gh BURYAT WOMEN NEVER CONCEALED THEIR AGE

An infant becomes a girl, then a young lady, a woman and, at last, becomes old. It is just the common life cycle of any female human being and nothing can change it. From time immemorial our ancestors would dress in the pieces of clothing corresponding to each age. Historian Darima Nikolaeva at the East-Siberian State Academy of Culture and Arts studied the traditional female costume of Eastern Buryats and found out that clothing was meant to help people to get adapt to the age and to protect them from evil spirits.

Buryats believed infants to be asexual, so clothing was common both to girls and boys. Caring parents would wrap them in fur blankets of sheepskin. When children started to walk, they wore shirts and trousers. The main aim for Buryats was to help the child to come into the World and adapt to it. Blankets of wolf-skin saved the child from evil spirits.

Starting from 3-4 years of age features only of the male sex appeared in the costume, probably in order to emphasize that the baby belonged to father's kin. The child wore a robe belted with a sash. In many cultures the belt was considered magic. It brought luck, blessing of the parents and could protect from the evil. The clothing itself was modest. It had neither buttons, nor buttonholes, which symbolized the male and female principles in Buryat mythology.

Seven-year-old children were divided into boys and girls and had their costumes and hairstyles corresponding to their sex. Both girls and boys wore shirts cut out of one piece of cloth. The shirts had buttons and buttonholes, and also a bright insert at the stomach level. Boys had a knife in the sheath hanging on the belt and a pipe with a tobacco pouch. Girls had a plait braided on the crown of the head - the rest of the hair was shaved off.

A girl of about twelve or thirteen years of age was already a bride. Her costume changed dramatically. She wore shirts with a bodice without a belt and with a red or orange insert sewed on the front and back sides of the shirt at the stomach level. The insert symbolized reproductive organs. A black ribbon, embroidered with corals and silver, was attached to the maiden plait. Girl's head was decorated with a silver heart: that meant that she might meet matchmakers.

During the wedding the bride was to experience a symbolic death to revive not as her father's daughter any more, but as a person belonging to her husband's kin. The costume of a married woman was not cut of a single piece of cloth, but was sewed from several pieces. By cutting the cloth and putting the pieces together anew Buryats tried to help the bride from another kin to clean herself and to start a new life. Above the shirt the wife wore a waistcoat, a complicated headdress, and lots of decorations from head to toe. The maiden plait was now divided into two, which symbolized the male and female principles in the woman, which gave life to children.

The female costume changed radically, after the woman had aged. From now and on she wore a tunic, made of single piece of cloth and belted with a sash. The shirt had neither buttons, nor buttonholes. The costume reminded of that of a child. To make it even closer, the hair was shaved off. The old woman wore a small round hat or a shawl. Decorations were modest. She had just a pair of rings on - they reminded of her marriage - and rosary. The woman had performed her straight duty, and in the end of her life she was preparing to return to the Other World. The cycle was closed up.

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