Ritual Use
Rushnyky are prevalent throughout the typical Ukrainian home as sacred ornamentation (Sciacca, 2014). They are hung around religious icons and family portraits, and laid across prayer benches (Sciacca, 2018). Embroidered images repeat in parallel at each end of the rushnyk, so that when hung over objects, the ends of the cloth face downwards to dispel negative energies, to be absorbed by the earth (Sciacca, 2018).
Rushnyk draped over religious icons
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Rushnyk over family portrait
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When honoured guests are welcomed, bread and salt are presented on a rushnyk, typically laid over outstretched hands (Sciacca, 2014). In the past, it was believed that ancestral spirits resided beneath the threshold of the home's entrance, and rushnyk would be placed over the entrance when a new bride first entered her husband's home, to protect her from being harmed by ancestral spirits. She would then remove her mother in law's rushnyky and replace them with her own, saying "Let your rushnyky take rest while mine go to work" (Sciacca, 2014).
Parents blessing a couple, with bread on rushnyky
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Rushnyky also feature in betrothal ceremonies, acting as a bonding cloth to symbolize the romantic union. Young couples kneel on a ritual textile, while their hands are bound together with a rushnyk, signifying their commitment to marry (Kononenko, 2018). A similar ritual also transpires as part of the wedding ceremony.
A couple stands on a rushnyk during their wedding ceremony, while their hands are tied together with another.
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An ethnographic description of a rushynky ritual from the late 1800's encapsulates the Eastern Slavic belief in the magical power of cloth as practiced in special ceremonies. It was conducted during a time of plague:
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"On a predetermined day, before sunrise, young girls from the entire village would gather in one home, (...) they would spin flax, set up the loom, and weave in complete silence. When the cloth was woven, they would carry it over their heads and in this way circle the entire village. All the inhabitants of the village would congregate and make a bonfire from kindling brought from every home. Everyone would pass under the cloth and through the fire, carrying children and the sick, after which the cloth was then and there burned"(Lysenko, 1992).
The rushnyk in this instance acts as a supernatural force, that banishes and absorbs disease from each participant who passes beneath it. The ill fortune thus encased in the rushnyk, is then extinguished (Sciacca, 2014).
In Funerary rites, rushnyky lastly act as a guiding path for departed souls to find their way to the after-life. The cloth which first held their infant bodies upon entering the world, then embraces the same body in its final form with its passing to the beyond. Traditional Christian beliefs posit that angels carry the spirits of the deceased to heaven on the rushnyk that was placed in the coffin, or tied around the grave cross (Sciacca, 2014).
Rushnyk covering the coffin at a funeral.
Image from:http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/folkloreukraine/?page_id=97
A wreath on a funeral rushnyk symbolizes a complete life cycle, meaning the person died having lived a full life span.
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