Duck soap, pagan rituals and whispers ... One can get the impression that time has stopped in Bieszczady villages on the Ukrainian-Polish border.
Women and girls stand up to their calves in the cold stream of a mountain river, rinse their underwear. It is summer, the birds are chirping, the cows are chewing the grass in the pasture. It is not a description of a painting, a fragment of a rural idyll from centuries ago immortalized with a painter's brush, but a reality. Mothers and their daughters are absolutely real, the birds actually play to the voices, and the cattle slowly nibble on the grass on the hill by the river. Dirt from shirts, skirts and pants is flowing with the current of fast water.
In border villages it is nothing extraordinary - they were washed so many years ago and they are washed today, although there are washing machines in many houses . But is it worth turning on the machine for every wash? Is it not nicer on a sunny day to go down to the river, chat with your neighbors, and do the laundry at the same time? And not in detergents, so as not to poison fish and crayfish, but in natural soap, which lies in some regions of piedmont and mountain rivers? It is gray, pencil-like, brittle and no less effective than scented soap or powder. But less and less of it, and no one knows for what reasons.
Duck soap and no fever
The same stone, suitable for washing and washing, is also present in the rivers and streams of the Polish Bieszczady. It is colloquially called duck soap . It is nothing more than clay shale, containing a number of valuable ingredients, including quartz, calcite, dolomite, pyrite or phosphates . It has abrasive properties, therefore it exfoliates the epidermis well. However - more sensitive say - it has a specific smell of silt mixed with tar and therefore it is not suitable for daily care.
But where does the name "duck soap" come from? It is said that it was caused by the fact that in the past it was used for cursory hand washing. But what does a duck have to do with it? People live here in a quiet, steady rhythm. There is no rush in them, that specific nervousness, which is often visible in Poles behind copper. In our country, someone is constantly in a hurry, he has no time, he has to take care of a number of urgent matters. Differently in Ukraine - everything can be done in its own time, without the inherent fever. You have to stop at the road, talk, and even better - sit on a bench near the shop or house to drink coffee or compote. It is so human, normal and it was so in the Second Polish Republic, and even earlier.
Three generations live in old chyża, photo:Tadeusz Poźniak
The world has changed beyond recognition and it has also changed people, limiting their mutual relations. Today, in Polish villages, hardly anyone goes to their neighbors to exchange a few words or borrow a glass of sugar. This is still the case in Ukraine, at least in the western one, which is slightly different from other regions.
Are the whispers still out there?
Not everywhere anymore, but in a row of villages you can still see and feel the ancient past. For example, this:dressed in a sweater and a flowery apron, an old woman sits on a stool by a light blue stove. Logs crackle inside and a pleasant warmth spreads through the room. It's early fall, not so cold yet, but a stove is needed even in summer. This is the only thing in a hurry that you can cook soup or just potatoes. The woman has been living alone for a long time and is doing great, although the birth certificate from behind the holy picture on the wall shows that she was born in 1924.
The text is an excerpt from the latest reportage by Krzysztof Potaczała, “So close, so far. Bieszczady on the other side of the border ”, which has just been released by the Prószyński Media publishing house.
So she's ninety-six, though she doesn't look that much. Workout, knotty hands, legs wrapped in bandages, slightly hunched, but younger on the face than the documents show. Eyes still full of life, face scrawled to the norm; only when he smiles, no teeth, not even artificial ones, but only the gums are visible.
Several pots and pans on the kitchen counter. Clusters of garlic, onions and some herb are hanging from a string under the ceiling, attached with paper clips. The hostess explains that each of these herbs has a special purpose. They can be used separately or mixed, but you need to know the proportions. If they are measured incorrectly, the effect may be counterproductive. Instead of helping, it can harm, be toxic to the liver or kidneys, rattle the heart.
Pagan rituals
She learned herbalism from her grandmother, who was a real whisper in the village . She knew not only the properties of all kinds of grass harvested from spring to autumn in meadows and forests, but also related legends and legends. When she crushed the dried leaves and stalks over a large pot of boiling water and then steamed or boiled it, she always spoke to herself. So quiet that other members of the household found it hard to understand the meaning of the words.
The woman was whispering some phrases, formulas, maybe spells over and over again, and when she was wrapped in white steam coming thickly from the sagans, she resembled a dreamlike apparition. The entire room - which was both a kitchen and a bedroom - looked unreal then. Smoke swirled from the stove to the ceiling, crawled up the walls, stroked the pictures of the Mother of God and Christ hung on them, entwined the furniture, peered into the small windows.
It was possible to open it and free the white mists looking for a way out, but Grandmother would not let it. She explained that the hut must be filled not only with fragrance, but also with spirit. She, so strongly believed that when she entered the church, she fell on two knees, bent low and kissed the floor - at the same time she performed some pagan rituals from the olden ages, when the Carpathian land was still wild and inaccessible.
Book of folk spells
Grandmother did not leave her granddaughter any notebook with spells written down because she never felt there was anything to write down. Moreover, could not write, so she was left to others which she, however, did not trust and did not want to reveal her secret herbal recipes . The grandmother's grandmother knew only word of mouth and observation, and for years she relied only on her own memory and experience.
Only with time, when the gray hair heavily sprinkled her hair, and when her figure bent due to her age, she bought a checked notebook, full sixty blank pages, in a village shop, and slowly but systematically began to fill them up with lopsided, untrained writing.
Ties on the Ukrainian-Polish border near Sokoliki Górskie, photo:Krzysztof Potaczała
When she retired, she only signed a receipt for the money to the postman. Always on the same day of the month he brought her a salary, that is, a pension, and she, out of sympathy for the old man, offered him compote of dried apples and plums each time. She always had these dried fruits in abundance, because they came from her backyard orchard. She kept them in jars and filled them on the old cupboard in the corner of the room.
When she was younger, she often reached into a transparent container with her hand, took out a piece of a pear or an apple and ate it, chewing each bite for a long time. In this way, she wanted to saturate herself with their taste and smell, to keep a bit of summer and autumn in her mouth, when she collected the fallen fruit in a wicker basket and carried it to the hut. Since she lost her teeth, which was a long-term process, she has been doing it differently - she sucks dried wine bits just like sucking candy.
They were more afraid of the evil ditek than the priest
Well, the old woman is a herbalist, also called by some a healer, and by others a woman or a whisper. It draws on the traditions of Boyko who have lived here for centuries, simple and austere people, attached to the earth, mountains and God, and at the same time immensely superstitious, believing in the power of spells and charms cast on people chosen by evil spirits.
Such people, possessed by dark powers, had to undergo the rite of undoing - through spells, smoking herbs, drinking infusions or spitting . The Orthodox Church condemned such behavior, but the rural people were more afraid of the evil ditek than the priest . The latter, it was said quietly, could threaten from behind the altar, scare with hell, but the latter could sneak in at night and do real harm to a man, disturbing his senses, making him a madman ready for anything.
Jura, Ukrainian shepherd boy from Sianek, photo:Tadeusz Poźniak
In decaying swims and much newer homes there are still genuine whispers. They can read flowers and herbs, use spells and make potions for various ailments. Several dozen or even several kilometers to the west, this tradition and customs have been almost completely forgotten, and here they last and - consciously or not - are cultivated. The peripheral location has preserved these people and their surroundings; they became the only ones in this part of the Carpathians - maybe apart from Romanian shepherds living in the higher mountains - who did not succumb to the pressure of civilization.
Magical Thinking
In 2008–2012, Olga Solarz traveled through the border villages of Ukraine and collected information on magic in folk medicine Boykos. She interviewed a number of residents. It turned out that not only the elderly, but even children deal with the so-called magical thinking . Those who make you believe in the power of spells in the treatment of disturbed physical and mental states.
The researcher recorded, among other things, as many as seventy ways to undo charms. She also learned about the treatment of warts, barley on the eye, rose hips, baby crying at night or viper bites. It is impossible to quote them here, but it is worth realizing that the centuries-old intergenerational tradition - despite so many historical turbulences - is still cultivated. Ten years after the completion of the research by Olga Solarz, almost nothing has changed in the villages of the Turiec region. Some of the women I met then died, but their daughters took their place and their knowledge.
Source:
- The text is an excerpt from the latest reportage by Krzysztof Potaczała, “So close, so far. Bieszczady on the other side of the border ”, which has just been released by the Prószyński Media publishing house.