S'is' au - Brun 18.12.2024

 

S’is’au

Women's Purifications  - My purification “istongas” 18.12.2024

S’is’ au is the purification of women with offerings of bread. It is carried out for specific reasons and at specific times of the year. On this day, this ceremony aims to purify women from the real burden they carry, in view of the divine presence of the god Bal’ima’n’in in their valleys. S’is’ means head and au bread. These words give the name to the ceremony because during the purification with the elements of water and fire, women hold five loaves of bread at the height of their heads. On the day of s’is’au, the following activities are carried out:

-cleansing of women in the river. Wash their heads, combing and braiding their five braids. [cu’i’ sawzek, cu’i’ bhutik].  All women wear new clean dresses. They start the preparation for the ceremony.

-making five jau, breads filled with walnut kernels for each woman in the family. The kneading of the dough and the baking of the breads is done in the onjes’t’a area of ​​the barn, by a male relative according to the onjes’t’a traditional way. The man who will undertake this laborious service must grind the wheat in the onjes’t’a way, purify his hands and all the utensils he will use with the water of the sacred spring, select the appropriate stones for the preparation of the walnut kernels from the onjes’t’a parts of the valley, and mold and bake five loaves for each grandmother, mother, aunt, daughter, niece or granddaughter of his family.

- gathering of the female members of the family in the area under the sheepfolds. There the master of ceremonies, their relative who prepared the s’is’au, the head breads, has prepared the sacred fire for the ceremony that will follow. They all wear their festive costumes.

-purification of the women with water by the master of ceremonies, without touching them, pours water from the sacred spring into their hands. After the purification with water, he gives each woman five loaves of bread to hold at the height of her head. He has previously cut a small piece from each and offered it to the fire. Then the master of ceremonies lights a cedar branch. He sprinkles it with the water from the spring and rotates it three times around the head and the loaves that each woman is holding.

-cleansing and purification of men with the blood of a sacrificial animal on the altars of the sheepfolds

When night falls in the valley and the flocks are in the folds, the shepherds prepare for the sacrificial ceremony of istongas, the purification of the gos’nik boys with goat blood.

The men who will take on the role of the master of ceremonies go to the spring to purify their hands and bring water in a container that they will need for the ceremony. In the darano, the pillared roof of the fold, they light the fire for the sacrifice. Before starting the ritual, they purify their faces and hands again with water from the spring. The relatives bring the goat next to the fire. One of the masters of ceremony takes a cedar branch, lights it on fire and walks it around the place, purifying all those present. At the end, he lets it fall into the flame. Then they place a cedar branch in a niche in the western wall, designating it as an altar.

The strangers who are hosted in the settlement begin their purification first. The master of ceremony pours wine onto the knife that he will use for the sacrifice. The stranger then drinks the wine and the master of ceremony sprinkles the same wine on him. He takes the animal and sacrifices it according to the traditional way. With the blood of the animal, they first sprinkle the niche with the cedar branch and then the ceremonial fire. The sacrifice will be made and the master of ceremony will dip his hand into the animal's neck. With the bloody hand he will touch the head of the person being purified and then sprinkle blood on his face and entire head.

Then, with the cedar twig dipped in the animal's blood, he sprinkles the heads of the gos’nik boys and the foreheads of all those present.

-purification of the houses with the onjes’t’a soil of the altar. After their purification, the men go to the base of the rock on which the altar of the settlement is built and take some soil. They carry the onjes’t’a soil to their house, which has already been purified from the previous day, and scatter it on the earthen floor. In this way, their house is upgraded to a higher level of onjes’t’a status.

-avoidance of being touched by strangers. Until the night of the departure of the Bal’ima’n’in, the villagers should not visit another settlement or touch anyone except their fellow villagers.

- making t’at’ori, pastries for the custom of Gos’nik, the integration of children into adult society that will take place the next day. While the breads are baked, family members dance and sing in honor of the children who will participate in tomorrow's ceremonies.

-three days abstinence from couples' meetings until December 21, the day of the winter solstice when the solar deity Bal’ima’n’in, will bid farewell to the valleys of the Kalash. This specific abstinence is called dic’. The end of the abstinence is formalized on December 22 after the "amat’ak saraz" ceremony and before the "l’awak Bi’ik", the carnival event of the fox hunt.