Building Rituals of the Chuvash

The article characterizes the content of occasional rituals related to the construction of houses among the Chuvash in the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. The study aims to determine the ritual practices associated with house construction. The work’s theoretical basis is the comparative history method, which makes it possible to identify parallels in the culture of the peoples of the Ural-Volga region. The article deals with rituals such as sacrifice during construction, the choice of a place for the construction of a future house, the rite of nikĕs pătti/‘porridge for the deity of the foundation’ and the installation of mačcha kashti/‘ matitsa.’ Based on archival information and materials obtained from Chuvash informants in the regions of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Samara, and Chelyabinsk during the expeditions from 2009 to 2018, the ritual acts accompanying the construction of a house characterized by the uniformity and local peculiarities are shown. The context of the ritual acts was common to the Chuvash in all regions. However, differences were found in the number of apotropaic objects, the verbal code, and the status of the speaker. The great importance of occasional rituals in the construction of a dwelling shows the special attitude of the Chuvash toward the sacralization of space and their desire to domesticate it and use it according to their own needs. The performance of building rituals created the conditions for the well-being of the family and the material prosperity of the future homeowners, and the effect of apotropaic magic protected against the harmful effects of otherworldly forces. A space unsuitable for construction or ritual acts not performed in time could lead to misfortune. Therefore, all traditions and customs associated with construction were strictly observed. The symbolism of the apotropaic objects necessary for construction – coins and wool, sometimes cereals and grain - has been preserved in modern construction areas despite the change in traditional ideas about their original purpose and the influence of Orthodoxy on the worldview of the majority of Chuvash. The results of the study open up the prospect of a systematic study of Chuvash building rituals and characterize their changes over time (from archival material and authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries to ethnographic material collected in the 21st century) and space (different regions of the UralVolga region where the Chuvashes settle are considered).

building rituals, tradition, house building, dwelling, locus, Chuvash