In the Kirov region, a peculiar Vyatichi dialect has been preserved. Some words are difficult to understand without translation. Tired, a citizen of Kirov can joke: "I'm only fit for domina now." An uninitiated person, having learned the root "house", may think of a cozy home. But the joker will explain that domino is a coffin. Made of wood, like a hut.
Besides this value, there is one more, obsolete. So called ceremonial structures installed on high props. They are found in the places of the settlements of the Finno-Ugric tribes.
Colubets - what is it?
"Golbets" is another word of the Kirovites. This is the name of the underground where supplies are stored for the winter. The entrance to the golbets is usually done by cutting a hole in the kitchen floor. Sometimes they make another hole in the room. It is already smaller and a person will not crawl into it. Vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets) are poured into it. Wooden boxes are located under the hole, and the harvest is immediately stored in place. Before filling apples, golbets is whitewashed with lime so that fruit rot does not spread. Therefore, the ceiling in it is white. It also keeps the floorboards from rotting.
But this word has another meaning. So in Komi they call the pre-Christian funeral pillars installed on the graves. Old Believers have been living in the village of Ust-Tsilma on the Pechora since the sixteenth century. They carefully guard their traditions and especially do not spread about them. But tourists are not forbidden to visit the cemetery, even though the locals will warn you not to go there.
In the cemetery there are modern crosses with gable roofs and old golbtsy also with roofs. A window is hollowed out in the pillar, where food is brought and placed to appease the dead.
In this cemetery there is a domina - a crypt made of logs where self-immolators lie. There was also such a fact in the life of the village - several families were burned alive, protesting against the new orders of the Synod. They are venerated as martyrs.
Ancient custom of the Finno-Ugric tribes
The Museum of Moscow has an unusual exhibit, very similar to a domino. This is the "house of the dead", as it was called. It was found during excavations near Moscow near Zvenigorod. The burial ground is dated to 750 AD. At that time, the Finno-Ugric peoples lived here, the ancestors of the Meri and Vesi tribes. Burnt remains of people of different ages were found in such log cabins. It is assumed that the corpses were burned in a place remote from the settlement (cremation on the side) and transferred to a wooden crypt, which stood in a dense forest.
The crypt is a log house about two meters high, without windows, but with a hearth at the entrance. Apparently forritual food preparations. This custom - to bury in a wooden crypt - was spread throughout Europe and partly in Asia. Such dominas were placed on poles and smoked with smoke, this prevented decay and repelled insects.
Slavic burials
Several types of burials of the Slavs were discovered - mostly deepened dominoes. These are log cabins with a pit filled with coal, walls black from fire and the remains of the dead who were cremated. Children's burials were never cremated and rested on raised ground. They belong to the late Slavic period.
The appearance of dominos varies. There are houses of the dead at ground level, which are entered by a concave entrance. There are mounds standing on pillars and having a rectangular base. In one of the graves, items dated to 1150 were found. This allows us to conclude that for the Slavs, domina was a familiar way of burial.
Baba Yaga's Hut
From childhood, everyone remembers the description of Baba Yaga's dwelling: a hut without windows and doors, on chicken (smoky, not chicken) legs. This is a domina, a wooden coffin. There is not enough space in it - the nose has grown into the ceiling. When the Slavs came to the lands of the Finno-Ugric peoples, they saw such houses in the forests. It became food for fairy tales and legends. In fact, there was nothing to be afraid of - no one lived in the house. The Finnish houses of the dead were placed on poles, but the more southern tribes did not. The essence of this does not change.
The presence of a hearth at the entrance suggested that all those buried in the house were taken through the fire. Hence the tales of Baba Yaga's desire to fryliving person who came.
A written source has been preserved - a story about the beginning of the settlement of Moscow. It contains a message about the prince hiding from the sons of the boyar Kuchka. In the thicket of the forest, he found a log house with a burial of some person and took refuge in it.
How the meaning of the word has changed
Translated from Ukrainian, "domovina" means a coffin in its modern sense - a wooden box for the deceased. In the Belarusian language, the word is interpreted similarly. In Serbia, homeland is called domina. In Bosnia too.
Earlier, dominoes were made from a deck. They hollowed out a place for the deceased in it. Now the coffin is being knocked together from boards. The method of burial has also changed. If earlier they arranged a log house, now they don’t do it. Monuments are erected on the graves. Only in some places the custom of placing high wooden crosses with a window for offerings is still preserved. But even in the village of Old Believers, plates are used for this, which are left on the graves.
Time passes, people change, their customs undergo a transformation. Some completely disappear, leaving only a trace in fairy tales. Some are preserved to this day. It's all history.
Conclusion
There are many words for a man in a coffin, most of them figurative. Numerous studies and excavations allow us to better understand the history of our native places.
