Russian Ritual Specialists in Karelia

This study deals with archaic ideas associated with Russian ritual specialists (sorcerers) in Karelia, their initiation, and the sources of their sacred knowledge and power. The author identifies the following signs of different types of “the knowledgeable”: strength, knowledge, the ability to enter altered states of consciousness, as well as to find a source of strength. Particular attention is paid to the specific means that neophytes employed to obtain sacred knowledge — through the teacher’s saliva and urine. Features of the everyday life of Russian ritual specialists in Karelia are also analyzed. It is believed that the main function of sorcerers is to perform maleficium (porcha). The sorcerer causes harm through a mediator who takes possession of a victim and “steals” her vital force, after which the victim becomes weak and dies. In the Russian tradition in Karelia, notions about wedding maleficium persisted throughout the twentieth century, and the study shows that many of its elements go back to archaic rites of passage that were rethought in the 19th and 20th centuries. The wedding is perceived as the symbolic “temporary death” of a person in one status — as an unmarried young fellow or an unmarried girl — and the “birth” of a person in a different status — as a married man or a married woman. The author argues that actions performed by a sorcerer at a wedding, while perceived as harmful to the young couple, are aimed at “introducing” the bride and groom into the state of “temporary death”. Since the “secret knowledge” of the healer is primarily based on the knowledge of incantations (zagovor), the article analyzes the process of passage and circulation of magical incantations in Karelia. The author concludes that the Russian sorcerer of Karelia is a complex figure. On the one hand, the image of the sorcerer retains the archaic features of the demiurge, who, during the wedding ceremony, creates new members of society — a young couple, capable of procreation. The sorcerer also controls the behavior of members of society. On the other hand, his image contains the features of a trickster, who “overturns” the foundations of the world, thus ushering its renewal. The functioning of the “secret knowledge” of the healer is aimed at restoring order out of chaos, restoring the integrity of the body, which the sorcerer has violated by “sending” sickness to a person. The mythological features of the image of the healer who heals at the cost of his own health, often through adoption of sickness from the patient, can be compared with the features of heroes-demiurges who sacrifice themselves.