Gherman is a name that is linked to
traditional springtime rain-supplication rituals in Bulgaria.
“Give us, my Lord, a sprinkle, to make
the wheat grow, healthy and heavy with grain” is the meaningful
essence of what once used to be a traditional spring ritual of
entreating God to send down life-giving showers. Village folk would in
times past address their ritualistic supplication for bounty-bringing
rain to Heaven, Earth, Christian God, all manner of Saints and ancient
pagan idols to make sure it would be heard and taken care of. A young
girl, performing the ritualistic part of a “butterfly”, would
symbolically forward the supplication to Heaven. A clay figure of a
boy, called Gherman, would be a magical envoy to the underworld, where
life-giving moisture and fertility are kept. The "Butterfly" and “
Gherman” rituals often go hand-in-hand. The performers are even one
and the same- a group of 10-12- year old girls, guided and supervised
by elderly women. The two rituals traditionally take place in the
month of May because rain showers in May are popularly believed to be
most beneficial. However, should draught come upon them in summertime,
farmers would seek to obtain rain by means of the same prayers. What
is more, the two rituals are believed to be capable of retroaction,
i.e. to hold back torrential rains that would eventually cripple
farming crops.
The “Butterfly” and “Gherman” rituals complement each other in
spiritual terms too. The” Butterfly” celebrates spring-invigorated
Nature. The
”Butterfly” girl, covered in green twigs and leaves, goes
through the steps of a ritualistic dance, prophesying gentle rains and
bounty. She is accompanied by a group of girls, with whom she makes a
round of the village, water wells and water springs, the river and
farmed fields. Conversely the "Gherman" ritual’s overriding sense is
one of sadness. The protagonist is a clay figure of a boy. The girls,
taking part in the ritual, mourn him, recounting the sad story of his
death coming while he was battling with clouds or as a result of
draught and barren life. Elderly women involved in the ritual mourn
him as they would mourn a son. The only solace is that when Gherman
departs to the other world he would “supplicate a sprinkle”. Gherman’s
mission is to fertilize the earth, to restore its fertility. Though
the figure is only 20-50 cm in height its manhood is explicitly
evident. In certain cases attaching a
red-hot
pepper to the figure, a recurrent phallic symbol in
traditional rituality, would emphasize
Gherman’s fertilizing role. It is speculated that the clay boy ritual
must have supplanted an ancient sacrificial ritual. The surviving
“Gherman” ritual, however, follows Christian funeral traditions. In
certain parts of the country the village women folk would invite the
local priest to officiate as if at a real-life funeral. Still in other
parts, a woman would disguise as a priest, sporting a smoke-black pot
on her head, in the place of the clerical kamelaukion, aping church
chanting. This is meant to explode the mournful lament, causing an
eruption of jubilation and joyous anticipation of a defeated draught.
Both rituals, ”Butterfly” and “Gherman” wind up with a ritual feast by
the side of a river, water well or spring. Traditionally, anyone
coming across the ritual procession, or going past the feast spot,
would be expected to pay their respects to the ritual performers. The
latter would pour water for them to wash, and they
would in return have to bequeath a coin. If passers-by refused the join the ritual or
contribute their mite, the girls would pour a cauldron of water over
them. No one would be expected to get angry for receiving a drenching
bath.
In some parts of the country the “Butterfly” and
“Gherman” rituals are staged on 12 May, the date of the Christian
feast of Saint Gherman of Constantinople, who lived in the VIII
century. Saint Gherman must have succeeded an earlier, pre-Christian
deity of the same name and personifying the heavenly elements. In
traditional culture Gherman is , first and foremost, perceived as the
master and lord of hailstorm clouds and the one who brings
on hailstorms.
In
popular beliefs there are quite a
number of saints
that
bring on hailstorms -
Todor, Bartholomew, Marko the
Hailstormer, Eliseus, and the principal one - Elijah. In times
long past people would do homage to them
by way of specially-designed rituals and staying away from work. They
trusted this would safeguard them against hailstorm, lightning and
downpour, but would reward them with life-giving rain.
The hail men in
Bulgarian folklore are four in number, German or Guerman (May 12),
Bartholomew (June 11), Lisse or Lisseh (June 14), and Vido or Vida
(June 15).
Spring
Traditions: Germann (Germann the hail bringer)
- 12 may
It is a folk holiday done for more rain and as a protection from
hail. According to the belief
there
are four people that can bring hail: Germann, Bartholomew, Lise and
Vidovden. But Germann is the first and the best hail bringer. No one
dares to do any work at this day especially on the fields. The oxen
are not harnessed on this day. That is done as a protection from the
hail. If there is a hail in the summer they believe that one of the
peasants has gone secretly out in the fields.
If clouds and thunders come at this day everybody
comes out of their houses - men, women and children and they shout
out: "Germann, you big holiday! Take the hail to the bare forests
where there is no axe, where no bread is kneaded and no rooster
crows!"
There are two kinds of rituals for more rain - Germann and
Butterfly.
Germann: This ritual is usually performed in the day of the
butterfly but always after it. It is known mostly in Northern
Bulgaria. The participants are young girls and sometimes elder women.
The lasses make a doll twenty to fifty centimetres long that looks
like a man out of mud. This figure represents a naked man with clearly
visible masculine exteriors which is considered as a dead man. All the
rituals typical for the burial of a man are done over this doll. The
doll is put on a tile, a wooden bat or in a box made for the occasion.
It is decorated with flowers and buried. On the third, ninth or
fourteenth day it is taken out and thrown into the river. It is done
as they think Germann will protect the village and the fields from
hails.
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Butterfly: Twelve or thirteen year old girls take part in it.
The main person in the ritual - the butterfly - is always an orphan
dressed in an old shirt and barefooted. At home or by the river they
put different kinds of grass and weeds, at some regions even frogs and
bones from an unknown grave on the butterfly. The whole troop goes
around the houses in the village and sings a special song - a request
to the God for more rain from the butterfly. The butterfly dances in
the rhythm of the song. They spill water on her and then she shakes it
off herself. As a gift the troop gets flour, beans, lard, etc., but
they never get eggs. That is for a protection against hail. The sieve
is rolled on the ground and by the way it falls they predict what the
harvest will be.
At the end they go to the river where they throw green leaves and the
decoration from the butterfly and sprinkle themselves with water. The
ritual ends with a table that has the received gifts on it and in some
regions there is a restriction that the table should not be prepared
by an old woman, a pregnant woman or a suckling mother.
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Hailstorm bringers in folklore
The totality of
folk beliefs explains hailstorms as God’s punishment for human sins,
and especially for secret violations of patriarchal common law. If
somebody failed to understand this omen and would not repent for his
or her sins, he or she became the target of ridicule and of sayings
such as the following one: “A hail is beating the goat, but his tail
is erect!” In a similar vein of humour, a tale brings the story of a
family punished for their greed and lies with a false hailstorm. The
story goes like this: the woman found a pot full of gold coins buried
under a dog-rose bush in the woods. When she brought the treasure
home, her husband decided to hide it away from her under a pile of
grain in the barn. But, in a bid to do this in secrecy, he went on to
scare his wife, and thus prevent her from seeing what he was doing. He
lied to her that a dark cloud was about to bring a hailstorm and urged
her to hide in a large hole outside the house. Trying to imitate the
rattling of a hailstorm, he coaxed the chicken to peck millet on the
straw-mat that covered his wife’s head. All of a sudden however, a
chicken pecked at her eye so energetically, that it blinded her. For
this reason, though fake, the hailstorm was called “bloody”.
Retribution however, did not stop at that point. Soon the woman found
the pot with gold coins and gave it to a potter to buy brand new pots.
Later however she decided to break the new pots. Finally, both the man
and his wife were left empty-handed.
In Bulgaria, hailstorms are most common in the early summer,
so this is the period when most of the hailstorm precaution rituals
and holidays are concentrated. In the traditional calendar they are
linked to the names of at least three saints. They were known as
hail-bringers, as they were believed to have the powers to either
provoke or prevent hailstorms. Following chronology, the first saint
is Gherman celebrated on 12 May. In mid-June the traditional community
would mark the days of two other hail-bringer saints – Bartholomew on
June 11, and the Holy Prophet Elisha (Elisei) on 14 June. Those who
did not revere them, would be beaten by heavy hails. Damage caused by
hailstorms would be assessed after the days of the two saints were
gone. 15 June is Vida’s Day. She was the sister of hail-bringer
saints, so she went about the fields to find out what damage her
brothers had done. Therefore, in the folk tradition Vida’s Day or
Vidovden, is a day when somebody’s sins would become public.
The most powerful master of heavenly elements is Saint
Elijah. His holiday is marked in July. In some region there are
beliefs that Saint Helena poured grains down from her sleeves. This long list of hail-bringer saints suggests the
major scare peasants had from the destructive summer storms. For this
reason they would take ritual precautions against hails on several
occasions during the year. The hail beats the kneading-trough, peasants would say.
If the harvest was not entirely ruined, they found consolation with
another saying: “Hail does not cause famine”.
Besides,
there is a whole range of ritual practices and bans devised to protect
fields from hailstorms. On Christmas, farmers politely invited Gherman
to join the Christmas dinner so that he would not reappear in the
summer. On Easter they buried a red egg in the soil to protect fields
from hails. Women looked at the sky through a sieve to make sure that
hail pellets would be smaller. The big hail-scare prevented peasants
from breaking the traditional moral code. And anybody who had been
generous to somebody in need could expect hailstorms to bypass his
farming field.
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PEACE HAVENS of BULGARIA
