Beliefs and Customs Related to Bread-bowl in Estonia in Last Century

ettekanne 05.04.2000 Eesti Kirjandusmuuseumis Eesti - Rootsi ühisseminaril
Autor/koostaja: Evelin Lepp

My report is preparatory to the paper I'm working with. I've used here files of Est. Folkl. Archive. Most of the notes were short sayings, only one was a bit longer recital.

Bread has been named as symbol of wealth/affluence and fortune. Since bread-making as a specialized activity was given a high degree of social importance, it is interesting to examine the ways in which specific aspects of the making process itself were codified, in some cases very strictly, into the ethical and moral dimensions of the daily life of Estonians.

MAKING OF BREAD-BOWL

There are a series of highly specific beliefs centered around the container or bowl in which the bread was left to rise as the yeast acidified. It was essential that the container itself was assembled in a particular order. The planks of wood must be set down first with stubs down.

A PLACE FOR KEEPING THE BREAD-BOWL

After the container was built it was stored in the pantry or threshing barn. When it was time to make bread, the container was moved indoors into the living room.

DEALING WITH THE BOWL

It's surprising that there was only one note that warns of the evil eye, even though nowadays there are numbers of references about being afraid of evil eye. At the same time housewifes were to observe that nothing bad would happen to the bowl otherwise the whole process would have failed.

The container had to be in order and tidy. In Estonian there is only one word in use for being clean and chaste: 'puhas', but in the meaning there are differences. 'Clean' is attached to behaviour and ethics, it's attainable. Being 'chaste' is about an conception that humans, specially women, are unchaste. But there were also taboos for men.

At first it was forbidden to allow water to come into contact with the bread container. It was not allowed to put pails or other dishes full of water on the bread-bowl. It was also believed that the bread would fail to rise if the container was washed with water from inside with out a serious reason. A common saying was that the bread would turn out watery.

But women therefore were required to be extremely attentive that the container itself was kept tidy. Women were threatened that if they did not keep the container clean, they were lazy and lazy girls did not get married. They were also told that their kids would have snot-noses. It was also forbidden for women to drink water while they were making the dough. They were told that they would marry a drunkard if they did so.

It was forbidden to leave the container uncovered, because of the risk that household items like soap, axes, hones would come into contact with the bread. Even with a cover, it was forbidden to have these items in any way touching or leaning on the cover.

If someone sat on the bread container, it was said that the bread would stink or that the dough would somehow remove itself from the container. It was also dangerous to sit on the container because it was believed that the people who do that would get sick. There are countless beliefs and rules concerned with unmarried girls. One example is that if an unmarried girl were to sit on the bread container, it was said that she would have children that would wet their beds.

It was also necessary to keep the bread container away from animals like horses, sheep, cats, rats because it was believed that the yeast would not acidify and therefore the bread would not rise. There was however a specific exception for pigs, which I will come to later.

There is also the problem of the covering or warm fabrics. Before the dough was ready in the container, it had to rise but that was only possible in a warm place so it was necessary to cover the container with some warm fabrics. Since it was believed that the bread must be kept clean and chaste, a specific problem emerges if we understand that fabrics themselves are closely connected with people (as clothes) and that people ran the risk of being unchaste.

Generally I can tell that it has been forbidden to put men's clothings that are close to the body (like shirts, trousers) or any kind of women's clothings on the bowl in North-Estonia. The bread would have come bad or wouldn't rise. The container was covered with blankets or fur coats. Sometimes it was said that some men's stuff had to be on the container during the rising cos these men's 'things' rise. But in South-Estonia the rules were more strict. In South-East Estonia there was forbidden to cover the bowl with any kind of human clothings. In South-West it wasn't allowed to keep men's clothings on the container but I didn't found any information about women. Maybe that was just taken for granted.

The reasons were that (again) bread won't acidify, rise or bake. But in South-Estonia was that so forbidden that person, who's clothes were on bread-bowl or even the whole household would fall under owners persecution or against the law.

There is a special reference about leaving men's trousers inside the bowl after the dough was taken out. That's from Middle-Estonia.

But there are other references from Middle- and North-Estonia that, if the bread-bowl was 'sick' and the bread didn't rise, then the bowl was swept with trousers from inside. Was also known all over the country a custom of beating the bread-bowl with men's trousers.

What caused these differences in North- and South-Estonia? I don't have certain explanations, but the north side of the country has always been less conservative and in 17-18th century new types of clothings came first into use right in north.

HEALING OF BREAD-BOWL

But if something had happened, it was still possible to fix or heal the bread-bowl. The best example is the next one:

When a cold bread-bowl was brought indoors, it was cold and the bread didn't rise well. Everybody thought someone had bewitched it. There was also a wellknown witch in the Vaeküla willage, named Kihvi Leena. At first small pieces of bread were put into the bowl and also a pig, who had to eat these pieces. If that didn't help, then kids had to bring secretly some water from three wells in willage. Seven horse-shoes with seven holes were taken with a sieve and water was poured through it into the bowl. Afterwards bread was made of that water. But if even that didn't help, people though that some person had caused that and the master asked: "Who's been here?" The answer was that Kihvi Leena had been there and had said that: "Your bread-bowl makes bread to rise so well!" Now someone was sent to her place to bring some small thing. A kid brought a piece of fabric. That was put into fire and the bowl was put on to it's smoke. And that had to be the last help. (ERA II 152, 637/8 (1) < Haljala)

Interesting is that now water is a healer, too, although abowe it caused some bad things. The sieve with water has been the best healing article and wellknown all over the country in different kind of magic(al) actions. Especially in healing of sicknesses caused by an evil eye.

Some other articles that have been helpful in healing the bowl were onion, wood-coal and smoke, nettle, horse-shoes and men's trousers of course. And pigs. I can tell that wood-coal has been wellknown together with sieve and water. Onion helped, if bread-bowl was rubbed with it from in and outside, after the bowl was cleaned with nettle.

All these things were related to conception of an evil eye and how to fight against problems caused by it. Healing or fixing the bowl with pigs or trousers together with water is more connected to vision of productivity and fertility. Having bread enough for food depended of field and with bread it was possible to affect fertility of field. And as bread was made in bowl, the bowl was also related to that circle.

CONCLUSION

In case of bread-bowl the most important thing has been that dough would acidify and rise well. An eye was kept on that during making and holding 'cos bread-bowl was very sensitive'. Mistaking against different norms may have caused misfortune to bread-making and people. But everything was surmountable and I guess that my report has been a good example of Estonian beliefs.

Hope they don't do that all nowadays in bakery:)

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