Toiagul

The snakes that do NOT bite their own tail

This is part of a yearlong series on the second edition of Colière, the Euclidian Non-Isochronous Rhythms card deck. Each card is a pretext to gloss over one item of Romanian mythology, anthropomorphize it, all aimed at easier visualizing and audiating one particular rhythm.

Today it’s about “Toiagul”.

Staff, baton, rod, wand. Scepter. Truncheon. That’s from the dictionary. The current understanding of the word. It comes from Old Church Slavonic once again. Straightforward. Basically it’s a long stick. Scratch the surface you find myth. And rituals to keep it going.

It is used on all major occasions as weddings and funerals and the new year.

The Funeral

It symbolizes the path to the other world. A long candle placed with the dead during the ceremony. It is as long as his or hers height. In some places the hemp thread is passed around the right hand fingers and the right foot toes of the dead one, later to be covered with wax and twisted like a helix. Some other times it is twisted like a helix around a wooden stick, just like the snake round a tree. It may be decorated with flowers. It is then ritually cremated.

I hereby give thou Toiagul from thy brothers, thy sisters, thy parents and from all your kin!

It is a substitute for the dead one, representing his never-ending path, the way of the dead.

The Wedding

This ceremonial staff with flower blossoms is a phallic symbol brandished by the groom during his wedding day. It is decorated and it has a handkerchief attached just like the funeral one, sometimes being also called “the Flag”. When finally the bride enters the home of her in-laws, the groom breaks Toiagul on his knee keeping the flowery one inside for good fortune, and throwing the other half over the house. Even more explicitly, in some parts of Moldova Toiagul is passed through “The Bride’s Colac” (a bakery item shaped like a donut, also used in lots of rituals¹).

The Caduceus ☤

Keeping in mind that Toiagul is a path, and that it is often accompanied by snakes, something else popped into my mind:

This route is the same as Hermes' Caduceus, identical to that of the Old Man's Daughter from The Old Woman's Daughter and the Old Man's Daughter, also leading to the center of our world; in microcosmic application the route is identical to the description of the spinal column, as Kundalini Yoga describes it, through whose channels flow the two subtle currents, feminine and masculine, positive and negative, called Ida and Pingala, on either side of a median axis, which is also a synthetic reference line, the Sushumna, from the basic center to the Sahasrara, the lotus with a thousand petals at the crown of the head, the Monastery of Incense in the human Microcosm.

— Vasile Lovinescu - “Creangă și creanga de aur”

Worth noting is that he assigns mastering the Caduceus to the feminine and mastering of the Cup to the masculine. Active Perfection is enveloped in Passive Perfection. It is an axial symbol mapping the journey with its ups and downs. The number of snake crossings on the median line might be key to some stories marking the crossroads, the inflexions in the character’s arc, critical points outside of time and space.

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The straight snake

This one’s a popular one. One of the basics. One in eight E(1,8), called VIRGA (Rod) in the previous version of the Coliere deck. In Latin, the word means a fresh green one rather than a wooden staff. Also used for “a warrior woman”, or simply “a wife”.

It’s full of life and promises. Toiagul in turn goes deeper. Still axial, but older and darker. Next level of complexity. Eight steps, one punch. Double the length of Sorcova, another flowery rod I discussed early in the year.

You-Picked-Your-Self-A-Fei-Sty-One

Repeat this mantra in your head without any pause. Eight syllables chained together round and round. Choose your favorite syllable and on each turn stomp your DIY Toiagul into the ground. Soon you’ll get into the groove. A groove so based you’ll forget about your feisty one, or even better, you’ll integrate her.

1. We will get to it by September. It’s also in the cards.