Photo Friday - Домовий
- madisonunderwood93
- Jan 6, 2017
- 2 min read
I'm always getting told to post more pictures and my camera roll currently has 1,832 pictures I've taken in the past 3 months in Ukraine so I figured a ~photo friday~ would be a good way to go. I'm going to (attempt to) post one to maybe like 5 pictures each Friday to showcase either something about Ukrainian culture, architecture, something fun that has happened in the week, or maybe food. To start off this series this week here are some pictures of a recent gift given to me.
This cute little guy was my new year's present from Olya (my host mom). Yes, it is common in Ukraine to give gifts for the new year (as well as many other European and Asian countries). Домовий (pronounced domovye) are small, old, bearded, masculine dolls symbolizing the fairies or spirits. Modernly, the dolls are thought to bring happiness and wellness to the owner as well as help with small tasks and deeds, similar to a friend. However, they are thought to cause you some small troubles, such as hiding your socks or making your dishes dirty. Similar to the way I'm sure all my friends know I like to mess with them.
Old domovoi folktales say to ensure domestic happiness, the real domovoi spirit is required to be kept happy. In traditional folktales domovoi live in the stove but were never seen and only revealed themselves by sounds of footsteps or murmuring. Domovoi spirits become angry when there is profane language or neglectful attitudes in the home with poor upkeep of the household. Part of the not-so-happy folktales is that when the domovoi becomes angry they become an evil spirit and exhibit poltergeist-like behavior including making all sorts of loud noises and moving and breaking objects. If left unappeased, the domovoi can escalate to suffocating to people in their bed. They were often bribed with milk or bread left behind the stove to make them happy again in order to avoid the suffocating.
Mine was handmade and purchased locally, but I found you can get them online. There's a lot of interesting history surrounding the beliefs and folktales of domovoi and not everyone believes the same things about the spirits. I found this video with a little bit more information if you are interested!