is interesting in that a drawing in the form of a six-pointed Orthodox cross surrounded by meander spirals and swastika motifs is scratched on the spindle. Similar examples could be continued. It remains for us to state the following: similar ornaments can arise out of mutual connection among different peoples, but it is difficult to believe that peoples separated by thousands of kilometers distances and millennia, unless these peoples are ethnogenetically related, can appear so completely independently of each other complex ornamental compositions repeating even in the smallest detail? And even performing the same functions: amulets and signs of belonging to a family or clan.
It is impossible to deny the inevitability of the emergence of ethnogenetic ties between the ancient ancestors of the Indo-Iranian tribes and the Indo-Iranian and Iranian-speaking branches that separated from their community, and, accordingly, those ethnic groups that formed in close proximity with them over the course of millennia, up to the addition of extensive and close in culture Srubnaya and Andronov communities.
When they were added, the process of their partial disintegration had to take place, expressed in the resettlement of individual tribes or even their groups as to the west, and to the east. The departure of the Aryans, for example, ended, as recognized by science, by the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. Territorially close to them for such a long time, the ancestors of the Slavs partially moved – to the west, forming groups known as the Western Slavs, and the main massif, called the Eastern Slavs, settled on the lands of Eastern Europe.
Moving to the east and south, the Aryan tribes carried away with them traditional forms of culture – the established skills of production, types of ornaments (and the understanding of the symbolism reflected in them), customs and beliefs. On their way to India and Iran, the Aryans entered into contacts with the peoples of the countries through which they passed, settling there, for different periods of time and partially mixing with this population. Therefore, here we are interested in those motifs of patterns close to the Old Slavic ones, which are revealed among the peoples living, for example, in the Caucasus or in Central Asia (although it should be remembered that beyond the Urals and to Afghanistan part lands was included in the area of the Andronov culture earlier).
Unfortunately, scientists began to trace in their works only in the last 25—30 years racial, linguistic, and cultural and other Arya-Slavic parallels, and research significantly expands the boundaries of our knowledge about our own past. Here we refrain from far-reaching conclusions and only note in conclusion that the framework of this analysis is limited by the boundaries of the steppe and forest-steppe zones of our country. Undoubtedly, the involvement of Indian to Iranian materials would significantly expand this framework.
We are deeply convinced that one should not so stubbornly hush up the hypothesis of the Indian historian B. Tilak about the likelihood of the most ancient unification of the ancestors of the Aryans (even in that distant era of their common Indo-Iranian lingualism, recognized as the original form of existence of their community) into tribal and tribal unions precisely in polar regions. Not only the possibility, but the full probability of this fact, has he convincingly proved by the many descriptions of the Arctic nature preserved in the monuments of ancient Indian literature. The most ancient ancestors of the Slavs, judging by the many rapprochements of various sides of the origins of their culture with the ancient Aryan, and then with the culture of the peoples of the Eurasian steppes, carriers of Indo-European languages (like, for example, the Andronovites, who once separated from the Indo-Iranian community), apparently, were so close to the Aryans, which passed on to their descendants and many common elements of the language and common motives of ornaments. Both language and ornaments were means of mutual communication and evidence of genetic proximity, and possibly also signs of membership, entry of the same clans, into the same tribes.
Golden thread
The symbolism of the underwear shirt in the Russian folk tradition is deep and interesting.
In everyday life, the shirt was the main form of clothing; both men’s and women’s shirts were sewn from linen, decorating them with woven ornaments and embroidery. Old Russian rubs were of a straight cut, tunic-like in shape and cut from a canvas bent in half. Sleeves were made narrow and long; in women’s shirts they were gathered in folds at the wrist and fastened with bracelets (handles). During ritual dances, in ritual actions, the sleeves were unraveled and served as an instrument of witchcraft. This, by the way, is the story of the Russian folk tale about the Frog Princess. The description of a foreigner (late 17th century) says: «They wear shirts woven with gold on all sides, their sleeves, folded into folds with amazing art, often exceed 8 or 10 cubits, sleeves, continuing with interlocking folds to the end of the arm, are decorated exquisite and expensive wrists.» Shirts decorated with embroidery and weaving are also mentioned in «The Lay of Igor’s Campaign» – a remarkable monument of medieval Russian culture. In her tears, Yaroslavna would like to fly like a cuckoo on the Danube, moisten the «be bryan sleeve» (that is, decorated with a typesetting ornament) in the Kajala River and wipe the bloody wounds of her husband, Prince Igor, with it. The magical power, concentrated in the sleeves of a shirt, in scarlet ornaments, should heal, heal wounds, fill the body with strength, bring health and good luck.
A long-sleeved shirt is depicted on silver ritual bracelets with nielloed patterns, intended for dancing on mermaids, found in different parts of Russia (Kiev, Staraya Ryazan, Tver).
Relating to the 12—13 centuries, these bracelets depict those ritual acts about which the church said: «Sin is dancing in mermaids», «this is the essence of evil and bad deeds – dancing, gusli… playing unlikable mermaid»,» the dancing god is the lover of the devil… the bride of sotonin. «B. A. Rybakov notes that:" in the temple, and not for a simple everyday dress, but for the celebration of another, but, obviously, secret participation in great-grandfather’s rituals.»
The ritual significance of the ornamented long sleeves is emphasized on the bracelet from Old Ryazan by the fact that the woman depicted here, while drinking a ritual cup at a pagan Rusal festival, takes it through the long sleeve deflated, while the man holds the cup with an open palm. Until the end of the 19th century in the Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Olonets and Moscow provinces, the tradition of using long-sleeved shirts with sleeves up to two meters with slots-«windows» for hands as festive and wedding clothes was preserved. Returning again to the fairy tale about the Frog Princess, it is worth remembering that it is at the real wedding of her and Ivan Tsarevich, where the Frog Princess first appears before her husband and his relatives in her real appearance as Vasilisa the Beautiful, that she performs a ritual witchcraft dance. After a wave of the loose right sleeve, a lake appears, after swing of the left – bird’s swans. Thus, the heroine of the fairy tale performs the act of creating the world. She, like the woman on the bracelet of the 12th-12th centuries, dances the dance of water and life. And this is quite natural, since since Vedic times a wedding has been perceived as a cosmic action – the union of the sun and the month. Interestingly, in the Vedic wedding ceremony, the groom, bringing the bride’s undershirt, said: «Live long, wear clothes, be the protector of the human tribe from the curse.
Live a hundred years, full of strength, dress for wealth and children, blessed with the life invested in these clothes». Such a text is logical, because, as noted earlier, the ornament of the fabric was perceived in this tradition as a sacred speech, a song of praise, as a way to comprehend the universal law. NR Guseva notes that in «Atharvaveda» there is an appeal to the gods «with a request to dress the donor in a kind of symbolic garment in which the gods dress each other and which bestows longevity, power, wealth and prosperity.» The fact that this is a shirt is evidenced by the lines of the Rig Veda that say «about beautiful, well-made outfits», as well as about a woman ripping a seam, about a wedding shirt and a wedding dress. NR Guseva believes that «the mentions of a seam and a shirt are, of course, especially valuable here,» because, unlike the substratum population of Hindustan – the Dravids, who wore unstitched clothes, the Aryans wore sewn clothes. She also emphasizes that: «In the Rig