Chapter 22. The Ceremony [October 5, 1347] Cultural Explanations

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	In this chapter Bávlos witnesses a fall ceremony addressed to Peko.
Peko, cottage

In this chapter, Bávlos witnesses a fall ceremony conducted in front of a sacred icon or idol known as Peko. I drew this account of traditional Peko ceremonies from a fine article by Paul Hagu concerning the Peko cult in southeastern Estonia, among the Orthodox Setu people. It is a little inaccurate to locate this ceremony so close to Tallinn, i.e., in a region that belonged to Western rather than Eastern Christianity. But scholars believe that some sort of Peko cult was known in the north as well (and perhaps in parts of Finland and Karelia as well), so I took the liberty of using Hagu's description for the ritual that Bávlos witnesses here. If you read Finnish, here is the reference for the article:

Hagu, Paul. 1987. "Setukaisten sadonjumala Peko". In Viron veräjät: Näkökulmia folkloreen, edited by L. Virtanen. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.

In the spring ritual, as Hagu details, both men and women came together to confer with Peko, this time sharing their food with each other and making prayers for a successful planting season and summer growth. Peko was believed to help guarantee prosperity, fertility, and good luck. You can read more about Peko and see a small illustration of one by following this link HERE.

During the modern era, the Peko cult became more and more covert, as it came under censure from representatives of the church. Eventually, under Soviet atheism, most Peko effigies were destroyed or forgotten. Only a few have survived in ethnographic collections. The Peko tradition reflects the rich fusion of pre-Christian and Christian elements that characterised folk religion in the northern periphery of Christendom during the medieval era.