The history of the Slavic belt as a generic amulet

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

At the beginning of the 20th century, the belt was an integral part of Slavic clothing: everyday, festive, and ritual. A wide variety of patterned belts back in 1920, violence on weekdays and holidays, adults and children, men and women. Women wore a belt at the waist over an apron, or under the chest. Men - high under the chest, on the belly or below the belly, wrapping it around the waist at least twice.

The devil is afraid of the belted man

The belt was tied with a knot in front or on the side so that the ends hung by 20-40cm or more. The way the belts were applied meant their length, which varies from 1, 5 to 4 m., Individual belts reach 5-6 m. The width of the belts is also different, usually a daily shirt is girded with a thin semi-top belt (22mm) or a rope (a rope specially woven from linen). The festive shirt was girded with a multi-colored, with generic protective symbols, a vershok belt (44, 45mm), and a ritual shirt with a wide belt of 1, 5-2 vershoks (6, 5-88, 9mm).

The belt in traditional clothing is explained not only by functional necessity, but also endowed with a deep symbolic meaning. Tying a belt means readiness for deeds and the ability to carry out these deeds.

The wearing of a belt has also been associated with a person's moral character. The absence of a belt was seen as a violation of generally accepted norms of behavior. To this day, the words "loose, loosen up, etc." have a negative meaning.

The belt, as a part of a person's clothing that takes the shape of a circle, was widely used as a talisman. It was believed that a person with a girdle was "afraid of the demon," removing the belt meant communion with the other world, with evil spirits, etc.

Therefore, the belt was removed when retrieving a fern flower on the night of the celebration of the day of God Kupala while searching for treasure.

With the help of a belt, a connection is established between one's own and another's space, old and new home. So in Belarusians, when moving to a new house, the owner pulls all family members by the belt. When the girl was ready to marry the young man whom she was wooed, she gave him a belt.

The magical properties of the belt fastening the union of the young were used in the wedding ceremony: the bride and groom were tied with a belt, thereby uniting them into one whole. The belts were presented to musicians at a wedding, to the groom's relatives and guests. Entering the groom's house after the wedding, the bride threw a belt over the stove (showing the brownie that she was the new mistress). The young people were led to the table at the waist. In the first days after the fun, the young woman, walking on the occasion, put a belt on the frame of the well. Sweeping the hut tying a belt on a broom. There is information that sometimes the bride handed out more than a hundred belts at a wedding.

The first sheaf of the harvest was tied with a belt. At the first pasture of cattle in the field, it was customary for the Eastern Slavs to spread a belt at the gate, often red. He was also tied to the horns of a cow, put in bags to the shepherds. The first furrow was led by the horse's belt. When buying livestock, he was introduced into a new house through a belt. In the Vladimir province at that moment they were saying: "Forget the old master, get used to the new."

In the Slavic tradition, the belt is a source of vitality. It has healing and fertilizing properties. In the Tambov province, in order to encourage the young to have children, a boy was put on her lap, she kissed him and gave him a "girl's belt." If you gird your spouse with a belt with the image of a "bunny" during pregnancy, then she will give birth only to boys, the successors of the clan. A baby was cast with a wide male belt. A belt with generic amulet symbols is a kind of filter that protects a person from negative influences from outside: damage, evil eye, bad wishes, etc.

The healers' protective properties of the belt, if necessary, could be enhanced by a certain conspiracy.

Various methods and techniques were used to make the belts. The most colorful and varied ornaments are distinguished by abusive belts woven on a thread, reed or scum.