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And sat And joyfully began to sing. They hear the song - they will never have enough of this song: On one side, there is a little apple tree, On the other - a young girl...6 We know that the use of rushnyky centers heavily around the engagement of a young couple. Usually the young man with two match-makers (or marriage witnesses), the "starosty", would come to the young woman's home to ask for her hand. In their book Ukrainian Embroidery, Ann Kmit, Johanna Luciow and Loretta Luciow explain the details of this tradition where people from an agrarian culture did not hesitate to call the groom a "prince" or a “king" and the bride a "queen!" If she did not wish to marry the young man, she left the room and returned with a pumpkin. The refusal was definite. If she wished to marry him, she returned with two embroidered rushnyky which she placed over one shoulder of each elder man draping it across his chest and tying it at the opposite hip like a banner. The "prince" received an embroidered scarf which was tied about his wrist. When the three men left the house, the entire community could tell if a wedding was imminent...just before the wedding, the bride-to-be (the "queen") sent the groom an embroidered shirt.7 Some ceremonial towels were embroidered to be used as votive cloths around icons. They were also part of a woman's dowry and were used to hold icons during the parents' blessing in the bride's home and to carry the icons to the church for the marriage ceremony. A special wedding ceremonial towel was spread on the steps leading to the altar. During the church wedding ceremony, the bride and groom stood on the rushnyk or ceremonial towel. That meant that the marriage was definite, the rushnyk symbolizing the passage into a new phase of life where a man and woman are united in an everlasting "one body and one soul." Another ceremonial towel was destined to wrap the wedding bread, the "korovai." In his poem "Only the Rushnyky Embroidered by You", Pavlo Romaniuk captures this moment in which he expresses the groom's emotion as he looks at his bride's embroidered ceremonial towel and all it symbolically means in a man's psyche: forsaking other women, and counting on her to be the three-corners of his house as well as of his soul. You are paler than the ceremonial towel embroidered by the Nymphs, Which carpeted the steps of the weddings vows between you and me... In dreams all the Nymphs' glances die. Only you remained on the three corners of my soul!.. Only you (and your rushnyk) Will be the peer of the arrivals and departures of our partings!.. Only the rushnyk embroidered by you...8 Embroidery is especially meaningful for the one who leaves home. Whether a shirt or a ceremonial towel, the embroidered piece takes a new meaning: protection against ill fate, and fulfillment of good wishes. In case of death in a far away land, the embroidered cloth was to wrap the body and cover the face of the deceased. Mothers usually embroidered their sons' shirts and a ceremonial towel which she would give them as they parted from their loved ones to go to the army. Dressing up the body of the departed in embroidered garments and covering the face with a ceremonial towel or kerchief was meant to redeem the sinner's soul of as many sins as possible so that the soul could reach Heaven faster. This tradition comes to us from most ancient times when embroideries were inspired by faith in the power of protective symbols. The belief in the protective power of embroidered shirts, and ceremonial towels "НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ТРАВЕНЬ 1997 19
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