The Petersburg Journal of Cultural Studies VoL I, No. 3, 1093

«Rebaking» of Children in Eastern Slavic Rituals and Fairy-tales*

Andrey Toporkov

Eastern Slavic versions of the fairy-tale «А Boy and a Witch» (AT 327 C, F) contain the following episode. A small boy (Ivashka, Zhikharko, Filyushka, etc.) finds himself in the house of Baba-Yaga or some other witch, who orders her daughter to roast him:

«The daughter heated the stove, tied Filyushka up and put him on a shovel, but just as she tried to put him into the stove, he bent his knees. "That's not the proper way, Filyushka," said Yaga's daughter. "But what's the proper way?" says Filyushka, "I don't know." "This is what you should do. Stand up, let me teach you!" And she lay down on the shovel in the proper way; Chufyl'-Filyushka, however, was a smart chap: before you could blink he stuck her into the stove and shut the door firmly»1.

Although the origin of this and similar fairy-tale episodes has already been derived by the researchers from archaic rituals (initiation, fu-neral)2, nobody as yet seems to have paid attention to its close similarity to the ritual of «rebaking» of children, widely practiced by the Eastern Slavs3.

The ritual, in its most general form, consists in laying a baby on a bread shovel and putting it into the warm stove three times. Usually this was done with babies who had rickets or atrophy (folk terms are sobachya starosf («dog's old age») and sukhoty («dryness») I4. Accor-ding to T.Ya.Tkachev's observations, «the term sukhoty is used to describe quite a number of gastro-intestinal diseases resulting in the emaciation of the child's organism»5. Some reports say that «rebaking» not only failed to cure the child but could seriously impair its health6. Sometimes the ritual was performed to cure other ailments as well, for instance hernia7; in some places in Vladimir province, all babies were «rebaked» immediately after birth8.

In Russia, the ritual was practiced mainly in the Volga Region and the central and southern Russian provinces (Vladimir, Yaroslavl', Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Saratov, Tula, Orel, Voronezh)-as well as in Siberia9. The most common Russian name for the ritual is perepekaniye (rebaking), less common variants are perepecheniye10, zapekaniye11, dopekaniye12 (the litteral meaning is

15

Andrei Toporkov

roughly the same). The action is usually rendered by the verbperepekat'. Depending on the context, the prefix pere- imparts various meanings to the word: the verb may mean either excessive action (cf. pirog perepechen, «the pie is overbaked») or repeated action («bake anew»). Hence the possibility of two types of word combinations (cf. perepekat sobachyu starosf, «strongly bake dog's old age» and perepekat rebyonka, «bake the baby anew») and, accordingly, of two different interpretations of the ritual. In Siberia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia, the verb perepekat is seldom if ever used in such a context'3.

In Ukraine, the ritual was practiced in Podolye, Volhynian Polesye, as well as in Kiev, Chernigov, and Kharkov provinces. According to Talko-Hryncewicz's summary, at dawn the quack woman brought water taken from three wells (it was not permitted to drink it or use it in any other way), kneaded dough with it, baked it and, having taken the bread out of the stove, put the baby on a shovel into the stove14. Following the Eastern Slav custom, the ritual was usually accompanied by a dialog. In Kharkov province, for instance, at the time when the wise woman shoved the baby into the stove, its mother walked around the house three times, and each time she looked into the window asking, «Sho ty, babusyu, robysh?* («What are you doing, granny?»), on which the woman would answer: «Khlib gnityu!» («I'm baking bread!»)15.

The ritual has also been registered in the main summaries of Byelo-russian ethnography, e.g. in the collections of N.Ya.Nikiforovsky (Vitebsk province)1б, M.Federovsky (Grodno province)17, and A.K.Serzhputovsky (Slutsk district, Minsk province)18. According to material in the Polesye archives, it was also practiced in Gomel province. Nikiforovsky reported that the mother of the sick baby put it on a shovel, washed it with the water used to wash the dough before baking and carried it to the stove as if she were going to put the baby there together with the dough, but only put the shovel beside the furnace; at this moment, another woman opened the door, clasped her hands, and asked angrily, «Shto tyrobish?» («What are you doing?») — «Nya, ty nya vidish; sushchi pyaku — vol shto ya roblyu!» («Don't you see, I'm baking disease!») — «А, sushchi! dyk pyachi, pyachi ikh, kab ni bulo!» («Oh, disease! Then bake it, bake it, so that there be no more!» — and the other woman took the baby off the shovel19.

Despite the seeming simplicity of the ritual, its symbolism is rather complex and polysemantic, different aspects of meaning coming to the fore in various versions. According to most descriptions, the main purpose of the ritual was the burning of the illness, cf. formulas like «Sobachya starost, pripekis' v pechil» («Dog's old age, burn away in

Rebaking of Children...

the stove!»)20, «Как khleb pechetsya, tak i sobachya slarosf pekis'!» («Like bread is baked, dog's old age, burn away!»)21, etc.

However, this motivation, recognized by the participants of the ritual, corresponds probably to the superficial level of its semantics. The deeper level is determined by the symbolic identification of the child with the bread, and of baking the bread with childbirth: the baby, as it were, is returned to its mother's womb (the stove) to be born anew. According to a report from Kercnsk district, Penza province, «sometimes the baby is too weak and skinny. Such a baby, which, according to the folk expression "has not been baked to a turn in its mother's womb", is "rebaked" by quack women in an ordinary stove to make it fatter and healthier»22.

It should be noted that usually the ritual was in some way or other associated with the baking of bread; in Kazan district, the baby's face was coated with dough so that only its nose and mouth remained uncovered23. In the villages of Tonezh and Stodolichi, Lelchitsk district, Gomel province, the baby was laid on a shovel and carried to the stove three times. This was accompanied by the formula, «OlkuF prishlo, tudу iposhlo» («From whence it has come, there it is going»)24. This formula could probably be associated with both the baby and the disease: in the first case the stove was associated with the womb, in the second case, it was conceived as a source of disease.

It can be suggested that the stove was a symbol not only of the womb but also of the other world, and placing in the stove symbolized temporary death; notably, in some versions of the ritual, the baby's shirt was torn apart, like the shirt of the deceased man, and burnt25.

Thus, apart from burning out the disease, putting a baby into a stove could at the same time symbolize: 1) repeated «baking» of a baby, identified with bread, in a stove, which is a usual place for baking bread but also a symbol of the womb; 2) temporary return of the baby to its

• mother's womb symbolized by the stove and its second birth; 3) temporary death of the baby, its stay in the other world symbolized by the stove, and the return to this world. The ambivalent meaning of the stove as a symbol of the womb and, at the same time, of the other world is confirmed by diverse Eastern Slav folklore and ritual evidence26.

However, the semantic dominant of the ritual is the symbolic relation between the baking of bread and childbirth, generally characteristic of folk beliefs of the Eastern Slavs, cf. Ukrainian «U pechurtse rodivsya» («born in a stove») (of a lucky person)27, Russian «tz odnoy pechi, da ne odni rechi» («From the same stove, but different words»)28. In Kazan province, one of the methods of curing the child suffering from «dog's old age» consisted in putting it under the dough-trough and saying,

Andrei Toporkov

«Как testo vskhodit, tak na mladentse telo vskhodilo by» («Like the dough rises, so let the baby's body rise!»)29. In Slutsk district, Minsk province, the sick child was seated on a shovel beside the furnace, and it was believed «shto at getago dzitsya budze zdarovaye i pachne rastsi, yak и pechy khlieb» («that this will make the child hcallhy and it will start growing like bread in the stove»)30.

Putting a child into a stove was a method of folk medicine widely practiced by many European peoples, including Poles, Slovaks, Ro-manians, Hungarians, Lithuanians, and Germans. As early a writer as Burhardt of Worms, who died in 1025, scolded German women for putting their babies into stoves to cure them from fever31. In many cases, babies were put into stoves on shovels (Poles, Germans, Romanians, Hungarians)32. Some Polish descriptions are quite close to Eastern Slav ones: for instance, in Poznan province, a baby suffering from furuncles or rash was put into a stove on a shovel «as a loaf of bread» and held there until it became warm enough33. It is possible that some actions similar to «rebaking» are implied by the New Hittite prophecy pertaining to the newborn baby and saying that «the baby will pass across the river..., through fire, and (the test) with the shovel»34.

There are direct terminological parallels between the «rebaking» ritual and the fairy-tale about the boy and the witch (see above). In a fairy-lale from Grodno province, preserved in P.V.Schein's archives, the witch calls the boy sushchik and says to him «Sushchik-lushchik, pokazhi ruchku!» («Sushchik-lushchik, show me your hand!»)35. The word sushchik is evidently derived from sushchi, the name of a children's disease36; in 1984 I registered in Polesye a ritual accompanied by the following dialog: «Shcho vy te pechete?» («What are you baking?») — «Sushchyky-lushchyky» — «Pichyte, pichyte, kob yikh ne bylo» («Bake them, bake them, so that there would be none of them»)37.

Such an «absorption» of the ritual reality by the fairy-tale is certainly a secondary phenomenon, but not an accidental one. Probably, on Eastern Slavic soil the fairy-tale episode converged back toward the «rebaking» ritual. This became possible due to the fact that on the historic and genetic plane, this episode apparently also stems from certain rituals38.

Besides, some role may be played by the peculiarities of content and function of the fairy-tale about the boy and the witch. According to N.V.Novikov's observations, fairy-tales based on this plot «exist mainly in the children's audience (they are told either by the children themselves or to children)»39. Baba-Yaga is featured in a specific way: «. . . her entire appearance and her actions bear the distinct stamp of

Rebaking of Children...

v i l l a g e r e a l i t y » 4 0 . H e r h o u s e « is a n o r d i n a r y v i l lage h o u s e wi th a R u s s i a n s t o v e . . . i n t o w h i c h h e r d a u g h t e r s a n d s h e t r y ( u n s u c c e s s f u l l y ) to s h o v e t h e b o y to r o a s t a n d e a t h i m » 4 1 . N o w o n d e r t h a t t h e e p i s o d e wi th s e a t i n g o n t h e s h o v e l a c q u i r e s a m a t t e r - o f - f a c t , e v e r y d a y n a t u r e . F r o m t h e p s y c h o l o g i c a l s t a n d p o i n t , t h e r e - i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of t h e ritual in t h e f a i r y - t a l e m a y b e e x p l a i n e d b y i ts i n v e r t i o n f r o m t h e c h i l d ' s po int o f v i e w . It is e a s y to i m a g i n e t h a t t h i s w a s e x a c t l y t h e w a y in w h i c h t h e f o u r - o r f i v e - y e a r - o l d c h i l d c o u l d d e s c r i b e t h e « r e b a k i n g » : t h e q u a c k t r i e d to put t h e b o y i n t o t h e s t o v e on a s h o v e l , but h e c h e a t e d h e r a n d b u r n t h e r i n s t e a d .

It w o u l d b e i n t e r e s t i n g to s e e h o w t h i s f a i r y - t a l e e p i s o d e c o r r e s p o n d s w i t h rituals s i m i l a r to « r e b a k i n g » in o t h e r t r a d i t i o n s , but t h i s g o e s b e y o n d t h e s c o p e o f t h e p r e s e n t s t u d y .

NOTES

• Published in Russian: Fotklor I etnograficheskaya deyslvitetnosl' |Folklore and Ethnographic Reality]. Leningrad. 1992, pp. 114-118.

1. Narodnye russkiye skaiki A.N.Afanasyeva: V tryokh tomakh lA.N.Afanasycv's Collec-tion of Russian Folk Tales, in three volumes), Moscow, 1985, Vol.1, p.137.

2. V.Ya.Propp, Istoricheskiye korni votshebnoy skazki [Historical Roots of the Falrv-Talel, Leningrad, 1986. pp.98-103; V.N.Toporov, 1) »Khetskaya SAiSU.Gl i stavyanskaya baba-yaga» [«Hittite .GI and Slavic Baba-Yagn»] in Kratkiye soobshcheniya Institute Slavyaiiovedeniya (Brief Communications of the Institute for Slavic Studies), Vol. 38, 1963, pp.28-37; 2) г/ndoyevropeyskiy rituatny termin souhi-etro- (etto-, edhlo-)• (The Indo-European ritual term souhi-eiro- (etlo-, edhlo-1) in Halta-slav-yanskiye issledovaniya 1984 (Balto-Slavic Studies 1984], Moscow, 1986, pp.80-89, 3) *Zametki po pokhoronnoy obryadnosti, II. О mifotogizirovannykh opisaniyakh obryada iruposo-zhzheniya i yego proiskhozhdeniya и baltov I slavyan» | Notes on the funeral ritualism, II. On mythologized descriptions of the cremation rite and its origin among Baits and Slavs], In Balio-stavyanskiye issledovaniya 1983 (Balto-Slavic Studies 1985], Moscow, 1987, pp.19-28. Thus, Toporov maintains: «The prototype of the motif of "roasting" the hero In the fairy-tale and In the similar actions of the ritual is apparently the cremation rite» (V.N.Toporov, "Zametki...,» p.22).

3. The integral characteristic of the ritual Is given in a well-known book by G.I.Popov, Russkaya narodno-bytovaya meditsina [Russian Folk Medlcinel. St.Petersburg, 1903, based on data collected by Prince Tenlshev's Ethnographic Bureau, now in the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of U.S.S.R. [since 1992. the Russian Museum of Ethnography — Eds.] (further SME), fund 7, list 1. I have found a number of hand-written letters used by G.I.Popov.

4. E.A.Pokrovsky reports that the term sukhotka was used to describe «various degrees of emaciation... Highest degrees of sukhotka are described with two terms, sushets (or sukhaya sten') and sobachya starost'» (E.A.Pokrovsky, Fizicheskoye vospitaniye detey и raznykh narodov, preimushchestvenno Rossii (Physical Training of Children Among Various Peoples, Mainly those of Russia], Moscow, 1884, p.333).

5. T.Ya.Tkachev, Narodnaya meditsina v Voronezhskoy gubernil [«Folk Medicine in Voronezh province»] In Voronezhskiy krayevedcheskiy sbornik [Voronezh Collections of I-ocal Lore], Voronezh. 1925, No. 3, p. 10.

Andrei Toporkov

6. M.F.Krivoshapkin, Yeniseyskiy okrug i yego zhizri [Yenissey District and Its Life], St.Petersburg, 1865, Vol.2. p.3.

7. V.F.Dcmich, Pedlatriya и russkogo naroda [Russian Folk Pediatry). Si.Petersburg, 1892, p.35.

8. G.Popov. Russkaya narodno-bytovaya rnedtlsina, p.70. 9. E.A.Pokrovsky reports also that the ritual was practiced In Novgorod and Tver provinces

(E.A.Pokrovsky, Fizicheskoye vospitaniye..., p.334). 10. SME, fund 7. sheet 1, unit 29. p.23 (Mclenkov district. Vladimir province). 11. T.Ya.Tkachcv. Narodnaya meditslna..., p.10. 12. V.F.Demich, Pedlatriya..., p.34. 13. However, according to the materials at the Polesyc archives of the Institute of Slavic

and Balkan Studies (further PA), this usage was encountered also in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Polesyc: sushchi pereplkayuf (sushchi are being rebakedl (Vetly village, Lyubcshov district, Volyn province), staroshchi pripekayut' |old ages are burnt) (Kochis'nche village. Yelsk district, Gomel province), starosf zapekayuf [same meaningj (Kostyukovichl village, Mozyr district. Gomel province).

14. J.Talko-Hryncewicz, Zarysy lecznictwa iudowego na Rusi pdudniowej [Essays in Folk Medicine of Southern Russia], Krakow, 1893. p.I29.

15. A.V.Ivanova, P.Marusov, Materialy diya etnograficheskogn izucheniya Kha/kovskoy gubernii. Sloboda Kabanye [Materials for the ethnographic study of Kharkov provinre. Kabanye Village) in Khar'kovskiy sbornik [Kharkov Collections), No. 7. 1893. p.415

16. N.Ya.Niklforovsky, Prostonarodniye primely i poverya, suyevernye obryady i obychai, legendarnye skazaniya о litsakh i mestakh [Folk Omens and Beliefs. Superstitious Rites and Customs, Legendary Tales Aboul Persons and Places), Vitebsk. 1897, p.40.

17. M.Fcdcrovskl, Lud biaioruski na Rusi Litewskiej [Byelorussians In Lithuanian Russial, Krakow, 1897, pp.399-400.

18 A.Scrchputouski, Prymkhl i zababony beiarusau-palyashukou [Customs and Rites of Polesye Belorusslans). Minsk, 1930, p.168.

19. N.Ya.Niklforovsky, Prosionarodnye primety..., p.40. 20. V.N.Arshlnov, О iwrodnom lechenii v Kazanskom uyexde [On the folk medicine in

Kazan district) In Sbornik svedeniy dtya izucheniya krestyanskogo naseleniya Rossii [A Collection of Data for the Study of the Peasant Population of Russia), Moscow. 1889, No. 1, Suppl., p.27.

21. M.Krasnozhenova, Materialy po narodnoy nieditsine Yeniseyskoy gubernii [Materials on the folk mcdicinc in the Yenissey province) In Izvestiya Vostochno-Sibirskogo Otdeleniya Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva [Proceedings of the Eastern Siberian Department of the Russian Geographical Society), Vol.42. 1911, p.75.

22. SME, fund 7, list 1, unit 1334, f.24. Cf. G.Popov, Russkaya narodno-bytovayameditsina. p.70.

23. V.N.Arshinov, О narodnom lechenii, p.27. 24. PA, 1980. Author's records. 25. P.P.Chubinsky, Trudy etnografo-statisticheskoy ekspeditsii v Zapadno-Russkiy kray

[Transactions of the Ethnographic and Statistical Expedition to the Western Russian Region], St.Petereburg, 1877, Vol.4, pp. 16-17.

26. O.A.Sedakova, Obryadovaya terminologiya i struktura obryadovogo teksta [Ritual Terminology and the Structure of the Ritual Text] , Candidate Dissertation, Moscow, 1983, Suppl., pp.293-294; A.B.Strakhov, Rituatno-bytovoye obrashcheniye j khlebom i pechyu i yego svyaz's predstavleitiyami о dole i zugrobnom mire [Ritual and everyday treatment of bread and stove and its relation to the beliefs concerning destiny and the other world] in Polesye i etnogenez slavyan: Predvarltetnye materialy i tezisy

Rebaking of Children...

konferentsii [Polesye and Slavic Ethnogenesis: Preliminary Materials and Abstracts of the Conference], Moscow, 1983; V.N.Toporov, Zametki..., p.26.

27. A.Afanasyev, Poeticheskiye vozzreniya slavyan na prirodu [Slavic Poetic Views of Nature], Moscow. 1868, Vol.2, p.38.

28. V.Dahl. Tolkovy slovw' zhivogo velikorusskogo yazyka [Dictionary of 'he Living Russian Language], Moscow, 1955, Vol.3, p. 108.

29. V.N'.Arshinov, О narodnom lechenii..., p.27. 30. A.Serzhputousky, PrymkhL.., p. 168. 31. Il.Biegelelsen. Matka i dziecko w obrz^dach, wierzeniach i praktikach ludu polskiego

[Mother ana Child In Rites, Beliefs, and Practices of the Polish Pcoplel, Lwow, 1927. pp.354-358.

32. Ibid. 33. O.Kolberg, Dziefa wszystkie [Complete Works], Vol.15. Poznanskie [Poznanlan],

Wroctow and Poznari, 1962, pt.7. p.153. 34. Vyach.Vs.Ivanov, Indoyevropeyskiye etinwlogii [Indo-European etymologies] in Eti-

mologiya 1983 [Etymology 1983]. Moscow. 1985, p.161. 35. St.Petersburg Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences Archive, fund 104, list I .

unit 135, ff. 144-144 rev. 36. N.Ya.Niklforovsky, Prostonarodnye primely..., p.40. 37. PA. 1984. Peskl village, Retnov district. Volyn province Author's records. 38. See note 2. 39. N.V.Novlkov, Obrazy vosiochnoslavyanskoy wlshebnoy skazki [Images of the Eastern

Slavic Fairy-Tale], Leningrad. 1974, p. 174. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid.