The Revival of an Ancient Ritual

I like raking and burning leaves on a cool fall afternoon. It's good exercise, it's being outdoors, and it doesn't take any brain power which means that the mind is free to roam where it will. It is during such times that I occasionally come up with unusual thoughts that sometimes evolve into strange tales. I wonder if that's how Stephen King gets his weird ideas?...raking leaves. 

Edward Gorey, like King was another figure who took an unconventional view of what we define as the real world and the normalcy of the human condition. Interestingly, what was considered as a weird work by Gorey depicting people in an unusual grouping is a perfect example of today's social distancing. 

Abstract thinkers, when not being called weird are usually regarded as being of the somewhat respectable surrealist genre. I appreciate surrealism and its breaking with convention. Sometimes I think that maybe I'm a closet surrealist. Anyway, what follows is an example of my thought process one afternoon last week while raking leaves. Some of it is true, some is imagination. It doesn't make any difference...it's just a story.

Long, long ago there was and still is a village that at various times has belonged to Poland, Lithuania, Russia, and today Belarus. In the days when it was first forming - this was in the early 1000s it didn't have a name. There were only a handful of families living there, most of them related, and they worked from sun up to sun down tending their meager gardens and gathering whatever wild food nature offered. As time went by the population increased and the Grand Prince of Kiev, Yaroslav the Wise ruling some 360 miles to the east took notice. He concluded that the community should have a name, be fortified to protect against invasion from the south, and pay taxes to the king's coffers. The origin of the name he chose is unknown, but with the stroke of a quill the village of Yaskevichi was created.

Yaskevichi at first had no formal leadership structure, though people usually called on Szymon Filipowicz with their questions or problems (I have traced my ancestors to Yaskevichi in the early 1700s but have been unable to locate records earlier than that time period). In due time Szymon was elected 'burmistrz' (mayor) and did his best to look after the interests of the new village. 

Now, in those days sanitary facilities consisted of heeding nature's call whenever and wherever you were. As the population grew and the village square and streets filled with human droppings this became a problem. Szymon ordered the villagers to go outside of the village to relieve themselves, but this led to arguments about where and how far was out? Szymon's solution was to have a hole dug in one specific location, and decree that all must use it. Immediately there was a problem. People squatting over the hole would sometimes fall in as the earth beneath them crumbled, an event they did not appreciate. 

After months of puzzling about the problem, Szymon had an idea. He ordered some village men to dig two smaller holes, and surround each hole with a square of mud bricks. The villagers eventually called this a "two holer", and it solved the problem of falling in but was uncomfortable to sit on. In a stroke of genius Szymon had some men cut boards with oval holes in them to be placed on top of the brick squares. Villagers referred to the boards as 'otwor na odbytnice' (hole for the rectum), a phrase which evolved to today's 'asshole'. The villagers were satisfied, but as a final touch, and at the request of several women asking for privacy, Szymon had wooden walls erected around the two holer and a roof placed above. That structure was forever after called the 'z dala od smierdzacego domu' (stinky house) which became today's 'outhouse'. 

The 'z dala od smierdzacego domu' was low maintenance but periodically the 'otwor na odbytnice' would become raunchy. Eventually someone would shout out, "Let's burn that 'otwor na odbytnice'! Scholars disagree on when and how the burning of the 'otwor na odbytnice' became a ritual, but there is no argument that the burning became a solemn occasion, officiated over by the 'burmistrz' and other authorities. No one has recorded when or why the practice ended.

Last week while I was checking crawl spaces looking for the main water shutoff I came upon an old wooden 'otwor na odbytnice' with a lid. While pondering what to do with it, I recalled the ritual of my ancestors long ago in Yazkevichi, and had an idea. Some evening in the near future, I will start a fire in the backyard firepit. I will assume the role of Szymon Filipowicz as 'burmistrz' and Maribel will be the 'wysoka kaplanka' (high priestess). As I slowly place the 'otwor na odbytnice' into the fire, Maribel will wave cornstalks from her garden (grown from Peruvian seeds which failed to produce corn for the second consecutive year!) over the flames. And as the fire, having done its work begins to fade, we will circle the flames while chanting 'pie jesu domine, dona es requiem' (but not with the self-flagellation of the original ritual) until the 'otwor na odbytnice' is no more. I think that Szymon would be proud.