Structural Analysis of Wooden Horse and Koseh Barneshin Rituals in Iran and its Relations with Indo-European Rituals

This paper aims to introduce some performative rituals in Iran and classify their types and symbolic acts, leading to the analysis of the common and shared structure of these rituals and their relationship with winter festivals and rituals common in Indo-European culture. Accordingly, Wooden Horse and Koseh Barneshin rituals, as a ritual with most shared features among Indo-European tribes is the main theme of this article. The questions this paper follows to answer are: what shared structure do the similarities of these rituals represent, and how is the comprehension of meaning, the function of parts and the symbolic elements of this structure possible?
The main guide and model of this research is Dumézil’s “.Le Probléme des Centaures” and Neo-Comparative Mythology. On this base, we have tried to analyze many acts and symbolic means shared among European tribes in the shared rituals based on their ideology; specifically, their relations to the ancestors’ spirits and deteriorating powers in winter. This study focuses on many common features of European and Indian rituals and festivals in the beginning and end of Winter. Actually, the goal of this paper is not just showing the relationship between many Iranian rituals with Indian and European tribes, it is but also an attempt to classify Iranian rituals based on shared structures in Indo-European culture and also understanding their meaning