Chuma

Also Known As: Serbian čuma, Bulgarian chuma, “plague”; also called Kuga in Serbian, and spoken of by the cover names kuma, “godmother”, and teta, “aunty”
Region/Culture: Central and Eastern Europe
Mythos: Slavic Mythology, Serbian Mythology, Bulgarian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Fairy Folk and Spirit Beings
Mythical Attributes: Chuma is the plague in the shape of a woman, who walks from a far country into villages and kills the households she chooses.
Role in Mythos: She is the reason an epidemic arrives, and the person a village bargains with, hides from or chains up to make it stop.
Relation to Humans: She brings death to whole households, and she is said to go first to the dirtiest house. People scrub their homes, leave her food, water, basil and a comb, and never say her real name aloud.

On the doorstep sits a plate of food, a bowl of clean water, a sprig of basil and a comb. Inside, the floor has been scrubbed until the boards are pale and the whole house smells of wet wood and lye. Nobody in the family says who the things on the step are for. If anyone has to mention her at all, they call her godmother, or aunty.

Her real name is Chuma, and it is simply the word for plague. Serbian uses it alongside another word, kuga, for the same visitor. Bulgarian uses it too. In the villages of the Balkans the sickness that emptied whole streets was not thought of as something in the air or the water. It was a woman, and she walked in.

The Serbian accounts describe her as old, though now and then a teller makes her young, and they dress her in white. She lives in a country far away, with others of her kind, and sets out from there when she means to kill. The Bulgarian picture is rougher. There she is a plain old woman in rags, with bony hands and long nails, and her hair stands out from her head in a tangle that no comb has touched. She carries a scythe or a sickle and cuts people down with it the way a reaper cuts barley. Some Balkan tellings give her a third shape: a strange girl nobody knows, who cannot stop scratching herself. The hair stuck in the language. Bulgarians went on saying that an unkempt woman had a head like the plague long after the plague itself had gone.

How she came into the world depends on who is asked. The Serbian tellings say only that she comes from that distant land and do not say who made her. The Bulgarian ones give her a birthday. She is born in the dead of winter, in the days around the feasts of Saint Anthony and Saint Athanasius on the seventeenth and eighteenth of January.

Those two saints are the heart of the best story told about her. In church they are a hermit and a bishop who lived in different places. In Bulgarian folk telling they are twin brothers and blacksmiths, the finest there are. When the Plague was loose they went to the forge together. The bellows roared, the iron came out white, and link by link they hammered a chain strong enough to hold her. Then they went out and bound her with it. On their two feast days nobody worked. The women baked bread sweetened with honey and gave it away, warm, to neighbours and passers-by, so that the chain would hold another year.

A second saint shares the credit. Saint Haralambos is honoured in Bulgaria as the commander of all diseases, the plague first among them, and the story goes that he caught her and put her in chains himself. Church painters show him doing it. He is also the patron of beekeepers, and on his day new honey is carried to church to be blessed. Honey follows Chuma everywhere in these customs. No one seems to have written down why.

When she is not chained, a village does what it can. Her habits are known. She hates dirt, and yet a dirty house is the one she makes for first. So when word came that the sickness was in the next valley, every house was washed from roof to threshold, and so was everyone in it. It was good advice. Then the offerings went out: the food, the water, the basil, and the comb, which may be the most thoughtful gift ever left for a monster with hair like hers. In Bulgaria there was a stronger measure. Twin brothers, who were held to have a power that broke spells and turned back sickness, ploughed a furrow right round the village. The custom was called zaoravane. She was not supposed to be able to cross the cut earth.

Her power is plain enough. She kills, and she kills by the household, not by the single person. She chooses where she goes. She travels any distance. A name spoken carelessly can draw her attention, which is why she has two polite ones.

Her limits are just as clear, and they are oddly domestic. She can be fed and flattered. She can be kept out by a clean floor and a line of turned soil. She can be put off by a family that will not name her. Saints can bind her, and blacksmiths can make the thing that binds her. What no telling offers is a way to kill her. She is chained, or she is sent on to somewhere else. Somewhere else was usually the next village.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Chuma in Slavic folklore?

Chuma is the plague imagined as a woman in the folk belief of Serbia, Bulgaria and neighbouring Slavic lands. Her name is the ordinary word for plague. She is said to walk into villages and kill whole households.

What does Chuma look like?

Serbian tradition describes Chuma as an old woman, sometimes a young one, dressed in white. Bulgarian tradition describes her as a plain old woman in rags with bony hands, long nails, wild hair and a scythe or sickle. Some Balkan tellings show her as a strange girl who keeps scratching herself.

How did people protect themselves from Chuma?

People cleaned their houses and themselves thoroughly, because Chuma was said to go first to a dirty house. They left out food, clean water, basil and a comb for her, and called her godmother or aunty instead of using her name. In Bulgaria, twin brothers ploughed a furrow around the village to keep her out.

Which saints are said to have chained Chuma?

In Bulgarian folk telling, Saint Anthony and Saint Athanasius are twin blacksmiths who forged a chain and tied up the Plague. Saint Haralambos is also said to have caught and chained her. Honey bread was given away on the January feasts of Anthony and Athanasius, and honey was blessed in church on Saint Haralambos’s day.

Is Chuma the same as Kuga?

Yes. Kuga and čuma are two Serbian words for plague, and both are used for the same plague woman. Kuma, meaning godmother, and teta, meaning aunty, are polite cover names used to avoid saying either one.