Protecting a house

A house was built once and lived in for generations, which is enough to explain why the process attracted so much ritual attention.

Choosing the site

Certain places were avoided: a former road, a boundary, a place where a house had burned, a spot where cattle would not lie down. Some of these have obvious practical readings — drainage, ground stability, existing rights of way — and some do not.

The building

Something was placed under the first course at the corners: coins, grain, incense, a piece of wool. The house was understood to be joined to the world at that moment and the deposit marked it.

The ridge beam going up was the major moment, marked with a small ceremony, a decorated branch and a meal for the builders. This is not specific to Ukraine and appears across Europe, which tells you something about how old it is.

The threshold and the corners

The threshold was treated as a boundary and not a place to stand, sit, or hand anything across. The corner opposite the stove held the icons and was the honoured place where a guest was seated.

A house was therefore mapped: some places for people, some for images, some to be crossed and not occupied.

Moving in

A cat first, then bread and salt, then the fire from the old stove if there was one. The order was not arbitrary; the household is understood to be moving, not just the objects.

What is left

The bread and salt, the reluctance to hand anything across a threshold, and the cat. Those three have survived into flats with no stove and no corner.

Choosing the site, what went under the first course, and the threshold — these describe a construction sequence, and the sequence is the same today. On a site the ground survey, the foundation and the entrance level sit in exactly those places. I do not know the meaning of the practices; but which decisions about a house are irreversible was evidently as well understood then as I understand it now.