Mat Zemlya (Matka Ziemia or Matushka Zeml'ja) is the

Earth Mother A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, a ...

and is probably the oldest deity in

Slavic mythology Slavic paganism, Slavic mythology, or Slavic religion refer to the Religion, religious beliefs, myths, and ritual practices of the Slavs before Christianisation of the Slavs, Christianisation, which occurred at various stages between the 8th and ...

besides Marzanna. She is also called Mati Syra Zemlya meaning ''Mother Damp Earth'' or ''Mother Moist Earth''. Her identity later blended into that of

Mokosh Mokosh ( ) is a List of Slavic deities, Slavic goddess. No narratives about this deity have survived and scholars must rely on academic disciplines like philology to discern details about her. According to etymological reconstruction, Mokosh wa ...

Mythology

In the early

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, Mati Syra Zemlya was one of the most important

deities A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...

in the Slavic world. Slavs made oaths by touching the Earth, and sins were confessed into a hole in the Earth before death. She was worshipped in her natural form and was not given a human personage or likeness. Since the adoption of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

in all Slavic lands, she has been identified with

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a female given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religion * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also called the Blesse ...

, the mother of Jesus. An example of her importance is seen in this traditional invocation to Matka Ziema, made with a jar of

hemp oil Hemp oil (hemp seed oil) is oil obtained by pressing hemp seeds. Cold pressed, unrefined hemp oil is dark to clear light green in color, with a nutty flavor. The darker the color, the grassier the flavour. It should not be confused with hash oi ...

: ::East – "Mother Earth, subdue every evil and unclean being so that he may not cast a spell on us nor do us any harm." ::West – "Mother Earth, engulf the unclean power in thy boiling pits, and in thy burning fires." ::South – "Mother Earth, calm the winds coming from the South and all bad weather. Calm the moving sands and whirlwinds." ::North – "Mother Earth, calm the North winds and clouds, subdue the snowstorms and the cold." ::The jar, which held the oil, is buried after each invocation and offering is made at each Quarter. (Slavonic mythology 1977:287) Old Slavic beliefs seem to attest some awareness of an ambivalent nature of the Earth: it was considered men's cradle and nurturer during one's lifetime, and, when the time of death came, it would open up to receive their bones, as if it were a "return to the womb". The imagery of the ''terre humide'' ("moist earth") also appears in funeral lamentations either as a geographical feature (as in Lithuanian and Ukrainian lamentations) or invoked as ''Mère-Terre humide'' ("Mother Moist Earth").

Cultic practices

Up until

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and the fall of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, peasant women would perform a rite to prevent against plague by plowing a furrow around the village and calling on the protection of the Earth spirits by shrieking.

Related characters

The Slavic ''

bogatyr A bogatyr (, ; , ) or vityaz (, ; , ) is a stock character in medieval Bylina, East Slavic legends, akin to a Western European knight-errant. Bogatyrs appear mainly in Kievan Rus', Rus' epic poems—Bylina, ''bylinas''. Historically, they came i ...

'' Mikula Selyaninovich, or Mikula the Villager, is closely connected with Mat Zemlya.Leonard Arthur Magnus,
The Heroic Ballads of Russia
. K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, Limited, 1921, pp. 23-26.Dixon-Kennedy, Mike (1998). ''Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend''. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 189-191. .

Footnotes

Notes

External links

Day of the Divine Mother of Herbs
{{Slavic mythology Agricultural goddesses Fertility goddesses Slavic goddesses Earth goddesses Creator goddesses Supernatural beings identified with Christian saints