More folkloric examples of the association of the birch tree with sadomasochistic ideas could be adduced. At this point it is enough to observe that such an association exists, and that the “birching” which goes on in a Russian bathhouse is therefore consistent with the overall picture. That is, the use of birch veniki in the bathhouse flagellation ritual seems to fit into an overall sadomasochistic complex of attitudes concerning the birch tree.37
The Bania-Mother
As observed earlier, clinicians link masochistic behaviors and attitudes to early interaction with the mother. We have just seen that the birch has unmistakable maternal attributes. But what about the bania itself? There could hardly be a more maternal image in Russia than the bania. One enjoys the bania in the nude, that is, in the equivalent of what we would call a birthday suit (“v chem mat’ rodila”). In his dictionary Dahl quotes these peasant sayings: “The bania is a second mother” or “The bania is one’s own mother” (“Bania mat’ vtoraia ili mat’ rodnaia”)38 (recall that the same assertion is made about the stove in a peasant hut; the bania, like the hut, contains the essential stove). There are some very good reasons why the peasant would make this blatant equation.
First of all, the bania is perceived as a place one goes to cure all ills: “The bania fixes up everything” (“Bania vse pravit”); “If it weren’t for the bania we would all be done for” (“Koli b ne bania, vse b my propali”). These sayings are listed right after the “second mother” reference in Dahl’s dictionary, and they reflect a typical childish attitude, to the effect that “mother will take care of everything.” In Illiustrov’s dictionary of proverbs the connection is direct: “The bania is our mother, it will straighten the bones and fix up the whole body” (“Bania—mat’ nasha, kosti raspravit, i vse telo popravit”).39
Second, the inside of a bania is very wet. Water is thrown upon hot bricks or stones to produce steam, which condenses everywhere within the bania. The whole interior becomes dripping wet, warm, womblike. Francine du Plessix Gray describes her experience in the “mother-hot darkness” of the Siberian variant of a bania:
Coddled in that dark maternal warmth, inhaling the dry, hot smell of pine and eucalyptus and birch leaves and of the smoldering stove, the perfume of the tea and jam in the room next door, I was transported to the arms of the Russian women who had cared for me so well when I was a small child, my great-grandmother, my great-aunt; to the fragrant intimacy of the tiny icon-filled rooms of their Paris exile, to memories of their own nurturing warmth, cheer, gentleness, selflessness, stoic patience—qualities which have given me whatever strength I’ve had in life.40
The association of water with the mother is of course well established in Russian lore. “Mother earth” is specifically “moist” (“mat’ syra zemlia”). Rivers are often called “mother.” One must not spit into a body of water, because that would be the same thing as spitting into one’s own mother’s eyes (“Plevat’ na vodu, vse odno, chto materi v glaza”).41 The plural form “vody” in Russian, like the English plural “waters,” refers specifically to the amniotic fluid in the mother’s womb.42 As Joanna Hubbs points out, peasants in many parts of Russia simply addressed water as “mother.”43
The maternal connotations of water are not only Russian. In the dreams, folklore, mythology, etc. of many peoples water imagery is associated with childbirth. Psychoanalyst Otto Rank devotes much attention to this connection in his classic 1909 study The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. For example, while the Persian King Cyrus was being born his mother dreamt that “so much water passed away from her that it became as a large stream, inundating all Asia, and flowing as far as the sea.”44 Other psychoanalytic scholars have also studied the maternal significance of water imagery.45
The bania itself was traditionally built near a body of water, such as a lake or a river. An illustration to Kabanov’s article shows two bani actually in the water of a large lake.46
Even more maternally significant than the aquatic associations is the fact that, well into the Soviet period, childbirth itself typically took place right in the bania.47 A dialectal meaning of the verb “banit’” (“to wash,” related to “bania”) is “to perform midwifery.”48 The “bath prayer” (“bannaia molitva”) referred specifically to a prayer a priest would recite on behalf of the woman about to give birth.49 Of a stillborn child, or of a newborn child that quickly died, it was said: “Right from the bania and into the pit” (“Iz ban’ki da v iamku”).50
If the wetness of the bania makes it a metaphor for the mother, its physical contiguity to her during the parturition process made it a metonymy for her. The connection of the bania with the mother was thus a semantic double whammy in the peasant imagination.
The bania was a good place to give birth because it was usually located some distance away from the rest of the population, and hot water was readily available there. This is not to say, however, that either privacy or cleanliness were of any concern. Indeed, the notion of privacy has never had much currency in Russia, and today’s notions of hygienic medical practice were not known to the peasants. A mother giving birth was considered both unclean (“nechistaia”) in the ritualistic sense and vulnerable to possible evil wishes of others. It was therefore best that she be isolated from most of the people she knew during childbirth (although at least a midwife was likely to be present).51 As for hygiene, David Ransel points out that, “until very late in the imperial era it was rare to find a village midwife who bothered to wash her hands before testing cervical dilation.”52
Apparently it was a widespread practice for the midwife (“povitukha,” “povival’naia babka”) to actually administer a steam bath to a woman during labor and/or after delivery. In some areas this included a beating about the mother’s abdomen with the standard veniki. A treatise on midwifery published in 1784 by the physician Nestor Ambodik states that peasant midwives, “disregarding the fact that they [women in labor] are sweating enormously, mercilessly rub their bellies with coarse veniki and treat them to irritating drinks, with the intent of speeding up the process of childbirth.”53 In difficult or prolonged labor rather extreme measures were taken. Various ways of shaking the woman, hanging her upside down, rubbing her abdomen, and giving her drinks to induce vomiting are described by Professor Rein in his 1889 paper.
Even more horrifying was the treatment accorded the newborn child. Antonio Sanches, in a treatise published in 1779, reports that it was common for the mother to steam the child along with herself within hours after birth.54 Ambodik says that, when the infant was taken to the bania to be washed, it was placed on a shelf high up, near the ceiling, so as to receive the maximum amount of steam and heat. In addition, it was scourged with veniki, then doused with cold water.55 Another medical doctor, E. A. Pokrovskii writing in 1884, reports that steaming of the newborn child was standard practice in northern and central regions of Russia, and among Russians living in Siberia. The term “steaming” (“parenie”) refers both to heating by means of steam and flogging with birch veniki (e.g., “parenie venikami”).56 Pokrovskii refers to infants developing a special type of rash from this treatment.57