Traditions, Omens and Believes
in Peasant Architecture

by T.K. Scheglova

Today the rural people have integration of rational activity, knowledge of natural environment, rituals of construction process and adaptation to dwelling and household areas associated with every stage of the process. However the level of their accuracy and utilisation in everyday life varies.

The reference point for the significant event of building a house was a correct location choice. The old residents consider that it has to match the following requirements: to be dry, warm and sunny. A whole series of natural and geographic factors were used in this.

1. Predominant wind direction. The least favourable one was the north wind, called "siver", the most favourable was the west wind. A house was placed with consideration of leeward and windward sides, called by Altai old residents "behind the wind" and "on the wind". Sviaz and five-wall houses of rectangular form are built everywhere with narrow side towards the wind. In most cases the windward facades were lined with tar-paper of boards in the last years. In all the houses gornitsa was placed at the windward side and the leeward side was for izba (in latter times calles "kut", meaning kitchen).

2. Sun rotation. Placement of a house so that the windows are "towards the Sun" is still used in practice. That side was called sunny (the southern facade), the opposite wall was "behind the Sun"(the northern facade). In all reported cases the southern wall has more windows. The northern or "dark" wall often has no windows (than it is called "blind") or a window or two. Therefore the old houses in peasant estated are often planned with regard of wind direction and the Sun rotation instead of a street line (parallel or perpendicular). Usually a row of houses stood similar on the street if they were of the same type. The order was broken if a street had mixed architectural type - long houses (sviaz, some types of five-wall houses) and square or so-called "round" houses (izba, cross-wall, five-wall). Houses were placed freely in an estate with considerable distance from each other, as the peasants say "not crowded". The central estate according to the census of 1917 (prior to collective farms) was at least 0.7 hectare.

The modern rural architecture was mainly standard, with fixed planning of streets when houses stood either right at the roadside or on 2-5 m distance from the road for pavement or front gardens. Street rows had standard architecture placed on the same pattern. A future owner of the house was absolutely excluded from the process of choosing the location and all stages of building until they move to a new house. Today this situation begins to change. Individual and private construction changes the patterns of houses in estates towards old resident peasant traditions.

3. Dry location and high level of subsoil waters. Broad range of folk natural omens was used to define these characteristics of location as it was recorded in field trip researches. In central forest-stepp and stepp Altai regions two omens of subsoil waters close to the surface are widespread. First, it is plenty of sorrel growing together. Second, it is the pattern of dew on the grass: a dark-colored spot where dew or hoar-frost shows up abundantly in the morning was marked for a well, not for house. Houses or household buildings were never built in places with sedge.

In north-western forest-stepp, forest and taiga (Salairskaia taiga) area of Altai the simple actions were taken to define the dry place for a house.

1. For a few days a board was placed in a spot chosen for construction. Afterwards it was checked if there were ground-beetles (type of beetle living in wet places such as wells and cellars) underneath it, then the spot was not considered. If there were ants on the bottom of the board, the place was good for construction.
2. A pan was put in a place, bottom up. A peace of dry wood was placed underneath. If it became wet, then the place itself was wet and unsuitable for construction. In similar cases the bottom of the pan was inspected. Dump surface meant that the place was warm and proper for building a house.

There were some omens that don't require any special actions, while being a result of peasant observations. The warm spot was the favourite spot for sheep rest. Special attention was given to places where a blow of warm air was experienced during late walkes and parties, and the house was built there.

Irrational believes about quality of a location are conditioned by superstitions, and rituals. Nowdays superstitions become more popular while less interest is paid to rites, rituals, and divinations. Diviations were usually used to define unfavourable places that don't have on the surface any visible warning signs either natural or superstitious. Ritual actions mentioned in field trips involve sacred objects like grain, bread, water. In most of old resident stories the discribed rituals are assosiated with baking. In Dumchevo (Zalesovsky region) honeycakes were baked for this purpose. On the last quarter of the Moon the cakes were tossed up over the place of the future house. If the cakes fall on the ground flat side down then the house was built there, if it was the crust side the location was changed. In Krasnoiarka village, Ust-Pristansky region (one of the main centres of "Kerzhak" ethnographic group) ritual divinations were held overnight: late at night a cup with water was put on the cosen place with and a piece of bread either next to it or over it. If in the morning the order stayed as originalthe place was good, and if the bread was scattered around and the water spilled, they refused from construction in this place.

In contemporary villages supernatural prejudices and superstitionsmainly are used in process of construction and adaption to a new house. There is especially large number of myths associated with choice of location for a house in peasant community. All the following mischieves and troubles in a family were explained in relation to wrong choice of house or the entire estate location. Signs of an unlucky (in sacred sense) location of a house were different occurences observed by peasants: anxious behaviour of sheep, horses, cattle-plague, numerous fails in raising of a certain stock, decrease of milk-yeld, cattle wanderlust, slow growth of cattle, along with personal problems of family members, as bad health, failure and lack of success, old maiden daughter, no children born or only females, and also natural disasters like fires. Peasant communities contain a large number of stories about troubles and problems of those who live in a house built not in accordance with traditions and disregard to the omens. Usually these myths have a strait-forward story line with two characteristic types of heroes: an owner-constructor, breaking the traditions and those who give him notice of consicuences or warn the constructor. Usually this role is played by an old man. Then the mythical plan leads to description of troubles and different members of family getting sick or dying one by one followed by the destruction of the house. The characteristics of the events don't leave any doubt about their primary cause, as a punishment for the wrong choice of the location and disregard to advices of wise people.

There are superstitions in the system of sacred means of location choice forbidding construction in place of the old house, a road, on a cross road, in place of bath-house. Peasants explain why it is unfavourable to build a house on the old place as it brings up a conflict between the old and the new spirits, heritage of the old troubles, sorrows and deaths of the old house. In central regions of Altai Territory there is a bad prejudice of placing a house in front of the gates. Peasants consider this leading to losses in a family and a house. Well-being, health, life "flowes out" through the gates. Prohibition of building a house on the place of a road or path has interpretation similar to this: people, cattle, success and happiness go away on that road out of the house or life.

The correct choice of house location didn't garantee total prosperity, still. It was necessary to follow series of guidlines in process of construction. However the interviewed contemporary old residents don't remember very well the rituals of construction, because in Altai a team of carpenters was usually hired to build a house or it was done with relatives' and neibours' help. In this case the construction was overseen by a person knowing all the omens, traditions, and rituals, usually of an old age. The works were guided by him and on his command, the other members of construction didn't take part in ritual aspects and received no explanations. That's why there is very few information or ritual objects that were kept untill nowdays. In all areas of Altai while pulling down the old houses people find ritual coins put by builders either underneath the windows, or more often in the corners, under the first row of logs on the larch "stools" or stones.

There is a special group of myths on conflicts between the the owner of the house and the builders and the revenge the workers took being in resentment for low or dishonest payment. The proof of builders' revenge in all stories was in objects found in demolition of a house that were marked with curse. In the central regions of Altai such a proof was usually seen in feline remains. There are stories recorded in Ust-Pristan region about frequent deseases in families who lived in some houses where remains of two kittens laid had to had were found when the house was pulled down.

Most of the mythical strories tell about mastership of peasant architects and about skills of self-educated masters. To emphasize the quality of old houses in three main characteristics (long lasting, dry and warm) the old residents relate it to the skillful preparation of building materials. The most frequent characteristic is expressed in phrase-pattern that "the forest still rings" with sound of axes. Stories about larch houses look like short legends or myths ("... they wanted to drive the nail in... and couldn't", "... they wanted to saw the log ... the saw didn't cut".

Memories of anonymous masters were later put into a form of legends or mythical stories. They appeared in old resident communities in process of collective farm standard and low quality building as nostalgia for well-built log peasant houses. The legends were based on real facts supplemented with fictious features stressing the value of loss in working, social and family areas of life in a village as a result of transfere from individual households to collective fams. There are stories in south-eastern foothill and mountain regions of Altai that tell about barns being used for storing honey in the years of great harvest. They took off the roof and poured in new honey that didn't even sip between the logs. In the beginning of the winter when sleigh roads became available, the roof was taken off again, cold and solid honey was cut and sold in market festivals. The foundation of this legends was peasant experience in construction demonstrated in fixed fastening of logs and solidity of the whole structure, of ceiling and floor when different types of log fastening (scarf joints, tenon joints, joints with hidden tennon), and floor ("edge to edge", overcast) were used.

There are some legends about an owner (customer) testing the building. Usually they filled up the rooms with water half meter high and checked in a week. If the water didn't go out, then the builders were granted premium besides the contract. Altai peasants everywhere tell stories about solidity of a log structure when the houses could be moved from place to place after plastered stove was taken out (it was built on ground basement and was extra weiht to the house). Old residents remember especially well the ability to "drag" houses to new places without pulling down logs and roof that was related to numerous tragic reformations in rural areas when the houses of "kulaks", (well-being peasants) were taken out of a village to a collective farm community, and when remote villages were eliminated and their residents were moved to large collective and soviet farms and had to move their houses 30 - 50 km on round logs.

There is a legend in Ust-Pristan about a four-storey mill that was buit by the entire community, starting from cutting wood (4-5 logs from each family) and till the final building. Logs were carefully put on each other, cutting a gouge in each log for the upper one (as the respondent noticed, "a knife blade could not go between logs"). Logs of the upper storeys were rolled up on platform. The old men managed the construction site. The first test of structure solidity according to folklore principles was strong windstorm that displaced the rows of the third and the fourth storey 10 sm. Yet they followed the old men advice and moved the logs back acting together with power of dozens of horses pulling ropes. A lot of storeys tell about solidity of roof structure that survived strong storms. The puspose of all anonimous stories is found in everyday philosophy opposing "the good it was" to "the bad it it".

Final of building process gave the start to the period of adapting to a new house with typical superstitions, views and actions related to the faith in existance of parallel spirits life. The main one of them is the head of the house, the hobgoblin. Similar to other areas of Russia, in Altai "the head of the house" had to be asked to go from the old house to the new one ("My head of the house, go with me") and it would be good to take along those things that the head loved in the old house. There are many different modifications of this, for example a cloth for washing the table. Often this role belong to the pot where dough was made, as bread was the most sacred food. The other ritual related to baking bread is coaxing of the hobgoblin at a new place with specially baked buns put in the lower rooms (podklet). A mistress or, in some cases, special wise person, would go down there and say charms while putting the buns in the coners.

Thus in peasant consciousness the unity of natural and cultural environment of dwelling area had spirits even nowdays. But contemporary demonology underwent significan changes. In contemporary view the demonic images are divided into two groups. The first group includes all negative images that are abstract, amorphous images without outer form and hostile to mankind. To protect themselves from these images peasants seem to use three barriers.

The first barrier goes around the fence surrounding the yard. It is protected by a number of sacred objects. The most frequent ones in central Altai are a horseshoe fixed over the gate or fence head and a net througn over the fence.

The second protecting barrieris the walls and openings of the house that are protected by symbols of carvings on windows and doors, and also horseshoes over the door and grass bunches over windows and doors. In contemporary rural communities icons are placed over doors to protect the house. Also the attention to the first outer barrier, the fence, had dropped significantly. The cause of it is obvious, it is transformation of yard value and individual household importance for family life, it is transformation of peasant psychology. However the tradition of "lucky horseshoe" is still vital, while the protecting meaning of a net is half fogotten.

The major magical power in nowdays belongs tothe threshold. There are many omens prohibiting giving something or someone across a threshold, for it will be lacking. To give food over a threshold means hunger for the house and for the family. To greet or talk over a threshold means a quarrel. To stand on a threshold meand getting sick. In any case all the consequences result in some loss (of health, things, friends, relatives). There are numerous protecting charms (pagan) and prayers (christian). In contemporary peasant communities the most popular address to God for protection crossing every threshold going out of the house is, "Lord! Bless me!", and crossing the last threshold is, "Over all the thresholds, Lord, bless me!

Threshold has similar meaning in popular self-healing and magic. For example, when a baby cryes a lot with no reason, young mothers still treat them from "a bad eye" (as a primary cause) by biting the water after washing baby's face and spilling out the rest over a threshold with different sayings. In particular, in Petrovka, Slavgorodsky region, Ukraine migrants say: "Good man, salt to your eyes!"

Threshold is widely used in contemporary peasant healing. A healer would put a person having cramps in lower back over a threshold, stomach down and beat their back with besom or with handle of an axe and sais out the words stimulating the loss process, i.e. loss of phisical or inner pain: grief, refused love, shock. For example a person treated of shock, in Korobeinikovo, Ust-Pristansky region, is placed at a threshold, a bowl of water is held over his head, and warm wax is poured into with the words, "Saint Mother, stand up to help me to pour the shock out of ... The shock is poured over thick woods and high mountains. No bone breaking, no breast aking, no head dizzing out of 70 veins, 70 joints. Amen. Amen." The predominant meaning is tranfer of shock out of a person across mountains and woods, across the threshold as a barrier between the outer alien world and the mankind environment, a house.

The third protecting barrier goes around a person theselves, thus people tryed to "reinforce" the barrier of contact with the outer world on their bodies. For example, they tied strips of fishing net over the body in central altai. In Ust-Pristan the following protection means are named: "poppy-seeds in footwear", "poppy-seeds in a cloth under underwear", three new needles pinned under the clothes and therefore unseen to other peoples' eyes. To some degree use of sacred protections was caused by transfere from traditional clothes with protecting ornament and stitches to modern tradition. Lately the significance of christian protection means (icons and crosses) encreases. "Living helpings", prayers handwritten and distributed by healers are widespread. Lately they are superseded by prayers sold in christian chirches. It is an important trend of last years of Russian Orthodox Church encreased influence in all areas of life (household, spiritual, social). Thus, moving to a new house, the peasants like to invite a priest and to sanctify the house and the yard.

The second group of demonic images are "mankind neighbours" who don't damage and even help people, these are so-calles "heads of the house". They have vivid images "a man, looking like the master" or "shaggy". locations of demons dwelling are diffirentiated: "all the bad ones live in the bath-house", and "the head of the house lives in the house, he profecies, groans, speaks about trouble ... never harms."

Analysis of peasant mythology depicts on one hand diminishing of demonic environment. In process of peasant household reformations, decrease of household buildings, and change of their purpose, the number of spirits dropped down, and then the images of different spirits united into the one, the head of the house and of household buildings. On the other hand the area of spirit dwelling and activity has shrinken. Usually in peasant communities in Altai the place of his dwelling is either attic or stove. The range of activity narrowed down to keeping house in order, and in period before collective farms "the head of the house" had controll all over the yard inside the fence, including the cattle.

Stories of their activity with cattle or in the house have fixed myth system and rather popular structure and plot wording. Thus there are plots describing what the head has done with the cattle that express either sympathy or dislike to the certain stock. A typical example is stories about purchase of a new horse, cow, sheep. Ust-Pristan village: "The Father brought a horse, a strong one... And "the head" loved it so much. He plaited it a long braid down from the mane to the knees, and he cleaned it, and he patted it. And if he didn't like a horse, he would torture it all night long. We come in the morning, and it is all in lather. They say, the head doesn't want it." Peasants consider the head's right for independent actions and don't judge or resent him. They watch carefully for manifistation of him, listen to the sound he sais (sighs, groans, words), try to understand their meaning, to fulfill his wishes.