Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology

Categories of the “Evil Dead” in Macedonian Folk Religion

CATEGOrIES OF ThE “EvIL DEAD” IN MACEDONIAN FOLK rELIGION L’uPChO S. rISTESKI in the traditional attitude of the community towards its deceased members of great importance, we can find the notion that they are divided depending on their personal characteristics into categories of pure, suspicious and impure (vaseva 1994, 3. pp. 154–55). The whole ritual and magic behavior of the community is structured and subordinated on the basis of this concept. The folk terminology distinguishes a fourth category for the period right after the death of members of the community, who are called “fresh” dead. This category of fresh deceased usually lasts one year, which is the necessary time period for the fresh deceased to go through all phases of after-death existence, thus becoming either pure or impure. This one-year period, during which the intensive ritual activities of the community take place, corresponds to the period and state in which the fresh deceased is also considered suspicious. The ritual-magic activities performed for the deceased (i.e., the fresh deceased) are always aimed at helping him towards a successful and complete breakaway from the community, separation of positive and negative (evil) attributes, and, as a final goal, his successful deliverance into the World of the Dead and his complete acceptance into the community of ancestors. according to the folk beliefs, from there he can successfully and fruitfully act in the interest of the living community . For the living, it is only the pure deceased who are important and useful, i.e. the ones who were accepted into the community of deceased ancestors after complex ritual-magic acts, and who have the status of progenitors (forefathers). This can be only achieved if all of the necessary ritual-magic acts are performed, so that the suspicious can 203 Categories oF the “evil DeaD” in maCeDonian FolK religion be transformed into pure dead. if anything is left out or goes amiss, the suspicious will become impure, and as such, it is harmful for the living, and destined to eternal wandering in this world. if such a thing occurs, it leads to chaos, destruction, and imbalance in the harmony of the living community. The concepts of the dead reappearing among the living, the return of the soul of the deceased and the transformation of the deceased into harmful demonic creatures are very archaic. They provide a good opportunity for analysis and display of the direction and basic meaning of the complex ritual cycle related to dying. as we have said, only the strict adherence to the ritual rules established by traditional culture can provide the community with the certainty of the deceased being freed. For this reason, the following are basic and crucial for the traditional community: 1. all their members should fully abide to the rules of the prescribed behavior in everyday life in the sphere of social relations as well as in the ritual-magic acts, which constitute an inseparable segment of life in the traditional context. a person can achieve positive conditions after his death only if he abides to the traditional rules of behavior regarded as positive as they do not disturb the harmony in the community and in the world. (everything considered as sinful, undesirable and harmful for the community is considered to be a sign that the person who committed it will become evil after his death.) 2. Just as important is the fulfillment of the elaborate rites that the community has to perform after the death of its member in order to retain the deceased’s integrity. This means that the deceased’s fate can be ruined even by the smallest deviation from the strict rules of everyday and ritual behavior, whether the mistake is on the level individual towards the community, or the opposite, the community towards the individual. Persons may also become evil dead if, through no fault of theirs, they behave or die outside the traditional patterns, e.g. dying with too grand or unfulfilled wishes, or dying “unseen” (without anybody being present at the moment of death), etc. 204 CHRISTIAN DEMONOLOGy AND POPULAR MyTHOLOGy on the basis of what we have said so far, we can state the following about persons who may become evil or suspicious after death, and in what forms they may exist: 1. People who are predisposed to become evil dead through their own negative and undesirable behavior within the community: vampire (vampir...