PART
2 Ch.XII.11
(The
principal prehistoric divinities of
XII.
11. Rhea or the Great Mother with the name Dochia and Dochiana in Romanian
legends.
Rhea or the Great
Mother, worshipped by the Pelasgian tribes from the north of the lower
In Romanian legends she is seen especially
as an old woman, called Baba Dochia,
who climbed too early to the mountain with her sheep, at the beginning of
spring, was turned to ice and then to stone, on the peaks or the coasts of the
mountains, where her ancient simulacra existed, or still exist today.
Almost all these
primitive feminine images, sculpted in live rock around the Carpathians, are
considered by the people to represent Baba
Dochia (Answers to the historical questionnaire; Hasdeu,
The colossal figure
of Baba Dochia from the Carpathians of Moldova had a special celebrity until
the 18th century (Cantemir,
Descriptio Moldoviae, 1872, p.24,25).
This simulacrum, as
results from the description of Prince Cantemir, was on the high tower rising
near the majestic peak of
The first days of
March (1-12) are called by the Romanian people the days of Baba Dochia or the
days of Babe (Marianu,
Ornitologia,
This is evident proof
that in the ancient religion of the Pelasgian tribes from the Istru, the great
feast days of the Earth divinity were celebrated in the first days of March,
and not around the beginning of April, exactly as the Romans celebrated the Matronale, or feminine Saturnale,
during the Martias Calendas (Festus,
242).
The Romanian
legends about the turning to ice and to stone of Baba Dochia in the mountains,
are in essence identical, and originate in the same epoch, with the legends
about the statues of Niobe, of Ariadna, (Preller,
Gr. Myth. I, 1854, p.269, 423), and of Venus from the mountain of Lebanon, all
of which represented in fact just some archaic simulacra of the Great Mother.
The figure of
Dochia or the Great Mother appears under a different form, with a less mythical
character, in Romanian carols. In
these semi-religious folk songs, she is celebrated even today under the name of
Dochiana, and is represented as a
very beautiful virgin, who never grows old. Her family wealth consists of
flocks of sheep, herds of oxen, cows and horses. Many woo her, but she refuses
to wed until the white spring comes, when the flowers are in bloom.
The same
reminiscences about Rhea or Cybele had been also preserved by the Pelasgian
populations of
According to
neo-Phrygian traditions, Rhea or Cybele had been a virgin of extraordinary
beauty, who from an excess of moral virtue did not want to get married (Diodorus Siculus, lib. III. 58).
She was represented
in ancient paintings sitting in a chariot, dressed in fine clothes, on which
shone jewels and precious metals (Albericus,
De deorum imagine, c. 12).
She appears in
Romanian carols under the name of Nina
Dochiana. She has vineyards and is the daughter of Badita Migdale (Sbiera,
Carols, p.13-14). In the religion of the Roman people, Magna Mater was also
worshipped as Dea Migale, a word
which the Roman authors derived from megale, epithet of the Great Mother
(Fast. Praenest. C. I. L. I. p.316). Finally, in the carols called well-wishes with the plough, in which
are celebrated in such a beautiful way the benefits of agriculture, Rhea, the
goddess of earths fertility, appears as Beautiful
Dochiana, as a proud lady
with white arms (Homer has applied this epithet to Juno
in his Iliad, without making any sense, white arms were a distinctive trait of
the Great Mother), and has at the same time the honorific title of Mother (Alecsandri, Folk poetry, p.390).
There is no
contrast between these two types of folk traditions regarding the Baba Dochia
turned to stone, and the beautiful Dochiana. In the Romanian carols is
celebrated the youth, extraordinary beauty and chastity of the Great Mother,
while the legends refer to the second part of her life, especially to her
apotheosis [1].
[1. Dochia or Dochiana of
the Romanian folk legends and carols has nothing to do with the so-called
Christian martyr Eudocia, who had
neither cult, nor legends in these countries.
The fathers of the church, in order
to give a Christian character to the pagan feast day of the 1st of
March, called Dochia at Istru and
maybe even in some parts of Asia Minor, consecrated this day to a supposed martyr from Lebanon, with the
name of Eudocia. It is interesting
even the legendary history of this Eudocia. The authors of Martyrologium romanum present the emperor Trajan, the conqueror of