The Motif of Curse in Bashkir Folklore: Evidence from ‘Sak and Sok’ Mythological Bait

Abstract

The article considers the motif of maternal curse through the example of the Bashkir mythological bait ‘Sak and Sok’ which is also widespread among the Tatar and Chuvash peoples. According to the plot, following a slight prank, the mother curses her twin children so that those immediately turn into birds and fly away. The conducted research has revealed two types of maternal curse: accidental and intentional ones. Accidental curse is that issued by mother by negligence, in a blaze of anger, wishing no actual harm to her children. Deliberate maternal curse could be found in various rituals. The curse issuing time is of special importance. In some cases, the curse is aggravated by mother’s milk which contradicts the Bashkir national mindset and the Holy Quran. The paper also considers variants of the bait that have been found among the Chuvashes where, like in Bashkir baits, in some cases maternal curse proves to be intentional. In a number of cases, children are cursed with magical rituals conducted by a wicked stepmother. There are also variants of the Bashkir bait where children are cursed by father or both parents. It seems that launching a feather hat in the wind is one of the curse rituals. The curse act results not only in the transformation of children into night birds but also has other consequences, for example, eyes get filled with blood. In some cases, maternal curse is empowered by supreme forces: a large oak falls on the children in the forest which might stand for the activity of punishing spirits. In one version, mother curses children with her tears since those had played with bread dough. God who watched this, sympathized with the woman and punished her disobedient children. The pair of black horses often mentioned in the bait, in our opinion, is one of the attributes that carry a person into the afterlife. Parents also suffer consequences of the curse imposed by them on children. In our case, the children turn into birds and can neither meet each other nor return home, and the parents - no matter how much they grieve - cannot return the words of the curse back. It is known that the Bashkir and Tatar peoples had a curse related to the names of these twins. Thus, upon examination of ‘Sak and Sok’ mythological bait, we see the intertwining of several rituals and types of curse. To date, the mythological plot of ‘Sak and Sok’ bait is the most vivid example of the use of curse in Bashkir national folklore.

Keywords

• «сак и сук»