Rites of the End of Wedding in the Traditional Culture of the Don Cossacks

Abstract

The rites marking the closing part of the wedding among the Don Cossacks are characterized by territorial heterogeneity, variety of actional embodiment and rich terminology. Among them, there are mutual visits of relatives and special ritual actions that demonstrate the end of the rite. Behind many of the Don rituals that complete the wedding, there are hidden archaic ideas about the family, marriage, and social transition of young people, which in the folk consciousness are inseparable from the biological one. Therefore, many of the episodes of the end of the wedding find a close connection with the rites of the second day, filled with the celebration of the bride’s preservation of innocence, special actions aimed at producing fertility for the new family, symbolic purification and return of the newly weds to society in a new status. On the other hand, the rite should be completed in accordance with all the rules and ensure a timely transition from ritual time to daily life. Therefore, the wedding was “extinguished”, “swept”, “buried the ends”, closed with the “chop”; the fate of the participants as embodied in the parts of bread during the rite was redistributed for the last time.