Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/95

Rh On November 8, St. Michael the Archangel's Day, the Ersa and Teryukhans hold a great festival to Voltsi Pas, the god of hunting, a craft that Michael is believed to protect.

On Christmas Day a great feast is held in honour of Ange Patyai, whom the Mordvins look upon as the Virgin Mary, and of Nishki Pas, the son of God. The following day is kept sacred to the same goddess as the protectress of children and of women in child-birth. A third festival to her is held on the Friday before Trinity Sunday. The Christianised Mordvins make out Ange Patyai to be the old woman Salomea mentioned in the so-called gospel of James, and who was always made a saint of in the Russian church down to the time of Nikon. The old believers and the peasantry still regard her as a saint, and pray for her assistance at child-birth. Salomea is supposed to have been the midwife of the Virgin Mary at the birth of our Lord.

On the Friday before the so-called butter-week, and during the week of St. Thomas, as well as September 1 and October 1, when commemoration of the dead is made in Russian churches, the Mordvins hold festivals at their place of burial in honour of their deceased ancestors.

In this way the feast days and saints of the Russian calendar are gradually ousting the pagan feasts and gods of the Mordvins. Even in prayers to Cham Pas the expression "Holy Lord Savagof (Sabaoth) is sometimes heard. In a similar fashion the prophet Elias has replaced the old Slavonic thunder-god, Perun, and St. Vlasio or Blasio has taken the place of Volos, the god of cattle.

It is the same with the Moksha. They sometimes give the name of Lord Savaoth to Shkai; Soltana changes into the Saviour; Asar ava into the Virgin Mary. Kud asar ava (house lady) has received the strange appellation of Sochelnik, which the Russians give to January 5, the eve of the Epiphany. So too Banya asar ava (bath-house lady) is stiled Veliki Chetverg (Great Thursday), the Russian designation for Thursday in Passion Week. Avin asar ava (drying-barn lady) is about to turn into the Apostle Thomas, as her festival is on St. Thomas's Day. Already Nicholas the Wonder-worker is found among the Moksha under the name of Nikola asar ava, and a festival