Lietuvių aukojimo ritualas linų vegetacijai skatinti

LTStraipsnyje tiriamas XVI a. Jono Lasickio aprašytas žemaičių aukojimas pagoniškajai dievybei prašant linų ir kanapių derliaus. Nagrinėjant ritualą jis yra skaidomas į atskirus apeiginius veiksmus. Taip pat aptariamas aukojimo metu panaudotas inventorius. Daiktų prasmė atskleidžiama gilinantis į linų ir kanapių apdirbimą senovėje. Atsekami deformuoti jų atitikmenys XIX a.-XX a. pr. lietuvių liaudies papročiuose. Raktiniai žodžiai: linai, kanapės, dievas Vaižgantas, libacija, paplotėliai sikiai, alus, karna, plaukai. [Iš leidinio]

ENFlax is archaic agricultural crop. In the territory of Lithuania, flax began to be grown at the end of the Neolithic - the beginning of the Bronze Age (around 2000 BC). Over the centuries, linen production became a business. In the first half of the 18th-the 20th centuries, their cultivation was very important, since the villagers derived the highest income from the sold flax (seeds and fibres]. A lot of flax was exported. For example, in 1938, according to their export, Lithuania ranked third in the world after Poland and the USSR. Flax and hemp are fibre and oil plants, oil is pressed from their seeds and fibre is extracted from their stems. In ancient times, in domestic conditions, flax and hemp fibres were the main raw material for weaving. Earlier, a villager did not buy necessary fabrics and clothes. Absolutely all of them were made at home from hand-made fabrics: after sowing flax, pulling it and processing it, they obtained fibre suitable for spinning - to make threads from which they wove linen cloth, and from linen cloth they could make all that was needed. In Jan Lasicki’s book On the Gods of the Samogitians, other Sarmatians and False Christians (published around 1582] it is noted that the Lithuanians had the god of flax and hemp, Waizganthos, and a sacrifice to him was described, which took place in late autumn. The present article examines this sixteenthcentury sacrifice. It was performed by the tallest girl who climbed onto a bench, stood on one leg, held a long linden or elm bast in her left hand, a cup of beer in her right hand, and had linseed scones in her lap. She asked the god to grow tall flax next year, drank beer, poured some of it on the ground for Waizganthos and smaller chthonic creatures, and threw bran buns to them. When analysing the ritual in the article, it was divided into separate ceremonial actions. Objects used during the sacrifice are discussed.The meaning of the objects is revealed by delving into the process of processing flax and hemp in ancient times. Separate deformed elements of this ritual are found in Lithuanian folk customs that prevailed in the 19th - at the beginning of the 20th centuries related to flax cultivation. Although at that time sacrifices to god Waizganthos were no longer offered, because Lithuanians had been Catholics for a long time already and no sacrifices to pagan gods were performed. What we learned about the old ritual, by analogy with the rather late Lithuanian folk customs discussed, can still be supplemented with certain details: it is likely that the sacrificing girl stood with her hair loose (which Jan Lasicki did not mention), and also had to wear a linen apron, it was in the folded apron that she kept the scones, which were later sacrificed. There is no doubt that the sixteenth-century ritual described by Jan Lasicki was to be accompanied by dancing and singing songs. Traditional Lithuanian customs of growing and processing flax are closely related to the popular plot of‘flax suffering’ in the Lithuanian folklore, which describes in detail a very long and difficult process of flax processing, from sowing it to pulling and processing it. People believed that by exhibiting certain magical signs it was possible not only to encourage growth of plants, but also make separate stages of flax processing easier; for example, riding in Shrovetide and 'pulling flax’ helps laying flax in the field; letting down the hair of a woman working at sowing makes braking and brushing flax fibre easier; beating the sower who returned home with unprocessed flax helps thrash flax; by flogging and beating flax stalks in different ways it is sought to extract fibre from them.All that allows us to make the assumption that in ancient times ‘suffering of flax’ could not only be narrated, but also depicted. In addition to the above-mentioned, sacrificing people expressed this by means of performing other symbolic actions - dancing, swinging, throwing up a sheaf of flax, sprinkling seeds in front of the idol, which was supposed to be similar to Končius, as it was called in folk customs, an anthropomorphic stuffed animal made of flax or straw, dressed in men's clothes. Keywords: Jan tasicki, flax, hemp, god Waizganthos, beer libation, scone sacrifice, bast, hair, ascent: climbing onto a bench, jumping, swinging.

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