Mocha
Mokosch or Mokuscha is a Slavic goddess . Along with the Polish goddess Siva, she is the only known historically verifiable female deity of the Slavic pantheon and, as mother goddess, is responsible for fertility, femininity and the protection of sheep and spinning and weaving. Your name is derived from the root word mok - (moist). She symbolizes the "damp mother earth" and thus corresponds to the Iranian fertility goddess Ardvi Sur Anahita .
Mokosch was one of the six deities for whom Prince Vladimir I had statues erected in Kiev in 980 . So she was one of the main gods of the Eastern Slavs . In the written sources it is usually mentioned together with water spirits, the Vilen , later the Rusalken . A Russian treatise links the goddess to sexual rites. However, it is unlikely that this was a defining feature of the Mokosch cult, as its main function was to protect the economic sector.
After Christianization, the protection of the fields and the cattle, which Mokosch was responsible for, was given to Saint Paraskeva . Twelve Fridays a year were consecrated to her in the apocryphal calendar, which illustrates the importance of this cult. However, as late as the 16th century, women were asked at confession whether they would go to Mokosh, and until the 19th century the northern Russian and Ukrainian folklore held the idea of a female demon named Mokush, with a large head and long hands, who lived at night came into the farmhouses and spun the tow that was lying around open, although there was a risk that it would span someone. Their coming was announced by the sound of a spindle , the spirit itself was invisible. In other Slavic countries, the myth arose from the Kikimora .
Outside the Russian area there is only evidence of a possible veneration of the Mokosch in the form of place names. The Czech community Mokošín and the former villages of Muuks in Western Pomerania and Moggast in Upper Franconia are associated with the name of the goddess.
literature
- Naďa Profantová, Martin Profant: Encyklopedie slovanských bohů a mýtů . Nakladatelství Libri, Praha 2000, ISBN 80-7277-011-X .
- Zdeněk Váňa: Mythology and gods of the Slavic peoples , Stuttgart 1992, ( ISBN 387838937X )
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Zdeněk Váňa: Mythology and gods of the Slavic peoples: The spiritual impulses of Eastern Europe . Stuttgart 1992, p. 95.