Re: Mokosh?

--- On Fri, 10/31/08, Max Dashu <maxdashu@...> wrote:

From: Max Dashu <maxdashu@...>
Subject: Re: [tied] Mokosh?
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, October 31, 2008, 3:54 PM






However she is mentioned as a major deity in the Primary Chronicle.

****GK: Indeed. One of the six major deities of Volodimer's pantheon. This short-lived "pagan centralization" [ca. 978-988 AD] was recently confirmed by archaeological digs in the area of Kyiv's oldest basilica,the Church of the Tithes ("Desyatynna Tserkva"), built for Volodimer by Byzantine and Chersonian masters after his conversion. Foundations for six idols were unearthed, though the idols themselves had,of course, been long destroyed.
The issue of "Mokosh" remains open. I think Piotr is right in his doubts as to the "Slavic" nature of the pantheon. Volodimer's aristocracy was polyethnic, and some some of these gods may have been contributed by various factions: local Slavic, Slavicized Scandinavians, Iranians (descendants of Hun-connected aristocrats) et al.. Some Ukrainian investigators feel that "Mokosh" represented a Finnic deity. Who knows? There were certainly many Finno-Ugrian aristocrats in the original Scandinavian-led "Rus'", according to the Kyivan Chronicle.****

Max

>Seriously, though Mokosh seems to be an authentic deity, we know
>precious little about her functions. Based on the folkloristic material
>referring to <Mokos^a>, associations with sheep-shearing, spinning and
>textile preparation have been proposed -- which would presumably make
>her a popular household spirit rather than one of the chief gods in the
>Slavic "pantheon" (a questionable notion in first place). There is no
>solid basis for connecting Mokosh with fertility of good fortune, let
>alone identifying her with one of the representations on the Zbruch idol
>(as Rybakov did with much imagination and nothing tangible to back it
>up). With so little information, any etymology must be considered
>tentative. A connection with the root *mok- as in *mokrU 'wet',
>*moknoNti 'get wet' and *moky/*mokUve 'wetness, wet ground' (with some
>Baltic cognates) is formally possible but also uncertain.
>
>Piotr