Mesi ja vaha ersamordvalaste kombestikus
Honey and wax in the customs of the Ersa Mordvins

Summary/Abstract: The article introduces the special features of Ersa bee-keeping from the early days up till 2023, along with food and drink associated with honey and mythological figures connected with honey and bees. As a food honey holds an important position in folk customs, particularly with respect to memorial and holiday foods. Attention is also directed to Ersa folk holidays and features of their restoration during recent decades both in Mordva and Estonia. The research showed that the seasonality of holidays is connected to natural circumstances and the cycles of bee-keeping: the dominant period is summer, when the main honey gathering takes plac along with related rituals. The collected data shows that honey and wax fulfill many interconnected functions in Ersa culture – economic, sacral and social. From forest bee-keeping to frame bee-keeping, the bee and its products have been an important part of the economy and exchange; at the same time they have become rooted in rituals as clean and holy substances, which connect people with their ancestors and protective deities (Niškepaz, Niškeava, Mekšava). Folk customs – beginning with the offering of honey and honey beer (pure) at memorials up to the raising of the wax candle štatol – structure the calendar and the life cycle and confirm the cohesion of the community. Important features include persistent syncretism: pre-Christian customs (sacrifices, prayers at beehives, turning toward nature gods) and Orthodox practices (Elia’s Day, the blessing of the honey) coexist and mutually interpret one another. One can observe both the preservation of archaic meanings (belief in the connection of bees to the world of the gods and souls of the ancestors) and their contemporary adaptations – people’s prayer meetings (Rasken ozks), the preservation of traditions in the diaspora, joint gathering of wax for the štatoli and the use of the Ersa language in prayers. Field work in the areas of Ardatov and Bolšoje Ignatovo and in Estonian Ersa communities confirm spatio-temporal continuity and local variations. Today one encounters some customs more rarely, but the key symbols – honey as the first food of commemoration and the štatol as the sign of the continuation of a family tree, retain their significance. Future research might be focused on a comparison of the Ersa and Moksha bee-keeping cults, documenting their contemporary changes and the role of bee-keepiong in the shaping of collective identity in the 21st century Ersa community.

• Details
• Contents