Rahvapiibel slaavi rahvameditsiini tavade selgitajana

The article demonstrates how, among the Slavs, a given objective feature of a plant becomes an important factor in the selection of plants for use in folk medicine. At the same time, this feature provides remarkably close ties between the plant, folk beliefs about certain biblical personages, and the symptoms of disease. The role of another mediator – natural language – is no less important for connections between different codes of traditional culture. A plant name becomes linked to words and objects, thereby acquiring secondary associations. Thus, traditional culture regards disease not only as a deviation but also as a situation close to the mythological time of world creation, and a patient is placed in the mythological space where he uses, as medicine, the herbs which have “appeared” thanks to characters of Christian mythology. The phytonyms and etiological legends, analysed in the article, are used within the tradition as an instrument to ascertain the reason why a specific plant was selected for the treatment of a certain illness. In folk culture, an illness is observed – at least indirectly – as an anomalous state of the human being, however, it is also treated as a situation close to the mythological time of origin of the objects of the surrounding world, and the ailing person is placed in the mythological space wherein he/she would use medicinal plants created thanks to the figures of Christian mythology; this re-occurs again in the treatment of each new patient.