About folk traditions of raising children. Mikhail Nikiforovich Melnikov

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

Lived: August 10, 1921 - August 13, 1998 Folklorist, ethnographer, professor, specialist in folklore. Contributed to the study of the relationship of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian folklore in Siberia. Took part in the compilation of 4 volumes from the 60-volume series "Monuments of folklore of the peoples of Siberia and the Far East", a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR.

First conversation

"Baiu-baiushki, baiu!.." and up to five years

Question: Mikhail Nikiforovich! We have known each other for about 10 years. And I remember when we invited you to the Nadezhda club - a healthy lifestyle club, we were greatly impressed by your speech on the topic “Folk traditions of raising children”.

Here's what you told, how you interpreted folk traditions, struck my imagination (and it seems to me, not only mine, but also many of those present in the hall). Because we lived under the impression of school and other upbringing. When it was drummed into us that our ancestors were "dark and ignorant" people, and that children should be brought up in accordance with the spirit of modernity, in accordance with the spirit of European civilization. But it turns out that folk traditions, their level is much higher than what we have met in life, when we were brought up, when we were already raising our children. This circumstance prompted me to turn to you again with a request to repeat your knowledge in the field of folk pedagogy for a wider circle of listeners.

Answer: The last thing I would like to lecture today. I just wanted to have a chat. Yes, unfortunately, we were taught for many years that our dense ancestors understood little in comparison with the enlightened descendants.

This is the deepest delusion. People who were widely educated in all ages turned to folk wisdom. Why? Because it has been tested by thousands of years of life experience of this or that nation. Therefore, each nation has its own unique face, its inherent psychology, its own way of thinking. In Russia, our ancestors, the Slavs (and the ancestors of the Slavs) were farmers. Therefore, everything was determined by the agricultural culture. The farmer survived when he had many strong, healthy and intelligent workers. Each family tried to have as many working hands as possible. Therefore, the birth and upbringing of healthy children was the primary task. And this was done long before the children appeared.

The time comes, soon the guy should be married - in a year, in two. The guy is still only 15 years old, and already the mother and father are looking for a bride, but what will she be? Because they say, what the seed is, so is the tribe. If she is lazy, if she is a slob, if she is gullible, then there is no way to get worthwhile offspring from her. The girls were checked, for example, at such a ceremony as bleaching canvases - the girls took out everything that they had weaved over the winter and spring, laid it out, whitewashed. Themselves began to lead round dances, and the mothers of the suitors spied on which of them was doing what and how. And how she behaves in a round dance. They say: "what is in a round dance - such is also in the garden." Moreover, after that he will grab the girl by the hand. If the hand is warm and hot, then the daughter-in-law will be a hard worker …

In the same Balman:

• Dad, it's time for me to get married!
• I've been thinking for a long time, but maybe you already spied on the girl?
• Spied!
• Whom?
• But Nyurku Stoerosov …
• Nothing beautiful girl.

And his mother, i.e. groom's grandmother:

- Here you bury me, then send in matchmakers! Don't you know that her grandmother never swept her porch? We don't need sluts in the house!

It was considered for great misfortune to give the girl to a grumpy family. God forbid! This was considered a great sin. Even in the songs it is fixed:

Gave it to the young

To the wrong side.

To the wrong side

Into a dissenting family

Where they fight, fight

They split with axes.

Finally, we looked to see if there are long-livers in the family of the bride and groom (or not long-livers)? For example, a war hero now lives in Ivanovka. There is no half a skull, the Order of Glory, 1st degree, and we have recorded over a hundred songs from him. He was called from Sausage. He returned there after the war. I decided to marry, spied on the bride, and all my relatives stood up: “No! - they do not have centenarians. All die before the age of 40-50. You will only give birth to children, and immediately you will remain a widower. Who needs children ?! And so he was not allowed to marry. And she really died before the age of 50, the one he did not take. See how far they looked out? Those. were determined in advance so that there were healthy offspring. And then, we thought a lot about how to get it.

Now we have a lot of noise about the discoveries of American scientists, about the "know-how" with embryonic education. But embryonic education was also in Russia. Moreover, they knew practically all the fundamental motives that are now guided by those who are engaged in embryonic education. They knew about the influence of the feelings, moods and experiences of the mother who bears the fetus on its development.

Negative emotions depress the fetus. Therefore, we always tried to create a favorable environment in the family. The expectant mother was forbidden to beat cattle, swear, look at the fire - negative emotions were excluded.

She was given the kind of work that developed most of all those muscles and those joints, those organs that are involved in childbearing. After all, now almost half of the women in our country cannot give birth on their own. What is forceps during childbirth?

What is a Caesarean section? Caesarean section is dangerous for both the mother and the child, and, moreover, as doctors help, the baby's skull is often injured. Hence such vices that, God forbid, at least one of these children can get. Debility develops, and many other diseases.

And in the distant past there were no doctors, and no one performed a cesarean section. This is death if a woman cannot give birth. Therefore, they always forced her to the last, before labor pains, to work in an inclined manner: to wash the floors, scrape the benches, weed in the garden, harvest rye or wheat, i.e. work low bending down as much as possible. This work developed what the expectant mother would need during labor. Care again.

The conversation was conducted by our correspondent A. N. Nasyrov.

From the publications of the newspaper "Sibirskaya Zdrava", No. 1/20016.