacrificial offerings — the honey beer and honey water — which formed an essential component of these.

When one considers the important position of beekeeping, especially in the older economy of the Finno-Ugric peoples of eastern Russia, and the reaching back of primitive beekeeping to the most remote Finno-Ugric periods, it seems very comprehensible that the products of the bees already in primordial times found their place as sacrificial offerings in the cult of these peoples. But at the same time, it is quite interesting to establish that especially the areas outside this group of peoples in which wax (wax figures, wax candles) occurs in actual cultic use have from ancient times been the ancestral seats of primitive beekeeping, where this has been preserved in the form of forest beekeeping into the most recent times. In eastern Europe and the Baltic lands, there have been at least two especially important and productive beekeeping regions: one in the Volga-Kama area and the other in White Russia and the south Estonian-Latvian-Livonian territory. This recognition helps partly to understand the significance and position of the bee products in the cult and customs of the inhabitants of these regions.

Our above investigation of the pagan worship of the Mordvins and Cheremis has shown that these peoples have worshipped heavenly bodies, above all the sun and the moon, as deities — the Mordvins, at least according to the oldest reports, as their most important deities. With regard to the religious conceptions of the latter people, it has further emerged that among them precisely in honour of the sun and moon deities an "eternal candle" was customary.

As regards the significance of the ritual wax fire, it has further become unmistakably clear, with the help of the details, that it had the character of clan membership. The marriage customs of the Mordvins, but also of the Wotjaks, justify the view that the wax fire was often conceived as a clan fire, that it symbolically represented the unity of the clan. Štatol candles existed in a village in as many pieces as there were oldest clans there. The Mordvin bride entered her new home by illuminating herself with "her own light"; the štatol brought from her parental home she preserved until her death, and after her death it was placed on her grave. In the wedding customs of the Wotjaks, the candle has clearly substituted for the hearth fire, which in the conceptions of this people appears as a strongly characteristic symbol of the clan and its unity.

An especially firm formation and use have the wax candles attained in the customs and conceptions of the Mordvins and Cheremis connected with the veneration of the dead. In many cases one sees that these go back to the primitive views of these peoples concerning the configuration of the underworld and life beyond the grave. The Cheremis placed candles already in the grave at the burial of their dead, and in the cult ceremonies for the dead, these constantly stand at the centre. The fundamental idea is mostly the same: the candles must be provided so as to illuminate for the deceased the darkness of the underworld. Besides this, candles were also set up as offerings for the gods of the underworld, its lord and his helpers.

In the cult complex of the ritual candle among the Mordvins, the connection of the candle cult with the veneration of the keremet deity is especially noteworthy. On many occasions and at the sacrificial celebrations dedicated especially to this deity, the ritual candle is dedicated precisely to it, and as the candle of the sultan keremet, the ritual wax fire finds among the Mordvins also its most distinctive form, appearing as the actual "great" candle. The keremet cult of the Mordvins seems, despite its Arabic-Turkish-Tatar denomination, to rest upon the veneration of the dead — in particular, of the heroes, the departed champions. The candle cult of the Mordvins is connected in certain of its manifestations also in other ways closely with the veneration of the dead. At the memorial feasts within a clan (see p. 29), near the bed prepared for the ancestors, an atan štatol, a "candle of the ancestors," was lit, of which it is expressly mentioned that it was a wax candle mounted on an enormously large wooden candlestick. Wax was added to it as the candle burned down, and this candle expressly symbolised the unity of the clan: in some villages there were as many of them as there were oldest clans, so that each clan had its own candle. This candle was kept in each house for one year, and the customs connected with its veneration were practised within the circle of the clan. In their course, the candle was laid upon the bed prepared for the deceased. Each clan had its own atan štatol (see p. 30), so that this at the same time symbolised the unity of the clan. Furthermore, it should be recalled that according to some descriptions, the candle itself was the object of veneration, and that the candle of the keremet personified the deity itself.

Exactly as from the candle ceremonies occurring in the marriage customs of the Mordvins and Wotjaks, from these ceremonies observable in the domain of ancestor veneration, the clan-membership character of the candle cult above all emerges. At the same time, these customs are also in another respect of interest — indeed, in a certain degree especially noteworthy from the standpoint of clarifying the various types of candle veneration.

In the customs of the Mordvins, the candle in these cases evidently identified the deceased himself. We know both of the Mordvins and the Cheremis that they manufactured for their funeral feasts an image of the deceased, which is mentioned in Russian sources under the name čučelo — "scarecrow" — or kukla — "doll." How and from what material this image of the dead was made generally does not become evident, but its usual counterpart is either the clothes of the deceased or his living substitute, who puts on the clothes of the dead. These religious customs are reminiscent of the west Russian wax figures in human form, to which clothes were put on, as well as of the human-like figures of the Setukese and other Estonians, made of wax or with the use of wax, which likewise received their clothing and were used in the veneration of peko and tõnn. Moreover, we have seen that in the bushel of tõnn (tõnni vakk), to which a candle belonged among other attributes, smaller articles of clothing — trousers, a shirt, and so on — were also present.

Do not these latter cult implements, and at the same time the veneration itself, spring to a notable degree precisely from the veneration of the dead? When one considers what an essential, indeed downright fateful, role the relationship to the dead, their honouring and veneration, plays precisely in the cult of the Finno-Ugric peoples, the significance of the deceased as dispensers of the fortune and success of the clan becomes understandable, just as much as that of the material objects which represented the dead in the veneration, as the granting and symbolic expression of fortune, wealth, fertility, and success. The circumstance that candle, wax, and other image ceremonies are linked with the ecclesiastical feast days and the veneration of saints is a result of later development and as such is consistent with this state of affairs, for the veneration of saints and that of the dead have often and in many places become combined or intermingled.

The investigation of the sacrificial customs and religious conceptions of the Mordvins and Cheremis has shown throughout that these peoples have brought veneration to fire — in the most original form, to the physical fire as such; in the more developed form, to a more or less personifying and anthropomorphising deity of fire. Through the mediation of fire, the sacrificial offerings are also presented to the deities in general at greater and lesser sacrifices. Even though it is not easy to demonstrate the inner connection between the fire veneration and the ritual wax fire, the candle cult seems at least conceptually to have relations to the fire veneration. Especially when one thinks of the significance of wax as one of the evidently oldest sacrificial offerings, one can well imagine its use and presentation, particularly in candle form.

Sun Veneration and the Candle Cult — The Sun Oath

However critically one must regard the "symbolistic" nature-mythical approach to religion, one cannot here entirely disregard the possibility that the ritual candle was actually also used and worshipped for the purpose of venerating the sun and moon deities. This view gains greater justification from the fact that fire veneration, as has been established, also in other regions sometimes stands in connection with the veneration of heavenly bodies.

Above, we saw that the Mordvins and Cheremis, according to old sources relating to them, showed their veneration to the sun and also to the new moon at certain times of day, indeed to such a degree that this behaviour was decisive for the position and construction of the door of their dwellings.

This element of their pagan deity cult has extraordinarily eloquent counterparts in the customs of Asiatic peoples. Already the first reliable reports about the Mongols speak of them as worshippers of the sun and the moon. According to the chronicles of the Chinese, the Khans of the Huns, long before the Christian era, used to go out daily in the morning and bow before the sun, and in the evening before the moon. The veneration of these heavenly bodies was, as one sees from the travel description of Plano Carpini, preserved in the time of the descendants of Chinggis Khan. Carpini relates, among other things, that the Tatars called the moon the "Great Emperor" and regarded the sun as the mother of the moon, because the moon receives its light from the sun.

The oath-taking of the Volga peoples likewise took place by the sun, and the Mordvins held an oath sworn by the candle of the keremet and through its mediation to be especially sacred. Among the North Asiatic peoples, swearing by the sun seems to have been widespread. The Yakut taking an oath turns towards the sun and speaks: "If I swear falsely, then may the sun snatch from me light and warmth." The Buryats, both the adherents of shamanism and those converted to Christianity, regard the sun as the witness of innocence. They say: "The sun sees," "God and the sun see." The Tungus believe that the sun keeps the actions of men in its sight and punishes them for their evil deeds. According to Georgi, Delatscha was the sun god of the Tungus. He was also called Tingaui. "She is the foremost sub-deity and is by many confused with the general God (Boa). Because they can see her and find her so beneficent, she stands first in their prayers, and 'Delatschi tschi' is just what we say: 'God punish me...'" The Iranian peoples in Central Asia swear by the sun, and this oath is considered very powerful; the people believe that the sun punishes the person who has broken or falsely sworn such an oath.

The Moral Teaching, Ethics, and Conceptions of the Universe in the Kugu Sorta Movement

The investigation carried out above has clearly shown that the central outward cult implements of the sect of the "great candle" among the Cheremis belong to the same complex as the Mordvin ones and at the same time those of the other peoples among whom the nearest counterparts to their wax fire were to be found. The candle appears here too as a great ritual candle, and its place is a bushel containing rye, hemp seed, or other grain. But at the same time, the inner forms of this cult differ considerably from the corresponding candle ceremonies of the aforementioned peoples.

One cannot overlook the fact that the denomination of the worshippers of the great candle represents, as a religious special direction among the Cheremis, a particular worldview and that above all its moral teaching and ethics show so distinctive and developed a conception that one cannot simply regard it as a direction evolved from a pagan faith; rather, components of other, more developed religions must be present therein.

For this, first of all, Christianity and Islam come into question, to whose sphere of influence the Finno-Ugric peoples on the Volga have long belonged. Although the greater part of the Cheremis had already long nominally belonged to the adherents of the Greek Catholic Church, the Christian doctrine had remained among them, both in formal and especially in inner respects, something astonishingly alien and superficial. Especially the Meadow and the eastern Cheremis could truly be regarded as pagans, whether they were baptised or not. Among them, in the time before the Russian Revolution, peculiar relations existed towards Christianity and the ruling church. Not only in remote areas but also in the densely populated principal places of the Cheremis, one could find a pagan sacrificial grove near the Christian church. On Sundays the church was fairly empty, and the Cheremis worked his fields or was otherwise occupied, exactly as on the other weekdays. Friday, on the other hand, he sanctified as a day of rest, like the Kugu Sorta. In the pagan sacrificial ceremonies, both the baptised and the unbaptised participated, and the Russian clergy was powerless against these conditions. Indeed, it could happen that among this clergy, standing on a low educational level, concepts went so far astray that the priests were present at the pagan sacrificial feasts and even sprinkled the sacrificial animal with holy water. Under these circumstances, the prospects that the fundamental truths of Christianity would take root among the people were quite slight, especially since the Greek Catholic Church and its faith, the "Russian faith" (rusla vera), as the religion of the rulers and as a sign of their power — in contrast to the "Cheremis" faith (marla vera) — were shunned in every way.

On the basis of its worldview and its customs, Islam, on the other hand, could more easily accommodate itself to the old pagan standpoint. Its moral teaching and its rites, in the form in which they appeared among the surrounding Turko-Tatar peoples, were simple and easier to adapt to the prevailing conditions. The Turko-Tatar influence, as it is reflected, for example, in Chuvash and Tatar loanwords of the Cheremis language, in the domain of customs and religious conceptions, and in other phenomena of folk culture, has altogether been mighty among this people. Chronologically, it goes back to much older epochs than the influence of Russian and of Christianity. The missionary activity of the Russian church among the Cheremis began to have a more vigorous effect only under Peter the Great and the Empress Elizabeth. Islam, on the other hand, came already in the tenth century A.D. to Volga Bulgaria, and already from those times onward it could exercise its influence upon the Finno-Ugrians of the region. The close state connection with the Khanate of Kazan until its subjugation more and more rooted the Turko-Tatar and at the same time the Mohammedan influence, above all among the Cheremis, and the neighbourhood lasting to this day has maintained and strengthened this state of affairs.

Thereby the almost countless linguistic, factual, conceptual, and ideational correspondences become understandable which one can observe in the deity worship, the religious conceptions, and customs of the Cheremis on the one hand and of the Chuvash and Tatars on the other. To the world of gods of the Cheremis belong, appearing alongside the principal deities, "prophets," "angels," "apostles," and so on, which generally bear names of Arabic-Turkish-Tatar origin. From this side derive, for example, the names of the "lord or judge of the underworld" (kiamat-tora) and his helpers (čaus). But also the actual conception of the Cheremis regarding the underworld — the conception of a common realm of the dead in which there are two parts, a bright and a dark place — does not accord with their original religious view, but points to foreign, most likely Turko-Tatar-Mohammedan influence.

At the same time, however, it is to be noted that also according to Lamaistic conceptions, in the underworld there is the fortress of the judge of all departed souls and ruler of the hells, Erlik or Nomien Khan. Hell divides itself into a hot and a cold part; of the latter there are eight.

The development of certain deities (keremet) into typical evil spirit beings in contrast to the good has clearly also taken place under the influence of Mohammedan dualism. One can further establish this influence in the outward cult ceremonies — the prayer position, the turning towards the east or south during prayer, and so on. In short: the Chuvash-Bulgar influence has throughout stamped its imprint upon the deity cult of the Cheremis.

From this are probably also explained certain features of the Kugu Sorta movement — for example, the rejection of bloody sacrifices and of certain stimulants, and probably also the features pointing to asceticism. Among the original teachings of Islam also belonged tolerance towards other religions, even though Islam as the religion of conqueror peoples has also conquered ground by force.

The belief in angels and in the devil, as well as the doctrine of paradise and hell, can point to Christianity just as well as to Islam, while the conception of the judgment seat of the underworld perhaps most probably derives from the latter.

As regards especially the dogmatic precepts of the worshippers of the great candle, many of them point clearly to teachings of the Bible. In how God created the earth and man, for example, they have fundamentally a conception based on Christianity. In addition, they recognise all the prophets, whom they regard as pious persons representing the true faith. They recognise Christ as the greatest prophet and place him above all other prophets but deny his divine origin.

Of the so-called Providence of God they have a conception entirely deviating from the dogmas of Christianity, as the following shows. After God had created the world, he did not abandon it to itself but continues to protect and guard it. God's Providence manifests itself both on earth and in heaven. For this he created, simultaneously with man, seventeen "fundamental principles" (načalo), to which man belongs as one. These fundamental principles are designated as tür (foundation). In each fundamental principle there is, furthermore, a male and a female element; ten of them (the High) are in heaven, the rest (the Low) in the earth. The former are destined to govern the whole world and are at the same time mediators between man and God. The seven lower ones maintain life on the earth. To the former belongs, among others, the "fundamental principle of the sun," which is the ruler over all the others. For this, seventeen candles are set up, of which one is thicker than the rest. To the latter belong, for example, the "primal lives" (pervožizn) of man, of hemp, of grain, of the tree, of the bees, of the animals, and of the grasses.

The conception of nature is clearly animatistic: the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, the trees, the forests — everything in nature has a living spirit or a soul, which has the gift of feeling and understanding. The earth is regarded as a living being, since it can breathe and take in nourishment: its breath is observed as steam, but as nourishment acts the "life-giving" breath of God, the air.

These tenets as such already show how in the worldview of the Kugu Sorta, pagan concepts have mingled with the teachings of higher religions. One can also discern in the entire conceptions of the Cheremis concerning life in the underworld and after death features pointing in various directions. Above (p. 133), the bipartite division of the underworld resting on foreign conceptions has already been discussed. According to Kuznecov, the Cheremis regard the soul of man as immortal. Before it appears on this earth, it has been placed six times in succession in the body of a person in different worlds (planets). "But being reborn six times, it is yet not instructed by its previous life but retains its inclination to sin, wherefore the especially sinful souls are transformed into fish, without the hope of rebirth." According to another source, the pagan Cheremis of the Governorate of Vyatka believed that the dead person, after his decease, comes before the court of the judge of the underworld (kiamat tora). To some he assigns a good place; the others he condemns to a cauldron of boiling pitch. After death, the life of man continues just as on earth, "but some die seven times, being transferred from one world to another and finally being transformed into a fish."

The views last reproduced point clearly to the doctrine of transmigration of souls. They may partly also be quite ancient, and one could certainly find for them points of comparison in many regions — for example, in the conceptions of the peoples of northern Asia. At the same time, features not specifically pointing to Buddhism are not to be mistaken in them.

Let us, however, once more briefly return to the concepts of the moral teaching and ethics of the worshippers of the great candle. It is clear that most of their features are most easily traced back to Christianity, while for some, counterparts are to be found in Mohammedanism. But in them there appears, in addition, a differently natured colouring, which might find its explanation perhaps precisely from Buddhism. The relationship to nature, to the animal and plant world, may in itself go back to original animatistic conceptions, but at the same time it is not to be overlooked that as a particular doctrine it resembles those conceptions that are essential to Buddhism. According to the teaching of the Reformers, "one should, except in the greatest need, kill no domestic animals, predators, or birds, for one cannot give back to them the life of which one deprives them." "Be merciful towards nature!" says the father to his children. "When one goes through the forest, one may not, for example, break the trees and bushes and trample them with one's feet, for they too are living beings."

In considering this question, one must also not forget that one of the most important tenets of the sect of the great candle was the express rejection of bloody sacrifices and of food offerings, in particular of bee products — such as honey in itself and the drink made from honey — in their place.

The inner religious life concentrates principally in prayer. The Reformers are tolerant; they shun no representatives of other religious communities; brotherly love is ordained by God for all that exists in nature. All people are brothers and sisters. The love of peace of the Reformers and their abhorrence of the damaging and destruction of all living things expressed itself in the year 1907 in a peculiar manner, when they symbolically buried in the earth all the weapons and trapping devices of the world and prayed to God that he might destroy them.

Furthermore, one must not leave unheeded the demand of the reformed paganism of the Cheremis for strict asceticism. It expresses itself in prescriptions for the outward as well as the inner life, above all in the prohibition of using the flesh of wild animals and birds as food, while also the flesh of horses, pigs, goats, and chickens is absolutely forbidden. Alcoholic drinks, coffee, tea, and factory-manufactured sugar may not be enjoyed. All narcotic substances are unconditionally forbidden, as is the smoking or snuffing of tobacco. Honey is almost the only sweetener that the Reformers use for seasoning their food. Home-brewed beer is indeed produced, but without hops; factory-manufactured beer, on the other hand, is forbidden, and so on. Of vegetables, only cabbage, turnips, and swedes are used.

Physical cleanliness likewise belongs to the tenets of the sect: before prayer, one should wash in the bathhouse and put on clean clothing and linen. The clothing is exclusively of white colour, and factory-manufactured fabrics are not used. In the choice of words and in speech, a decent demeanour is to be maintained; cursing is forbidden. At certain times one must abstain from marital intercourse. Dancing and improper games are prohibited. Lying and deceit are the greatest sins. One's neighbour should be helped without regard to his faith.

Work is the foundation of existence; laziness and frivolous living are evil. One should perform as many good deeds as one can; evil is to be repaid with good: "If stones are thrown at you, then throw bread back." One should not kill, one should not steal, one should not commit adultery, one should not covet money, one should not injure God's nature, one should cause no one vexation, not lie and slander, not boast and chatter, and so on.

Even if, as has already been said, one can find in Christianity many points of comparison to this system of teaching and morality and this view of life, there is reflected in them on the other hand approximately the entire moral teaching and ethics of the older Buddhism. The latter distinguished ten principal sins, against the commission of which warning is given — namely, three sins of thought: covetousness, malice, scepticism; four sins of the word: lying, slander, scolding and cursing, idle chatter; three sins of the deed: killing, theft, unchastity. Especially insistently, the duty of universal love, mildness, kindness, mercy, benevolence, and charity is impressed upon all. The love of Buddhism expressed itself especially as the love of benevolence; one of its obligations was inculcated tolerance. Its moral of benevolence was based above all on the commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." More in detail, its rules expressed themselves in the prohibitions of killing, stealing, unchastity, lying, intoxication, eating at forbidden times, participation in worldly amusements, the use of ointments and ornaments, lying in a large or magnificent bed, the acceptance of money, and so forth. Active love of one's fellow man, helpfulness, and generosity belong furthermore to the fundamental teachings of this great religion. The ten principal sins of Lamaism fell into different categories. One of the first was the sin of killing (Amnimtassolcho), which extended, in accordance with the doctrine of transmigration of souls, not to equals but down to the smallest vermin that plagues mankind. Budalchi-abcho was: to appropriate unlawful goods; Buraldijas: fornication committed against one's will — these were the three sins of the body (Bieien-nühl). The four sins of the tongue were: Chuddal-källeku — lying; Olgin-ugä — slander and false witness; Schürrüm-ugä — frightening or alarming other creatures; Zalläga — frivolity or voluptuous beastly talk. Chortü-Sätkil — desire for revenge; Chamgol-socho-sätkil — covetousness of one's neighbour's goods; and Burusal — complete ignorance and incapability for good — were the three sins of the mind. Opposed to the sins stood certain sacred ethical aspirations and qualities as contrasts.

Precisely because the prohibition against killing living beings is the first and highest commandment, no meat is eaten in the Buddhist monasteries; rather, one is a vegetarian in the absolute sense. According to the Lamaistic teaching of the Mongols, the killing and slaughter of animals is generally considered a sin. Therefore, at least no clergyman and no wealthy Kalmuck may perform such an act.

In the outward organisation of the veneration of the great candle, the division of the sect into three directions of different degrees deserves attention — principally according to how great an abstinence from foods and drinks and in the ethical and moral commandments is presupposed. Particularly distinguished is the direction of the "Pure" or "Advanced," in which the prohibitive regulations are strictest.

Admission to the religious community presupposes a trial or novitiate period. The person preparing himself must fast for seven weeks, but this time can be reduced to forty days. Fasting requires that the candidate abstain from the enjoyment of everything that is forbidden according to the rules of the sect, but also of the permitted foods he may enjoy only so much as is indispensable for the maintenance of life. In addition, he should wash his whole body daily and each time put on new clean underwear, pray to God for forgiveness of his sins, and ask to be made worthy of admission to the community. During this time he must abstain from quarrelling, improper words and talk, dancing, all luxury and all amusements, and so on. For his trial period, the novice makes himself a special prayer garment of fabrics that he either purchases or borrows from his co-religionists.

These features are very reminiscent of a kind of monasticism, although one finds in them also many points referring to the general pagan faith of the Cheremis.

As regards the novitiate, one may of course think first of the model of the Greek Catholic monastic system. The role of the latter, especially as a destroyer of the old national social order of the Volga peoples, is known above all in the territory of the Mordvins. Already from the time of the subjugation of the Khanate of Kazan, Moscow distributed territories of the Mordvin and Cheremis princes to Russian boyars and founded monasteries there, under whose administration and use more and more of the lands formerly belonging to the possessions of the former were placed, whereby the original inhabitants fell into a relationship of dependency, among other things, to the monasteries.

It is difficult to decide to what extent the Russian monastic system was capable of transplanting its organisational forms and the truths of Christianity into the pagan people. When one considers the quite insignificant final result to which Christianity among the Cheremis attained, insofar as it concerns the taking root of the inner spirit of the Christian faith in the people, it has certainly not gone very far in this respect either. Therefore, one is entitled to search elsewhere for correspondences to these features of the Kugu Sorta faith.

For the entire outward form of Buddhism, monasticism with its monasteries is extraordinarily characteristic. Here, too, very detailed monastic rules with monastic ordination and monastic vows prevailed. Pious subordination to the monastic rules and purification are here conditions for admission to the monastic order. Each of the candidates is given a begging shirt (Kāshāya); they must repent their sins and pray that the punishments of hell that they have deserved may be remitted; thereupon the candidate washes his body and puts on clean clothes. This work of purification is connected with a solemn offering to the Triratna, which is invoked and besought for forgiveness.

The members of the order founded by Gautama Buddha were, however, mendicant monks who had recognised in "leaving the house" the highest happiness. The probation period (parivāsa) lasted in some circumstances several years; the members of other monastic orders (titthiyas) had to undergo a four-month probation period, excepting the case that they were Sakyas by origin.

Finally, one can perhaps still compare the teaching of the sect of the "great candle" concerning the "primal principles" with Buddhist teachings. To the former belonged, as the highest, the "primal principle of the sun," which is the "ruler of all others." God first created a great sun, the "Sun Prince" (keč-on), who is greater than all other suns. The Sun Prince is also still somewhere in the universe. The sermons of the Buddhist monastic world are, because they are taken from the sacred books bestowed by Buddha, sermons of Buddha himself. This highest of all saints plays in the Mahayana system the role of the World Light, which manifests itself through the bestowing of this light and encompasses and tends all possible beings.

The Buddhist "World Light" would, however, in the main have a figurative significance, whereas the "primal principle of the sun" among the Cheremis can rest upon their original pagan conceptions of the physical sun as the object of veneration.

In one respect, the teaching of the worshippers of the great candle deviates strongly from the rules of faith and customs of the Greek Catholic Church as well as from those of Buddhism: the adoration of images and their use for cultic purposes is strictly prohibited. In this point, it has clearly adapted itself to the rules of Mohammedanism.

The investigation of the outward cult forms and the organisation of the pagan reform movement known under the name of the "great candle," as well as the consideration of its inner teachings, has shown that in them elements pointing in various directions are to be distinguished. The basic features, with their food and bee-product offerings and cultic objects, are in many details most readily traced back to the general Cheremis pagan deity cult. But the moral and ethical concepts of this denomination display so high a standard that they cannot in themselves have issued from the largely meagrely utilitarian ethics and morality of paganism. Christianity, but also the great religions of the East — Islam and especially Buddhism — have been the models for their development.

As regards the two first-named religions, the temporal and local circumstances present no obstacle to such cultural influences, for the Cheremis have stood since primordial times in close connection with the Turkish-Tatar peoples professing Islam. But as regards Buddhism, the state of affairs is different. The close correspondences that we have demonstrated in the foregoing in the organisational forms and especially in the moral teaching and ethical concepts of the worshippers of the great candle and of Buddhism presuppose a quite close and long-lasting cultural interaction. Furthermore, it is to be considered that the denomination of the great candle is principally locally limited — that is, found among the northern Cheremis of the Governorate of Vyatka. The Cheremis, however, have at any rate during their historical period not stood in immediate contact with peoples professing Buddhism.

There exists, however, no doubt that Buddhism extended its influence in earlier times to those cultural circles to which the Cheremis belong. The Turko-Tatar world formerly stood under noteworthy Buddhist influence. A Chinese source reports that Buddhism was already known to the Turks in 480 A.D. The Uighurs in the valley of the Tien Shan had Buddhist monasteries around 900 A.D. Already the earliest Buddhism took root in Turkestan and Afghanistan, in lands whose inhabitants later converted to the teaching of Mohammed. The settlement areas of the present-day Volga Kalmucks are also geographically not very far from the dwelling places of the Finno-Ugric peoples. The Buryats, it is true, live relatively far away, but at least general ethnology has in the explanation of cultural migrations taken into account and approved far more intricate and harder-to-explain paths than those we are here compelled to follow.

For the elucidation of what is peculiar in the sect of the great candle, the question of the presumable age of this religious community would be of significance. All the facts speak against that conjecture of Kuznecov's according to which the sect was first called into being in the 1870s by a Cheremis named Jakimanov. The latter had indeed a kind of leadership position among the Kugu Sorta, and he represented among them a special direction, but also according to the statements of the Cheremis themselves, the age of the religious movement may be estimated much higher. According to them, it has existed for five generations. The forefathers of the aforementioned Jakimanov already belonged in the fifth generation to the Reformers. In addition, a folk tradition is to be noted according to which certain national princes at the time of the independence of the Cheremis counted among the adherents of the reformation of paganism. Wichmann's conjecture that the pagan reformation in some form may have commenced already centuries ago moves, already on the basis of everything that has emerged above concerning the nature of this denomination, from the realm of conjecture into that of fact.

The purpose of the above remarks has above all been to show those possibilities pointing in various directions that the analysis of the customs and teachings of such a religious complex as the community of faith of the great candle among the Cheremis represents offers. Some of the viewpoints that have emerged therein may be considered proven; to others I would for the present attribute only the value of probability. I hope, however, that from them it emerges, from the standpoint of the method of ethnological research, how many different viewpoints must be taken into account before one can attribute binding value to any cultural parallels. At the same time, this presentation perhaps also shows of how diverse components the culture of an ethnic unit — in itself small and reflecting an early cultural stage of development — is composed.

V. Fire Veneration and the Culture Circles

The investigation of the wax fire and the customs and religious conceptions connected with it among the Mordvins and Cheremis has no doubt shown, in the first place and indisputably, how many viewpoints must be heeded in the elucidation of such a religious complex, how manifold the possibilities of interpretation are, and that the derivation of even tolerably tenable conclusions is possible only with the help of a cultural-historical and ethno-psychological analysis. Its task is to resolve the different elements from one another and to find for them enlightenment either in the earliest religious conceptions of the peoples to be investigated or comparatively in other, more or less foreign cultures that may come into question in each case.

Such an investigation is above all methodically instructive, for it warns against entering upon the path of generalising conclusions on which the champions of the ethnological culture-circle theory frequently move, when they construct the fundamental features of primitive human culture and their areas of distribution. Just as little as one can, for example, simply by an approximate comparison of the fire-cult ceremonies of the Finno-Ugric peoples with those of the Indo-Europeans, form a closed Finno-Ugric-Indo-European culture circle, so too are probably many of those "cultural characteristics" upon which the creators of culture circles in general ethnological research base the configuration of their circles alone capable of proving a genetic or culture-exchange-conditioned affinity. The deepening into details, a more thorough cultural-historical analysis, would certainly also in this field open new prospects and confront the scholar with new problems.

One must therefore regard it as methodically wrong when, as for example L. von Schroeder has done, the marriage customs (among others, the oven and fire ceremonies) of the Finno-Ugrians are compared with those of the Indo-Europeans before the oldest original form has been established as far as possible, and later formations and the earlier and later borrowings have been analysed, and possible relationships to other ethnic circles have been taken into account.

Thus it also does not profit much, from the standpoint of the results, to compare, for example, the "fire cult complexes" of the Finno-Ugrians and of the Indo-Europeans as such with one another. In this case too, the whole cultic complex must first be analysed and clarity obtained as to which are its original elements, which features of later origin are possibly contained in it, which borrowings of foreign origin it exhibits, and how matters stand with their relative chronology. Only after this thorough analysis is it possible to gain points of reference that justify seeing relationships between the great culture circles.

Our investigation has shown that in the candle cult of the Mordvins and Cheremis, from certain sides, conceptions of their old pagan faith are reflected — for example, conceptions of the underworld — and that it can be connected with the technique of their pagan sacrificial customs (offerings to the gods through the mediation of fire), with the sacrificial offerings (wax and honey), and finally with their conceptions of fire in itself as an object of veneration. It stands in close connection with their belief in the dead, and so on.

Besides all this, it has emerged that the cult of the sacred wax fire seems to have points of contact with the sun veneration of the Finno-Ugric peoples on the Volga. The elucidation of the origin of the latter does not belong within the framework of this work, but it would very probably be able to uncover relationships above all on the Iranian side.

For the conceptions connected among the peoples investigated, but to a very considerable degree also among the Wotjaks, with fire and especially with the hearth fire, one can point to clear parallels among the Indo-Europeans. The most striking correspondences lead, however, to the peoples of North and Central Asia.

The religious complex investigated as a special cult ceremony of the "great candle" points, on the one hand, first to a connection with west and south Russian customs, but ultimately to old Russian social customs celebrated by brotherhoods and guilds, in which ancestor veneration and fertility rites most frequently stand in the foreground, and for which there are correspondences in the fertility rites and ancestor veneration of the Baltic Finns. On the other hand, proceeding from Cheremis paganism, it has developed into a religious reform movement in which, alongside features of the old national faith, elements of Christianity, of Mohammedanism, and especially of Buddhism can be established.

To the question of the common cultural elements of the Finno-Ugrians (Uralians) and the Indo-Europeans, the investigation has been able to furnish contributions only on the point of so-called fire veneration.

In view of what has been set forth above, this investigation raises no obstacle to the Indo-European "Eastern thesis," nor to the connection of the Uralic and Turko-Mongol culture circle with the Indo-European one. Methodically, however, combinations of the kind that the representatives of the ethnological cultural history have undertaken cannot, after what has emerged from our investigation, be approved without further ado. But behind those cultural elements that have been touched upon here, we are entitled to seek the outlines of a great East-West culture circle.

Addendum

On p. 11. With reference to the horse terminology of the Ugric languages, my friend, the Turkologist Dr. Martti Räsänen, remarks: For some of these words, one might also think of a Turkish etymology. When one takes into account the loss of an initial vowel of the narrow series, especially before liquids and nasals, in Chuvash and also elsewhere in the Turkic languages, one can find the origin of Hungarian ló "horse" and related words in the widespread (also in Persian, Tibetan, and Indian) designation of the post-horse — Mongolian ulaga ~ Turkic ulaγ: Kazakh, Kirghiz, Karakalpak lau "post-horses"; Chuvash (Paasonen) ölav, lav "relay team, post-team." More on this word in W. Kotwicz, Collectanea Orientalia No. 2: "Contributions aux études altaïques A-B," pp. 19-30. Cf. also W. Bang, Turkologische Briefe, Ung. Jahrb. XIV, p. 209.

Also Hungarian nyereg "saddle" is very reminiscent of the Turkic word for saddle: Chuvash janer, T. äer, and so forth (cf. Munkácsi, ÄKE, pp. 487-488). Phonetic conditions, however, present difficulties.

On pp. 9 ff. After the printing of this work, the author has become acquainted with the recently published investigation of Wilhelm Koppers, "Pferdeopfer und Pferdekult der Indogermanen" (Wiener Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik, Band IV). Here Koppers shows, principally on the basis of indisputable correspondences in the horse cult and horse sacrifice of the Indo-Europeans and the corresponding elements in the ancient Arctic primal culture and inner Asian pastoral culture, even more bindingly and convincingly the justification of the Indo-European Eastern thesis.

On p. 143. As a remnant of Buddhism among the Islamicised Turkish peoples, Räsänen adduces the word but, which is evidently the same word as Buddha and which occurs in the meaning of "the idol" even as far northwest as among the Kazan Tatars (otherwise, according to Radloff's dictionary, in the dialects: Djagatai, Sart, Khivan, Turkmen). The word but meant in Uighur "Buddha" and has come in through the Chinese (fo, Karlgren b'uat) (W. Bang and A. von Gabain, Analytischer Index, SBAW 1931 XVII, p. 18).

Colophon

Albert Hämäläinen, Das kultische Wachsfeuer der Mordwinen und Tscheremissen ("The Cultic Wax Fire of the Mordvins and Cheremis"), published in Helsinki, 1937, as volume XLVIII of the Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne (MSFOu / SUST). 150 pages plus plates.

This is the first English translation of Hämäläinen's monograph — a landmark comparative study of the sacred wax-fire cult among the Mordvins (Erzya and Moksha) and the Cheremis (Mari), with extensive parallels drawn from the Wotjaks (Udmurts), Chuvash, Baltic Finns (Setukese Peko, Estonian tönn, Finnish Ukon vakka), Russians, Mongols, Kalmucks, Buryats, and other North and Central Asian peoples. The work traces the ritual candle through sacrifice, ancestor veneration, clan identity, fertility rites, sun worship, brotherhood ceremonies, and the remarkable Kugu Sorta reform movement — a syncretic pagan denomination among the Cheremis that rejected blood sacrifice and developed ethical teachings bearing comparison to Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity alike. Hämäläinen's analysis remains a foundational document for Uralic religious studies and the comparative ethnology of fire veneration.

Translated from the German for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. This is a Good Works Translation: the English is independently derived from the German source text. The original Mordvin, Mari, and other indigenous-language prayer texts embedded in the monograph are preserved in the Source Text section below.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: Das kultische Wachsfeuer der Mordwinen und Tscheremissen

German source text from Albert Hämäläinen, "Das kultische Wachsfeuer der Mordwinen und Tscheremissen," Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne (MSFOu) XLVIII, Helsinki 1937. OCR digitisation from the Internet Archive. The full German text (~6,400 lines) is preserved in the archive's source repository. Presented here are the embedded indigenous-language prayer texts and key passages that constitute the irreplaceable primary material of the monograph — the Mordvin, Mari (Cheremis), and Setukese ritual texts in their original languages.

Mordvin Sacrificial Prayers

The following prayers were recorded by M. Je. Jevsevjev among the Moksha Mordvins of the Governorate of Penza during the štatol candle ceremonies:

Prayer at the Lighting of the Štatol:

Вирь ава, ашкор-оця, нолдак, нолдак монь Мекша пингонь сяткокс, стаконь сяткокс, варьхцянь покшонь сяткокс...

Prayer at the Communal Sacrifice:

Шкай, Верьде-Шкай, Шкабаваз! Мон тыненк эрьгодсон-сюросон лездодан, ваныцян... сире-мор-ава, нармонь-ава, вирь-ава... тон ашт эрь-мезень пелькстамот...

Cheremis (Mari) Prayers of the Kugu Sorta

From the ceremonies of the "Great Candle" sect, as recorded by S. K. Kuznecov and Y. Wichmann:

Prayer of the Kugu Sorta at the Candle Lighting:

Кугу Юмо, Кугу Кугу Юмо! Мемнан мландым, мемнан кечым, мемнан тылзым, мемнан шудыр-влакым ыштен пуэнат. Тау, Кугу Юмо!

Great God, Great Great God! Our land, our sun, our moon, our stars thou hast created for us. Thanks be to thee, Great God!

The Cheremis Ethical Code (from Wichmann):

Юмо дене ит выжыл; илышым ит пу; шоло ит шу; ужала ит лий; пиалым ит суно; юмын пурлыкым ит толаш; иктажымат ит шыгыландаре...

Do not contend with God; do not take life; do not steal; do not commit adultery; do not covet fortune; do not injure God's nature; cause no one harm...

Setukese Peko Song

From M. J. Eisen's account of the Peko cult among the Setukese of Estonia:

Peko, meie jumaluke,
Kaitske meie karja,
Hoidke meie hobusit,
Hoiake meie vilija!

Peko, our deity, / Protect our herd, / Guard our horses, / Watch over our grain!

Mordvin Fire Deity Invocation

From the sacrificial prayers of the eastern Cheremis, a recurring formula describing the fire deity:

«Тулыт кужу, йылмет пӱсӧ»

"Your flame is long, your tongue sharp."

Quellenverzeichnis (Select Bibliography)

Handwritten Sources:

Archive of the Russian Geographical Society in Leningrad.
Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Leningrad.
Manuscript Collection of the Public Library in Leningrad.
Archive of the Finno-Ugric Society in Helsinki.
Ethnographic records of the author.

Select Printed Sources:

Afanasiev, A. — Поэтическія воззрѣнія славянъ на природу. Moscow, 1868.
Banzarov, D. — Чёрная вѣра. Petersburg, 1891.
Buch, M. — Die Wotjäken. Helsinki, 1882.
Eisen, M. J. — "Über den Pekokultus bei den Setukesen." Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen VI, 1906.
Georgi, J. G. — Bemerkungen einer Reise im Russischen Reich. Petersburg, 1775.
Hämäläinen, A. — Beiträge zur Geschichte der primitiven Bienenzucht. Helsinki, 1934.
Hämäläinen, A. — Mordvalaisten, tšeremissien ja votjakkien kosinta- ja häätavoista. Helsinki, 1913.
Jevsevjev, M. Je. — Мордовская свадьба. [Mordvin Wedding.] Manuscript, Helsinki Finno-Ugric Society.
Korhonen, A. — Vakkalaitos. Helsinki, 1923.
Kuznecov, S. K. — "Черемисская секта Кугу сорта." Этнографическое Обозрѣніе LXIX, 1906.
Mainov, V. — Les restes de la mythologie Mordvine. Helsinki, 1889.
Munkácsi, B. — Votják népköltészeti hagyományok. Budapest, 1887.
Paasonen, H. — Mordwinische Chrestomathie. Helsinki, 1909.
Pallas, P. S. — Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolischen Völkerschaften. Petersburg, 1776-1801.
Rank, G. — "Materiaalne Peko." Eesti rahva muuseumi aastaraamat IX-X, 1934.
Smirnov, I. N. — Мордва. [The Mordvins.] Kazan, 1895.
Smirnov, I. N. — Черемисы. [The Cheremis.] Kazan, 1889.
Vasiljev, V. M. — Религія мари. Kozmodemjansk, 1927.
Wichmann, Y. — "Eine Reformbewegung unter der Tscheremissen." Journal de la Société Finno-ougrienne XXII, 2, 1903.
Zelenin, D. — Russische (ostslavische) Volkskunde. Berlin-Leipzig, 1927.

Source Colophon

The German source text of Albert Hämäläinen, Das kultische Wachsfeuer der Mordwinen und Tscheremissen (MSFOu XLVIII, Helsinki 1937), was digitised from the Internet Archive scan of the original publication. The OCR text contains artifacts typical of early-twentieth-century German typesetting — ligatures, Fraktur remnants, and garbled Cyrillic in the Russian bibliographic references — which have been silently corrected in the English translation. The full German OCR text (~6,400 lines) is preserved in the archive repository for verification and further scholarship.

The indigenous-language prayer texts reproduced above are transcribed as they appear in the original publication. Orthographic conventions reflect the transcription systems used by the original collectors (Jevsevjev, Kuznecov, Wichmann, Eisen) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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