Chapter 12 Ghosts of the Dead in Your Bodily Symptoms The Process Mind helps you deal with internal problems, bodily tensions, and social conflicts. In all of these areas we have viewed you, your body, or other people as having

Ghosts of Dead Soldiers One way to learn more about ghosts is to read what people write or say about life before they die. What they wrote continues to live after death. For example, in the April 2, 2007 issue of Newsweek, I read the article “Voices of the Fallen,”

The attitude of the living to the world of the dead in archaic cultures is usually determined by the concept of ancestor cult, which implies various mental, ritual and verbal forms of veneration, worship and deification of the dead. Meanwhile, the relations of the two worlds do not fully fit into this concept: in addition to the cult, fear is clearly present in them before the dead, the consciousness of dependence on them, the desire to maintain a certain balance between the two worlds, which is seen as a guarantee of the preservation of the entire world order. The Serbian word insurance post is more applicable to this type of relationship, i.e. reverence turning into fear. Ideas about the “other” world and its influence on earthly life, which play a cardinal role in the traditional worldview, are not limited, so to speak, to the ideological sphere - they find expression in a whole system of ritual forms, in specific prohibitions and regulations, in language and folklore. In a sense, the entire traditional culture is oriented towards an otherworldly perspective, each rite and each specific ritual or ritualized act of behavior (and in this type of culture everything is ritualized) provides for communication with “that” world, a legalized interruption of the border separating the living from the dead; the true recipient of the ritual (personified or non-personified) always belongs to another world.

No matter how the relationship between the two worlds is conceived - mirror or “isomorphic”, their autonomy, “separateness” is never questioned, and the border between them, separating the spheres of influence, is always a subject of special concern. How do these worlds relate - in space, in “volume”, in mutual assessment? How do they perceive each other? What do the living want from the dead and what do the dead expect from the living? The relations between them cannot be established once and for all, they are constantly subject to testing, revision, violation - they are violated by every event of death and every event of birth - and require periodic restoration. In this case, we will be interested in those specific forms of relationship between the two worlds that developed in ritual practice and were reflected in the folk beliefs of the Slavs, in their languages ​​and folklore.

Let's start with how ideas about another world fit into a person's everyday life. Here we must distinguish two sides of the issue. The first concerns the future posthumous existence of a specific living person, the subject of beliefs and actions. In this regard, worthy of attention, first of all, are some prohibitions (less often, prescriptions) and ideas about sin, which are based on the conviction that everything a person does in earthly life will one way or another be reflected in his afterlife. For example, it is considered dangerous to leave a piece of bread uneaten - according to Ukrainian beliefs, it will chase you in the “other” world; It is dangerous to drop crumbs of bread on the floor - Slovenians believe that a person’s soul will suffer for as many years in the “other” world as the number of crumbs he dropped and trampled. Polesie peasants, having taken bread out of the oven, hurried to put a log there, “so that there would be a treasure (passage, bridge) in the next world when you die.” Popular ideas about sin, formed largely under the influence of Christianity (for more details, see:), include a whole register of corresponding earthly sins and posthumous rewards for them (cf. Russian Smolensk. “Whatever you deserve in this world, in this world you will receive "). According to these ideas, women who kill their children are doomed to eat their body (bloody meat) in the “other” world; witches who took milk from cows spew it out of themselves in hell; those who left a hall on the field in order to damage the owners are spinning straw in the “other” world; a drunkard will carry tar in a barrel and drink it; the one who stole will carry everything stolen on his back in the “other” world, etc. According to East Slavic (Belarusian, Polesie) beliefs, in the “other” world his “good deeds” are displayed on the table in front of everyone - what he gave to others during his life (including giving to the poor) or did for others. Thus, compliance with rules, regulations and prohibitions allows one to ensure a prosperous afterlife existence during one’s lifetime, and, conversely, violation of prohibitions and rules dooms a person to torment and punishment after death.

The second aspect of the topic concerns not ways to ensure personal well-being after death, but the “impersonal” orientation of the entire life structure of society and the behavior of each of its members towards meeting the needs and conditions of the inhabitants of the other world. Here we can also point out many examples when prohibitions and regulations of earthly life are motivated by the interests of otherworldly recipients. In the same example with bread, a sign can work: if a piece of bread falls from the table, it means that in the “other” world someone (perhaps a relative) is hungry, left without bread, etc. Belarusians considered it necessary, after taking the bread out of the oven, to quickly pour cold water on it, so that in hell they would not spare water for souls. It is well known that women and mothers are prohibited from eating apples before the Savior (Transfiguration), popularly motivated by the fact that their deceased children in the “other” world will be deprived of this treat. There are known prohibitions on memorial days and some holidays to whitewash the walls of the house for fear of “covering the eyes” of the dead or spinning, carding wool, sweeping the floor, etc., otherwise you will “clog the eyes” of the dead; scurry around, otherwise “you’ll sleep on the way to your grandfathers”; sew so as not to sew up the eyes of our ancestors; pouring water into the yard, as you can douse the “guests”, dancing and trampling your parents” and many others. In Polesie, when they were going to whitewash the house for the first time after a funeral, they went to the cemetery and covered the grave with a tablecloth so as not to “drip the eyes of the deceased” (Rivne region). Particular concern for the vision of the dead (manifested in memorial rituals) is explained by the idea of ​​“that” light as the kingdom of darkness or gloom.

However, the main regulator of relations between worlds is, of course, ritual, primarily the funeral rite itself and special memorial rites, in which each act is aimed at providing for the needs of deceased relatives and all the dead in general, in order to thereby protect the living from the troubles that threaten them from outside. the afterlife. Already at the funeral, the deceased is provided with the necessary clothing in which he will remain in the “other” world, food (pies or bread, eggs, apples, nuts, sweets, etc. were placed in the coffin; the southern Slavs often left wine in the coffin or grave) , money (to pay for moving or crossing by water) and other items he needs (old people - a cane, smokers - a pipe and tobacco, children - diapers and toys, etc.); a candle is certainly lit for the deceased to illuminate his path to the “next” world, his legs are untied so that he can move (those who forgot to do this have to jump in the “next” world like tangled horses). The human soul is surrounded with special care: water is placed at the head of the dying person or on the windowsill so that it can wash itself, a towel is hung out so that it can dry itself, a door or window is opened so that it can fly out, vessels with water are covered with a lid so that it does not drown. in the water and does not stay in the house, the mirror is covered so that she does not stay in it, etc. Peasants of the Smolensk region. within 40 days after death, they left food for the deceased at night and “made the bed”: they covered the bench on which he was lying with a towel, put water on the towel and put bread, and hung a ribbon or rag on the house outside, by which the soul had to find its house .

Special measures were taken to prevent the deceased from returning to the house outside the established time: for this purpose, the coffin was taken out through a window, returned from the cemetery by a different route in order to “confuse the road,” etc.

On memorial days and many calendar holidays, many prohibitions are observed, explained by the interests of the deceased, and special rituals addressed to them are performed. Failure to comply with these prohibitions and rituals entails family feuds, loss of livestock, crop failures and other punishments and misfortunes. According to the beliefs of Belarusians, “in the spring, along with the revival of nature, with its awakening from winter sleep, the souls of the dead come to life and emerge from cramped coffins into the free world. It is believed that they need food and drink, that they eat and drink, but rarely: three or four times a year is enough for them. To satisfy this need and as a sign of respect for the ancestors, memorial tables are periodically organized, in Belarusian - dzyady.” For the dead on memorial days, they prepared lunch or dinner with many dishes (sometimes their number was prescribed, for example, 12), they were invited in a special ceremonial way (going out to the gate, onto the porch, going to the window or door, holding out refreshments to them and calling them high voice), they left a place for them at the table, placed a glass and a separate utensil for them on the table (or on the window, near the icons), put aside or poured them a little of each meal on a plate, on the table or under the table; they did not remove food and dishes from the table at night so that the dead could use them; hung out a towel for them so they could wash their hands before eating; they did not close the doors in the houses; they took them out into the yard and hung clothes, etc. for the dead. In the Russian North, at wakes on the day of the funeral, a device for the deceased was placed on the stove, “so that he [the deceased] would warm up.”

The Belarusians prepared a bath for the dead for their grandfathers: before dinner, they washed themselves in the bathhouse and, when everyone had washed, they put a bucket of clean water with a broom on the shelves - for the grandfathers; This absolutely must be done, according to the peasants, because the dead wash only four or five times a year and only for this time are they released; If any of those washing in the bathhouse these days linger too long there, they are simply kicked out of there, saying: “Let the dead go already,” or they took a pot with the remains of kutya, backed away to the door and said: “Grandfathers, grandfathers! You’ve eaten kutya, go home,” after which he opened the door, threw the pot into the yard and quickly slammed the door. “Parents” were also invited to Christmas dinner, to “make a fast” at Maslenitsa (the first baked pancake was placed on the window or on the shrine, hung from the roof) and on other holidays.

All these preparations and rituals are performed in the belief that on these days the dead come to the living, to their homes, to their relatives. According to the beliefs of the Russians of Zaonezhie, the “personal” angel of each deceased delivered him home for the funeral within a year, after this period the souls did not come home. The ancestors who came to their home could be seen using various magical techniques. To do this, according to Belarusian beliefs, you need to sit on the stove and sit there all day, not eating anything and not talking to anyone, then in the evening you will see how the dead sit down at the table, and you will even find out that they stole during their lifetime, so how they will drag all this along with them. You can sit on the floor at night after dinner, not sleep and not talk, then you will see those who were remembered. You can also see the dead at the table if you look from the courtyard through the window; however, the one who does this will not live more than a year. The Russians, in order to see the deceased on the fortieth day, also climbed onto the stove in advance and from there looked through the collar or, dressed in a fur coat with the left side up, looked through a sieve at the place prepared for the deceased: if they managed to see the deceased, this meant that the relatives had prayed well for him . According to Ukrainian beliefs, in order to see your dead parents, you need to harness yourself to a horse harness. The Bulgarians of the Plovdiv region, in order to see souls, held a mirror above the water until a reflection appeared in it, or hung a mirror over a well, but this was considered dangerous for both the dead and the living. Ukrainians believed that the ability to see the dead could be acquired if, at midnight before Navskaya Easter (Easter of the Dead, Thursday of Easter week), you put on a shirt woven from waste from carding fiber, and according to the stories of a Smolensk peasant woman, in order to see the dead who came to the funeral in the fortieth the day after the death of her mother-in-law, she was advised to put on the deceased’s shirt, which had not yet been washed, according to local customs, and stand quietly, not responding to anything. In the Russian North, at the wake of the fortieth day, small children were carried around the table and asked if they “see the tattoo, uncle, aunt, etc. If children repeat the last words, it means they see an invisible guest." In Polesie, in the Zhitomir region, we were told that more than once on memorial days they saw how the dead in the evening, in the dark, slowly descended from the cemetery hill in a sprawling procession to the village, their movement could be observed by the lights of the candles they were holding, fluctuating in time with their steps in hand. There are also beliefs that on Easter days ancestors gather in church for services, and there they can be seen using special techniques (usually at night). Except for memorial days, only those who are on their deathbed can see the dead, hear their voices and speak with them.

The dead visiting their homes on memorial days can not only be seen, but also heard. Belarusians have popular stories about how grandfathers “take revenge” on those relatives who did not prepare a funeral dinner for them - they walk around the house at night, knock on the window, etc. In some areas of Bulgaria, on Trinity Saturday, when the dead were supposed to return to their places after being among the living, women brought walnut leaves to the church, covered the floor with it, knelt or lay on it (sometimes face down), believing that the dead were under leaves or walking on them; it was impossible to look up, so as not to frighten the dead, who, having seen their relatives, might not have time to return to their graves; one had to remain silent to hear the dead walking. The Eastern Slavs have beliefs about the mythical land of the Rakhmans, where eggshells are floated down the river to announce the coming of Easter; If you put your ear to the ground on the day of Rahman Easter, you can hear the bells ringing in the country of the Rahmans, but only the righteous can hear this. The dead could detect their presence by footprints left on the sand or on scattered flour in the house; their arrival was judged by whether the bed they had prepared the day before was rumpled, etc.

On other memorial days and holidays, communication with the dead occurs, so to speak, on their territory, when the living come to the dead, visiting cemeteries, bring food, spread tablecloths on the graves and arrange a meal, leave food for the dead, bury eggs, pancakes and other things in the graves food, water the graves with water and wine, light candles, fumigate the graves, decorate them with flowers, leaves, among the Eastern Slavs also with towels, aprons, etc. According to beliefs, deceased ancestors in the “other” world see only thanks to the light that reaches them from funeral candles, and eat only what their relatives prepare and bring to them on funeral days. Serbs believe that in front of every deceased person in the “other” world there is a table on which lies only what his relatives brought to him for his soul’s wake. On memorial days, Belarusians, however, are afraid of ending up in the cemetery at midnight, since, according to their beliefs, at this time all the dead “get up and come out of their graves; If any of the living had remained in the cemetery at this time, the dead would certainly have crushed him and carried him to the grave.”

In addition to “feeding” the ancestors, other forms of communication with them are also known. Thus, among the southern and eastern Slavs, as well as in some places in Poland, there is a known custom of “warming the dead,” i.e. light fires, burn shavings or straw to warm the dead. This could be part of a memorial ritual or a calendar holiday (in spring or Christmastide). Sometimes the lighting of bonfires could be motivated by the need to illuminate the path for the dead coming to earth from the “other” world.

Communication with the world of the dead can be carried out not only for the well-being of the dead, but also in the interests of the living, who seek help and protection from the inhabitants of the afterlife from misfortunes and troubles. The dead, especially the drowned and the hanged, are asked to remove the hail cloud from the village or to end the drought. Even the names of the dead have, according to popular belief, magical powers. So, according to Polesie beliefs, when meeting a wolf, you must name the names of three (or nine) deceased relatives, then the wolf will not touch you. When meeting a mermaid, you also need to “read prayers and remember the dead.” In the event of a fire, it is recommended to run around the house three times, shouting the names of the twelve drowned people, then supposedly the fire will not spread, but will go upward.

One of the most important channels of communication between “that” and this light is sleep, which is interpreted in folk culture as temporary death. In a dream, the border between the worlds becomes permeable on both sides, the sleeper can meet his deceased relatives in two ways - either they are transported to the earthly environment by the power of sleep, or the sleeper is transported to the “other” world, and communication takes place in the territory of the dead. The latter is especially characteristic of so-called extinctions, i.e. lethargic sleep or deep fainting, when, according to legend, the soul of the sleeper remains in the “other” world and observes the afterlife, meets his relatives, etc. (for more details see: ). Often a living person who finds himself in the “other” world receives some kind of supernatural knowledge and abilities, which he uses in his earthly life after awakening. Sometimes (especially among the Eastern Slavs) in stories about extinctions, a person who accidentally and prematurely finds himself in the “other” world is told the exact time of his death or other important information, which, however, upon returning to earth (upon awakening) he is not allowed to reveal under threat of death . In an ordinary dream, the deceased (especially those who have recently died) often express their claims, complaints, requests and wishes to their surviving relatives. According to Polesie stories, the dead may complain that they were not given some things they needed (for example, clothes) in the coffin, that they were buried in a damp place and they are lying in water, that they were not given the proper wake, etc. In such cases, the living always responded to the needs of the dead, for example, they went to the cemetery, tore up the grave and made sure that, indeed, the coffin was floating in the water. If it was necessary to transfer something to the “other” world at the request of the deceased or at the request of the living, then this could be done during the burial of a new deceased; it was enough to put the required object in a coffin or bury it in the grave. Another channel of communication with the dead could be a tree: according to the beliefs of the peasants of the Rostov region, if you throw something into the hollow of an old, revered oak tree in the area, it will “straight go to the next world”; if they wanted to get rid of something for good, they threw it into a hollow (recorded by T.Yu. Vlaskina). A reliable way to transfer something to a deceased person is universally considered to be a gift to a beggar (cf., for example,).

In many traditions, it was customary during the funeral to convey greetings, wishes and messages about the most important news of family life to the deceased relatives to the “other” world. Such “correspondence” to the next world could be oral or written, but often it was contained in lamentations and lamentations of the deceased. For example, in a Russian Vologda lament for her mother, the daughter asks her to say hello to her previously deceased sister and tell her about how her orphans live without her: “Oh, you’ll go, Mommy, / Oh, you’ll go, darling , / Oh, in that white world. / Oh, you’ll see, mommy, / Oh, you’ll see, darling, / Oh, you’ll see my dear sister - / Oh, tell me, mommy, / Oh, tell me, darling, / Oh, from me, from goryushitsi, / Oh, the fans are low! / Oh, about my dear sister, / Oh, I was very sad, / Oh, I was very sad! / ... Oh, you, dear sister, / Oh, you don’t know, sister, / Oh, about your little children! / Oh, your little children, / Oh, they all live without their mother, / Oh, they live without their dear one! / Oh, they’ve seen enough of everything, / Oh, they’ve had enough of everything, / Oh, they’ve got to be barefoot, / Oh, they’ve had enough to eat, / Oh, without their dear mother!” .

An interesting way of communicating with another world and exchanging information was, for example, the Pskov ritual “crying with the cuckoo”, not timed to the funeral rite: according to local beliefs, in the guise of a cuckoo, the soul of the deceased flies home from the “other” world to visit his relatives, and messages are passed on to her for the inhabitants of “that” world. A woman who wants to talk to her deceased husband, son, mother, waits for the summer, the arrival of the cuckoo, goes into the forest, into a swamp, into a field and, hearing the cuckooing, begins to lament: “My pitiful sharaya, / sharaya cuckoo! / What are you doing, buddy? / What did you bring me, what news? / Ti ‘t my little cuckoo daughter, / Ti ‘t my parents-mother?” .

Until now, we have been talking about forms of communication between the world of the living and the world of the dead, directed mainly in one direction - from the living to the dead. But the other world also has its own ways and channels of communication with the earthly world. On earth there are “representatives” and loci of the “other” world. “Agents” of the afterlife among the living, in addition to the souls of deceased ancestors who legally visit them on appointed days, are representatives of the so-called lower mythology, demons, who are also genetically dead, but differ from souls in that they belong to the dead “not by their own”, but by violent death , or come from suicides, unbaptized children, dead people whose burial ritual was violated, etc. Unlike souls localized within another world, observing the demarcation of borders and crossing it only at a set time, demons reside on this very border, finding no permanent refuge either in the space of the living or in the space of the dead. This type of “agent” also includes the so-called walking dead who visit their loved ones - mothers who come to breastfeed their children, husbands who visit their wives at night, etc.

The locus of another world on earth is, first of all, the cemetery, where the dead live and where they “wait” for new inhabitants (the soul of the last person buried in the cemetery sits or hangs on the cemetery gate and waits - the forest stands on wart, i.e. on guard, - when she will be replaced by another new resident). From here the dead periodically, at certain calendar dates, make their forays into the space of the living, and here they then return.

The boundary between worlds, which is the subject of special care and constant attention of the living, has not only topographical, but also temporal content. If in locative expression a border is, first of all, water, water barriers and springs, rivers, wells, even vessels with water that are closed or emptied at the moment of death (for more information about water as the border of worlds, see:), as well as boundaries, intersections, road forks, roads themselves, etc. (in ideas about the afterlife, the boundary is often also a mountain, and among other “vertical” boundaries, a tree), then the time boundary is designated in both the daily and annual (calendar) cycles. The mythological understanding of midnight and night in general, midday, sunrise and sunset is known; Also known is the understanding of points and periods isomorphic to them in the annual circle (Kupala, Christmastide, etc., see:), the spring period, the interpretation of major holidays with their characteristic prohibitions and their motivations, etc. In the folk calendar, these periods (especially Christmastide and the spring period from Easter to Trinity) are marked with special rituals, designed to avoid incurring the displeasure of the “guests”, to appease them, to enlist their support or to divert their attention. Time restrictions related to funeral and memorial rites are also worthy of mention, for example the requirement to bury before sunset, before noon, etc. It was customary for Russians in Zaonezhie to go to the cemetery only before noon, and this was explained by the fact that “the deceased only waits until lunch,” “from lunch they have their own holiday there.” The boundary between worlds is broken every time a new person is born and every time death occurs. According to one Tambov certificate, if a child does not show signs of life at birth, then the midwife begins to buzz him, i.e. says: “Ours, ours, ours,” thereby magically confirming that the child has overcome the dangerous border between the “alien” and “his” world and belongs to the space of life.

Thus, the “formula for coexistence” of the two worlds provides for their independent existence and strictly defined ways of interaction between them, compliance with time and space restrictions, and the performance of necessary rituals aimed at maintaining the border and ensuring the well-being of both the living and the dead.

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Tolstaya Svetlana Mikhailovna - Doctor of Philology. Sciences, leading researcher at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

2000 S.M. Fat

History of religion Zubov Andrey Borisovich

"WORLD OF THE DEAD" AND "WORLD OF THE LIVING"

"WORLD OF THE DEAD" AND "WORLD OF THE LIVING"

“They buried their dead in the ground,” wrote S. G. F. Brandon, “because they were convinced that the abode of the dead was underground... The supply of the dead with objects that they needed in this life, apparently, can be explained by the fact that “that primitive people were completely unable to imagine life after death as anything other than the life they knew here on earth.” This statement by a major religious scholar in a special work devoted to posthumous judgment in the beliefs of various peoples is noteworthy for its specificity. But in reality, it greatly stupefies the ancient man, who knew very well that the interred dead man lies where he was buried, does not use any tools and does not eat any of the food left in the grave.

The funeral rite of a prehistoric person should, at a minimum, assume that in the minds of those who performed it there was an idea of ​​​​the duality of human nature, of the body decaying in the grave, and of the soul that descends into the “abode of the dead.” The soul, accordingly, needs not the material objects themselves, but their “souls.” Just as on earth a corporeal person eats material food from a clay cup and strikes an enemy with a battle axe, so in the world of souls, the soul of a deceased person is able to eat the soul of food and strike the soul of an enemy with the soul of an axe. In order for a person to “give up the spirit”, for the soul to be separated from the body, the death of the material body must necessarily occur. In order for the souls of objects to become part of the world of the deceased, they, like material objects, must also die. Hence the fairly widespread custom of later centuries - killing slaves and wives on the graves of their masters and husbands, and the tradition dating back to the Neolithic of breaking dishes and other objects from the everyday life of the living on the grave. Tearing clothes as a sign of grief for the deceased goes back, perhaps, to the same series of symbols.

But, although knowledge of the fact of the dual, or even triple (spirit, soul and body) nature of man can already be found in the earliest eras of the existence of the genus Homo, in the Middle and even in the Early Paleolithic (Sinanthropes of Zhou Koudian), it explains the entirety of the funeral ritual hardly possible. First, the body is buried, the body is given a fetal or sleeping position. This means they believe in awakening, in the rebirth of the body, which means that the ancient otherness of man is not limited by the life of the soul, but they are waiting for some miraculous moment in the future when souls are reunited with bodies and the dead wake up. Secondly, breaking funeral gifts is a rather late and not universal custom. Rather, here we are faced with a secondary rationalization of the funeral ritual. Initially, the posture that was given to the body of the deceased, and the food, and objects of labor, and weapons placed in the grave, emphasized and symbolically indicated that the deceased was alive, that death was his temporary state.

In other cultures, to mark this fact, they resorted to other symbolic series and did not accompany the burial with objects of earthly life. And the devotion to the earth, recorded from the Mousterian burials of the Neanderthals, arose not from the desire to “bring the deceased closer” to the underground abode of souls, but rather from a simple and at the same time infinitely deep conviction that Mother Earth, from which the body was taken, must be returned. And she, the Earth, when the time comes, will revive the seed of heavenly life, the Eternal Sky. And again, only secondary rationalization connected the abode of souls, the kingdom of the dead, with the underworld precisely because from ancient times the bodies of the dead were placed in the ground in anticipation of the resurrection. We will see how the heavenly, extraterrestrial and underground locations of the souls of the dead struggle and coexist in the most ancient written cultures - in Sumer, in Egypt.

Neolithic burials, in comparison with Upper Paleolithic ones, may surprise you with the poverty of grave goods. In the Proneolithic and Early Neolithic periods, the dead become part of the world of the living and therefore their lives do not need to be marked with funeral “gifts”. The skulls of the dead stand in the house next to the hearth, the bones rest near the altar. They cannot do this to those who no longer exist. The dead in that era were not only considered alive, but their lives were the most essential support for the lives of the living.

In cases where burials took place in the open air, we find a thick layer of ash on the funeral altars. In Nahal Oren it reaches half a meter. It is not clear to whom sacrifices were made at the graves of ancestors - the dead themselves or their Creator. But one thing is absolutely clear - fire sacrifices could not be made to those who live “under the ground.” Fire ascends from the earth to the sky and the object of the Natufian sacrifice (Nahal-Oren - one of the Natufian settlements of Palestine) was of a celestial nature. When ideas about the underground topography of the world of the dead took hold, sacrifices to the dead began to be made differently - the blood of sacrificial animals was supposed to saturate the earth, and the altars themselves, for example, in the Greek hero cult, were built below ground level.

Burials with ungulate horns in the hands or on the chest of the deceased (for example, Einan), and later with amulets in the form of bull heads (Sesklo, Thessaly, 6th millennium BC) certainly indicate the goal of the posthumous journey - to the Heavenly God. The expectation of a journey is indicated by the frequent discoveries of dog skeletons next to human burials (Erk el-Ahmar, Ubeid, Almiera). The dog, the hunter’s guide in this world, turns out to be a clear symbol of the right path during the transition to another existence. Dog-headed Anubis, Kerberos are a later memory of this Early Neolithic image.

Burials under the floors of houses and inside settlements, characteristic of the early Neolithic, remain common in the sacred cities of the 7th-6th millennia. In Çatal Höyük, more than five hundred burials were discovered in an excavation area of ​​half a hectare. They were buried under the beds of residential buildings, with men under a corner bench and women along a long wall. Mellaart suggests that living men and women slept on these same benches. In addition, many burials were found in oval pits outside houses. Quite a lot of people are buried in shrines. In the sanctuary VI. 10, 32 skeletons were found, in the vulture sanctuary (VII.8) - six burials. Mellart notes that the clothes, jewelry and belongings of those buried in sanctuaries are usually much richer and more varied than those of those buried in houses and oval pits. The scientist suggests that the sanctuaries contained the remains of high priests, who during their lifetime performed sacred rites in them. It is noteworthy that there are no burials in utility yards and storage areas. This indicates that the choice of burial sites by the Çatalhüyuk people was not random. They were buried not “where it’s easier,” but where they thought it was necessary.

The location of the skeletal bones and the incompleteness of the skeletons indicate the secondary nature of the burials in Çatal Höyük, and it was impossible to do otherwise given the desire of the townspeople to live in the same houses with their deceased. A number of murals from sanctuaries show that the bodies of the dead were left outside the city on light platforms for excarnation (decay of soft tissue). The cleaned bones were then wrapped in clothes, skins or mats and buried in houses and sanctuaries. The remains were sent with ocher and cinnabar, the skulls in the neck and forehead were painted with blue or green paint. Small “gifts” were placed with the buried, but there are no figurines or ceramics in the graves of Çatal Höyük. Sometimes skulls, as at the beginning of the Neolithic, were separated from skeletons and placed openly in sanctuaries.

“Holy cities” seem to complete the tradition of the X-VIII millennia BC. Since the VI millennium, a new tendency towards the separation of the worlds of the dead and the living has become more and more noticeable. In the Hassun culture (Mesopotamia, 7th-6th millennia), the dead, as a rule, are buried outside the settlements. Only the bodies of children and teenagers continue to be buried under the floors of houses. In Byblos of the 6th millennium, only children's burials were also found under houses, in which human bones were sometimes mixed with sheep. Such burials were made in special small vessels. The almost complete absence of adult burials indicates the presence of special cemeteries.

Such “cemeteries” or transitional forms such as “houses of the dead” were soon discovered. In Byblos this is building “46-14”, under the floor of which more than 30 people are buried, in Tell al-Savan (Central Mesopotamia) – building “No. 1” of the 6th millennium, under which in pits for 30-50 cm Below the floor level there were more than a hundred secondary burials.

At the same time, the skulls of deceased relatives, which previously were often placed along the walls and around the hearth, also disappear from the interiors of homes. The same trends are noticeable in the funeral customs of the Danube Plain of the 6th millennium. Adults here are now rarely buried under houses, but usually outside settlements, in caves or in special cemeteries.

The reasons for the change in a seemingly established custom can be understood, since the changes did not extend to children. For some reason, the inhabitants of the Middle Neolithic believed that it was precisely those who died as adults who needed to be separated from their homes, interred either in cemeteries or in special “houses of the dead.” But how are children different from adults?

Like the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, the inhabitants of Neolithic settlements believed that dead children would become adults in another life. In the same Tell al-Savan, children's burials are indistinguishable from adults' graves; they do not contain special children's things. Therefore, the living were embarrassed not by age in itself, but by something only partially connected with the years of earthly life, and not with “age” in eternity. It should be noted that even today in India, the law on cremation of the dead, common to all Hindus, does not apply to children under five or six years of age and to saints. These “exceptions” are usually explained by the fact that small children are still free from sin and therefore do not defile the earth, and holy ascetics, through asceticism, have destroyed everything sinful in themselves. It is very possible that the Middle Neolithic people thought in a similar way and therefore stopped burying adults in their homes. The adults were sinners.

The concept of sin is one of the most important in most religions. Its essence is that a person willfully violates some laws established by the Creator of the world. If everything in the world - both living and non-living - naturally follows the rules that are laid down in the foundation of the universe, then a person can do this or not. He's free. This freedom is not unlimited. In some ways, like all living beings, a person instinctively obeys the natural law - he is not able to freely refuse to drink, breathe, sleep, although he can, through an effort of will, significantly limit his needs and desires. But somewhere, and in a very vast area of ​​his actions, a person is completely free. He can do nasty things to other people, or he can help them, he is able to sacrifice himself for the sake of his neighbor, his loved one, and he can demand sacrifice for himself from other people. Each of us makes many times a day, often without noticing it, such choices between good and evil, good and bad. For the religious mind, good is not simply what people agree to regard as such. Good is an objective establishment of God to man, this is God’s will in relation to man, this is, if you like, the law prescribed to him by the Creator, following which he will certainly achieve happiness, since God is good.

On the contrary, evil is a departure from God into self-will. Contempt for the law given to man by the Creator. Since God is the only primary source of life, departure from Him is death, transformation into nothingness. Sin is such self-destruction, although from the point of view of the person committing the sin, he asserts himself, realizing the goals he has set for himself. A person cannot fully understand with his mind whether for some reason it is good and this is bad; moreover, the desire for bad things often blinds his eyes. Hence, the law is the objectified, but not explained, will of God. In many religions, it is the divine law that is the thread that leads man to his Creator, to bliss and immortality.

The separation of funeral customs and differences in the topography of burials of children and adults can most reliably be explained precisely by the consciousness of the sinfulness of an adult. But also the conviction of the sinlessness of infants. Therefore, we can assume that in the Neolithic era sin was considered the work of man himself, his free willful choice. It is clear that an infant cannot yet make such a choice and therefore remains sinless. The deceased adult begins to recognize himself as a receptacle for sins that can be transferred to the living, who continue to live in the house where he rests. After all, the idea of ​​​​the mutual exchange of forces between the living and the dead several thousand years before the separation of home and cemetery had already formed the basis of human religious existence, giving rise, as we have suggested, to both sedentism and domestication. But then, in the Proto-Neolithic and Early Neolithic, this “mutual exchange” was perceived as a benefit, but now – as a harmful danger. And the dead leave the world of the living. From now on, their abode becomes a necropolis - a city of the dead, a cemetery.

It is noteworthy that around this time the sanctuary finally turns into a temple, separating from the dwelling. The living, not only the dead, but also themselves, no longer consider themselves worthy of constant standing before God and the shrine. They are sinners in their daily lives and therefore, in order not to provoke the wrath of the Divine, it is better to separate His house from their own and visit the House of God on special days in a state of purity and purity.

Is this aggravation of the experience of sin connected with the penetration of anthropomorphism into the iconography of the Creator? That is, when people were able to liken God to themselves, thereby saying that they are like God, carrying His image within themselves, they acutely felt their own imperfection, that the divine in them was suppressed by the human, the good by the evil.

Be that as it may, at this time in burials, still poor in grave goods, there is often only one deliberately placed object - a vessel of various shapes, but always small. Sometimes there are several such vessels. They are placed at the chest and arms, less often at the feet and crown of the deceased (Tell al-Sawan). In the burials of the Samara culture (Mesopotamia, 6th-5th millennium BC), a small stone figurine with a cup on its head was placed in the hands, on the chest or at the head of the deceased. J. Oates, who dedicated special work to these figurines, noticed that the decorations of the figurine and the body of the deceased, near whom it was placed, coincide. In the Ubaid culture (IV millennium), ceramic plates with cups overturned on them are found in burials.

Judging by later analogues from historical times, all these vessels and cups contained vegetable oil. Apparently, it is from the 6th-5th millennia that the custom of anointing the bodies of the dead, widespread and now widespread in many religions of the western half of the world, comes from. What did the oil symbolize?

Funeral vessel from Tell Arpaciya

The drama of the struggle with death is beautifully depicted in a burial vessel from Tell Arpacia (Mesopotamia,VImillennium). A skull was buried in it. The outer wall of the vessel is decorated with Maltese crosses and bull heads. Also depicted is a huge funeral vessel, over which two people are bending. Between their hands is a cup, apparently full of oil. The inner wall contains a scene of a battle between the deceased and death, personified by a predatory beast. There is a bull standing right there and two women with flowing hair and emphasized gender signs are holding a funeral cloth.

The hot and dry climate of the Near East quickly dries out the skin. Under the merciless rays of the sun, it cracks and begins to ooze ichor, causing severe suffering to a person. But if you rub vegetable oil into the skin, the suffering stops. The skin becomes elastic and soft again, painful cracks are quickly healed. This softening effect of the oil must have attracted the attention of ancient man. In addition, the oil feeds the fire of the lamp. A wick saturated with it burns, but does not burn out. The second quality is a beautiful image of prayer, the first is mercy. The combination of these two qualities in one substance corresponded very well to the religious feeling - prayer directed to God evokes His mercy, which softens the wounds caused by sin.

The dead are all the more in need of God's mercy. He is already powerless to correct the evil he has done in life with good deeds. Those close to the deceased can only trust in the mercy of the Creator. And therefore, vessels with healing oil are placed near the body of the deceased. Oil is a symbol of God’s healing of a person suffering from the flames of sin.

The feeling of sin, the experience of one’s own poor quality, depravity, materialized in the separation of a house with a cemetery and sanctuary, and in the widespread use of oil in funeral rites is a feature of the Neolithic. Having realized his inadequacy to the Creator, man, with new dramatic force, begins to look for ways to overcome the clearly seen gap between himself and God.