Mordvinian-Moksha female breastplate: the dynamics of shaping

Shigurova Tat'yana Alekseevna ORCID: 0000-0001-5342-8471 Doctor of Cultural Studies Professor; Department of Cultural Studies and Library and Information Resources; Ogarev National Research Mordovian State University 3 Serova St., Saransk, 430010, Russia shigurova_tatyana@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Mokshina Elena Nikolaevna ORCID: 0000-0002-7069-6563 Doctor of History Professor; Historical and Sociological Institute; N. P. Ogarev National Research Mordovian State University 430005, Russia, Rep. Mordovia, Saransk, Bolshevistskaya str., 68/1, room 629. enm2112@mail.ru

Introduction

The traditional Mordovian costume, being the most important element of material, spiritual and artistic culture, has been characterized since ancient times by a variety of details and means of expression, and a high level of skill of its creator. The variety of spiral jewelry created and worn by a Mordovian woman in the 8th–10th centuries, the repeatability of spiral jewelry in medieval jewelry, which became an ethnic symbol of the Mordovian woman and the developing Mordovian culture, indicates the existence of a pattern that requires scientific analysis. The original spiral temporal pendant with a weight (unfortunately, its authentic name is not known), with the expressiveness of the two-sided vertical and the gradual increase in the length of the rod and the number of spiral coils of the decoration, accentuated the gaze of others on the face of a married woman, drawing attention to a specific personality. In the VIII–IX centuries. In the costume of a married Mordvinian-Moksha woman, a puloker appeared. Since the end of the tenth century, the manufacture of a spiral-shaped earpiece made of strips of leather and metal wire has been replaced by the creation of a solid case made of tree bark.

The purpose of the article is to identify the reasons for the changes in the manufacture technology of the sweater.beginning from the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries .

The relevance of the work is due to the researchers' attention to the origins of the modification of the Mordovian-moksha mower. In cultural studies, it is still important to determine what causes certain changes in a sustainable culture. In the history of the traditional Mordovian costume, certain patterns are found in the formation of a woman's headdress, in changes in a woman's hairstyle, and in the decoration of clothes. The dynamics of the mower formation demonstrates a combination of tradition and innovation in medieval Mordovian culture.

The use of general scientific methods, the comparative historical method of studying archaeological heritage materials, the semantic analysis of Mordovian mythology, traditional rituals, and works of decorative and applied art in the field of women's costume is determined by the topic of scientific research. Systematic and cultural-anthropological approaches make it possible to identify the value dominants in the creative activity of a medieval woman.

The original jewelry works of the Mordovian people can be in demand today as a resource for the development of modern jewelry and decorative and applied art in Russia. In addition, knowledge about the medieval culture of the Mordovian people contributes to solving scientific and practical problems in cultural studies, museology, ethnography and determining the subject of cultural heritage protection.

Literature review

Since the 8th century, a puloker shoulder strap appeared in the costume of a Moksha woman, which preserved its uniqueness and ethnic features for a millennium. "The headdress of a woman and the peculiarities of her hairstyle were understood in the Middle Ages as an important semiotic system that expressed the most important spiritual values of culture in a symbolic artistic form" (see: ^{[24, p. 81]}). The earpiece was made from available materials – leather and metal in accordance with "the technical capabilities of processing raw materials and production methods known to a woman" (see: ^{[22, p. 6]}).

The archaeological sites of the VIII–X centuries, located on the territory of the Upper and Middle Primorye and the Middle Pozen region, inhabited at that time by the Moksha subethnos, preserved an abundance of spiral ornaments of women's costumes. The tradition of the spiral method of shaping is recorded in various types of jewelry of the Mordovian people of the VIII–XI centuries A.D., such as a temporal pendant, a piercing, a crown crown, a hryvnia, a necklace, bracelets, rings, shoe jewelry. In addition, it is represented in the canon of shaping the elements of a traditional costume, recorded in the variety of waist clothing and the multiplicity of girdling of a traditional Mordovian costume, in the abundance of threads of chest necklaces, the rules for protecting (twisting) legs from adverse weather conditions, in the ornament of metal jewelry and embroidery" ^{[23, p.168]}. The spiral shaping method was used to create a traditional costume and a shoulder strap in accordance with the techniques of women's needlework (weaving, spinning, twisting, winding), which could be reflected in the name of the sweater, in relation to the result of the above–mentioned activity, forming the concepts of a tangle - kire (erzya), kern (moksha); (hereinafter – E. – erzya, M. – moksha).

The ornament "circle and spirals – symbol of the sun" was distinguished by researchers on typical lace buckles of Mordovia in the VIII – XI centuries (see: ^{[17, p. 103]}. In a well–known pictographic letter from relatives to a Mordovian soldier published in 1888, the concept of day is symbolically depicted as a circle, since it was understood as the time of the movement of the sun, the rotation of the sun: "chi (E.), shi (M.) - day, the sun (see: ^{[11, p. 216]}. Ryabinin E.A. highlights a characteristic feature of "Finno-Ugric women's headdress in the north-west of the Novgorod land ... the widespread use of small metal elements – spirals, rings, tubular penetrations and sewn plaques" ^{[15, p. 55]}.

Researchers trace the "archetypal solar symbolism throughout the Eurasian civilizational space", which was laid in the foundation of religious beliefs of many peoples of Eurasia ^{[13, p.123]}. The spiral is a fairly popular symbol used since the Paleolithic era by the peoples of the world, defined by the concepts of ascent, development, creation, fertility, rhythm of life, labyrinth and many others. Thus, according to N.E. Urushadze, the shape of the spiral "is one of the derivatives of the sign of the sun, fire, with the inherited principle of movement" ^{[18, p. 65]}. T.V. Tsivyan explored the idea of the solar circle in the Balkan model of the world, noting the semantics of cyclicity, the infinity of a winding and zigzag path, eternal return "The idea of a maze and movement in a maze finds expression in the Balkan circle. Strictly speaking, the Balkan circle is an unfolding tangle, the thread of Ariadne, winding around the corners of the labyrinth..." ^{[19, p. 73]}.

The ambiguous meanings of the spiral symbol take into account the combination of the circle shape and the "momentum of movement". In the cultures of Western Siberia, the spiral shape has been present in the design of bracelets, rings, and pendants since the Advanced Bronze Age. For many peoples of Russia, the spiral was an important formative element of the ornament used in the decoration of traditional clothing. According to N.N. Alexandrov, "Russia is the birthplace" of mental archetypes of helicity. This is where they appeared, and here they are understood: by Kondratiev, Sorokin, Gumilev, Subetto" ^{[1, p. 9]}.

The results of the study

Human creative activity in the 8th–10th centuries was carried out in full accordance with the spiritual and religious values of culture. The integrity of the medieval culture of the Mordovian tribes was based on pagan faith, a form of spiritual culture naturally formed as a result of previous ethnic contacts with various peoples (Indo–European, Turkic, Finno-Ugric) and their ideologies based on human awareness of connection with nature, dependence on it. Since the 8th century, archaeological sites confirm the completion of "the unification of the funeral rite, ... which indicates the formation of pagan religion as an integral unified system" ^{[6, p. 37]}.

The central place in the spiritual culture and religion of the Mordovian people was occupied by the image of the sun. The Mordovians deified the sun Shi (M.), Chi (E.), originally in the feminine form Shiava (M.), Chiava (E.). In the Moksha language, the sun – Nishke, Shi, Shkai (M.) has affinity with the Khanty word "sanki – god, supreme, lord, light, light, light" ^{[20, p. 125]}. At the harvest festival, the deity of the sun was addressed: "Ascending, setting and rotating Shibavas..." ^{[9, p. 292]}). According to Devyatkina's materials, the dwelling of God is the Sun, he has a round bed ^{[4, p. 288]}.

The symbolism of the circle and spiral, regularly repeated in Mordovian jewelry, could not be accidental, it was determined by the important significance for the ancient creator and bearer of jewelry of cultural values associated with the pagan religion of the people who deified the sun. The main role of women in the culture of the Mordovian people is expressed in the concepts of motherhood – ajax shi (M.), awaks chi (E.) and marriage – Awaks shi (M.), which in their semantic content approached the solar symbolism of cyclical movement and activity. In the harsh natural conditions of the Middle Volga region, the active activity of a married woman from dawn to sunset in the manufacture of food and clothing until the end of the nineteenth century. They contributed to the maintenance, preservation of life, and strengthening the health of family and clan members. "Women, as if by nature, are destined for a special kind of work... a woman of the local parish must feed all the cattle in the house, heat the stove, go to the river for water, and look after small children; she also has the duty to weave and spin, and to sheathe and wash everyone in the family..." ^{[14, p.225]}).

In the content of the Mordovian epic, a large number of names have been preserved not only of goddesses (After all-ava, Vir-ava, Moda-ava, After all-ava, Vir-ava, Mastor-ava, Norov-ava, Yurt-ava), but also the names of ordinary girls and women (Kastusha, Kilyava, Litova, Narchatka, Samanka, etc.). Freedom-loving, proud female images presented in folklore texts actively resist the negative vicissitudes of their fate, boldly enter the struggle to protect their homeland and home. The interrelation of the mythological representations of the people with historical events, lifestyle, customs and rituals, and actions of people confirms the interest of Mordovian culture in the individual behavior of women.

Due to the spiral shaping, the earpiece was flexible and ready to change in accordance with external and internal factors. Each woman created a braid using simple rules for twisting a braid with a strip of leather made in advance according to the same rules. In the 10th century, the puloker breastplate, which originated in the 8th–9th centuries due to spiral shaping, continued to be used by Moksha women, but its manufacturing method began to change: a tube made of tree bark appeared: "Since the tenth century, the headdress includes a shoulder strap in the form of a long tube rolled from bast and wrapped in a bronze spiral. A scythe was placed inside, fastened to a wooden stick with a leather strap" ^{[17, p. 103]}.

Taking into account the conscious change of the material by the woman, the methods of its processing and the creation of a new shape, it is possible to determine the innovative nature of the modification of the earpiece. The supposed positive purpose of the changes – shortening the combing time – was picked up by many subsequent generations of Moksha women. The simplicity of the process was achieved with the help of a rod, which allowed the bark case to be used repeatedly and quickly.

The transformation of the technology of creating an earpiece, which has followed since the tenth century, is one of the signs of changes in spiritual culture, including human activity: cognition, evaluation, planning, which precedes the subsequent processes of creating material and artistic culture. The gradual disappearance of spiral shaping from the practice of creating an earpiece ends with the preservation of spiral twisting as a decoration of the earpiece.

An analysis of the changes in the formation of the half-tribe indicates the presence of external and internal causes. The tenth century belongs to a difficult period, which many scientists define as a milestone, a turning point "in the history of the Mordovian people" ^{[26, p. 55]}. Since that time, the territory of residence of the Mordovian people turned out to be "... in the sphere of political and economic interests" of Kievan Rus, and the ethnonym "Mordvinian" began to appear in ancient Russian chronicles ^{[10, p. 28]}. The close economic and political relations of the Mordovian people with the Slavs of Ancient Russia are confirmed not only by the abundance of archaeological artifacts (slate spinning wheels from Ovruch, Slavic jewelry) in Mordovian monuments, but also by the discovery of a pendant with the sign of Rurikovich in the Mordovian burial ground of the 10th and early 11th centuries (see ^{[26, p. 64]}).

The proximity of pagan peoples (Slavs and Mordvins), according to I.V. Kondakov, "is due not only to natural and economic factors, but also to ideological and religious ones: the peoples who jointly inhabited the Eastern European Plain - Slavs, Turks and Finno-Ugrians – had, in their essence, a largely archaic mythology" ^{[8, p. 15]}. The connection between the religious terminology denoting the names of the chronicle pantheon of Prince Vladimir, who sought to unite various tribes of Ancient Russia, with similar names of Mordovian rituals, or places where they were performed, has been preserved. Thus, the Slavic deity Veles / Volos is consonant with the name of the Mordovian rite – Vel /Velen ozks (rural prayer), see ^{[9, p. 120]}. The name of the female deity of the Kievan pantheon, Mokosh, is consonant with the name of the Moksha River, to the shores of which Mordovian women worshipped the goddess Ave. The Russian name Perun "God of heaven", as well as Lithuanian Perkunas, Mordovian Purgine-paz, go back to the Indo-Iranian language-base ^{[20, p. 157]}.

Researchers, highlighting the lack of systematization, vagueness, and instability in the pagan mythology of the Mordvins and Slavs, find in Mordovian mythology "the influence of other ancient, now almost completely disappeared traditions (for example, Slavic paganism) and world religions, especially Christianity" (see: ^{[8, p. 13; 9, p. 50]}. Undoubtedly, the series of religious reforms of Prince Vladimir, the baptist of Russia, due to the close socio–cultural, political, and economic interrelationships of the peoples, could not but have an impact on the spiritual culture of the Mordovian people. The period of Vladimir's religious reforms coincides with the migration of the population from the Tsna River to the Vadinsk-Moksha interfluve.: "half of the monuments in the Central Caucasus have disappeared, and in the Vadinsk-Moksha interfluve, on the contrary, the number of settlements and burial grounds has increased dramatically" ^{[2, p. 18]}. Trapezoidal pendants (a symbol of power) dating from the first two decades of the 11th century were discovered here in the Kelginsky burial ground of the 10th century. The pagan religion of the Mordovian people has been preserved, but in it the female images Shiava (M.), Chiava (E.), which are a symbol of the deification of the sun Shi (M.), Chi (E.) have been replaced by male images Shi, Shkai, Nishke (M.).

In the context of a rethinking of religious pagan images, complex attempts at state-building, the triumph of the patriarchal idea in culture and the instability of life, population migration began. As a reaction to changes in the natural environment, human activity in organizing and arranging a new territory determined the renewal of the image of a person created by a traditional costume. The costume system, which exists to meet the necessary needs of the wearer, turned out to be open to transformations that have become useful for adapting women to the changed circumstances of life, using the available resources of nature.

The earpiece has become an accessory that combines old values and new demands of life. Abandoning the previous canon of spiral shaping, the woman chooses a more practical version of the product, creating a reusable design of a shoulder strap of the usual vertical shape with a laconic decor. She uses durable and affordable materials from the forest area, traces of fabric use were preserved in some archaeological sites, but the final choice was made in favor of tree bark and wood. There was a rod for the possibility to periodically remove and re-put the case on the braid. Since the 11th century, a scythe in the form of a tube or a case with a scythe inside has been widely distributed on the territory of Primorye, on the Tesha River, and since the 12th century. "A new form of scythe has appeared — a puloker (in Mordovian - a female scythe placed in a bast) with a rod made of wood or iron and without a rod (Sitemsky, Tatlaka II, Krasnoe I, Starobadikovsky I burial grounds)" ^[3]. In the Panzhinsky burial ground of the XIII–XIV centuries, P.D. Stepanov discovered a set of pulker: "a splint tube and a stick for twisting a braid, as well as a brush made of washcloth" ^{[16, p. 198]}.

Religious and mythological representations of medieval women were realized in the practice of life, in customs and rituals, in moral qualities and rules of behavior. The concepts of life (eryama M., eryamo E.) and health (shumbrashi –M., shumbrachi –E.) are important, fundamental cultural values. In accordance with the great responsibility assigned to a married woman for hygiene of cooking, neatness of the external image of the hostess, saving time, etc., the cultural tradition has fixed the people's ideas about the correct hairstyle of a married woman, represented by the practice of wearing a napkin that tightly covered her hair, which did not interfere with effective activities and ensuring the health of the family. The peculiarity of the Moksha woman's shoulder strap, which hid her hair, was that it remained in plain sight, deliberately attracting attention with its carefully executed decor, metal sheen, and product shape, with a pronounced desire to exaggerate the size of the product and its internal content.

The modification of the Mordovian-Moksha female breastplate corresponded to the need for further cultural progress, since it corresponded to the moral canon of culture. Pulokery has become an example of "cultural memory", which preserves the achievements of material and spiritual activities of the past centuries and the continuous creative process of transformation that took place in new territories of population, embodying local variants of the subject, ethnic flavor and diversity of interpretation of content, functions, semantics. An additional confirmation of the role of the shoulder strap is the existence in the traditional women's costume from the tenth century up to the nineteenth century. a symbol of neatness, directly related to the creation of hairstyles, hair care, bronze jewelry in the form of a comb. For example, in the Kryukovo-Kuzhnovsky burial ground (VIII–XI centuries), a bone comb was discovered (see Photo 1.). The decoration complemented, sometimes, the waistband, sometimes the breast decor of a traditional female costume.

Photo 1. A bone comb decorated with horse heads. From P.P. Ivanov's book Materials on the history of Mordovia of the VIII–XI centuries.

Knowing the complex history of clothing and headdresses, the abundance of points of view on the question of the causes of the origin of clothing, it is necessary to single out the practical function identified by L. Sternberg as the main one: "The root motive of caring about the decoration of the head is utilitarian. First of all, hair falling in disarray on the face, ears, neck, and shoulders not only causes a general unpleasant sensation, but also prevents one from seeing, hearing, eating, and indirectly, the correctness of work, ... sometimes posing a serious danger" ^[25]. The materials of the oral folk art of the Mordovian people confirm the importance of a woman's duties in the family, swinging cooking:

- "Ineshka's daughter, Vesorgo,

Marry me., …

– Who will sew my clothes?,

Delicious cooking" ^{[21, p. 145]}.

On the day of the wedding, the young woman was greeted at the groom's house as follows: "... A large frying pan under her feet

They put it with live coals,

May she be a good cook,

A craftswoman at a burning stove..." ^{[21, p. 518]}.

Fortunately, the main hostess of the house looked after the order, household chores, distributed women's duties, punished for disobedience. The canons of tradition, expressed in the headdress and hairstyle of a married woman, were aimed at achieving the goal: to hide the hair for hygiene during cooking in the family, and at the same time, so as not to interfere during work.

In the past, each generation of society assimilated the content and meanings of culture through texts voiced by oral folk art, recalled in customs and rituals, in rules of behavior, fixed by the practice of labor activity to provide material resources for life. According to L. Sternberg, the headdresses of many peoples in the past became "... an object of special art ..." and etiquette could well be the reason that made "... the headdress an object of the most careful cultivation, serious life care" ^[25].

The requirement to hide the hair of a married woman in Mordovian culture was expressed in the lamentations of a relative of the bride during the wedding:

"...You won't now, sister-in-law,

Wear them in the sunlight,

Will you keep them hidden,

You'll wear them in the dark" ^{[5, p. 205]}.

The traditional Mordovian wedding preserved until the middle of the twentieth century a number of customs and actions related to the hair of the wedding participants (bride, groom, guests). A special emotional and semantic tension was characteristic of the rituals aimed at changing the bride's hairstyle: braiding - "pryapulon ponamas" (m), "pulon kodamo", "kosan chavoma" (e), a maiden bath – "t yaterks chin bath". During the ceremony, in the presence of friends, relatives, and fellow villagers, verbal information was voiced, reminding them of the moral values of culture, the norms and rules of behavior of a married woman, and the laws of a happy family life.

The concept of koi (custom) goes back to the Finno-Ugric language-base ^{[20, p. 76]}. Norms and rules of conduct were strictly observed in traditional culture, and the woman was the keeper of tradition and order in the house. After the wedding, it was customary to teach the young woman with tenderness all the wisdom of household chores: "what caused the firewood to catch fire, how they were set on fire; ... where a large cast iron with water should take place in the oven, where – medium, where – small, where cabbage soup is put, where – porridge, where – potatoes; ...– how they are baked pancakes, how to wash dishes, revenge the floor… After 2 weeks, proceed to practice" (see ^{[12, l. 19]}).

The women of Mordovia and Moksha continued to wear the cape until the 18th century, which indicates the strength of culture, the existence of unity of the iconic costume system, and the fulfillment of important semiotic functions by the costume and its elements. The fundamental difference in the transformation of the shape of the earpiece concerns the shift of emphasis from the utilitarian and functional purpose of spiral twisting, which originally served as a method of shaping to an aesthetic approach in creating an element of a women's headdress. The novelty manifested itself not only in the technology of creation, but also in the artistic understanding of the form of a work of decorative and applied art, which combines the useful and the beautiful, tradition and innovation, functions and meaning.

Drawing attention to the breastplate testifies to the role of canonical art in reminding others of the importance of the status of a married woman, expressed in culture by the concepts of marriage and motherhood – ajax shi, awaks shi (M.), awaks chi (E.), which guaranteed the inviolability of relationships within the family, clan, and society.

Conclusion

The semantics of the spiral encoded important cultural concepts included in the religious picture of the world of medieval Mordovia, correlated with the continuity of a woman's active activity in organizing the surrounding space, creating basic foundations for the survival of the clan and family. The deification of the sun by the Shi (M.), Chi (E.) people was preserved in the names of pagan deities, originally represented in female images Shiava (M.), Chiava (E.). The semantics of the salt symbol permeated the most important concepts and value orientations of women (health, marriage, motherhood, preservation of tradition, performance of rituals), which corresponded to the values of the Mordovian people.

Among the abundance of women's jewelry, the puloker, which has become a symbol of the Moksha woman for thousands of years, stands out for its originality of form and laconic decor since the 8th–9th centuries. The duration of the unique accessory's existence is explained by its performance of a number of functions, among which it is necessary to single out a practical function that promotes "proper work", hygiene of cooking, and the creation of a neat image of a married woman. In the Mordovian traditional culture, marriage and motherhood, ajax shi, awaks shi (M.), awaks chi (E.) were the most important status of a woman.The pumper, being a work of canonical art, guided others to follow the well-known rules and canons, visually reminded them of the norms of behavior, of the relationship between people.

The abandonment of the spiral canon of puloker formation and the emergence of a new technology for its manufacture since the tenth century took place during a difficult turning point in Mordovian history, which included interactions with Kievan Rus, rethinking religious images, attempts to build their own statehood, and the migration of the Mordovian population to the territory of Primorye. The circumstances of life, which affirmed the patriarchy of culture, contributed to a change in the needs of women, her search for a new meaning of the results of creative activity, culminating in the transformation of the flexible spiral shape of a female earpiece into a solid cylindrical or cone-shaped case made of tree bark.