V. Carnival at Matani, 13-14 March

This year Orthodox Easter was uncommonly late -- on May 1st, over a month later than Catholic Easter -- so Lent did not begin until mid-March. Like Western Europeans, Georgians celebrate a carnival before undertaking the rigorous dietary restrictions imposed by Lent. My dear friend and colleague Mirian Xucishvili, who works at the Janashia Museum in Tbilisi, suggested that we attend the carnival at Mat'ani, a town in K'axeti near the P'ank'isi Valley. Beside Mirian, we were joined by Carl Linich, a voice-teacher and musicologist living in Georgia. Along the way we stopped at the so-called "White (St.) George" (Tetri Giorgi) church, where the priest invited us to share some of his tasty red wine. On the night of the 13th, while we banqueted with our host Aleksi Xoxobashvili at the home of his son-in-law's family, the lady of the house made xink'ali. She stuck three xink'alis on a wild-rose branch, and went from room to room waving it in each corner & under the furniture, calling out "Tagvo tagvo gamodi, Angelozo shemodi!" (Mouse, mouse, get out; angel come in). She repeated the ritual in the courtyard, then went out through the gate into the alley. She went up the neighbors' gate, propped her xink'ali-adorned branch against it, then ran back home. If effective, this will drive mice away from their household and into their neighbors' yard. (Meanwhile, the neighbors are doing the same thing, driving their mice further down the road, and in the final analysis each family in Mat'ani will exchange their rodents for those that infested someone else's home the previous year. It's a zero-sum game, in other words). On the morning of Monday the 14th, a large crowd gathered around the St. Barbara Church, where vendors had set up kiosks, others attempted to entice passers-by into betting on games of chance, and the Carnival King (Q'eeni) of Mat'ani, 80-year-old Archil Tugulashvili, was holding court. Wearing a huge red dunce-cap, Archil posed for photographs (next to stuffed animals, on which people sat children to have their pictures taken), and presided over a banquet in the churchyard featuring wine, xink'ali and other items that people brought to him. Other Mat'ani neighborhoods also had their local Q'eeni (likewise wearing dunce-caps), some of whom blocked the road in order to force passers-by to bribe them with food and drink. Meanwhile, boys competed in a wrestling tournament in the central square. The high point came around noon, when Archil mounted a horse and rode off toward the Alazani River at the edge of town. The horse turned out to have a nasty disposition, and threw Archil several times. He gave up and dismounted, but then a young man from out of town jumped onto the horse and rode off, followed by a crowd of children. He donned the Q'eeni's signature headgear and rode down to the river, where he engaged in a mock fight with another participant & fell into the water. He remounted, was thrown back in the river, then got on the horse once more and rode off in triumph.