The Voynich and Childbirth

The Dangers of Childbirth

As recently as 1800, life expectancy for newborns was very low around the world. In addition, just a hundred years ago a woman was more than 70-times more likely to die while giving birth. Childbirth was thus a treacherous experience which must have been made all the more treacherous by well-meaning women like those described below and a terrible prankster who can throw his voice.

[Brother Peder told us that] in his homeland, Denmark, it is the custom that when women are lying-in the neighbouring wives come and help them to keep cheerful with dancing and uninhibited songs. So it happened that one time when a group of women had assembled for a lying-in and were intent on making a row in accordance with the country's evil custom, they
assembled a bundle of straw and formed it into the likeness of a man, with arms of straw, put a belt and hat on him, and called him “Bovi”.

Then they performed their ring-dance, and two women jumped up and sang with him between them, and between the verses, as the custom is, they turned to him with unseemly gestures and said to him: “Sing with us, Bovi, sing with us; why are you silent?”

And at once the devil, who had these wretched women in his power, replied: “Oh yes, I shall sing!” and he (not the bundle itself of course, but the devil sitting in it) screamed out and gave such a powerful yell that some of them fell down dead, while others were struck with such horror and fear that they were ill for a long time afterwards and barely escaped with their lives.

Jorgen & Axel Olrik, “Kvindegilde i Middelalderen”, Danske Studier. (1907), 175-76, at p. 175. Trans. Tom Pettitt & Leif Søndergaard. The Medieval European Stage, 500 - 1550. Ed. William Tydeman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 615-665, No.J68, at p. 659. 

Until the advent of 21st-century obstetrics, women were more or less left to their own devices regarding how to survive giving birth, or their in-laws. Nevertheless, it stands to follow that those who were generally thought to know how to bring about successful births tended to be highly valued within their communities.

According to a history of obstetrics, "prior to the 18th century, caring for pregnant women in Europe was confined exclusively to women, and rigorously excluded men. The expectant mother would invite close female friends and family members to her home to keep her company. Skilled midwives managed all aspects of the labour and delivery. The presence of physicians and surgeons was very rare and only occurred once a serious complication had taken place and the midwife had exhausted all measures to manage the complication. Calling a surgeon was very much a last resort and having men deliver women in this era whatsoever was seen as offending female modesty." An informative paper on this can be found in Volume 5 of Health Science Journal: Midwives in early modern Europe (1400-1800) by Maria Kontoyannis and Christos Katsetos.

Seahorse

Male Reproductive System

This little guy, one of the few males depicted in the manuscript, is holding just one thing...or not.

This may be a tactful illustration explaining to girls their impregnation.

Sponges and Feminine Hygiene

I found this from a Facebook posting:

Voynich Manuscript f66r Scottish Sponge Gum Laminaria
25 May 2012 at 13:03
"On f66r is drawn a lady in labor shown with two sponges and a pot of gum solution. She is certainly not dead but appears to be having a foot first or breech delivery as indicated by the shape of her abdomen. The tools for the procedure of cervical dilation she is undergoing are the two sponges and the pot of gum solution." More here.

According to the poster, the only other place in the world that this method was traditionally used besides Scotland was in Denmark. That's all well and good. However, the sponges above look more like typical sponges, not Laminaria, which looks more like a seaweed.

Laminaria digitalis

The sponges depicted in the manuscript may be more closely related to the Halichondria panicea or Breadcrumb sponge, an abundant sponge of coastal areas of the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. During low tide, you can find this remarkable sponge on jetties and under stones.

It usually looks like a thick bready crust with 'volcano' chimneys. Those are the excreting pores. The breadcrumb sponge has a strange smell, similar to exploded gunpowder. Halichondria panicea occurs on kelp stipes where it may dominate in tidal rapids and on other algae such as Halidrys siliquosa (sea oak). In low or variable salinity (for instance, in the western Baltic), it may be found encrusting predominantly on red algae such as Phyllophora sp. and Phycodrys sp. 

Or these may be some other sponge. The fact is that for centuries sponges have been used in feminine hygiene and for contraception.

Caliper or Another Scoop?

This looks like either a caliper to measure the baby's head or, dare I say it, a crude forceps to grasp the head and pull the baby out. That, in fact, might have been the original forceps--a caliper grabbed out of desperation. I do not doubt that Chamberlen's making his little hundred-year-old "secret" proprietary was the part that was his idea. It could also be the head-on view of another scoop or spoon.

A case made for prenatal ritual

Below are depictions of typical medieval and Roman births with the squatting stool, someone behind for support, and someone in front with a bucket of water.

Or you might, like me, be forced to give birth lying flat on your back. This is a painful, uncomfortable position that works against gravity instead of with it. Note the massive washtub with, one might guess, the proverbial hot water.

Below is an illustration from the Voynich mss. showing gravid women relaxing in the water.

Compare this to some modern water-birthing/prenatal course scenes below.

Now add to this various instruments held by the women which suggest midwifery, such as the sponge, the caliper, the vulva-like contraption, and what may be respectively symbols of the male and female reproductive systems, and it becomes clear that much of the manuscript involves birth and fertility/fecundity--making the crops grow, the rain fall, and the kids come out ok.

Indeed, the Voynich manuscript has kids.

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Spinning, Hulda, and the Voynich

The Voynich Manuscript depicts the stages of spinning from distaff to finished spindle.

The women in the Voynich manuscript are depicted carrying implements that would not appear to belong in a watery cave. Two are from spinning: a drop spindle and a distaff. However, within the context of a ritual revolving around a deity associated with these arts, it makes perfect sense.

Drop Spindle

There are many old beliefs assigning powerful significance to the drop spindle. Svetlana Zhulnickova relates the following ritual:

There is also a custom in Karelia when a baby reaches the age of 6 months the mother makes a special ritual "banya" (sauna) for him. When people prepare the sauna for the baby they put a spindle into the stove together with firewood, that is because 6 month is the age when baby usually gets the first tooth, and that means [her/his] own soul. "Superstitions about the Spindle in Russian Karelia"

Distaff

The word distæf in Old English meant literally "flax staff," from dis- "a bunch of flax" and stæf "staff." Because women usually did the spinning, the distaff came to be a symbol for women's work. The word distaff in time took on the meaning "women's work" and later "woman." The noun distaff is rarely used in this way today, but the female members of a family are still referred to as the distaff side. 

Berchta or Perchta, 19th c. engraving by Karl Jauslin 

Which deities were matrons of the art of spinning, weaving, and sewing?

Päivätär ('Maiden of the Sun'), is the goddess of the Sun in Finnish mythology. Described as a great beauty, she owns the silver of the Sun, spins silver yarns, and weaves clothes out of them. In Kalevala, young maidens ask Päivätär to give them some of her silver jewelry and clothes. Not only was Päivätär a goddess—she was the goddess of spinning, and her sister, Kuutar, goddess of the moon, was in charge of weaving.

Frau Bercht, Frau Percht, Striga Holda, Perchta, Frau Holda, and Frau Holle, among others, are names for an ancient deity once worshiped throughout Europe. She was the protectress of agriculture and women's handicrafts. Her name and the names Huld and Hulda may be cognate with that of the Scandinavian being known as the huldra or Huldra. The most steadfast connections are with Frau Holle and Hulda on one hand, and the Old Norse Hlóðyn, a byname for the Earth, Thor’s mother, on the other. This deity is also frequently equated with Nerthus, who also rides in a wagon, and Odin's wife, Frigg, from her alternate names Frau Guaden [Wodan], Frau Goden, and Frau Frekke as well as her position as mistress of the Wild Hunt. 

She was often depicted holding a distaff and/or drop spindle or sitting at a spinning wheel. 

The distaff frequently symbolized women's power, as in the medieval illustrations below.

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  German engraving (1450-1467) of a tournament between man and woman; to the left, a naked man rides a unicorn, holding a rack as his armour; his opponent is a woman on a horse to the right, equipped with distaff; the entire background is covered by ornamental foliage, on which three birds are placed.
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  Image from a French Arthurian romance, 1201-1300, Bibliothèque nationale de France,
  Département des manuscrits, Français 95, 226r. 

  

  
  

  

  
  
• Above is a photo of Norse seidr staffs collected by Max Dashu. She says:

• Seiðstaffs of the völur (Old Norse seeresses) are based on the design of distaffs. This symbolism ties in the shamanic staffs with the Spinning of the Norns, with fate-weirding actions, and it also helps to explain the intense female gendering of seiðr, the entranced ceremonies referred to in the Edda and sagas.,,  

Ynglingasaga says that Freyja "was a blótgyðja [sacrificial priestess]; she was the first to teach seiðr to the Æsir, as it was practiced among the Vanir.” [Ynglingasaga 4] In the same poem, Snorri claims this "greatest power" for Odinn; “But this sorcery [fjolkyngi], as is known, brings with it so much ergi that manly men thought it a shame to perform, and so this skill was taught to the priestesses.” [Ynglingasaga 7]  --Max Dashu, Witches and Pagans, forthcoming

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  Voynich woman holding staff and descending into cave
• Spin-offs from distaffs and seidr staffs include a staff with snakes winding about it. Eileithyia, a Minoan goddess of childbirth and labour, is probably one of the earliest deities shown handling snakes. It is conjectured that this goddess (Alauta) was adopted from an early Indo-European culture.
  

  

Engraving from Le immagini de i dei antichi (Images of the Ancient Gods) by Vincenzo Cartari, 16th c.

Perchta

In German legends, 'frau Holda' was the protectress of women's crafts, but none so much as spinning, traditionally a woman's task strong in magical connotations and links to the other world. Holda first taught the craft of making linen from flax. The legend of Frau Holle is found as far as the Voigtland, past the Rhön mountains in northern Franconia, in the Wetterau up to the Westerwald and from Thuringia to the frontier of Lower Saxony. The fairy tale of Mother Holle as recorded from local German folk by the Grimm Brothers contains the following elements: spinning, a well, Frau Holle's feather bed, the belief that shaking it makes it snow on earth, harvesting, and a subterranean realm where Frau Holle, (as folk must have witnessed in bits of green remaining beneath bark, soil, and snow) dwells. Running throughout the tale is this underlying theme of seasonality--sunny blooming meadow-> apple harvest->feather winter->Persephone-like emergence of the "golden girl."

People prayed to Frau Holle for protection, abundance, and healing.

To blow = to heal

The woman inside the sun below right looks like she is blowing out air. To the left of her is a scene from the movie "The Cuckoo." In it, the Sami widow Anni blows on near-death Finnish Soldier Veiko to turn him back to the land of the living.

Below is Veiko's soul being beckoned toward the land of the dead.

Here is a scene from the movie Khadak, in which a Mongolian shaman takes a rather eye-opening approach to a similar situation.

Below is an excerpt from Vladimir Napolskikh's "Seven Votyak Charms" from Estonian Folklore.

The common Votyak word for the healer (or witch-doctor) is emjas'kis' "healer" - a participle (= nomen agentis) from emjany; "to heal" - or pel'l'as'kis' "blower" - a participle from pel'l'as'kyny "to blow"; the last word describes one of the main ways of magic treatment, well-known throughover all the Europe, when the healer blows upon the water with charming and gives it to the patient to drink. 

Women "in the know" were also known as the vǫlur, tietäjä, seiðkonur, vísendakona, vǫlva, seiðkona, seiðr, noita, cailleach,  emjas'kis' or noaidi.

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Water, Women, and Ritual

Fundamentally, the Voynich manuscript portrays the relationship between specific elements at work within a very particular belief system. Timing in the graphic below would include what season it is (where the sun is in relation to the earth and how the plants and animals are responding) and how far along a woman is in her pregnancy. These made up the heartbeat of a world that was far less metaphysical than it was ultraphysical. So, no, you won't find alchemy or classical ontology here. It is the world of the folk.

This post explores European myths and legends that associate water with women, fertility and the netherworld.

Many pools, wells or fountains are associated with the water-holda (roughly translated) throughout Germany. She haunts lakes and fountains and is seen as a fair White Lady bathing in the water and disappearing, a trait in which she resembles Nerthus. Like Nerthus, she too drives about in a wagon, sometimes requiring the help of a peasant to repair it. When he carves a new linchpin for her, she pays him with the cast-off wood chips which turn into gold if he is wise enough to take them. Young women would sometimes bathe in the icy Alpine pools in the hopes of becoming healthy fertile mothers. Germanic Mythology

Saturday: pool day

Tuhala Witches’ Well

Tuhala settlement is believed to be 3,000 years old and sits on Estonia’s largest field of porous karst, where 15 underground rivers flow through a maze of caverns, audible but unseen by human inhabitants. One result is sinkholes large enough to swallow horses — the Horse’s Hole, as it is known, appeared in 1978 — and there’s also the “Mother-in-Law’s Hole”. 

In the case of Tuhala Witch’s Well, water starts to spout up from the well and flood the area when excess water from the Mahtra swamp fills up the underground river and the overflowing river water seeks an escape through the well. The quantity of water flowing through the Tuhala River must be at least 5000 liters per second in order for the river to overflow. Water erupts for only a short period of time and not every year. It usually happens in late March or early April.

According to local legend, the well boils over when the “witches of Tuhala” make a sauna below the ground and beat each other with birch branches, causing a commotion on the surface. This year  “the witches” got into action on 18th April…  Tuhala Witch’s Well and ancient Estonian mythology

Water, waterbirds, and Finnish Mythological World View

Here is an excerpt from Anssi Alhonen's Notes on the Finnish Tradition:

The upper world is located in the skies and also to the south. The great birch tree (or in Finnish tradition, the giant oak) grows there. At the roots of the tree, a spring flows and marks the source of the world river. Near the tree and spring there is a warm lake, or 'sea of life', where water birds and human souls are renewed. In the Finnish folk religion this upper world became a warm and light world located in the south called Lintukoto (or 'home of the birds') and the sea of life became a body of warm water surrounding the Lintukoto.

In folk belief, waterbirds were harbingers between upper and lower realms 

Finnish Mythological Cosmos showing Anniki's Well

Women, Water, and Ritual
covered in James Frazer's The Golden Bough

Bathing is practiced as a rain-charm in some parts of Southern and Western Russia. ...It is recorded in official documents that during a drought in 1790 the peasants of Scheroutz and Werboutz collected all the women and compelled them to bathe, in order that rain might fall.

To put an end to drought and bring down rain [in Dorpat, Russia], women and girls of the village of Ploska are wont to go naked by night to the boundaries of the village and there pour water on the ground.

In a district of Transylvania when the ground is parched with drought, some girls strip themselves naked, and, led by an older woman, who is also naked, they steal a harrow and carry it across the fields to a brook, where they set it afloat. Next they sit on the harrow and keep a tiny flame burning on each corner of it for an hour. Then they leave the harrow in the water and go home.

Śmigus dyngus in Wilamowicach

Wilamowice [vilamɔˈvit͡sɛ] is a village in Gmina Skoczów, Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland. It has a population of about 460. It lies on south-western slopes of Górka Wilamowicka in Silesian Foothills, in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia. The inhabitants of this area speak their own language, Vilamovian, which is somewhat similar to German. The people here still practice an ancient celebration called Śmigus-Dyngus (also known as lany poniedziałek, meaning "Wet Monday", Ukrainian: Поливаний понеділок). Held on Easter Monday in Poland and Ukraine, it is also observed by Polish diaspora communities, particularly among Polish Americans, who call it Dyngus Day. Similar celebrations are held in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Oblévačka in Czech, Oblievačka in Slovak, both meaning "Watering") and in Hungary, where it is known as Vízbevető or Water Plunge Monday. Traditionally, boys throw water over girls and spank them with pussy willow branches on Easter Monday, and girls do the same to boys on Easter Tuesday. This is accompanied by a number of other rituals, such as making verse declarations and holding door-to-door processions, in some regions involving boys dressed as bears. The origins of the celebration are uncertain, but it may date to pagan times (before 1000 AD); it is described in writing as early as the 15th century and continues to be observed in Central Europe. The New Cambridge Medieval History suggests that it originated far to the west of Poland and was adopted under German influence.

A Dyngus procession would also be held, either on Easter Monday or Tuesday. A parade of boys would take part in a march known as chodzenie po dyngusie – "going on the Dyngus" – or z kogutkiem – "with the cockerel", a reference to the use of a live bird, usually taken without permission and stuffed with grain soaked in vodka to make him crow loudly. (A decorated and carved wooden rooster was sometimes used as an alternative.) The rooster was a symbol of fertility, carried on a small two-wheeled wagon which had been painted red and decorated with ribbons and flowers, to which was often also added small puppets representing a wedding party. This would be pushed from door to door by the boys, who would crow like roosters and sing Dyngus songs conveying good wishes and requests for gifts and food. In some regional variants of po dyngusie, the boys would march through the village with one of their number dressed as a bear with a bell on his head – either wearing a real bearskin or a stand-in made of pea vines. The group would go from door to door collecting "gifts for the bear" before "drowning" the bear in a nearby stream or pond. The "bears" were often invited in as they were believed to ensure that there would be a good harvest, reflecting a very ancient belief in the power of the bear to prevent evil, encourage crop growth and cure diseases. In Mazowsze and Małopolska, boys wearing bearskins would also chase girls. (Compare with Scotland's Hogmanay).

Water and the Nether World

Aado Lintrop's On the Udmurt Water Spirit and the Formation of the Concept of 'Holy' among Permian Peoples in Estonian Folklore discusses the commonly held belief in this region that the realm of the dead is situated on the other side of water.

In Estonian mythology, Hiiela is the land and dwelling place of the dead; it is located directly beneath sacred oak groves where the dead are buried. Hiis was the Estonian popular wildlife sanctuary, which applied by means of rituals and sacrifices to higher forces' (spirits, deities, ancestors) favor. Nowadays, mainly defined by the sacred sacred grove.

Synonyms: manala, allilm, hauatagune maailm (riik), teispoolsus, surnute riik, õndsate riik, sealilm, teine maailm, surmariik, surmavald surmavalla väravad, varjuriik, varjude riik (vald, maa), toonela, hiiela, allmaailm, altmaailm van, mana, teine ilm, pimeduseriik, surmaorg, teispoolne maailm, [igavene] rahumaa, [igavene] rahuriik, igavesed jahimaad

And in German legend, Holda held her court within the Hörselberg, and from this mountain would

issue the Wild Hunt, with her at its head. The faithful Eckhart was said to sit at the base of the mountain warning travellers to return whence they came; he also rode ahead of the Wild Hunt warning people to seek shelter from the coming storm.

While Holda in northern Germany is described as leading a procession of the dead, her close counterpart in southern Germany, Perchta, is described as being surrounded by the souls of unborn children, or children who died before they were baptised. This points to Holda's dual role as protectress of souls both entering and leaving this world.

19th c. depiction of the Norse sea goddess, Ran,
 surrounded by her water nymphs or wave girls

Rauni, the Rowan, and the Rainbow

The following is excerpted from Virve Sirapik's Rainbow, Colours, and Science Mythology in Estonian Folklore: 

Interesting connections are coming out likewise with the riddle Üle ilma pihelgas ('The rowan-tree over the world'), the typical Finnish version from it being Pitkä vitsa pihlajainen yli meren ulottuu. Finnish folklorist Uno Harva has referred to an Estonian Swedish variant (the Estonian Swedes lived in the western part and on several islands of Estonia from 13th century to 1944, their selfname was aibofolket): Iwe wärde raunträ in connection with the Finnish deity Rauni. According to Agricola Rauni was the wife of the thundergod Ukko, known also by Swedish Lapps under the name of Ravdna and the rowan-tree (raudna in Swedish Lappish) was dedicated to her. Harva supposed, that the rowan-tree could be a code-name, euphemism for the rainbow and rauni meant originally both rowan and rainbow. Later from it there developed the personification of the rainbow as the wife of the thunder god (Harva 1948). Without considering the essential role the rowan-tree has had in folk-beliefs one may refer to its protective properties against the thunder (e.g. Hwb. d. Abergl. sub rot). Analogical properties were attributed to other things with red details. So, one can suppose the holiness of the rowan-tree was to some extent derived from its red berries. One can also refer to the Old Norse word rauda 'red' (Islandic raudr, Lithuanian raûdas, Sanskrit rudhir). The Estonian word raud 'iron' is derived from it, as rust is also red. Likewise, the name of the deity Rauni could be derived from the Old Norse rauda. One can again recall the connection of red and rainbow in the Balto-Finnic folk songs and suppose, that the rainbow and rowan-tree were linked by the red colour.

Probably the most frequent phrase in the Voynich manuscript is jelksa jellom, which means something like hallelujah or glory be or sing praises. On the above page, a few other words recur that don't necessarily appear on other pages. Rei or roi (in red) is nearly universal for king. Uka or Ukka (in blue) may refer to the Finnic thunder deity, Ukka. Ron, Raun, Roun, Rom may refer to his wife, Raun, who was associated with the rowan tree and the rainbow, which ancient folklore often depicted as a bridge between the worlds of the living and the dead.

The Poses

Finally, the poses of the women suggest typical folk dance moves that have been made during various at rituals and festivals for centuries.

Conclusion

The manuscript appears to be a calendar map to use for a pilgrimage from Naissar Island, Estonia, south to a place near Prague. As such, it is a sort of communal scripture to be passed down to future generations to help define a people and secure their wholeness and prosperity. 

You might think that while such ceremonies centering around water and presided over by priestesses may have once existed, nothing exists today. 

Actually, a traditional ceremony in Japan has been recently revived, and indeed the myriad cultures that had made up the former Soviet Union look to the way Japan is preserving its cultural heritage as a role model for reviving their own. I'd link the video, but they took it off.

Here is more information about this ritual, called the Momosoomonomairi:

The Shuri Tonokura Community Association held a Nubi dedicatory ceremony at Shuri Castle on December 22. In this ceremony, people traditionally took water from the Heduukka River in Kunigami and the Takushi Hija River in Urasoe and presented it to the Ryukyu Kingdom’s authorities in Shuri.

On this occasion, about 40 people, including local residents in officials’ costumes, noro or female oracles and female officials, paraded from the Shuri Community Center to the castle. There, the “officials” presented the water to the Aumushirare or high-ranking female oracle and prayed for a bountiful harvest.

Seventy-five-year-old Setsuko Funakoshi, who served as the Aumushirare, said, “I prayed for next year to bring health and prosperity to the Okinawan people.”

What They Sound Like: Rune Songs and Joiks

Rhythm and Women's Song

Water Drumming and the Voynich

Finno-Baltic Poetic Sound Device and Voynich Charm Runes

Balto Finnic Folk Poetry and Trochaic Meter

Water and Ritual

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