Rus' Khaganate - Customs and Religion

Customs and Religion

See also: Norse religion, Slavic mythology, and Christianization of the Rus' Khaganate

Judging from excavations conducted since the 1820s at Ladoga and related sites in Northern Russia, the Rus' customs reflected primarily Scandinavian influences. This is consistent with the writings of ibn Rustah and ibn Fadlan. The former gives a brief description of the burial of a Rus' nobleman, who was put into a "grave like a large house", together with food, amulets, coins, other staples, as well as his favorite wife. "Then the grave door is sealed and she dies there." Ibn Fadlan provides further evidence of the Rus' building a memorial mound, or cenotaph, and giving it a runic inscription on a piece of wood. The Arab traveler also left a detailed description of the Rus' custom of cremating noblemen in a ship, which involved both animal and human sacrifice. When a poor man died, he was put into a little ship and burned in it; the funeral of a nobleman was much more elaborate. His estate was divided into three parts: one for his family, one to pay for his funerary costume, and one to make beer, which was consumed on the day of his cremation. One of the deceased man's slave girls volunteered to be put to death so as to join her master in paradise. On the day of cremation, the dead man was disinterred from his grave, dressed in fine clothings, and put onto a specially constructed ship. The volunteer slave girl was killed (after the deceased man's kinsmen and friends had sex with her) and placed on board together with her master before the dead man's nearest kinsman set the vessel on fire. The funeral ended with the construction of a round mound.

Early medieval historians were impressed with the spirit of independence and enterprise inculcated among the Rus from birth. Ibn Rustah writes: "When a son is born the father will go up to the newborn baby, sword in hand; throwing it down, he says; 'I shall not leave you any property: you have only what you can provide with this weapon!'" Al-Marwazi repeated this description of the instructions given to a son and added that it was the daughter who received her father's inheritance. The same sense of rugged individualism was reflected in their treatment of the ill. According to ibn Fadlan, "if one of the Rus falls sick they put him in a tent by himself and leave bread and water for him. They do not visit him, however, or speak to him, especially if he is a serf. Should he recover he rejoins the others; if he dies they burn him. If he happens to be a serf, however, they leave him for the dogs and vultures to devor." Sources describe the Rus as liberal in sexual matters. Ibn Fadlan wrote that the king of the Rus did not shy away from having public intercourse with the slave girls in his harem. When Rus traders arrived to the Volga shores, they would make love with the slave girls they brought for sale in the presence of their comrades; sometimes this would develop into a communal orgy.

Both ibn Fadlan and ibn Rustah portray the Rus as devout pagans. Ibn Rustah and, following him, Garizi reported that the Rus shamans or "medicine men" (attiba) wielded great power over the common folk. According to ibn Rustah, these shamans acted "as if they own everything". They determined what women, men, or animals had to be sacrificed, and there was no appealing their decisions. A shaman would take the selected offering, whether human or animal, and hang it from a pole until it died. Ibn Fadlan left a description of the Rus merchants praying for success in trading before "a large wooden stake with a face like that of a human being, surrounded by smaller figures, and behind them tall poles in the ground." If trade did not pick up, more offerings were made; if the business remained slow, the trader would make offerings to the minor idols, too. When the trading was especially good, Rus merchants would likewise make additional offerings of cattle and sheep, some of which were distributed as alms.

On the other hand, Byzantine sources report that the Rus adopted Christianity by the end of the 860s. In his encyclical dated to 867, Patriarch Photius wrote about the enthusiastic conversion of the Rus, mentioning that he had sent to their lands a bishop. Constantine VII attributes the conversion to his grandfather Basil the Macedonian and to Patriarch Ignatius rather than to their predecessors Michael III and Photius. Constantine narrates how the Byzantines galvanized the Rus' into conversion by their persuasive words and rich presents, including gold, silver, and precious fabrics. He also repeats a traditional story that the pagans were particularly impressed by a miracle: a gospel book thrown by the archbishop into an oven was not damaged by fire. Ibn Khordadbeh wrote in the late 9th century that the Rus who arrived to Muslim lands "claimed to be Christians". Modern historians are divided in their views on the historicity and extent of the Christianization of the Rus' Khaganate.