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Keywords: ritual, feast, women, magic, prayer, ritual baking.
The article considers the gender differences in the traditional religious rituals of the Ossetian people. Women’s participation in sacred practices could have been much more significant than it is commonly believed. The underestimation of the role of women in the religious life of the society is due to the established stereotypes, which are based on the idea that the place of women in this area is secondary and subordinate to the dominant role of men. Female ritualism was accompanied by sacral actions the contents of which varied according to the agrarian calendar. During winter and spring they were related to the need to protect crop field from flow slides and floods, to provide successful seeds germination, in summer — to request the heavenly host to protect crop fields from hail and drought, in autumn — to provide magical actions, focused on keeping harvest in safety, protecting corn from rodents and worms. Woman would become involved in sacral practices during the first year after her marriage. As a participant of ritual actions a young wife appeared for the first time during the celebration of Donyskafan. From that day on young woman was allowed to sacral sphere of her new family, and through this sphere to the religious life of the whole rural community. Besides situational ritualism, caused by current problems (rainstorms, drought), annual female holidays existed in Ossetia. The most famous among them are Ostalty Kuvd and Fyduani. Mostly, women were important participants in rituals, except exclusively men’s ceremonies. But even in these cases, women gave a boost in ceremonies by baking ritual pies, brewing hopped beverages. Rituals of agricultural beliefs were often accompanied by erotic actions, which in accordance with the ideas of the fertility of nature were supposed to stimulate it. The material of the article suggests that special female sacralization existed in the Ossetian society, which differed from the male sacralization, being its objective complement.
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