Maya, “Grandmother”

Meet Maya, an elderly woman who lives alone atop a mountain overlooking the Emerald River. She greets pilgrims and kin with a warm welcome, a hot bowl of jota, and a folktale or two.¹ Fondly known as “grandmother”, Maya embodies the traditional Slovene grandmother’s persona, known for her wisdom, principles, and strong work ethic. She is also a symbol of Mother Earth and the abundance it provides.

The Slovene grandmother, affectionately called “babi”, was once treated with special reverence, for she played many roles such as a medicine woman, a keeper of wisdom and tradition, a storyteller, a moral philosopher, a babysitter, and a cook. She possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of medicinal herbs and was a repository of wisdom of all kinds. She passed on cultural customs and stories, as well as imparting important moral lessons. She tended to her grandchildren while working in the fields or over a hot stove. Her signature look included a ruta (headscarf) and a predpasnik (apron). The predpasnik served many purposes beyond just protecting her clothes. It could be used as a glove for hot pans, a place to keep sweets for children, a handkerchief for wiping away tears and cleaning dirty faces, a basket for carrying food and firewood, a hiding spot for shy children when visitors arrived, and a flag to signal to the rest of the family working in the fields that lunch or dinner was ready. Unfortunately, in the modern era, the classic Slovene grandmother is on the verge of extinction. Editor Irena Štaudohar laments: “The generation of peasant grandmothers with the obligatory headscarf has almost completely disappeared… Gone with them is the special wisdom, the connection with nature, and the values they cultivated with such confidence and experience as the beetroot that had to survive a long winter.” ² It is crucial we document their experiences and wisdom before they are lost forever, like the Staroverci in the 20th century.

The Staroverci (Old Believers) were a semi-autonomous community bound together by an indigenous pre-Christian faith.³ They were able to preserve their way of life until the 1970s in remote regions of western Slovenia.⁴ They worshipped nature, as their livelihoods depended on them having a deep understanding of the environment in which they lived. They believed in the healing power of natural sanctuaries, and that all of nature was imbued with spirits, with the greatest spirit being Nikrmana.

Nikrmana was a primaeval force that governed the entire universe.⁵ She was also called Velika Mat’ (the Great Mother) or Velika Baba (the Great Grandmother or Midwife).⁶ Nikrmana was never defined by form, living far above the sky in the superworld, a realm imperceptible to humankind. Academics are divided on the origin of the term Nikrmana. Andrej Pleterski believes that the term may have been invented for reasons of secrecy, as the Staroverci were persecuted by Catholics for many centuries.⁷ Cirila Toplak believes the term may derive from the Latin word Necromantia, which means “communicating with the dead”.⁸ However, I believe the term is related to the Sanskrit word nirmāṇa, which means “creation” or “the act of creation”.⁹

To capture the two different but complimentary visions I have in my mind for this character (grandmother and nature), I have chosen the name Maya.

Maya is a name that appears in various cultures, including Greek, Hebrew, and Hindu. In ancient Greece, Maia denotes "mother," "good mother," "grandmother," "nurse," and "midwife." ¹⁰ Classical Greek mythology portrays Maia as one of the eldest of the Pleiades, a reclusive mountain nymph who was the mother of Hermes.¹¹ In Aramaic, a language closely related to Hebrew, the word is thought to mean “water”.¹² Maya is also one of several pivotal concepts in Hindu philosophy, encompassing both the magical powers of Brahman (the ultimate source of everything) and the phenomenal world, which is a manifestation of Brahman's supernatural powers.¹³ The world we experience as humans is full of diverse forms existing in space and time, whereas Brahman is timeless and formless. As the Hindu monk and yogi Paramahansa Yogananda said: Maya is Nature herself—the phenomenal worlds, ever in transitional flux, as antithesis to Divine Immutability.

08/10/2023

1. Jota is a distinctive soup originating in western Slovenia. It is made from either cabbage or turnips, with other ingredients differing from region to region. Janez Bogataj, Tomo Jeseničnik, Polona Štritof, Rok Kvaternik, Taste Slovenia, trans. Polona Štritof (Kranj: Rokus Gifts, 2007), 368.

2. Irena Štaudohar, “Nostalgija”, Delo, 24 October, 2021, https://www.delo.si/nedelo/nostalgija/. This translation is attributable to Daniel Goulding.

3. Pavel Medvešček, Iz nevidne strani neba (Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2016). Boris Čok, V siju mesecine (Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2012).

4. For the fairy tale Anabell, my focus is largely on the Staroverci who lived in the Soča Valley and adjoining regions of western Slovenia and nearby Italy.

5. Pavel Medvešček, Iz nevidne strain neba (Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2016), 46, 65, 114, 434, 565.

6. Ibid., 21, 89, 118, 458.

7. Andrej Pleterski, “Staroverstvo in pričevanja starovercev”, in Iz nevidne strain neba, Pavel Medvešček (Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2016), 15-33.

8. Cirila Toplak, Tales in Social Practices of Nature Worshippers of Western Slovenia, ACTA HISTRIAE 30, no. 3 (2022), 629.

9. “Nirmana, Nirmāṇa, Nirmāna: 18 definitions”, Wisdom Library, last modified 31 May 2022. For the similarities between Slovene and Sanskrit, see Kristofer Meško, Slovensko-sanskrtski slovar (Ljubljana: Amalietti & Amalietti, 2014).

10. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (1985), s. v. “Mā”. The etymology of the words of the Greek language (1860), s.v. “Maia”.

11. Marguerite Rigoglioso, The cult of divine birth in ancient Greece (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 163.

12. Isaac Mozeson, The Word: the Dictionary that reveals the Hebrew origin of English (New York: S.P.I. Books, 2000), 104. Matityahu Glazerson, What's in a Name? The Spiritual Link Between the Name of a Person and His Soul (Jerusalem: Kest-Lebovits Jewish Heritage and Roots Library, 2000), 235.

13. Patrick Bresnan, Awakening: An introduction to the history of eastern thought, 6th ed., (Taylor and Francis, 2018), 52-59. Norman Austin, Meaning and being in myth (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University, 2010), 82-83.

14. Irena Štaudohar, “Nostalgija”, Delo, 24 October, 2021, https://www.delo.si/nedelo/nostalgija/. This translation is attributable to Daniel Goulding.

15. Pavel Medvešček, Iz nevidne strain neba (Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2016), 65.