Author
Temchenko Andriy
candidate of historical sciences, associate professor of the Department of History of Ukraine at Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Cherkasy National University.
The motif of “composition” in healing and ritual texts: the history of images and mythological semantics
Abstract
Introduction. Interdisciplinary research that helps to reveal the little-known facts of the past is a crucial task of the modern humanities.
Purpose. The leading motif of certain healing texts is the verbal ‘division’ and further “composition” of the ill body, which implies its reproduction in a new hypostasis. Similar points can be seen in the archaic religious texts of the Indo-Europeans, as well as archaeological finds of the Bronze Age, when the ideological basis of the farmers mythology has been formed.
Results. The rudiments of the cosmogonic beliefs of the Indo-Europeans are preserved in the healing texts of Ukrainians. Certain elements of the heavenly / earth landscape are compared to the parts of the human body. Comparison of mythological texts with archaeological material helps to understand the ‘logic’ of ritual body division during burial ceremonies or sacrifices. In this way there is a ‘new’ birth of the deceased in the other world, the sacrifice of a living per- son can ensure overall stability and natural balance. The divided body can also belong not to a sacrifice, but serve as a marker of a ‘stranger’ ancestor or ‘living’ deceased, who can do harm after death. This is explained by the fact that in a structured and well-organized agricultural culture, the well-laid body of the deceased actually duplicates the location of the sleeper, who can be awakened, and the deliberate violation of the anatomical proportions of the “dead” makes it impossible for him to “resurrect”.
Unlike apotropic rites, in healing texts there is a verbal ‘composition’ of the unbalanced ill body, which is carried out in a corresponding tone and sequence. Fixing of bodily integrity is confirmed by a comparison with the landscape elements (mountains, rivers, ground), which guarantee the inevitability of a positive result of treatment. Instead, the deliberate destruction of the bodily proportion with the chaotic arrangement of its elements is used by the rite for destruction of chthonic creatures, which explains certain calendar rituals or actions of apotropic character.
The “right-wrong” situation is a part of the overall binarity “space-chaos” / “life-death” and serves as a key to comprehension of the semantics of human sacrifices, when the victim’s body is divided into three parts. The proportional separation of the head, body and hands performs a function similar to correct composition in the healing texts and duplicates the plots of etiological myths aimed at recreation of the cosmic order.
Keywords
myth, sacrifice, body, healing ritual, Indo-Europeans, ancestor.
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