The collection of the Sheltozero Veps Ethnographic Museum named after Rurik Petrovich Lonin features an ancient baby cradle donated to the museum by Fyodor Ivanovich Kirsanov, a resident of the village of Kaskesruchey. Kaskesruchey is one of the ancient Veps villages, located on the shore of Lake Onega, the sandy steep shore of which is favored by swallows. Surrounded by centuries-old pines and fir trees, this small settlement seems mysterious. It is no coincidence that, since the 14th century, the ancient Veps chose these lands as a place to live.
Until the moment the Veps child began to walk, his or her main place in the hut was a cradle (kätte, kättud, baju). The cradle was made by the father or grandfather of the newborn, mainly from bast or birch bark, and then it passed from older children to younger ones. Among the northern Veps, cradles in the form of a quadrangular box, slightly expanded to the headboard, became most widespread; among the northern and southern Veps, there were cradles woven from birch bark. A child’s amulet was always hidden in the cradle: a bear’s claw, bread or an iron object. In some Veps villages, a soroka (headdress) with barley grains were placed in a cradle so that the child would grow every day like a “sprout of barley seed”. If the child was taken from the cradle, a protective faceless rag doll was left there. The eyes are the mirror of the soul, and the Veps believed that a soul, which was not always kind, could possess the doll through them. Although the Veps converted from paganism to Christianity, for a long time they maintained faith in evil and good spirits. It was a faceless, soulless doll, made with love and kind thoughts, that guarded the space of the cradle.
The child was considered the most vulnerable to the influence of evil forces before his or her first teeth appeared. During this dangerous period, the Veps fulfilled a number of prohibitions: they did not show the child to anyone except family members in order to avoid the effects of the evil eye, bewitchment, evil spirits; they did not bring the child to the mirror, because, according to popular beliefs, evil spirits could take them away.
Infant mortality in the 19th century was quite
high, and women in labor worked until the last minute: it was not uncommon for
children to be born in the field on mowing or in the forest while harvesting
firewood. The umbilical cord could have been cut with any sharp object: It
could have been a stone with a sharp edge, a sickle, or the tip of an ax.
Newborns and their mothers had to undergo purification rites. This was part of
the universal idea that in the postpartum period, the infant and the woman in
labor were sacredly unclean and at the same time they were most vulnerable to
the influence of hostile dark forces.
