bazhaju vam veseliu koliadu!

In honour of a belated Solstice & coming Christmas, here is a koliadka (Christmas carol) that I translated. It comes from the Halychyna region in Western Ukraine, & tells of how three doves created the world:

When in the beginning there was no world,
then there was neither heaven nor earth.
Everywhere there was a bright blue sea,
And in the midst of that sea,
A green linden-tree –

On the linden-tree three doves,
Three doves discuss,
Three doves take counsel as to how
to create the world.

“Let us plunge to the bottom of the sea,
let us gather fine sand, let us scatter fine sand,
that it may become for us black earth...

“Let us gather golden stones,
let us scatter golden stones!
Let there be for us a bright sky,
A bright sky, a shining sun!
A shining sun and a bright moon!

“Let there be a bright moon
and a morning star, a bright morning star
and little starlets...

This song is quite ancient, and ethnomusicologists believe this one may be over one thousand years old, as a version has been documented in the Chronicles of the Kyivan Rus’ state (the 10th century AD). It was originally sung on Solstice, or Koliada, a festival that ancient Slavic-language-speaking tribes celebrated in honour of their ancestors, to mark the changing light of the seasons, to sing back the sun. Even now, many koliadky have remained relatively unchanged, as Slavic Christianity is incredibly syncretic, much in the same way as in Latin America. The original symbols – the linden tree as a sacred ‘telephone line to the gods’ under which offerings and prayers were made, the doves as ancestral spirits, and the shamanic diving into the otherworld (underwater) for earth-making materials – just have another layer of meaning now. The linden is a Tree of Life, and also symbolizes divine love, and the three birds are the Holy Trinity. (The diving underwater could be re-codified to represent baptism, but I’m not completely sure.) The spinning sun on a stick that was carried in the village as the carollers went wandering became a ‘star of Bethlehem’.

Some of these same carols for Solstice are now sung at Christmas, along with songs more intentionally Christian. In some regions of Ukraine, even today, the two holidays have blurry boundaries. The word in standard Ukrainian is Rizdvo; in my grandma’s Pidhiriany-Boiko dialect Christmas is still referred to as ‘Koliada’. So she would always say to me “Khrystos rodyvsia! [Bazhaju tobi] veseliu koliadu!” (Christ is born! [I wish you] a happy Solstice!)

The motif of diving underwater for earth-creating materials -- called the Earth-Diver -- by folklorists -- is a theme that appears in creation stories from the easternmost parts of Eastern Europe all the way across Russia through Siberia and into North America.

Another story told in western Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria tells of the god of light and the god of darkness flying over the endless waters as a white swan and a black swan. The god of light, Biloboh (Kupalo) was the spirit of summer and life, and the dark god Chornoboh (Koliada) was the spirit of winter and death. They are tired from flying, and Biloboh tells his brother/shadow to go dive under the water to find some mud to make land for them to rest upon. Chornoboh is a little bit of a trickster, & greedily holds extra land in his mouth when he surfaces. However, the mud begins expanding & he has to spit it out so he doesn’t choke – this creates the Carpathian mountains. (More chaos soon ensues & goats & bees are created in the fray, but that’s a story for another time.)

Finno-Ugric & Altaic cultures in Siberia have similar stories about light & dark brothers creating the earth, often in the form of birds such as loons and ravens. Other times, first humans or sky god/desses send animals under the waves to check things out. In my readings to discover more about the toponymy of northern Alberta, I’ve read a number of stories about world-creation. I am hoping to find some local story that is linked to place, much in the way that the Blackfoot/Siksika have Napi, Old Man, melded into southern Alberta landscape. Before Napi could become the landscape, he needed to create it:

“Long ago there was a time when water covered the entire world. Napi the creator wanted to know what happened below all of this water. He sent a duck, an otter, then a badger, but all came up with nothing. Finally, a muskrat dove beneath the water and was down a very long time. He returned with a ball of mud in his paws. Napi took the lump and blew on it until it dried and was transformed into the earth. He molded the hills, valley, and mountains with his hands. He created groves in the earth for rivers and lakes. The first people were molded from this earth and Napi taught men and women how to hunt and to live. Once Napi felt his work was complete, he lay down in the mountains, and disappeared...” [from: Origins of Canadian History to Confederation]