Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 48 (2) 2020   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2020.48.2.114-121

Annotation:  A Multidisciplinary Study of Finds from Suchu Island (1973 Season, Excavation II, Dwelling 1) A Zoomorphic Antler Staff from an Early Neolithic Burial at Pushkinsky, the Orenburg Region Cultural Attribution of Early Bronze Age Tombs Under Kurgans in Azerbaijan Two Rare Finds from the Maikop-Novosvobodnaya Sites in the Black Sea Region The Marfa Kurgan in the Stavropol Territory: An Example of an Ancient Architectural Structure On the Earliest Use of Plate-Formed Cheekpieces and the Emergence of Horse Riding (Based on Finds fr Wooden Constructions in Bronze and Iron Age Burials in Japan and Korea The Southeastern Sindica Frontier: The Raevskoye Fortifi ed Settlement Polychrome Style in Mangystau, Kazakhstan Metal Artifacts from a Newly Discovered Cemetery in the Severnaya Sosva Basin, Northwestern Siberia The Ethnoarchaeology of Russians in the Syro-Palestinian Region (18th–19th Centuries) Traditional Buryat Beliefs About Birds Bridal Symbols in the Don Cossack Wedding Celebration of Nowruz in Bukhara and Samarkand in Ritual Practice and Social Discourses (the Second Architectural and Archaeological Studies in the Tobolsk Kremlin During the 1950s (Based on Photograp Trepanations in Sauromato-Sarmatian Crania from the Lower Volga A Case of Surgical Extraction of the Lower Third Molars in a Cranial Series from the Pucara de Tilca   

Bridal Symbols in the Don Cossack Wedding

M.A. Ryblova

Federal Research Center “Southern Scientifi c Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences”, Pr. Chekhova 41, Rostov-on-Don, 344006, Russia

This study presents a new interpretation of symbols of the bride-maiden, already known in the Eastern Slavic, specifically Don Cossack tradition. It is based on findings of ethnographic expeditions of the 1980s-2000s to areas where Don Cossacks are concentrated, and on 19th-century periodicals published in the Don Region. To interpret the essence and meaning of bridal symbols, ritual practices and folklore texts are integrated, viewing both in the context of two principal passages that the bride undergoes during the wedding: 1) transition from the state of maidenhood to that of a married woman; and 2) transition from one family clan to another. Both transitions are related to the ideas of "beauty" (krasota), supposed to be lost during the ceremony, and "lot" (dolya)—part of the life force and benefits allotted to the bride from her family/clan during the rite and added to the common lot of her new family. Material embodiments of "beauty" (the braid, ribbon, and wreath) can be interpreted as symbols of freedom and virginity. These qualities are lost during the rite, whereas their material symbols are either destroyed or passed on to others. Symbols such as a small tree and twig (referring to the folkloric image of the "garden") can be related to the idea of "lot", and rituals in which they feature can be interpreted as a gradual disruption of the braid’s ties with her family clan, deprivation of her familial "lot" (symbolic death), followed by rebirth manifested in the acquisition of a new "lot"—that of a married woman in a new family clan. Existing classifications of bridal symbols are revised, while new ones are revealed and interpreted.

Keywords: Don Cossack tradition, wedding ceremony, bridal signs, virginity symbols, object-related symbols, "lot" symbols