The Distaff and the phallic cult

V. Voronov. Peasant art. M. State publishing house. 1924

Painted spinning wheels. Severo-Dvinsky district

Donets (part of the spinning wheel) with thread. North.

Donets (part of the spinning wheel) with thread. Nizhny Novgorod Region

Ladle. Nizhny Novgorod Region.

Distaff of the Yaroslavl-Kostroma type.

Rubeles with carving. North

Carved valky

Distaff of the Vologda type.

M. V. Surov. Vologda spinning wheels

One of the most interesting phenomena in Russian folk art is wooden hand spinning wheels - the most ancient devices for making yarn. And although the spindle has always played the main role in the spinning process, it was the spinning wheel that was destined to become a symbol of women's needlework, and in a generalized sense - a symbol of women's share.

In the Russian tradition, the spins were patronized by the goddess Mokosh (Mokosh) - the only female deity in the Kiev pantheon of Vladimir. With the adoption of Christianity, the functions of Makosh passed to St. Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, however, her image in the North Russian embroidery continued to dominate until the beginning of the 20th century. According to beliefs, Makosh watched the spinning women and severely punished those of them who dared to spin on the holidays dedicated to her or showed negligence. If the spinner was dozing, and its spindle continued to spin, it was believed that Makosh was spinning for it. An echo of the veneration of the invisible spinner Mokos was also preserved in the rite of "woodlice" - the sacrifice of St. Paraskeve Friday, during which the women threw a tow and yarn into the well.

The whole life of a Russian woman was in one way or another connected with the spinning wheel. Even at the age of five, she was put behind a small, modest children's spinning wheel, on which she spun her first thread. Subsequently, this thread was often used as a talisman. So, for example, before the wedding, the mother would gird her daughter-bride over her naked body to protect her from damage and the evil eye. Over the years of girlhood, she had to knit and strain so much that it was enough for a dowry, a beautiful suit, and gifts for relatives. The most offensive nicknames for adolescent girls were "nasty" and "netkaha". In order to “tie” a newborn girl to needlework, her umbilical cord was usually cut on a spindle (in boys, on an arrow or an ax, respectively).

When a girl became an adult, they bought a new elegant spinning wheel for her or gave her an old one inherited from her grandmothers and great-grandmothers. If the girl's father was a craftsman, he made a spinning wheel for her with his own hands, putting his whole soul into it. Quite often, the husband gave the spinning wheel to his beloved wife, but in very rare cases - a guy to a girl. The bringing by the groom of the spinning wheel has not yet been recorded in any wedding tradition.

The dominant role was played by the spinning wheel at the famous "gatherings" or "supryadki", which in the Vologda district began with "phillips", that is, from November 14 (27) and continued until Maslenitsa itself. The gathering ceremonies are described in detail in ethnographic materials, from which it can be seen that young people usually started playing and dancing only after the "lessons", that is, a tow for yarn brought from home, had run out. Moreover, in some cases, the girls resorted to tricks: “Some glorious women ... stealthily bring ready-made yarn with them, since caring mothers every time they return from their daughters' homes examine how much they have strained for the evening, and on another cheerful evening, meanwhile , it is not possible and prestige to take in hand. "

The spinning wheel at the gatherings acted as a kind of "calling card" of the girl, so special importance was attached to its decoration. “A girl’s life is always decorated and decorative,” writes V. S. Voronov, “a spinning wheel standing next to the spinning wheel adorned it along with clothes, beads and ribbons.”

By their design, Russian wooden hand spinning wheels were divided into root (kopyls) and split (composite) ones. Both of them consisted of two main parts - a vertical blade, on which the tow was fixed, and a horizontal bottom, on which the spinner sat. Observing a certain false "code of decency", scientists have still hesitated to name the spinning base with the name that is used by the overwhelming majority of residents of North Russian villages. I believe that in this case, false modesty only hinders the work and distorts the notorious "scientific objectivity", which the luminaries of science so boast of. The reality is that in all the villages of the Vologda region (and not only), the locals call the spinning bottom "podzhopnitsya", and I personally do not find anything "indecent" in this word. Root spinning wheels were cut from a whole piece of wood: the bottom - from the root (hoop), the blade - from "straightness" (tree trunk). Almost all the spinning wheels that were used in the Vologda province belonged to this ancient type.

N. A. Shabunin "Journey to the North". 1906

The original classification of Russian spinning wheels was given in his famous album by A. A. Bobrinsky. He divided them into eight types: six according to geography and two according to processing technique. V. S.Voronov also took the classification of A. A. Bobrinsky as a basis, but changed some of the names and reduced the number of types of spinning wheels to seven: Yaroslavl, Vologda, Yaroslavl-Kostroma, Arkhangelsk-Vologda, Pomorsky, Mezen and Tver. The authors of the catalog "Russian Spinning Wheels" preferred a longer list: Gorodets, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Novgorod-Petersburg, Tver, Vologda, Olonets, Severodvinsk, Mezen, and Pomor.

None of these classifications can be called sufficiently complete and objective, since it is almost impossible to determine the exact boundaries of the existence of a particular type of spinning wheel, and, therefore, any names of such types are only conditional.

This study does not aim to describe all the varieties of Russian spinning wheels and is limited to those of them that existed in the territory of the former Vologda province. Of course, scientists did not fail to classify the Vologda spinning wheels. Here, for example, to what "sensational" conclusion one of the researchers, OV Kruglova, came: “Now it can be argued that the Vologda spinning wheel as a single type does not exist. There are many varieties of spinning wheels in the Vologda Oblast. Let's call them: these are Tarnogsky, Kuloisk, Nyuksen, Nikolsky, Totemsky, Pechenga, Pogorelov, Biryakov, Chuchkov, Tolshma, Sovegi spinning wheels, Gryazovets spinning wheels, from Sheksna and Novgorod ones ”.

There is no doubt that after the next expedition of the State Russian Museum (GRM) to the Vologda region, this list will increase by several more names, since in each of the above areas there will certainly be two or three villages, whose spinning wheels are at least somewhat different from their neighbors. In a word, scientists have a lot of work, and God only knows how many more dissertations on this topic will be defended in the coming years...

After a thorough analysis, I divided the Vologda spinning wheels into three main types: Vologda, Gryazovets and Totem. In addition, the spinning wheels of the Mezen and Northern Dvina are indirectly related to the Vologda region: both of these regions at one time were part of the Vologda region, and the products of the masters of Palashelya, Bork, Permogorye and Rakulka were widely used within the Vologda province.

Gryazovets spinning wheels

For the first time, the Gryazovets spinning wheels were reproduced in the album of A. A. Bobrinsky without specifying their geographical origin. The author himself attributed them to the sixth type and called them "slotted". For more than half a century, these spinning wheels remained unnamed, until, finally, the area of their existence was discovered by the expeditions of the Zagorsk Museum in 1968-69. Their first address was received in the summer of 1966: the village of Oberikha, Gryazovetsky District, Vologda Oblast.

Like all Vologda spinning wheels, Gryazovets spinning wheels were rooted, that is, cut from a whole piece of wood (the bottom was from the root, the blade was from the trunk). The area of their existence is quite extensive - from Vologda to the border with the Yaroslavl and Kostroma regions. The wide and massive blade of the Gryazovets spinning wheel, extending from the bottom at a right angle, narrows roundly in the upper part and is crowned with a small ridge, the lower part of which almost exactly repeats the upper roundness of the blade. The ridge itself has a characteristic horizontal cut with small towns.

O. V. Kruglova identified three types of Gryazovets spinning wheels: western, eastern and central parts of the region. They differ among themselves both in the nature of the carved ornament, and in some features of the form. The blade of the spinning wheel of the central part of the district is decorated with fine through carvings in the form of rhombuses, squares, moon-shoes, horseshoes and "tears". The spinning wheels of the western part are distinguished by a more elaborate shape of the leg, in the center of the composition of which there is a two-headed eagle (in earlier - a rosette), supported by stylized horse heads. The base of the blade is decorated with slotted columns-columns with a semi-rosette deployed above them. Earlier western spinning wheels were dominated by triangular-notched carving, in later ones - sawing technique combined with very bright coloring and brush painting. Another distinctive feature of the western spinning wheel is the patterned side sections of its blade (they are even for the "central" and "eastern" ones).

The spinning wheels of the eastern part of the Gryazovets district are distinguished by a different end of the ridge: its upper cut is decorated with two narrow through cuts resembling the eyes of a cat or the cut of the eyes of an oriental person. In the words of O. V. Kruglova, "on the top of the blade ... as if a bow is tied with two symmetrical through loops." In earlier oriental spinning wheels, a sun rosette (solar sign) was carved in the center of the blade; in later ones a relief two-headed eagle was depicted. Another feature of the oriental spinning wheel was a cut-out decorative pattern in the center of the leg, resembling a samovar in silhouette. And in this case, the slitting technique coexisted with floral painting and bright coloring.

In their shape, the Gryazovets spinning wheels are very close to the Buisk and Yaroslavl teremkov ones. The main difference between them is the end of the ridge: for the Gryazovets, it had a horizontal cut with small towns, for the Buiskys, three characteristic "horns", for the Yaroslavl ones, a high pointed "kokoshnik". O. V. Kruglova suggests that it was the shape of the Gryazovets “hoop” that was the initial one for the Vologda type of spinning wheels in general, but this version seems to me very, very controversial (which we will discuss below).

The painting on the Gryazovets spinning wheels has a later origin: the earliest of these spinning wheels dates back to 1856. However, the artistic traditions of Gryazovets paintings can be dated back to the 18th century, as evidenced by two painted tyables from the former Pavlo-Obnorsky monastery, now in the Moscow Kolomenskoye Museum, the color range and stylistic features of which are very close to the paintings of Gryazovets spinning wheels.

Most often, the Gryazovets spinning wheels were painted green or bluish-green, which was interrupted by flower paintings with a predominance of yellow, red and blue colors of various shades. In some cases, gold paint was used, which gave the spinning wheels a special color. “The image of a blooming, sun-gilded meadow with its many grasses, so characteristic of the nature of the Vologda land,” writes T. M. Oleinik, “clearly inspired the master, moved his hand, which, as it were, casually thrown motifs into a general rhythmically organized, but generally free composition ".

There is no doubt about the deep archaism of the Gryazovets root spinning wheels, although slotted patterns and paintings appeared much later. The earliest spinning wheels were covered with triangular grooved carvings - one of the most ancient types of wood carving, the motives of which go back to deep pagan times.

Describing the decorative patterns of the Gryazovets spinning wheels, many researchers made vague assumptions about their pagan content, however, only V. M. Vasilenko ventured to compare them directly with Russian mythology and try to decipher the ancient symbolism of these patterns. It was he who first compared the shape of the Gryazovets spinning wheel with the mysterious image of the goddess Makosha: “These spinning wheels are strikingly similar to a schematized female figure and recall the figures of goddesses on northern towels of the first half of the 19th century. ... It can be assumed that we have before us the image (albeit already quite encrypted) of the mysterious Slavic goddess Mokosha, the goddess who guarded women's labor, and after the adoption of Christianity, transferred her rights and responsibilities to Paraskeva Friday. "