The Survival of the Neolithic Goddess in Polish Folklore, Myth, and Tradition By Alanna Muniz A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Women’s Spirituality Institute of Transpersonal Psychology Palo Alto, CA November 8, 2010 UMI Number: 1490778 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 1490778 Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 ©2010 Alanna Muniz All Rights Reserved Muniz iii Abstract Within the past year, uncovering my ancestry and tracing my motherline has become an important goal of mine. My maternal Polish and Russian ancestries have sparked my interests in Slavic goddesses and the prehistoric female deity of Neolithic Europe. In this paper, I investigate the survival of the Neolithic Goddess in Polish folklore, myth, and tradition. Beginning with the Neolithic period of Poland, I explore the prehistoric cultures and civilizations of Europe in connection to the symbols and images of the Great Goddess. I then move into a discussion of the Slavic Indo-European colonization of central and eastern Europe and discuss how the Slavic goddesses retained ancient elements of the prehistoric female deity. I finally focus on analyzing Polish folklore, myth, and peasant tradition to trace the survival of the Neolithic Goddess into modern times. My research methodology consists of a combination of approaches. I analyze primary and secondary books and scholarly articles from a variety of disciplines, including Polish and Slavic folklore, mythology, history, archaeology, and tradition. My goal of weaving together different disciplines of scholarly work draws on Marija Gimbutas’s interdisciplinary method of archaeomythology. I also rely on Gimbutas’s classification of Goddess symbols and images to understand Polish myths and customs. I employ Marguerite Rigoglioso’s definition of Gimbutasian symbolic analysis to assist my own analyses. In this paper I seek to demonstrate the tenacity of the Divine Feminine and how she has survived in a patriarchal Catholic nation within the realms of folklore, myth, and tradition. There is a lack of English-written scholarly studies devoted specifically to the survival of the prehistoric Goddess in Poland. I hope my work begins to bridge this gap, Muniz iv contributing both to the field of women’s spirituality and to feminist reinterpretations of prehistory. Muniz v Dedication I dedicate this thesis to my ancestors. The path that led me to my topic was inspired by the collective stories, memories, and mysteries surrounding your lives and the lives of your ancestors. Exploring the Sacred Feminine in connection to the homelands of my matrilineal ancestors has deepened my gratitude for the Mother’s blood that runs so deeply through my very being. Muniz vi Acknowledgements I would like to thank my family for providing me with the love, support, and motivation that helped keep me going through the highs and lows of the thesis process. If at any point I felt like giving up, your voices ushered me forward, and I am grateful for the feedback and confidence that you provided me. You offered me space and solitude, especially during the hectic holidays, to hole up for endless hours with my books and computer so that I could write. To my older sister, thank you for taking many weeks and hours out of your busy schedule to edit the very first draft of my thesis. Your skills at writing and editing are something that I can only hope to attain some day. To my younger sister, I appreciate your help with further edits on my work, including all of the other papers that I wrote during my thesis. And to my youngest sister, if it weren’t for your incredible knowledge of grammar and the rules of the MLA format, I would have been forever lost in the nuances of writing. You gave me access to a scholarly journal that proved extremely valuable to my research. I would lastly like to thank my professors and sister students in the Women’s Spirituality Master’s Program at ITP. The advice, support, and guidance I received during every class meeting continuously renewed my strength and thesis momentum, and especially solidified my purpose for writing this thesis. To my thesis committee members, I am deeply grateful for your suggestions, detailed feedback, and never-ending assistance through the long months of researching, writing, and editing. I feel that you have helped me become a better scholar. To all, I am eternally grateful. Muniz vii Table of Contents Abstract……...…………………………………………………………………………….iii-iv Dedication…….……………………….……………………………………………………...v Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………..vi Chapter 1: Introduction……..………..……………………………………………………..1-5 Chapter 2: Literature Review……………………………………………………………...6-24 Chapter 3: Methods………………….…………………………………………………...25-27 Chapter 4: Old Europe, the Neolithic Goddess, and Poland………….………………….28-58 Chapter 5: Pagan Slavs and the Coming of Christianity…………….…………………...59-78 Chapter 6: The Survival of the Goddess in Polish Folklore, Myth, and Legend.......…..79-128 Chapter 7: The Survival of the Goddess in Polish Traditions………………..………..129-161 Chapter 8: Conclusion……………………………………..…………………………..162-165 Works Cited………………………………………..…………………………………..166-175 Muniz 1 Chapter 1: Introduction In the first chaper of The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images, Marija Gimbutas gives an overview of the geographical and cultural regions she deems the “Civilization of Old Europe.” Between circa 7000 BCE and circa 3500 BCE,1 the civilization of Old Europe extended “from the Aegean and Adriatic, including the islands, as far north as Czechoslovakia, southern Poland and the western Ukraine” (Gimbutas, Goddesses 17). Gimbutas’s mention of southern Poland immediately grabbed my attention; in that moment, I recalled my Polish heritage and my maternal ancestors’ homeland of Poland. A personal connection began to emerge between Gimbutas’s text and the knowledge of my heritage. I yearned to know more about the presence of the Neolithic Goddess in Poland and her various incarnations. The topic of the Divine Feminine in Poland initally became a recurring interest of mine in my first year within the Women’s Spirituality Master’s Program at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. In my first quarter I read two books that gave me my cursory introduction to the Polish Black Madonna of Czestochowa: Elinor Gadon’s The Once and Future Goddess: A Sweeping Visual Chronicle of the Sacred Female and Her Reemergence in the Cultural Mythology of Our Time and China Galland’s Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna. Immediately following my readings, my mother embarked on a trip back to Michigan to visit my grandmother. By chance I mentioned to my mother to ask my grandmother if she knew anything about the Polish Black Madonna. To my surprise, my mother brought back from Michigan a Polish handcrafted painting of the Black Madonna that my grandmother had hanging in her home and wanted my mother to give to me. This 1. I use the terms BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) throughout my paper instead of the Christian terms of BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini). Muniz 2 synchronous event confirmed my growing intutition that I should continue to learn more about my ancestors and their spiritual traditions. Over the next few months after receiving the Black Madonna painting, I became enthralled with unearthing my maternal ancestry (which I traced back to both Poland and Russia) and my motherline (which I traced back to southern Poland, in particular). I witnessed my own growing desire to explore the pre-Christian Slavic goddesses of central and eastern Europe and the earlier Neolithic goddesses of these regions. I began to scour for literature related to my interests and ponder the possibilities out of which my own thesis question could emerge. In my initial stages of literature browsing, I came across some feminist scholars who produced literature related to Slavic goddesses and the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. Mary B. Kelly’s book, Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe (1996) illustrates how the Goddess survived in eastern Europe up until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in women’s rituals and folk arts, such as ritual cloths and embroideries. Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture (1988), by Joanna Hubbs, reconstructs the Russian Great Goddess and demonstrates the forms she took under both patriarchy and Christianity in Russia. Marija Gimbutas’s works, such as The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images (2007), The Language of the Goddess (1991), The Civilization of The Goddess: The World of Old Europe (1991), and The Living Goddesses (2001), present archaeological evidence for the woman-centered and Goddess-revering cultures of Neolithic Europe and Anatolia. Also, works on the multitude of Black Madonnas found around the world have been studied by scholars and discussed in works such as China Galland’s Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna (2007), Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum’s Muniz 3 Black Madonnas: Feminism, Religion & Politics in Italy (2000) and Dark Mother: African Origins and Godmothers (2001), Mary Beth Moser’s Honoring Darkness: Exploring the Power of Black Madonnas in Italy (2008), and Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba’s The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation (2009). Since Poland is a predominantly Catholic country, literature related to Polish Catholicism and the Black Madonna of Czestochowa appear more numerous than works devoted to the pre-Christian Goddess/goddesses of Poland and the survival of pagan traditions and customs.