Rainbow-phobia. More than a few words on the power of the Slavic rainbow

Non-normativity of sexual orientation, gender or sex (biological gender) has been present in the history of human kind since the time immemorial. Wherever we look, in pretty much every culture created by human race, next to the dominant “norm” (unequivocal anatomical sex, auto-identification with own anatomical sex and heterosexual orientation) non-normative (with regards to anatomical sex, gender or sexual orientation) individuals have always existed. So, one can say, the existence on non-normative individuals is in a way a norm in the history of human kind. What is not a norm (and never has been) is the way the society sees and interacts with non-normative individuals. And this is exactly what we are going to be discussing in this post. Not: were there LGBT people among the pre-Christian Slavs (because it is certain they were), but: how did our ancestors see and interacted with these people?

The medieval sex

Before we start to discuss the perception of non-normative individuals in the societies of our ancestors, we must first define how did pre-Christian Slavs see biological sex and gender, which, in turn will be necessary to define nonheterosexual orientations.

Nowadays there exists surprisingly many definitions and ways of determining sex and gender of an individual. Some scholars (mostly „old-school”) claim that sex and gender are one and the same thing, others that these are completely different things, or that gender is the relic of the patriarchy and therefore it should be destroyed. On the other hand, there are some ideologues who try to prove that biological sex is a social construct and the only way to determine the real sex/gender is to discover it in the depths of one’s soul and announce it to the world. It is this last group that is responsible for development of a concept of “sex assignment”, which defined as discerning or declaring the sex of a newborn basing on the appearance of the external genitalia, and not, as it should (“should” in the opinion of these ideologues) on the self-identification of the sex/gender by the newborn.

Fortunately, there is no reason whatsoever to suspect that our ancestors (not only pre-Christian but in general all ancestors before the mid XX century, when the gender theories started to develop) had significant problems with recognising sex – of their children or their own. Humanity, as a species, is characterised by sexual dimorphism, which means that there are clear and obvious differences between the appearance of the external genitalia (and body in general) between the male and female individuals. Statistically only 0,02-0,05% of human newborns have external genitalia of ambiguous appearance. Which means that recognising the sex of a baby basing on the appearance of genitalia is accurate on 99,98-99,95% cases. For comparison: results of one of the popular home pregnancy tests are accurate in 98.4% cases. For even better comparison: cystic fibrosis, a very serious genetic disease is diagnosed in approximately 0,03% babies. How many of you have ever met (in person, not online) a person affected by cystic fibrosis? Exactly. This is how often our ancestors saw newborns with ambiguously looking external genitalia.

Of course, it’s not all about external genitalia. There are disorders of sex development, which manifest themselves only some time after birth, for example around the time of puberty. Modern medicine knows several of such disorders, but to diagnose majority of them advanced testing methods have to be applied, and such methods were not available to our ancestors. One of very few exceptions here are some forms of 5α-reductase deficiency, which can cause ambiguous appearance of external genitalia in biological girls and a clear masculinisation of the whole body during puberty. Apart of a few families in Dominical Republic, Papua New Gunea and Turkey (where evidently inbreeding took place) the 5α-reductase deficiency is so rare that its frequency world-wide is not known.

It is estimated the in the early medieval period the population of central Europe was approximately 2,2 million. The population of the Eastern Europe in this period is more difficult to estimate – depending on the method of calculation it is believed to be between 3 and 10 million. Of course, pre-Christian Slavs were not the only inhabitants of these two regions, but let’s assume, very optimistically, that they accounted for half of the population. Considering the estimated number of pre-Christian Slavs and the fact that 0,02-0,05% human babies are born with ambiguous external genitalia, it is not difficult to calculate that in the Early Medieval, on the lands of our ancestors (the whole Central and Eastern Europe) there was no more than 1220-3050 people of ambiguous sex. Therefore, in my considerations, unless I clearly specify it, I will be focusing on the millions of obviously sexually dimorphic Slavs, who had to doubts whatsoever about theirs (and others) biological sex.

Slavic gender theory

The theory of gender – a concept of cultural or socio-cultural gender – was developed by academics of humanities and social sciences, who have been trying to describe, analyse and interpret the socio-cultural changes happening in the eastern societies in the second half of the XX century. The concept of gender became so catchy and popular, that quite quickly it gained a status of science, even though (as far as I know) a cohesive and widely accepted definition and theory of gender has not been developed, and some even claim that gender is the same as sex. This is why, for example, as I am regularly reminded by Twitter, in modern times it is “possible” that a biological (genetically and phenotypically) man who is sexually attracted to women, can self-identify as a woman and in this way become a lesbian.

Thankfully the idea of equivalence of sex and gender was not known to our ancestors – not only pre-Christian, but in general to all of them (because the idea was developed only very recently), this is why, in today’s discussion I will not consider lesbians with penises, and as the reference in describing gender and sexual orientation I will use biological sex, defined as clearly phenotypically expressed presentation of people with XY (men) and XX (women) chromosomes.

As I wrote in the previous two posts, in the communities of our ancestors the position and roles of women and men did not differ as significantly, as it is the case in the modern societies build around Judaeo-Christian ideas. An appropriate biological sex was required to take a function of a husband/father, wife/mother and (most likely) a midwife (baba), but all other functions necessary for healthy functioning and development of the society were taken upon by these members of society, who had necessary skills, motivations, needs or were just willing to do what had to be done. For example, defending the community from external attacks was a task taken upon by both men and women. The same went for cultivating the land (and everyone worked during harvest). Craft activities were performed by both sexes and all age groups, for which the best example is the production of woven fabric. In the process of production of linen and wool fabric, cooperation of pretty much all the members of community was required, starting from the preparation of fields (to sow linen) and pastures, farming and husbandry (children were often assigned to shepherding tasks), through the collection and processing of the raw material, to the final production (weaving, dying, embroidering etc). The spiritual and religious functions were undertaken by both sexes, and so were functions related to leadership.

In modern times one of the most important elements of gender is the style of clothing. This element seems to be so important, that the preference to wear trousers or dresses/skirts is currently used as a criterion of gender identification of an individual. Sadly, because of ever-present and often implicit stereotypical interpretation of “male” (trousers) and “female” (dresses) style of clothing, the archaeological sources make it difficult to objectively assess the types of clothing our ancestors wore. In modern archaeology all “male” types of clothing are interpreted as belonging to men, even if the skeleton on which the clothes were found was obviously a female skeleton (such confusion happened in the case of Birka female warior). However, the historical sources suggest, that Slavic female warriors wore the same type of clothing as male warriors. For example, during the siege of Doroloston the female sex of some of the warriors was only detected upon a close inspection of the bodies, which indicates that both women and men fought wearing similar clothes. So, it is possible (and perhaps even likely) that in the society of our ancestors the style of clothing depended also on the type of performed task/function, and not only (or perhaps not at all) on the sex of an individual.

Another frequently used criterion of the assessment of the gender (sex?) of a child is the child’s preference to a certain type of play and toys. Unfortunately, it is not possible to analyse this matter in the context of pre-Christian Slavs. Although during archaeological excavations items believed to be children’s toys are sometimes found, the same bias as it the case of Birka female warrior is contributing to classification of those toy-like items. So, archaeologists interpret their findings through a prism of Judaeo-Christian strict binary norms, assuming, without a second though, that only boys play with knives, swords or toy horses and only girls – with dolls.

The diagnosis of non-normativity

Nowadays there is many „guides” that (allegedly) allow to establish the gender (sex?) with which one identifies (is?). These “guides” explore the internal experience of an individual through analysis of the individual’s preferences and behaviour. So children and adults expressing or manifesting a preference to typically “female” (according to Judaeo-Christian standards) clothes, interests, type of interpersonal interactions or romantic partners, according to the guidelines of these “guides” are called women. Even if their sex is male. The same principle is applied to interpretation of “male” preferences of girls or women, which are seen as male. This is how, recently, historical figures such like Margaret Bulkley or Valerie Arkell-Smith have been identified as men, even though both were biological women (Arkell-Smith even gave birth to two children), aware of their sex and self-identifying as females (which is obvious after reading historical sources relating to them). Both, as is nowadays called, cis-women decided to live as men in order to be able to pursue their chosen careers (physician and landowner/businessman/politician respectively) and this is why they are nowadays “identified” as men or trans-men. Because character traits such as ambition, grit, bravery or risk-taking, behaviour like waring trousers or romantical involvement with women are interpreted as “male” features, and hence every single person presenting these features is, by “definition”, male.

Due to time and space limitation I am not going to go any deeper into the analysis of the level of non-normativity in the modern trends in sex/gender “diagnosis”. Trends which seem to be rather confirming the existing „norms” (having “male” preferences makes a person male), instead of abolishing it (so allowing women to have “male” preferences). I am only going to promise here, that is anyone ever concludes that the Maidens’ war was “really” a trans-boys’ war or Polish Nawojka was a trans-man, you can be certain that there will be plenty of space and time on Witia’s blog to hang some dogs on the authors of such claims.

But, going back to the pre-Christian Slavs and their opinion on non-normativity. Considering different (than in the modern Western culture) social structure of our ancestors, there can be no doubts that normativity and non-normativity were seen completely different back then. Things that were perfectly normal in early Medieval Ages, nowadays are illegal, criminally prosecuted, or, in the best case, considered inappropriate. Among such things are child labour, teenage marriages and pregnancies, corporal punishment (including amputations and genital mutilation), infanticide as a method of family planning, ritual slaughtering of humans (as a sacrifice for Gods) or tradition of ritual suicides (for example warriors committing suicide in the face of certain defeat).

Let’s start with child labour. If we look at situation of children in the, as they are called in the west, undeveloped countries, very quickly we will realise that the situation is not only bad, but also very similar to the situation of children in the early medieval period. Nowadays the majority of working children work in agriculture and start working as early as 5 years of age. Unfortunately (which, I am not ging to lie, doesn’t surprise me anymore, but still irritates enormously) these statistic don’t include the work that is typically performed at home or near home, so they don’t include the work most commonly done by women and girls. There is many causes of child labour, but the main ones are: poverty, lack of education and lack of access to modern agricultural technologies. All of these elements were the norm in the early Medieval Ages, so there can be no doubt, that the children of our pre-Christian ancestors worked, in the fields or at home, from a very young age.

Long-term studies of non-normative (with regards to sexual orientation or gender identification) individuals indicate, that non-normativity of these people manifests itself early in childhood. Preferences to play, clothes or behaviour typical (in the modern western culture) to the opposite sex are observed more often among children who, after achieving sexual maturity, present nonheterosexual orientation or (much less commonly) self-identify as the opposite gender. The problem with application of this knowledge to the pre-Christian Slavs lies in huge difference between childhood experience of early medieval and modern children. The children of our ancestors did not attend preschool/school, but worked on the farm and at home. They did not have a wide choice of various toys, but played with whatever was available (for example a stick, a pebble or a string) and at a time when they did not have anything else to do (which was rare). They were not able to prefer an activity or an interest “typical” for any, not only the opposite sex, because nobody asked them what they prefer, but they were expected to do what they were told to do. And if a child did not want to be obedient and work, such child was suspected to be under a demonic influence and was “treated” with corporal punishment.

Who do you love?

So, if the societies of pre-Christian Slavs were not as “genderised” as the modern western world, and children were not able to express non-normative behaviour in their childhood, how did nonheterosexual orientation or non-normative gender identification reveal itself?

In order to answer this question I would like to propose a thought experiment. Imagine a teenage, homosexual boy living in a village of pre-Christian Slavs. Growing up, the boy wore the same clothes as all the other children: a linen tunic, in the winter a sheepskin coat, and in the summer he run around naked. He performed the same type of work as other children too: pretty much everything he was strong enough and capable enough to do. If he could handle it, he carried water from the river or firewood from the forest. If he was a smaller and weaker boy, he did a range of lighter jobs in and around the house. Perhaps, is he was skilled with a sling or bow and arrow, he was sent to pastures to watch the sheep.

The only element of his childhood that could, potentially, be problematic for a gender nonconforming boy would be an initiation ritual called postrzyżyny (the first hait cut). Postrzyżyny was performed on boys of 7-10 years of age. It was a ritual of coming of age as well as a formal expression of accepting the boy to be the son of his father. The “girl” version of postrzyżyny was zapleciny (plating of hair), which was performed by either the girl’s mother or one of the oldest or a few of the oldest women in the community. It most probably took place closer to the first menstruation (so in girls older than 7-10 years) and that is pretty much everything we know about zapleciny (which is not surprising, giving how sexist the academia has always been). Because we don’t actually know much about the “girl” initiation, it is really difficult to say how problematic would be such “genderisation” of initiation rituals for a gender nonconforming child. So, although postrzyżyny was sex/gender specific ritual, it was also a symbol of acceptance and belonging, so it might have as well be seen something to look forward to, rather than shy away from.

After postrzyżyny our Slavic boy grew up, got stronger and as he reached puberty he was entrusted with tasks required more strength, speed or endurance. Because of a massive difference in strength, speed and endurance caused by the influence of testosterone (if you don’t believe me, please, visit the website with comparison of the best times and scores of female Olympians and the times/scores of male junior sport competitions), most of such work could only be performed quickly and effectively only (or almost only) by other boys. Our teenage boy was simply too strong and too healthy to do the “traditionally female” work, like spinning or weaving, which do not require great physical exertion, and therefore was done by persons who, for various reasons, could not exert themselves, so by: pregnant women, breastfeeding women or elderly women. Persons, like our homosexual boy, who were strong and healthy and therefore could work hard without affecting their health, simply had to take on the harder work like ploughing, construction, cutting down trees or long hunting trips.

So, as we see, at the time of puberty the people living in the village of our boy didn’t have many reason to think that there is something wrong with him or that his sexual orientation or gender identification is non-normative. Perhaps sometimes he mentioned, that he preferred cooking food and spin wool, but for sure so did many of his strong and healthy peers. Who wouldn’t want to sit on a stool the whole day, instead of cutting down trees with great effort.

It’s hard to guess how uniform in respect of sex was his strong, tough and hardworking peer group. It isn’t impossible (although, for sure, didn’t happen often) that in the village our Slavic boy lived, an exceptionally strong (cis) girl or a girl with, for example one of the types of 5α-reductase deficiency (so, one who’s body is naturally producing testosterone). But, overall, the hardworking peer group of our story’s main character was, for certain, mostly male. So, at the time of hitting puberty, when teenagers typically start their first sexual experimentation, our boy was surrounded by boys, to whom (or to some of whom) he felt sexually attracted. Of course most of these boys were also feeling sexual attraction – to girls.

from: J. M. Bailley, L. Diamond “Sexual Orientation, Controversy and Science” [w:] “Psychological Science in the Public Interest”

The studies on human sexuality indicate that approximately 10% of men and women had in the past some type of nonheterosexual sexual experience. Approximately 30-60% of the 10% group remain “faithful” to nonheterosexual orientation. Because, contrary to what some people believe and claim, human sexual orientation is not always stable and unchanged throughout the whole life of an individual. The fluidity of sexual orientation, particularly among nonheterosexual people is a well-known and researched phenomenon (observed most often among nonheterosexual women). And from this, it follows that our homosexual Slav has 1 in 10 chance of cutting down trees with a boy, who was open to nonheterosexual sexual experimentation. However in 9 out of 10 cases he had to with sadness and disappointment watch how his male friends, one after another, find themselves girls happy and willing to start sexual activities. And why were these girls so happy and willing? Because in the societies of our pre-Christian ancestors virginity was not seen as a virtue. Quite the opposite, as we learn from al-Bakri, Slavic brides, if they were, during the wedding night, found not to have any prior sexual experience, were rejected as wives, because it was believed that such girl had to be lacking “assets” and this is why she did not manage to attract any lovers.

Most certainly our Slavic boy felt lonely and perhaps even unwanted or rejected. But his feelings were not caused by mockery or rejection of his sexual orientation, but by sheer lack of available sexual partners. Because what homosexual teenage boy would decide to hit on a male friend, of whom everyone knows (because there can be no doubts that in an early medieval village everyone knew everything about everybody) that he is meeting with Mańka[1] in the stables every night?

So, what did our boy do? In 9 out of 10 cases – it’s hard to say. Perhaps he decided to stay in his village and lived in celibacy until he finds a willing partner. Perhaps he left the village and find his luck somewhere else? We know that population of some of early medieval Slavic settlements counted thousands of people. Larger number of people increased chances of finding a partner open to nonheterosexual experiences. But in one out of 10 cases, if there was a nonheterosexually open male, our boy’s sexual orientation became known to the rest of the community. And this is when we are starting to seriously lack any sources to describe the outcome of such 1 in 10 situation.

Unfortunately, with regards to nonheterosexual pre-Christian Slavs, the only sources we have are sermons written down in early medieval psalters by Christian monks and priests. As you can guess in these sermons priests were damning all nonheterosexual practices, as well as any other, nonmarital sexual activities. It is without a doubt an argument “for” presence and acceptance on nonheterosexual people among our ancestors, however, on the other side, Christian priests have been cursing and damning nonheterosexual relations for over 2000 years, in any times and any society. So the sceptics can easily reject this argument as not specific to the Slavs. Therefore, in order to be more specific, we have to start support our deliberation with as educated as possible guessing.

Modern economic analyses indicate that homo- and in general LGBT-phobic behaviours cause a significant economic cost to the society. Although most of these costs, the costs related to loses of tourism in industry or the cost of health care, cannot be applied to pre-Christian Slavs, some of them, like the loss of life or loss in work productivity, can absolutely be considered in the analysis of early medieval world. Considering the fact, that pre-Christian Slavs willingly and happily cooperated with various demons (of which I wrote here), some of them even had babies with these demons (like Volkh Vneslavovitch, son of Marfa Vseslavna and a zmey – a Slavic dragon), that they were equally happy to receive visitors of various religions and skin colours, that they only limited the rights of Christians after the Christians started to destroy the Slavic temples, it is really, really hard to believe, that our ancestors would reject their own, healthy and strong son, just because he was spending the nights with boys rather than girls. In the times when literally everything, from food to houses was handmade, it is really, really difficult to imagine that capable, strong and willing to work hands were rejected just because after work these hands squeeze the bum of the “wrong” sex. Of course, my imagination might be failing me. But, to be honest, I truly doubt it.

The girls had it better

It doesn’t seem that the situation of nonheterosexual Slavic girls in the times of our ancestors was significantly different than the situation of a homosexual boy just described above. However, considering the omnipresent lack of female representation in all types of research and discussions (even safety belts are not tested with female test dummies in the driver seat!) it seems absolutely necessary to reserve at least a few paragraphs exclusively to girls and women. So, let’s run a thought experiment with an early medieval nonheterosexual Slavic girl as the main character.

As I wrote above the childhood of our Slavic girl was exactly the same as the childhood of the main character of our first thought experiment. Same clothes (what was available or no clothes at all), the same tasks (appropriate to a child’s strength and abilities). The first differences would start showing up around the time of puberty. We know that nonheterosexual people from early childhood have preferences to the activities “typical” for the opposite sex. In this case our girl would have to face a problem of relative (in comparison with same age average boys) lack of physical strength, resulting from lack of testosterone in her body. Menstruation also could be a problem, but not necessarily as significant as it might seem. In the times of our ancestors malnourishment and hunger were a very common issue, so it is possible that menstruation in women and girls was not as regular as it is nowadays among women living in so called developed countries. Nevertheless, it is possible that it was a bit easier for our Slavic girl to work among boys (than it was for a boy to work among girls), because who would want to reject a person willing to do hard, physical work? However working among the boys would have taken our heroine away from the objects of her affection – other young Slavic girls in the village. Who, we must not forget, in 9 out of 10 cases, were meeting the boys at the stables.

What is worth noting is a well-known fact that the orientation of nonheterosexual women differs significantly from the orientation of nonheterosexual men. Statistically our Slavic girl would be more likely to be bisexual than exclusively homosexual (see figure above). Which means that (statistically) it would be easier for her to function in a “traditional” way, which is: to experiment sexually with boys (due to lack of available girls), get married, try to conceive and give birth to a child. If she was fertile she could have „put to sleep” her homosexual tendencies, wait until her husband takes on another wife, with the hope that she will be the 1 out of 10 female open to nonheterosexual sexual experiences. Alternatively she could also be proactive, look out for a married woman with nonheterosexual tendencies and, during the time of Kupala, instruct her husband which wreath to catch (I wrote about Kupala wreaths here). So, it seems, the situation of nonheterosexual girls was similar, but not identical to the situation of nonheterosexual boys. For a change, at least in the times of our ancestors, the girls had it (statistically) easier!

The rainbow sex change

Although there isn’t many sources on the position of nonheterosexual pre-Christian Slavs, there is actually some information about transgender or intersex persons[2]. The ethnographical sources indicate that sex change was not unknown to our ancestors, however the attitudes towards people who went through sex change were clearly ambivalent.

According to Slavic folklore in Slavic tradition sex change could happen after drinking water from a lake, from which previously a Slavic dragon – zmey – drunk, or after being swallowed by a zmey. Zmey, who could be seen in the form of a rainbow, was a dragon and a bridge of a kind, connecting the world of the living with the world of the dead (Navia). After being swallowed by a zmey (or drinking the water a zmey had previously drunk) the living was transported to the world of the dead, where he or she could gain supernatural powers of magic or shapeshifting or could change sex. It is not, unfortunately, known in what way these powers were gained – was it a matter of chance, or the living person staying in Navia could decide or wish/request to gain certain powers or undergo a certain change. Nevertheless it is known that sex change was one of the effect (or side effects) of travelling to Navia with a zmey.

From other sources we know that pre-Christian Slavs did not see the body as something independent from the person, the “owner” of the body. This is why the main funeral rite of the pre-Christian Slavs was cremation. Therefore, it is reasonable to suspect that during the process of swallowing by a zmey, the whole person, including the body (not only the spirit) was transported to Navia. Such suspicion is supported by the beliefs regarding zmey swallowing other creatures, like crayfish, frogs or fish, which were swallowed in “one piece” and then dropped back from the sky with rain. There are also known and recorded beliefs that a zmey/rainbow can not only swallow humans, but also drink their blood. It is therefore possible that the travel to the world of the dead could be undertaken in a bodily form as well as in spirit (after firstly dying of exsanguination). After the sex change (or after gaining supernatural powers) the living returned from Navia either in a new body or into a new body. This means, that the change of sex took place though receiving a new body of a different sex than the previous one. Therefore, it seems, in Slavic tradition the only acceptable sex change was a change that included the transformation of the body. And from this it follows, that the modern trend of changing sex (gender?) by self-declaration and self-identification without any anatomical transformation, from the point of view of Slavic Native Faith can only be seen as a change of mind, not as an actual sex change.

It’s worth noting here that the above described beliefs regarding sex change were passed on the ethnographers in the context of warning. The people who shared their knowledge on the local folklore were warning ethnographers to not to drink water from the lake a zmey previously drunk, or to hide when there is a rainbow visible on the sky. So, clearly, swallowing by a zmey was feared, as well as feared were its consequences, so: sex change, magical powers or the ability for shapeshift. Which is not particularly surprising. As I mentioned many times in this post, the vast majority of human kind has a clearly defined sex and self-identifies with own sex. Only a small percentage of people, and it was likely the same among pre-Christian Slavs, belongs to the non-normative group, who could have seen the zmey/rainbow stories as an encouragement rather than a warning.

The rainbow-phobic beliefs are cited by some Rodnovers as the reason why there is no place for transgender people in the modern Slavic native Faith. It is these Rodnovers who speak of „plague of LGBT”, “disease of LGBT” or call out to reject this “ideology”. However, contrary to the claims of rainbow-phobic Rodnovers, the historical and ethnographical sources indicate that sorcerers, shapeshifters, transgender and other people “touched” by zmey/rainbow did function without major problems or issues within the societies of pre-Christian Slavs and not uncommonly were even seen as helpful. What more there was a small group, for who the interactions with zmey/rainbow were not dangerous at all. This group was known to our ancestors as chmurniks, oblotchniks or (in a more modern manner) planetniks. In different parts of Slavdom chmurniks were seen differently. Sometimes they were described as demons or damned souls, and sometimes as “normal” (alive) men able to control the weather through their supernatural powers. In some reports chmurniks fought against zmeys and in some – together with them against some other dangers. According to the beliefs of our ancestors before a storm chmurniks were pulled in by the rainbow in order to fight the upcoming storm in the sky, and then they were safely (and in the same body) returned to the land, where they continued their “normal” life among regular (not magical) people.

Apart the the transgender people Slavs also knew transgender demons. The most interesting one was miesięcznik (literally: the monthly one). Miesięcznik was a demon, who had a human form and whose power laid in the ability to regularly, on a monthly basis, change sex. Every full moon the body of this demon changed its appearance from female to male (or the other way around), but apart of that miesięcznik lead a perfectly “normal” life among the community of its settlement/village.

As we can see the attitude of our ancestors towards zmeys/rainbows, induced by them supernatural changes, as well as towards transgender demons, was similar to their attitude towards any other creatures or beings (supernatural or not), so purely utilitarian. If a person changed by the contact with a zmey/rainbow was able to contribute to the society in a positive way, such person was seen as helpful and accepted as a valuable individual. There was for sure an element of fear (as it was the case with dziady-lyrnics, of whom I wrote here) and (I suspect) for the safety of “normal” people, the persons with supernatural gifts existed on the side rather than in the mainstream of the community, but I honestly doubt that anyone dared to call these persons “a plague” or “a disease”, particularly if their helpful skills (in healing or controlling the weather) were confirmed to be beneficial.

At the end I would like to come back to the 0,02-0,05% of population born with external genitalia of ambiguous appearance, so people whose biological sex was unclear or undefined in the eyes of our ancestors. It is worth noting that apart of this minority, there also must have been a group of people born with one of many disorders of sex development (DSD), which cause the phenotypical sex (the appearance) to differ from the genetic sex (defined as presence of XX or XY chromosomes). Many of such disorders affect fertility (by either reducing it significantly or causing permanent infertility), lead to development of identification with sex (gender?) opposite than the person’s phenotype (so the sex they “look” like), and some of them can cause hormonal disturbances, sometimes so severe that they can lead to death. There’s no reason to suspect that people affected by DSD were not born and did not live among our ancestors. What however we have to realise is that in the early medieval ages it was not possible to diagnose or treat such disorders. Their cause also wasn’t known and it was not possible to, for example, establish a person’s sex by genetical testing. Without a doubt people affected by DSDs were seen as different and very likely treated like, for example, people with supernumerary teeth (which were believed to have the ability to turn into vampires after death). If that was the case these people were able to function “normally” within the society, although could have been treated with slightly more reverence, but a lot of attention was paid to ensuring them a proper burial after death (of which I wrote here). It is also possible, that people with DNDs were seen more like demons, half-demons (like Volkh Vneslavovitch), sorcerers, shapeshifters and other people changed by the power of zmey/rainbow.

While discussing transgender and intersex people it is worth mentioning that proto Slavic language had a grammatic form called dual, which existed along singular and plural forms, and expressed doubleness or inherent duality. The dual form had its own grammatical forms (declension) including forms of grammatical gender (masculine, feminine and neutral), and all of these forms differed from the plural form used to express multiplicity (3 or more). It is not possible to say for sure why it was necessary for our ancestors to express doubleness in a clear, understandable and unequivocal way. Perhaps there were some nowadays unknown of forgotten aspects of their culture, tradition or religion, that required such precision. But it is also possible that they used the double form to express duality of sex of people, who from birth or through contact with zmey/rainbow, were experiencing inter- or transsexuality.

Different times, different culture

The modern Slavic Native Faith is being actively reconstructed basing on very fragmented (because of passage of time) information about pre-Christian Slavs. The methods applied in the reconstruction of beliefs of our ancestors include: analysis of historical, archaeological, ethnographical, anthropological and linguistical sources, various comparative methods but also: common sense and awareness, that not all known elements of the religion of our ancestors can be realistically reconstructed in the modern times. Although we know very well that in the early medieval times Slavs made human sacrifices to their Gods, no one in their right mind is going to attempt to reconstruct such sacrificial rituals in the XXI century. The same goes for: burying animals or miscarried foetuses under the threshold of the house, piercing the bodies of the dead with an aspen stick, slaughtering animals during rituals and drinking their blood, or hitting lazy children with a stick, to chase away their demons. No one (I hope no one!) is attempting to reconstruct such rituals, because with times, our laws changed too, and, most importantly, different ways of treating people and animals were accepted as “standard”. Under the influence of time, historical events and hundreds of years of Christianisation we changed too. Pagan ways of thinking, non-anthropocentric relations with the world and its resources, non-Judaeo-Christian ethical values – all of this is foreign to us and, while becoming Rodnovers, we all have to learn it.

Unfortunately, not all modern, practicing Rodnovers seem to be open to learning it. It is these reconstructors who take the rights to following Slavic Native Faith away from non-normative people, on the basis of (apart of rainbow-phobia) “natural rights” allowing only fertile heterosexual relationships. What is even more surprising, is that the very same reconstructors don’t seem to be bothered in the slightest about the fertility of heterosexual couples before organising for these couples to marry in the Slavic ritual of swadźba (wedding). Despite widely available testing methods, marriages in Slavic Native Faith are given to heterosexual couples without any proof of these couples’ fertility or, for example, sworn declaration to abandon any birth control methods (with exception of “traditional” herbal remedies and infanticide). It is also surprising that these reconstructors don’t require any wedding gift to be presented to the future wife before the swadźba ritual is performed. I am not even going to mention hospitality, caring for the elders or for the natural environment, because these very real and very traditional Slavic values are regularly ignored. The “values” that are pushed nowadays by “traditional” Rodnovers are “values” suspiciously similar (not to say identical) to Judaeo-Christian beliefs: daily prayers, building temples and altars, advocating of heterosexual relationships and rejecting everything that’s non-heterosexual or related to non-normative sex/gender identification.

On the other side it should be noted, that non-normative Rodnovers are not particularly helpful here either. Instead of focusing on reconstruction of Slavic Native Faith basing on Slavic elements, they attempt to introduce into Rodnovery various hindu (hijra), polinesian (fa’afafine) and even Native American (two-spirit) motifs, as if the contamination of Slavic culture with foreign (mostly Judaeo-Christian) influences was not bad enough already. At the same time some not gender/sex normative Slavic Pagans seem to be completely unaware, that gender theory was created (or rather – is being created) by English-speaking activists, who are completely oblivious to various linguistic problems this theory faces in non-English languages, of which many are highly “genderised”. And Slavic languages are “genderised” indeed. The complex system of grammatical gender requires pretty much every part of speech to have an appropriate grammatical gender (masculine, feminine or neutral) applied. The neutral gender (like the English pronoun “it”) can be applied only to things and, sometimes to children, so, in Slavic languages, such as Polish or Russian, any description of any adult requires either masculine or feminine forms to be used. So, if one wants to use in Polish an adjective “nonbinary” one has to say either “niebinarny” (male form) or “niebinarna” (female form), which makes all attempts of being nonbinary completely futile. What is most worrying in these pagan “gender wars”, is the fact, that (particularly English-speaking) Rodnovers or, more general Slavic Pagans, want to follow and practice Slavic traditions without any respect or attention to the language – one of the most fundamental and inherent elements of the culture. Therefore I’d like to encourage the nonbinary Rodnovers to stop fighting and verbally abusing “sexists” scholars of Slavic culture, and take on tasks that actually contribute to the growth of Slavic community. Tasks like, for example, linguistic research focused on reconstruction of the double grammatical form in Slavic languages.

Sława!

Bibliography:

H. Joyce „Trans. When ideology meets reality”

H. Kitsikopoulos “Agrarian Change and Crisis in Europe, 1200–1500”

C. Criado Perez “Invisible Women”

J. M. Bailley, L. Diamond “Sexual Orientation, Controversy and Science” [w:] “Psychological Science in the Public Interest”

K. Matýas, "Nasze sioło" [w:] "Wisła" t. VII,

A. Szyjewski, "Religia Słowian",

K. Moszyński, "Kultura ludowa Słowian", t. II "Kultura duchowa"

M. Białous „Fenomen religii Prasłowian”

„Ibrahim ibn Jakub i Tadeusz Kowalski w sześćdziesiątą rocznicę edycji”, pod red. Andrzeja Zaborskiego,

J. A. Alvares-Pedrosa „Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion”

P. Zych, W. Vargas „Bestiariusz Słowiański”

[1] A common Slavic name of a peasant girl (if you ever need one 😉 )

[2] A trangender person is a person whose biological sex is equivocal and clearly determined, but who identifies with the gender of the opposite sex (gender? – I told you, the gender theory is still in development!). An intersex person is a person whose biological sex is not clearly and equivocally determined. Such person can have an appearance of one sex, but gonads (or DNA) of the other or can as well have gonads of both sexes, or, for example, ovotestis, so gonads that have elements of ovaries (female gonads) and testes (male gonads).

Magda LewandowskaJuly 29, 2021Comment