| Ethnographic studies of the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries in northeastern Europe and Siberia, as well as in eastern Europe and the Balkans, have revealed the presence of household shrines bearing similarities in architectural placement and accoutrements.; Known variously as the 'holy back corner' among hunting and fishing cultures, and as the 'sacred corner' or the 'good corner' among agricultural communities, these domestic shrines are often the focus of a number of rituals which bear no relation to those practiced in either the Christian or Buddhist religion, in which the occupants of the dwellings may also profess belief. This has led to the search for the origin of these shrines by scholars of religion and ethnology.; Conflicting hypotheses have appeared in the literature based on ethnographic observations. Among the northeastern coastal hunter-fisher communities, women are rigidly excluded from direct access to the domestic shrine, and are banned from specific male cult places as well. Yet in farming households in nearby areas, women play prominent roles in sacred corner cult. This has led to a belief that this cult first arose among patriarchal hunting cultures, in which the dominant social position was held by males. Later, it was further postulated, the cult was assimilated into agrarian communities, where it came under women's influence, by reason of their more exalted social status as co-economic producers.; Another hypothesis holds that sacred corner cult originated among the Slavs, and spread from Germany to eastern Europe and the Balkans during the Middle Ages. Since sacred corner customs also include the placement there of exhumed skulls and bones of dead ancestors preparatory to reburial--a custom found also in southeast Asia--the possibility of yet another, still unknown source for the cult, has been acknowledged.; Since ethnographic evidence has failed to produce any single, unequivocable source for the cult, or to explain the diversity in its associated rituals and the disparity of women's roles in conjunction with it, this study was undertaken to shed further light on these problems by supplying pertinent archaeological data from earlier periods for the regions in question. A survey of this data suggests a developmental sequence for this cult as follows: (1) Sacred corners and holy back corners were first created in Mousterian times in Europe, for the preservation of both human and animal skulls and bones. Evidence of ritual activity has also been found in the vicinity of hearths. (2) This form of domestic cult was elaborated during the Upper Paleolithic in central and eastern Europe, where there is evidence of separate ritual spheres and separate ritual activities of men and women. It was later transmitted into Siberia during migrations, where it survived up to the twentieth century among the aboriginal population of northern Siberia, known as 'Paleo-Asiatics'. (3) A new form of sacred corner cult appeared, along with sedentism and agriculture during the Neolithic, which utilized some of the older symbolism, yet employed new modes of expression on ceramics and figurines. The oven rather than the hearth became the ritual center; the Mother Creator principle was emphasized; and women, accordingly, assumed important ritual roles. This form of sacred corner cult flourished until the fourth millennium, when in-migrations of steppe pastoralists from Eurasia reintroduced the cult of the hearth and emphasized worship of male gods and ancestors. (4) The older cult disappeared in some areas, or was fused with the newer cult in other areas. In some places, it was never completely eradicated throughout the millennia. Its traces can be recognized wherever a household goddess is still honored, and her ancient bird symbolism appears. |
