Yereh

In the North Chuvash language - yereh, in Tsivilsky uyezd – yureh. In different places yereh is related to different legends; however it seems that yereh is mostly known in the North. Here they suppose that long ago she was an old maid and practiced sorcery and treatment. When she was alive she was so famous due to her ability to cure people that after her death people began to hold her in respect and offered up prayer to her when they had swellings and eye illnesses. She is invisible, and sometimes appears in dreams in the image of an old maid. In general she is considered to be a good spirit since she treats illnesses. But if somebody offends her, she can do much harm. When making a sacrifice to her people make a bast-basket from bark of elm and put it in one of the corners of the shack on the high place, which no one can see, and fence it in. They put it high so that no one could touch it with hands even by chance, otherwise there will appear a swelling on the body (abscess, furuncle). The one who sees it will suffer from eye illness. They put a whisk under the bast-basket with its handle down, so that its twigs stuck up, since people hang on them coins nohrat for yereh.

And if some of the members of the family catches rash, abscess or when eyes begin to ache, people do a sacrifice to yereh. And she cures. They prepare her nimer from wheat flour, cook kolobok (yava) from wheat flour and put a piece of charcoal in the middle of it. And all this they dry up in the furnace. Then having melted the lead they cast nohrat or tahlan okshcha. This also refers to the custom of sacrifice. When all this is ready, a table is put in the middle of izba, and sacrificial items are put onto it, an ill person stands near the table with his face turned to the door and prays. All happens according to customary rules of sacrifice: the one, who sacrifices puts on a sheepskin coat, holds his cap under his left armpit, while the door of izba is ajar. If an ill person appears to be a small child then his mother prays instead of him, placing him near her. And if a child can already speak he repeats the words of the pray after her:

Aunt yereh, make me healthy.
I give you kissel (a floury porridge, nimer),
I sacrifice kolobok (yava),
hang up a coin, have mercy upon us.

When pronouncing the last word shchyrlah the one who prays strokes his face with both hands, having bowed his head.
Nimer then is eaten up not only by an ill person but all the family. Kolobok for yereh is put into the bast-basket made of bark of elm, as for nohrat, they string it and hang it under the bast-basket on one of the twigs of the whisk, which stands with its handle down. For this sacrifice yereh cures them. (Vompukassi)

In South Chuvash Tayapa the basket itself was called yereh but people knew nothing about the origin of this word. They put a handful of oak leaves into it, and on the edge of it they hung nuhraty on a thread. It was put on the highest place in izba on a beam beyond the reach of children, since if the children accidentally push it or take it from its place then yereh will make them suffer from swellings and abscesses. However yereh had the same destination here as well as in the north; in case of illness people addressed to her for healing and as a sacrifice they hung on it more and more nuhraty. In every house there was separate yereh, but in the village there were more considerable yerehs near bridges and in gardens, where people came to pray, suffering from external illnesses, and they sacrificed nimer and porridge to her so that she could cure them. People were afraid of those public yerehs, feared that they would punish them (yereh tytat) if they offended yerehs in this or that way. They didn’t allow children to play near yereh. When a girl was marrying she took an elm bast-basket together with her and hung it in her new house, and her father made a new bast-basket in place of the old one. In heathen Ulhash and in neighbourhood a small part of pasture was called yereh. Her place of residence passed into the name of the area, in the same way as kiremets got their name from wicked spirits – kiremets. They also consider that she cures those who addresses to her. She helps when they make a sacrifice to her. She punishes those who soils her place of residence, or simply those who stamp their foot too loudly. In this case they say that yereh aptratat, in other words she causes them illnesses. Following advices of yumschi people prepare for her kissel, a small flat cake and a lead coin come out to her so as to show her the propitiatory offering. Some of kissel and flat cakes people throw on the ground and say the following:

Yereh, have mercy upon us, I sacrifice you, have mercy upon us.

The one who sacrifices eats the rest of kissel and flat cakes himself, as for nuhrat, he hangs it on the stake, using thread put through the coin. In addition to sacrifices made in case of illnesses, there is also a customary sacrifice of a goose (hur chyuke). We separately describe this custom in the chapter about sacrifices. There are also proverbs connected with them. If someone entreats somebody about something, they say about him the following: Has clung as yereh (yereh pek shchypashchna). About a person who quarrels with everybody people say the following: yerehlenne “yereh got into him”.