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September 01, 2020

God in Nature

God in Nature

It is early morning; a wristwatch reads seven. The faithful stream into the grove, where preparations are in full swing: the men are chopping wood with huge axes, and the women are scooping water out of a barrel, pouring it into the caldrons. The elders are supervising the arrangement of candles at the base of the most important trees. Warmth from the caldrons fills the air, along with the melodious murmur of Mari speech. It is time to perform the first rite. The gods must give a sign that they are ready to hear the prayers and accept the offerings.

My bus pulls out of the station and starts down the narrow stripe of road that ultimately merges into the ribbon of the horizon. My destination is the village Toktaybelyak, where one of the most respected people of the Mari El Republic awaits: the kart Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Aktuganov. He has been presiding over worship for several decades. I will return to his home again and again. He will be my primary guide in my attempt to understand the Mari way of life, its values and creed.

For the Mari, being a kart, a pagan priest, endows a special status. Yet, in principle, any man can be a kart. The most important qualifications are having the respect of the people, knowledge, and life experience. Being a kart means serving one’s people.

Aktuganov lives on a prototypical Mari farm. A gate leads into a complex consisting of a house, a long barn, a banya (bathhouse), an orchard, and an apiary. A juniper branch hangs above the front door. Its prickly needles will ensnare evil and prevent it from entering. Our conversation begins in the kitchen.

“You came at a good time: tomorrow is a day of prayer,” Aktuganov says. “We’ll be going to my native village, Shinur. The grove where we’ll be praying is one of the most sacred places in the district. Prayers never stopped there, even under the Soviet government. This is a very powerful place.”

Preparations for the prayer ceremony begin the evening before. Agniya Ilinichna, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich’s wife, fires up the stove and the house is filled with the aroma of fresh-baked bread and pancakes. The banya has been readied: a steam bath is an obligatory part of the preparations. In the house, a white shirt embroidered with Mari talismanic symbols and a belt that will hold a knife rest on the back of an easy chair, both guarded by two cats. Each kart has his own talismanic symbols, some of which are encoded in the embroidery of his shirts. These symbols can be traced back to the Mari writing system, Tishte, which consisted of geometric signs. Tishte was never fully developed, but its vestiges are preserved in Mari embroidery.

After the meal has been prepared and a session is shared in the banya, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich melts wax to make candles. Once all the preparations have been completed, we resume our conversation.

The foundation of our culture has always been the veneration and preservation of nature – keeping rivers clean and preventing the forests and the animal world from being depleted. For us, nature is the very definition of God. In the grove, we are like a beehive. Everyone is busy with their own job; everyone works together toward a common purpose. For the Mari, bees are special creatures – birds of the gods. They bring wealth to the home, gathering pollen from flowers. Flowers are life’s beginning, the beginning of nature, its children, and bees gather up these particles of new, pure life and bring them home.

Nature has always fed us. What has always been on the table? Kasha, grains, flatbread, curds, milk, and soup. Those who lived by the river also had fish. Bread (kinde) was always most important. An unbroken loaf (tichmash kinde) is the table’s main attribute during rites and prayers. During prayers, people take pieces from this round loaf, from the center, and put them aside, and they are set on fire during prayers, as a gift for the gods. Prayer days are the most important days of the year, days when we can gather the entire village together or the entire republic and, like our ancestors, become one family. On these days, we are very close to one another, to our great grandfathers and the Earth on which they lived. You will see tomorrow, when you get to the grove. You will see this unity.

Relaxing in Mari Village

The day of the prayer ceremony is determined by the moon (which must be either waxing or full), and the date can change from year to year. In addition to cleansing themselves in a banya, the faithful have to prepare offerings to bring to the grove, for example, a goose, a duck, a loaf of bread, or pancakes. A certain mental preparation is also required: people must think through what they want to say to the gods, what they will be asking for and what they will be thanking them for. Aktuganov continues his explanation:

The grove that is the Mari temple is cultivated by nature itself. In the most literal sense, it is fed by the juices of the earth. When you are inside, you breathe in the smells of the forest, hear how it sings. You see the sky and feel the wind that has blown through the trees before reaching your skin. The longer humankind lives, the more rapidly it is forgetting its roots, the irreplaceable values that cannot be eliminated from our lives, if only because we are a part of nature.

Scientific discoveries, new technologies and so forth – all that’s important, but if we have to poison rivers or cut down forests for their sake, that’s not what humans need. That’s why we consider the forest and groves, the rivers and mountains to be sacred and place strict prohibitions on how humans can inhabit them. All we want is that they not be destroyed, that people not interfere with their living.

There are areas that require strict and precise rules – money, for example. During the prayer ceremony, we place a plate or bag onto a green tabletop so that people can put in a sum of money when they come to the grove. Put some if you want, if not, then don’t, and the amount depends on both your means and desire. The money will be handed over in front of everyone to the person who will be in charge of preparing the next year’s prayer ceremony. He’ll use it to buy firewood, buckwheat groats for kasha, to pay for the bullock, and if needed, he’ll pay for the tractor and fuel. Everything is simple, everything is in plain sight. The kart never takes money for conducting the ceremony. There is no place for money in religion. True wealth is family, knowledge, and life experience.

It is early morning and still dark outside. We have piled into a little Zhiguli that swishes through the frosty morning air heading for Shinur.

The day of the prayer ceremony begins and ends with a prayer at home. Before our departure, everyone gathers in the kitchen. The kart lights a candle and asks that the trip to the grove be easy and that the gods hear the prayers and accept the gifts. He remembers the karts who came before him. We then load up caldrons, axes, barrels of water, and various tools into a trailer hitched to a tractor.

The Mari see the prayer ceremony as a privilege that must be earned. The effort you put in to deserve this rite begins not with chopping the wood, not with preparing the animals for the group meal, and not with the delivery of clean water – it begins with the trip to the temple.

Family
: Kart Vyacheslav Aktuganov and his family on the eve of the annual celebration.

The fog that caressingly shrouds the Sacred Grove (Kusoto) is lifting, and as it recedes, the outlines of treetops that even a minute ago were lost in the sky  – the temple’s cupola – come into crisp focus. The grove is revealed in all its majesty. The faithful pause for several seconds before passing through the Sacred Gate (Kusoto Kapka), bowing their heads and pronouncing a few words of greeting before stepping inside their temple. Having passed through this wooden archway, they follow a long path, no wider than the wheel of the tractor that hauled the animals and items needed for the ceremony. The path leads to the grove’s center, where the ceremony will take place.

The first thing that catches the eye is the string of campfires stretching out over several meters. This is where the meal will be prepared. The Mari word for these fires is tulolmo, literally “the place that burns.” The fire has been set up near the grove’s most important trees (the term Onapu means “leader tree”). This is where the kart will recite the prayers. Certain special trees are bedecked with a sash (pota) embroidered with traditional Mari symbols. The Mari believe that trees serve as a link between the worlds of earth and heaven and connect the energy of the sky with the energy of the earth. The tree is a sort of conductor that transmits prayers to the gods. The main candle – tung sorta – is lit at the foot of the leader tree, Onapu. Next to Onapu is shaga, a green table built out of logs. This is where the faithful will place their offerings: round loafs of bread, bottles of kvas, and pancakes. Each stack of pancakes is topped with a tuara (a pyramid-shaped curd pancake pointing skyward). The table also holds little bags into which money will be placed.

There are a number of rules governing the construction of this table, for example it must be built using an uneven number of poles. The table is covered with a linen cloth, which is topped with branches, limbs pointing upward. When the faithful place their offerings on the table, it is as if they are putting them into the tree’s arms to be passed on to the gods.

The kart pulls a stick from the fire and purifies an animal by tracing its contour with it, thereby showing respect to the fire spirit. Now, the elder stands next to the animal and sprinkles it with spring water through the branches of a fir tree while reciting a prayer. The sprinkling of water from the head to the tip of the tail is an act of purification. The ritual is accompanied by the “language of metal” – the clang of a knife blade against an axe. After the animal has been purified, it is left standing next to Onapu.

The next few minutes are crucial. This is when the gods will either give or withhold their blessing – unless the proper sign is given, there is no point in slaughtering the animals, since the sacrifice will be pointless. A goose has to stretch up to its full height and beat its wings; a sheep has to shake off the water with its entire body. Everyone holds their breath as they await the sign. A few seconds later, there is a sigh of relief: the bird has beat its wings. The grove resumes its hive-like activity.

After settling down on neighboring tree stumps, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich and I continue our conversation.

There was one grove where we probably hadn’t prayed for about thirty years. We went there, started getting everything ready, lit the fires. I sprinkled a sheep with water, stepped away, and stood there, waiting for a sign. After a couple of minutes, it shook off the water, but at the same time, the trees near Onapu start shedding dew. None of the other trees were doing anything new, but dew was raining down from the ones near Onapu. What did it mean? What kind of a sign was that? I think that they were waiting for us there and showing that they were glad to again see people in that grove.

Also, instead of clanging a knife and axe together, we used to have a gusli playing, but it’s been a long time since we had a gusli to play during prayers. There has to be a special sound. There’s no way to describe it – you can only feel it when you hear it. Some compare it to the beating of a heart; some think it’s a way of signaling the gods that tells them that we’re about to be addressing them. That sound is an integral part of our prayer ceremony.

Among the many people in the grove, it is easy to identify the kart and his assistants by their white caftan and their tall hat – a terkupsh. These hats also have a skyward pointing, pyramidal shape. Like their caftans, they are light-colored and felted from sheep’s wool.

Several men interrupt our discussion. They need the kart to help them prepare the meat. According to the rules, certain parts of each sacrificial animal (purlyk) have to be put on a specially prepared board that will be burned during prayers.

Preparations are finally complete. The older generation is seated on stumps around the grove’s perimeter, while the children look on with curiosity at what their parents are up to. Someone among these playful little Mari children is a future kart. The men who have been busy chopping wood have set aside their axes and are now pouring tea. The meal is almost ready. No one is allowed to take a taste until it is deemed done, and that is determined strictly by smell.

Aktuganov gathers everyone around him. He thanks them for their hard work, for the offerings they have brought to the grove, and for the time that they have devoted to preparing for the ceremony. The elders take their places in front of Onapu. Everyone else, after preparing some branches and twigs to kneel on, gets down on their knees in a tightly packed group.

For the Mari, this moment of prayer brings the forces of nature into movement: the sky and the earth, the stars and the wind, the sun and the moon, the rain and the lightning. This moment strengthens the connections among people, families, and villages. For an instant, the inexplicable merges with the everyday, the worldly with the eternal, and the forces of nature cleanse the body of infirmity and the soul of burdens and agitation.

 

The grove falls silent. The kart begins the prayers. The air of the Mari temple fills with melodious Mari speech, the clang of steel, and the crackle of tulolmo – the fire. Prayers ascend to the gods both through the smoke of the fire and the sacred tree. The kart sends the gods prayers for everything living in our world.

The prayer ceremony consists of several parts. In each, the kart asks the gods for the wellbeing of something specific: the forest, the water, the harvest, the weather, the people, the wild animals, the livestock, the fowl. Each of these entreaties ends with the phrase Alal liyzhe (May it come to pass), which the assembly repeats three times. The kart’s assistants then put the boards with the purlyk into the fire, and Vyacheslav Mikhailovich addresses the fire spirit: “Mother of fire, send our prayers with your smoke, with strong spirit. Send it up to the gods.”

After prayers, a long line forms to thank the kart. Everyone wants to personally express their gratitude for the prayers, shake his hand, and wish him health and prosperity. After receiving their portion of kasha, bouillon, and goose, people find a spot in the grove, make themselves a little table out of boughs and twigs, and dig into their meal.

Dusk sets in. The assembly streams out of the sacred grove. Before leaving, many walk up to Onapu. They give the tree a hug and spend a couple of minutes talking to it, thanking it, and bidding it farewell until the next prayer ceremony. As people exit through the Sacred Gate, they each turn to recite a short prayer and perform a deep bow. The kart is the last to depart. He thanks the gods for the day, for a successful ceremony, and for the fact that nothing went wrong. He asks that all the households in his village enjoy wellbeing.

Headlights illuminate the rural road as we return to the Aktuganov household. My wristwatch reads seven – the day of the prayer  ceremony is a long one. When we arrive, everyone goes off to bed, having left every last bit of strength in the grove.

May the Mari people be able to preserve their many traditions, their national faith and culture, the sturdy perfection of the principles, both simple and intelligible, on which their culture is based. Their value in our rapidly changing world is indisputable.

Alal liyzhe.

Tags: religionpaganismMari

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