Slavs-pagans communicated with the world in language of oberegov’ (guardians) – subjects, ornaments, patterns, which people carried with themselves or placed to protect their dwellings. Three ancient guarding symbols were the patterns connected with three elements worshipped by Slavs: symbols of the soil, water, and fire. These three most important symbols were called by Slavs ochranitely (protectors).

 Symbols of the earth  

 And fertile soil

Symbol of water – wavy line.

Symbol of fire - fire terrestrial (a slanting cross), a sign of lightning (six-or an eight-beam star).

Beside these signs, the pagan symbols included the image of the sun (swastika), a rainbow, and figures of the goddess at top of a structure, a horseshoe and many other things. The pagan symbols were placed on "vulnerable" sites of dwelling and a court yard. Conjuring ornaments were put on all openings through which the evil spirit could get to the person’ sphere: gates, doors, windows.

The symbol of the sun placed above all doors, protected dwelling from the night evil spirits. Sign of the sun could have been found also on a roof of the house – in the form of horse head (also symbol of sun), under a roof – in the form of the actual image of the sun or its symbol, and on a facade, on plat bands of windows. On a facade of the house often was placed the Thunderous sign (the circle divided into six sectors) – a symbol of the Perun (highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning) to preserve house from lightning.

 The animal world was symbolized by images of birds, plants, and goddesses, intertwining with fantastic creatures. For example Mermaids protected the house from nav’(dead coming alive), and upyr’(vampire).  

Images, preserving the peace in house, were of Lada (the goddess of fun, well-being and an agreement in family; the goddess of brides) and Mokosha (Goddes of Destiny). Sometimes they are represented with the hands lifted upwards, as if asking for protection by the Supreme gods; other times they are represented with the lowered hands, as if addressing Mother- Earth who is responsible for a good harvest.

At Slavs ceremonials the towels had special magic and special sense. Patterns on them represented a Slavic calendar which figuratively reflected family-patrimonial events or the agrarian-ritual celebrations peculiar to the agricultural culture. On all holidays as the first ritual on a towel was placed bread and salt.  Salt - a symbol of the sun, love; bread - the soil, earth; a towel - a symbol of a human life, a strip of destiny, a part of cosmic universe. During a betrothal hands of the groom and the bride were connected, having been wrapped up in a towel meaning that the young were well off; with the same sense a midwife put the baby on a new towel.  Towels for daily use were woven and embroidered with simple ornament against draught or other calamities and that the towel had miracle powers all work the weaver should consult in one light day. On a funeral towel symbols of soul and a funeral (sacrificial) fire were represented. Last sign resembles the rhombic symbol of the soil, earth, but a rhomb, consisting of three pairs of crossed lines, remained inside empty. Funeral towels and those for daily use towels were given to a temple or a church after fulfilment of a ceremony. 

 With magic guarding pattern were covered cuffs, collars, hems, cuts, and belts of the garments.  One of the most popular guarding patterns on clothes was rhomb with hooks – symbol of life. Beside the rhomb, other protective amulets symbolizing fire, warmth, and life, were circles and swastikas. In a place where underarm of a sleeve was connected to the short it was necessarily to insert a red triangle, because red colour reflected bad energy and protected health of the owner.

Bridal costume reflected not only her status, but also the knowledge about the micro cosmos. A hem of female’s garment and poneva were often decorated with the patterns which contained ancient symbols. The bottom part of a garment has been associated with the soil, a headdress always with the sky. At the hem there were symbols of the fertile soil, corn, and crop; the upper part of the garment included elements of rain, and birds; the headdress represented sky, birds, stars, and sun.

Characteristic for the embroideries were three colours: red, white and gold.

             In language of national symbols white colour was connected with ideas about light and the Universe. Universe was perceived as it was lit up by the heavenly light, giving blessing to all elements, associated with the ideas of happiness and abundance.  The white cloth represented Divine Light.   The word white in Russian associates with freedom and cleanness. Symbolically it also represented transformation from living to dead: corpses were dressed in white garments and soldiers put a white clean shirt before the battle.  White was the spiritual colour.

             In contrast to white colour red colour stud for human soul and her carrier—blood. At the same time red was also associated with the fire. Orthodox symbolic very comfortably united these two ideas of blood-soul and blood-fire.

            The meaning of gold colour was somewhere between these two colours. Gold was the colour of the Orthodox icons. It was colour of the coming times, where there is no antagonism between spiritual and material. Gold is a symbol of a spiritualized flesh.

The invariance of pagan symbols during many centuries speaks that Slavs, even after acceptance of Christianity, kept many features of primordial religion which concerned ordinary human life. Pagan beliefs are kept in Slavs mentality as subconscious elements; they find expression in folklore, symbolic of an applied art, language, in fairy tales, in ceremonialism, in superstitions, and in healing.

Rhombus is one of the oldest symbols. In every culture the rhomb with a dot in the middle was a symbol of fertile soil and consequentially fertile womanhood. Samples of this symbol could be traced through all agricultural societies. Four sides of the rhombus meant four directions—front, back, right and left or four geographical destinations—north, south, east, and west. The rhombus reflected the ways of field plowing—forward and back and directions of plowing the field. The dot in the middle of the rhombus symbolized the grain. From the prehistoric cultures the fertile soil associated with fertile woman and the rhombus could be found on the objects symbolizing womanhood and pregnancy.

The mystery of the rhombus-shaped symbol, as opposed to more natural and also popular shape of  a square, was traced by Russian paleontologist V.I. Schreger lines on a mammoth tusk     Bibikova in 1965 to the pattern on the tusk of a mammoth. Cross-section or slanted cut of a

Schreger lines on a mammoth tusk    

mammoth tusk forms on a surface all over pattern made of rhombs, so-called Schreger lines. The cores, primary rhombs are insignificant (0,5—0,8 mm on the big diagonal), but nevertheless perfectly visible to human eyes. The small rhombs are too grouped in large rhombic or zigzag systems reaching up to10 mm. The first craftsmen and artists replicated this visible and natural pattern from nature covering the entire surfaces of the objects. Bibikova interpreted that mammoth at that time represented “power, force, prosperity”.

Paleolithic (2.6 million years ago- 10,000 years ago)

 Bracelet decorated with ornament reproducing natural pattern of mammoth tusk.

From Mezinskaja, Ukraine

From that time rhombus can be traced through other periods, even as the societies became agricultural, often adding symbolic dot to the pattern or twigs to the corners of rhombuses, as symbols of young plants.

Blocks for tattoos for female bodies          Late Neolith Cucuteni culture 5500BC-2750BC

Early Neolith Period                                                                    Tripolje village, Ukraine

In Russia the rhombus symbol was preserved through thousands of years. Later it was depicted intertwining with the Christian motifs and could be found on the beams of the churches and furniture.

The symbol of rhombus with dots was well preserved in textiles, though its use was restricted. First, it was part of the young woman’s dowry. Second, the image was widespread on the towels which are known for their ritualism.

Towel

Early XX century

Archangelsk  

The same characteristic pattern—a divided cross-wise rhomb with small dots was placed on wedding skirts (paneva), on the embroidered sleeves of female shirts, and on the maiden headdresses. The small twigs at the corners of the rhombuses symbolized the new young plants. The composition was embroidered only on wedding   wrapped  skirt—paneva which the bride prepared herself for a wedding and wore in the first year of a marriage.   

Paneva skirt (detail)    

On children’s or old woman’s skirts the rhombus-dot composition was never embroidered. In relation to female shirts there was precisely the same age restriction: large rhombus-dot patterns decorated forearms only on shirts of young women.  Connection of a rhombus-dot pattern with wedding ceremonialism and with a life of a young married woman draw a special attention to a wedding ritual which is full of a magic content, and first of all magic of fertility. The idea of fertility in wedding ceremonialism acts in two forms: first, as the future fruitfulness of the girl-bride, and secondly, as fruitfulness of a ploughed and sowed soil. The woman is assimilated to the soil; the birth of the child is assimilated to a birth of new grain, an ear. 

This symbolical merging of the agrarian and womanly was affected by external likening of similarity of the essence of this vital phenomenon. It also aspired to merge in the same manner the new family, a birth of humans and a fertility of the fields, providing future happiness. This complex was expressed in ancient Russia by concept of “rojanitza” - patronesses to a birth rate—“rojat” and to a good crop—“urojay” and is still alive in the modern language. 

Beside the embroideries and fabrics, the rhombus-dot composition is met on an ethnographic material on distaffs. Distaffs, as is known, often were a wedding gift of the groom to the bride. The rhombus-dot sign on a distaff symbolized the soil, an arable land located between mid-day and night (underground) sun.

Leg of a distaff            

 Mammoth tusk

Makosha was one of the main goddesses of east Slavs, the wife of the God of Thunder Perun. Her name is made of two parts: ма (mother) and kosh (basket). Makosha is the mother who filled baskets, or mother of a good harvest. She is the goddess of a good crop, giver of all kinds of blessings. The amount of crop was a subject to various factors; therefore Makosha was a Goddess of Destiny. This goddess connected the abstract concept of destiny with a concrete concept of abundance; she patronized housekeeping, shorn sheep, spun, and punished carelessness and laziness. The concrete concept of a spinner was connected to a metaphorical concept of “spinning of destiny”. Makosha patronized marriage and family happiness. She was represented as the woman with a big head and long hands, spinning at night in a log hut. Makosha was the only female Goddess whose idol stood at the top of a hill in a pantheon of Prince Vladimir in Kiev.

 With arrival of Christianity direct extension of Makosha became Paraskeva Pjatnitsa (Friday). Paraskeva was a not only a patron of Earth’s crops, she also distributed products, raw materials, and manufactured goods. She oversaw deals and patronized commerce. The merchant city of Novgorod build a Paraskeva Pjatnitsa Church on the Trading square in 1207, similar churches were build on the trading places in XII-XIII centuries in Chernigov and Moscow.

One of the most basic images of Makosha, as a woman between two moose could be related to the Neolithic and Mesolithic cult of the hunt, which   

Mokosha with big head and two Moose

had two Moose Goddesses. With the decline of the hunting cult, the image of these two goddesses was transformed into one, Goddess (sometimes with horns) with two moose, horses, or two riders to her side.

Rojanitza and Rojanitza as the Tree of Life             Makosha and two Rojanitzs

 Sometimes the cult of Makosha was intertwined with the cult of the Rojanitz (Goddesses of Birth). Main Goddess Makosha was depicted with two other Goddesses: Leda and her daughter Lel’, who are recognized by their birth-giving positions. Very often Makosha was represented in a sanctuary (kapishe) which was a construction in the form of Russian teremok (palace).  

Figures with the lifted hands correlate with spring ceremonies (greeting of the sun, meeting of spring), and figures with their hands down correlate with another cycle of pagan year—top of summer (gesture of the goddess in this case specifies fruitful soil).   

Makosha with her hands down and sun-head

Two-headed bird ships carrying them symbolize the winter phase of the year, two horses with one trunk —culmination of summer.

Many towels of the XVIII-beginning of the XX century depict in the centre a large female figure (often with the hands lifted to the sky), and to her side are two horsemen with their hands lifted to the sky too. In her hands the female figure usually has birds—symbols of  the sky and goodness. Sometimes the composition varies: instead of horsemen to the right and left of a female figure there are two huge birds, but the figure of a female goddess always keeps the central place in a composition.

 The figure of a goddess and two horsemen is related to the images of a goddess with her two priests known in all Scythian -Sarmanian civilization (inhibited the territory of Russia prior to Slavs). It is probable that in this long living composition, where the female figure always is central (to her are coming horsemen, animals and birds), were reflected the ancient concepts which are known to us from myths of other Indo-European cultures.

Makosha and Venezianov A.  “Spring” 182(?)
Makosha with her hands down
On a ship—end of the summer		Scythian goddess VI BC Headdress horned kika XIX c.

 Moose and Deer

 One of the most basic images of Makosha, as a woman between two moose could be related to the Neolithic and Mesolithic cult of the hunt, which had two Moose Goddesses. The   most prominent constellation of the North sphere Ursus Major was known to the old Slavs as a Moose and probably Ursus Minor was her child.  Even in the notes of Afanasiy Nikitin who travelled to India in XV century he writes “Moose is looking to the East.” With the transformation of the society to an agrarian one and decline of the hunting cult, the image of these two goddesses was transformed into one Goddess with two moose, horses, or two riders.

The tribes of Siberia, who were dependent on the hunt until recent times, kept their understanding about cosmical order longer. In it they believed that the sky is the upper world with the woods and the moose and her child, living there. The middle           

Rojanitz and moose (Neolith)

world was the Earth with the people hunting here and the underworld was the world of death, bad spirits and huge animals resembling mammoth. That order of things was still in remembership even if it was overlaid later with the new cult of a bear replacing moose, which is later replaced with the giant Main (human like god).  Many myths of the Siberian tribes tell about two heavenly goddesses of the world, half women, half moose who watched over population of moose and deer on which all the well-being of the hunting tribes depended.

It is highly possible that a similar world order was dominant in believes of the Slavic tribes prior to their transformation to the agrarian society. Hunt was important during all periods, but it is during Mesolithic period that brought thawing of a glacier, release of the new territories, long travel of hunters behind herds of deer or moose, and orientation on stars. All this generated a cult of moose and deer, transfer of this cult onto the sky to the most important constellations of northern sky.

Even loosing the religious and cult meaning the embroideries of the XVIII and later centuries often depict images of the mooses and Goddess with horns. One of the popular headdresses of the women until late XIX century was horned kika.

Towel XIX century

Makosha with birds and two moose (North)

Moose representations in embroidery XVIII-XIX

             Swastika was a Symbol of power and majesty of the sun and fire. The symbol is probably derived from the rhombus ornament of Palaeolithic period and adopted later by other civilizations. The earliest samples date on the Russian territory date 20-25 000 BC. 

Pottery V century BC (Ukraine)

             The idea of human existence and person’s well being, supported by unknown forces, has been connected with this ornament. To attract these forces, the swastika tattoo was temporarily put on one’s body.   On a threshold of Mesolithic and Neolithic periods the swastika has become a separate sign and started to represent rotation of the starry sky: daily and annual. The tradition of tattooing the body passes to clothes and is preserved in many traditional cultures up to our times. For the most parts of history and by most cultures swastika had a positive meaning, gaining its negative meaning only in the resent times. It always associated with sun, movement, life, and general well-being. It carried an idea of four parts of the world, aligned around an Earth’s axis. In Russian tradition the right and left swastikas are interpreted as two movements: one designates movement with the sun and symbolizes goodness, another - against the sun and is considered a bad sign (in this case the opposition "kind-bad" corresponds with "man's-female" in other cultures). Often in Russian instead of the word swastika used word kolowrat (turning wheel).

Slavs had more than 144 kinds of swastika, many of which later merged with the Orthodox symbolism; swastika even was associated with geometrical representation of the Holy Spirit— the  third hypostasis of the Holy Trinity.

Textile XIX century

Samples of the Russian swastika

 Russian distaff had most complicated pictures of the Universe where swastika represented the idea of the whole universe with the heaven above and the underworld below.   Spinning of a yarn was considered as some kind of a religious ritual, therefore a distaff was one of the tools heavily decorated with symbols.

                    Universe represented by the symbols of sun and Earth

The circle divided in six sectors was the symbol of Perun—highest God of the pantheon and God of the thunder and lightening.

Embroidery on a towel, XIX century

Ornamental strip of swastika combined with slanted Andrei cross and a Tree of the Life on the right. Three swastikas symbolize triple fruits of the Tree of the Life under the canopy of seven gifts of Holy Spirit (seven pigeons on the top edge of a square).  

Tree of Life is a popular symbol in Indo-European cultures. The Tree of Life or World Tree embodies the universal concept

Tree of Life in Ancient Slavic signs                   

of the world. It called the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Fertility, the Tree of Desire. It is depicted as reaching from the ground to the sky; its roots are in the underground world. The Tree of Life plays one of the central roles in any ancient mythological system.

Tree of life in Russian embroideries
Tree of Life in an icon (fragment).	Tree of Life, Moose and Makosha

 In   some depictions the Tree of Life resembles a form of Rojanitz (woman giving birth) in their awkward positions. In these cases the Tree of Life has wide lower branches and is interpreted as the Tree of Fertility. 

Rojanitza with the Birds

Tree of Life shaped as Rojanitza (Tree of Fertility)
Tree of Life on a Horse-Arch
	Complex depiction of Mokosha, two Rojanitz and three small Trees of Fertility inside of Teremok, framed by birds (chicken) and three-branched Tree of Life.
Tree of Life in elaborate late XIX century embroideries

            An image of a horse is popular among Russian ornaments.

First, it was believed that horses pulled the carriage of a Sun-god or her rod on a horse over the sky. Second, it was believed that the other kind of horses lived in the water and had magical milk which could give eternal life or death.

             Horse was one of man's symbols. Man's shirts were decorated with embroideries with images of horses. Horse was the defender from any evil spirits. Horse whining as well as the sound of cockerel was supposed to frighten evil spirit. The image of a horse was supposed to protect   reproductive function of the man.

             It was popular to put a figure of a horse on a roof of a house. The Russian poet Sergei .Esenin said that only the Russian muzhik could have an idea to plant a horse on a roof of his house transforming it into a chariot.

Horses at the top of a distaff  With the symbol of the Universe And light	Khokhloma dish
Embroidered horses on the towels XIXc.

Cockerel

Cockerel was esteemed as a bird that banished a gloom of night and welcomed sunrise. On his voice peasants defined time: “the sound of the first cocks” — the midnight, “second” — before dawn, “third” — a dawn.  From here expression: “before the third cocks”, “to rise with cocks”, “to sleep longer than cocks”. Cockerel shout drove away evil spirit; therefore it was quite often compared to a sound of church bells. In Russian villages peasants tried to not hold black cocks; it was considered, that spouses would have conflicts. Many domestic rituals and believes were connected to cockerel and chickens. At the wedding party a cockerel and chicken were let out; the dominant behaviour of the cockerel meant dominant male of the household and dominance of the chicken meant the dominance of the housewife.  Cockerel was one of the sacred totem pole figures of the Slavs and for centuries it was not allowed to kill and eat the bird.

Chickens were less sacred, but nonetheless important symbols of health and chicken egg is a symbol of a beginning of a life. 

Concepts about a chicken egg as about micro cosmos, in which the universe was reflected, go back to an extreme antiquity: Indian and Iranian legends speak about occurrence of the Universe from an egg; from old Greece come the legend that the world was created from an egg put by the Phoenix in sanctuary of the god Helios. Old Russian fairy tale about the chicken, who laid a golden egg, is also reflection of that concept. The tradition to paint eggs with agrarian symbols to Easter Fest connects the Christian religion with pagan spring cycle. 

Researching for this paper, reading materials and studying the symbols and ornaments, I constantly felt like I have been on a continuous treasure hunt. It has peen an exiting work, which I can summarize in following points.

Symbols and ornaments have not been a random accident, but a result of the daily contact of human beings with nature and their observations about the world surrounding them. To the unspoiled eyes of our ancestors the surface of every object from leaves to stones   was full of natural patterns. As in the cease with the rhombus the element of the structure became a symbol.  

Living a life fully dependant on the nature, earlier humans considered themselves being a part of it, one small particle in a cosmic universe.  The desire to manifest their understanding about the order of things pushed them to develop visual signs and symbols. Even more interesting is the fact, that many basic symbols, first created thousands years ago, were carried through time and by different civilizations without changing their original meaning. More than anything this fact is a testimony to the observing power of the earlier humans and their ability to locate the essential elements. (Centuries later, this ability is still essential to all designers.) The fact that some of the symbols acquired additional interpretations and changed elements, but still kept the original meaning intact, only reinforces the theory of their universal appeal.

Most of the known symbols came to us from the farming societies and it is only logical, that the meaning of the most symbols originated in the agricultural culture. Good harvest, fertile soil, cycles of the year, and the blessings of nature were primary sources of inspiration for the creators of symbols and ornaments.  

Another important events in the lives of the people were birth and death and giving of birth. For the most part the creators of ornaments had managed to intertwine symbols of a fertile women and fertile soil. 

The modern eye is to overloaded with visual symbols meaning of which is disconnected from each other. We don’t understand them or even notice. At the beginning of my research, looking at the Russian embroideries from the XIX century, I saw nothing but geometrical, sometimes similar looking ornaments. Now, even with my limited knowledge I see a different picture. There is nothing accidental in these embroideries. The unknown women used a red thread on a white cloth giving it a life and a story to tell: a story about strange Goddesses, Riders, animals, crop, children and a hope for a fortunate Destiny. It is strange to believe that only hundred years ago the meaning of these signs and symbols was known to the people like the meaning of street signs to us.