THE MEANING OF DÆL. SYMBOLIC
AND SPATIAL ASSOCIATIONS OF THE SOUTH CAUCASIAN GODDESS OF GAME ANIMALS.
In honor of Paul Friedrich.
Kevin Tuite, Université de
Montréal
I. Introduction. The Georgian or Kartvelian nation
comprises an impressively diverse set of local sub-ethnic communities,
each with its characteristic traditions, cuisine, manners and dialect (or
language). The Svans number about 40,000, most of whom inhabit the highland
valleys of the Inguri and Cxenis-c'q'ali Rivers in northwestern Georgia
(Upper and Lower Svaneti, respectively). Although Svaneti has been exploited
as a source of high-grade copper and other raw materials since the Bronze
Age, and was integrated at an early date into the political formations of
Lazica, Abxazia and then the united Georgian kingdom of the high Middle
Ages, the Svans have preserved to the present day their distinctive Kartvelian
language, incomprehensible to other Georgians, and a rich oral literature.
One of the most popular figures in Svan poetry and song is Dæl (in Georgian: Dali), divine patron
of the ibex and other horned beasts of the high mountains.
As described in Svan folklore, Dæl
resembles a woman of extraordinary beauty, with long, golden-colored hair
and radiant white skin (literally radiant: she is said to glow in the dark).
She dwells high up in the mountains, usually out of the reach of humans.
Her home is a cavern, and by day she watches over the herds of wild animals
under her protection, as a human shepherd would guard sheep or goats. Some
accounts even picture her milking an ibex. At the same time, she is not
adverse to sharing animals from her flock with hunters, as long as certain
conditions and taboos are respected. Hunters must not kill more ibex than
they can carry back to the village, nor may they take aim at specially-marked
animals believed to be a transformation of the goddess (e.g. an ibex with
golden horns). If a hunter is successful, certain body parts from the slain
beast must be offered to Dæl in thanksgiving. Dæl is particularly
sensitive to violations of the purity of the mountains, by which is meant
pollution from women's menstrual blood. A man may not go on a hunting expedition,
for example, if one of the women in his household is in childbirth or having
her period. The penalty for violations of the conditions imposed by Dæl
range from lack of hunting success to a fatal fall from a cliff.
The origins of the name of this
goddess has provoked a considerable degree of speculation. While many of
the beliefs and practices of Svan religion cannot be traced to Georgian Orthodox
antecedents, the names of nearly all of the principal figures in the Svan
pantheon can: Taringzel
'Archangel', Lamaria 'St. Mary', Jgëræg [< (Mingrelian)
jgiri givargi 'good (St.) George' [Shanidze 1973],
Barbol 'St. Barbara', etc. [Bardavelidze
1939: 190-200]. A further handful of theonyms are based on Svan roots (Xosha Ghe:rbet 'great god', Ber shishwlish 'old man of the naked (= treeless
mountain peaks)'). The name of Svan Dæl, Georgian Dali, despite attempts
to link it to the Georgian lexeme dila "morning" [Abashidze 1971], or
Ossetic dælimon (a type of demon) [Gusejnow 1990],
is almost certainly related to the word meaning "god" in the contemporary
Nakh languages (Chechen de:la, Ingush dæ:lë, Bats dalë). Allowing for the effects of umlaut
caused by a high front vowel in the second syllable, a proto-form *da:li, or possibly *da:le, can be reconstructed [Johanna
Nichols, personal comm., March 1996; Goniashvili 1985; Nikolayev & Starostin
1994: 1097]. From a strictly phonological point of view, linking Dæl
to the Nakh word for 'god' is unproblematic, and a number of Caucasian linguists
and anthropologists have already proposed it as a source [Goniashvili 1940:
621-2; Bardavelidze 1953: 89; Virsaladze 1976: 130-2; Mak'alatia 1983:
180].
What I will attempt here is to motivate
this etymology on semantic and cultural as well as phonetic grounds. To
this end I will present certain features of the representations of Dæl
in Svan oral literature, followed by a comparison of these features to those
of female divinities from the folk religious traditions of other Georgian
provinces. I will conclude with an analysis of the symbolism and functions
of Dæl and her sisters, and demonstrate how this renders probable
the appropriation of her name from another speech community.
II. Images of Dæl in Svan
oral literature and ritual. A composite image of Dæl
can be gleaned from the texts of the numerous Svan round-dance songs and
myth cycles in which she appears, of which the following are especially well-represented
in the anthologies:
(i) Dæl and the doomed hunter. The basic plot, of which there
are numerous variants, begins with an encounter between the goddess and
a legendary hunter (named Betgil in the best-known version of the story
[Tuite 1994 #56; textual variants in Chikovani 1972: 195-243]), who has
been chosen by Dæl to be her lover. She gives him a token of their
love — a bead, ring or charm [twæl] — and requires him to avoid all
contact with human females, including his own wife. As long as he remains
in the goddess's good graces Betgil enjoys remarkable success, never once
returning home empty-handed. One day, however, he breaks his promise, sleeping
with either his wife or his sister-in-law. The goddess changes herself
into a white chamois, and comes down into the village square where Betgil
and his kinsmen are dancing in a circle. The chamois runs between his legs
into the middle of the circle, then doubles back toward the mountain with
Betgil in hot pursuit. The hunter and his prey climb higher and higher,
even as the path beneath them crumbles away. On reaching the summit the goddess
resumes her original form and confronts the terrified Betgil, who is by
now clinging for dear life with only his right hand and left foot. 'Where
is the bead I gave you?' she demands, knowing full well that the hunter's
wife had stolen it after they slept together. She vanishes, leaving the
doomed Betgil to fall (in some versions, to jump) to his death on the rocks
below.
(ii) Dæl and the morning star. In one version of the Betgil ballad,
the hunter's death is set "in the morning, [as] the morning star comes out"
(dzinars mërhil anghërine [Shanidze, Topuria & Gujejiani
1939: 286]); in another, he meets his fate "when light and darkness separate"
[Virsaladze 1976: 133].[1] The association between the Svan
goddess and the transition between night and day has been signalled by
Vera Bardavelidze [1953: 84-89] and Elene Virsaladze [1976: 132-33]. Even
if one sets aside the tenuous etymological juxtaposition of the theonym
Dæl and Georgian dila "morning", mentioned above, the
ethnographic data is compelling. In accordance with Svan traditional hunting
lore, a hunter must leave his household in the pre-dawn darkness, and be
already at the hunting grounds while the morning star is still visible. Once
there, he lights a small fire, burns some beeswax as incense, and prays "Glory
to you, morning star; glory to Dæl, glory to Apsat' [= the Svan divine
patron of birds and non-carnivorous game; sometimes the name of St. George
appears in his place]. Help me today, that I may kill a game animal. Glory
to you" [cited by Virsaladze 1976: 133].
Of particular interest are the prayers
and offerings presented to "Dæl of New Year's Eve" [dæl eshxwamish] on the night of New Year's Eve
(eshxwæm or shushxwæm, 31 Dec., O.S.)[2] in some Upper Svan villages [Bardavelidze
1939: 85-95; Virsaladze 1976: 132]. In the commune of Ecer, for instance,
Dæl eshxwamish is addressed in prayers for a peaceful
entry into the new year. According to one informant from Lat'al interviewed
by Bardavelidze, this divinity lives in the forest and "aids people and
livestock" [Bardavelidze 1939: 91].[3] In the New Year's Eve observances
of the neighboring commune of Cxumar, Dæl Eshxwamish is invoked by both the male and
female heads of the household, and presented with offerings of bread baked
from consecrated grain [Davitiani, Topuria & Kaldani 1957: 71-80].
The types of bread baked and consumed by the household on this occasion
have been described and analyzed in detail by Bardavelidze [1953: 84-89],
based on fieldwork in Upper Svaneti in the 1930's. One type, called k'irk'adu or sheshxwæm leti lemzir, is flat and somewhat cog-shaped,
with a hole in the middle and a toothed edge. It is baked late on the night
of New Year's Eve, and in Bardavelidze's opinion its shape was intended
to represent the morning star [op. cit. 85]. A lumpier, muffin-shape bread
(judging by the illustrations provided by Bardavelidze) called k'wænch'il, also baked on New Year's Eve,
is offered by the head of the household to Dæl Eshxwamish while facing toward the early-morning
light on the horizon; after this prayer, the shutters are closed and the
family eats the bread before sunrise [op. cit. 87; Bardavelidze 1939: 88].
(iii) Dæl in childbirth. As described in the text of a
popular Svan round-dance song, a hunter in the mountains hears the goddess
wailing from the pangs of childbirth. Before he can get to her, she gives
birth to a child, who drops to the ground and is instantly seized by a wolf.
The hunter kills the wolf, returns the infant to Dæl, and receives
guaranteed luck at hunting as a reward [Virsaladze 1976: 75; Tuite 1994 #3].
The father — if indeed there is one! — of this child is never mentioned,
nor what becomes of the child after it grows up. (An independent cycle of
myths and ballads, not discussed here, is centered around just such a child,
the supernatural hero Amiran, born to Dæl and a hunter named Darejan
or Darjelian).[4]
(iv) The rivalry between Dæl
and Jgëræg. In her capacity as protector and
patron of the horned game animals of the mountains, Dæl — or rather,
in this context, the Dæls[5] — are in
direct opposition to the deity Jgëræg ('St. George'), whose
principle function is, as Charachidzé puts it, "mettre les espaces
naturels à la disposition des hommes" [1986: 183; cp. Bardavelidze
1953: 88]. Among the duties flowing from this role is the protection of
shepherds and their flocks in the alpine pastures far from the village; the
protection of bees and beekeepers — who must go to the forest to capture
a queen in order to colonize a hive — and in general, men exploiting the
world outside their villages for the benefit of the community [Charachidzé
1968: 478-486]. Significantly, the Svans refer to wolves, the predators
par excellence, as "St. George's dogs" (Jgëræ:gi zheghær; Shanidze, Kaldani & Ch'umburidze
1978: 90-91).
The ballad of the legendary Svan
hunter Chorla recounts how the title character incited the wrath of the
Dæls by slaughtering more than his quota of ibexes. According to traditional
hunting lore, one can kill as many animals as there are empty-handed hunters
in the party, but no more. As long as hunters observe this regulation, as
well as several others concerning ritual purity, treatment of the bones,
etc., the Dæls will allow them to kill a few animals from their herd
(Chikovani 1972: 228). Chorla, although he had no companion other than his
dog, killed three ibex and then "while he was aiming a fourth time, / Then
the Dæls bound him, / Left him hanging on the cliff / By his right
hand and left foot, / Poor Chorla, piteous Chorla!" The desperate hunter
sent his dog for help. The dog returns with St. George, who threatens to
bring a source of pollution into the mountains unless the Dæls release
Chorla. St. George promises the hunter that henceforth he can kill without
limit, and that he will support him against "les maîtresses du gibier,
qui veillent au contraire à préserver la nature d'un pillage
inconsidéré et finalement dévastateur" (Charachidzé
1986: 185). The wolf, one of "St. George's dogs", which snatched Dæl's
newborn child in the ballad mentioned above may in fact be another reflection
of the symbolic opposition between Dæl, as patron of game animals,
and Jgëræg, patron of those who hunt
them.
III. Dæl and Samdzimari. The rivalry between St. George
and the Dæls, described in the preceding section, has its roots in
what is to all appearances an ancient feature of the Kartvelian pantheon.
The Georgians of the northeast have a St. George of their own, Giorgi or Givargi, who watches over roughly the same
set of activities as his Svan namesake: war, raiding, wood-cutting, honey-gathering;
in brief, those occasions where men leave the village in search of the
riches of the outside world [Charachidzé 1968: 445; 471]. Like Jgëræg as well, he has a female
counterpart, his dobili 'sworn sister' Samdzimari or Samdzivari,
the 'necklace-wearer' [< Georgian mdziv- 'bead, necklace'; Charachidzé
1968: 562-563].[6]
In a myth transmitted through Xevsurian
epic poetry, Giorgi and his human scout, a legendary oracle named Gaxua
who underwent temporary death in order to make the trip, descended into
the hypochthonian kingdom of the Kajes (kaj, of Iranian origin via Armenian
[Testen 1989]), a race of supernatural blacksmiths with magical powers.
Giorgi succeeds in annihilating the Kaj army, whereupon he takes possession
of their metalworking equipment, their treasures, a one-horned cow, and
three daughters of the king of the Kajes, one of whom is Samdzimari. Despite
her demonic origin — a characteristic she shares with human women — Samdzimari
is elevated to the status of sworn sister or 'sister-spouse' of Giorgi at
the important Xevsur shrine of Qaqmat'is Jvari [Charachidzé 1968:
625].
Like Dæl in Svaneti, the character
of Samdzimari has fired the imagination of local poets.[7] She is a seductive, gold-haired
bejewelled princess from Kajeti or Kajaveti, the land of the Kajes, who 'reigns over the wild spaces'
[Charachidzé 1968: 620]. She is the mediatrix par excellence, in
the context of a religious system in which women, human or supernatural, frequently
appear in this role: legendary male oracles (Geo. kadag) are said to receive their communicative
powers through the experience of nightly visits from Samdzimari, who can
take on the form of a mortal woman.[8] As described in Xevsur poetry [e.g.
Tuite 1994 #30], the key attributes of Qhel-Samdzimari
—"Samdzimari of the hand", one of her more common epithets [Charachidzé
1968: 505] — include (i) golden hair and jewelry;
(ii) circulation between inaccessible spaces[9] and human society; (iii) cohabitation
with selected men, who are granted special favors for the duration of the
relationship, all features shared with Dæl.
In addition to these traits, Samdzimari
is invoked to (i) watch over women, especially during childbirth; (ii)
assure that the cows give milk, and that dairy products do not turn sour
[Mak'alatia 1935: 242; Charachidzé 1968: 163, 575-579]; (iii) restore
communication between a (male) deity and his (male) oracle, after some
imagined offense had angered the former [Charachidzé 1968: 511-512].
The relation between Samdzimari and Giorgi appears to be more collaborative,
less competitive, than that between Dæl and Jgëræg.[10] She watches over women and the
animals they tend (milch cows); he supervises masculine activities. Both
deities are called upon by hunters (who promise to leave the horns of the
animals they kill at Samdzimari's shrine in the village Ch'ormeshavi) and
travellers [Chikovani 1972: 243], although for different reasons: Samdzimari
is invoked in her capacity as guardian of the spaces outside of human society,
and Giorgi as protector of men making use of those spaces. Between the two
of them, they assure the safe voyage and return of those who circulate between
the interior (the community) and the exterior. In Charachidzé's words,
"les fonctions patronnées par le couple Samdzimari-Giorgi correspondent
aux besoins essentiels de la vie sociale et économique … Ils administrent
les rapports que le clan entretient avec les étrangers et les déplacements
de ses membres hors du territoire dévolu à la société"
[Charachidzé 1968: 620]. Although only a few Xevsur shrines are
consecrated to Samdzimari by name, female spirits with similar characteristics
are known to every Pshav and Xevsur community. The patron deities (called
xvtisshvilni "children of God") of communes
and villages are male-gendered, but associated with each of them are subordinate
beings of ambiguous nature, potentially harmful to human society but also
capable of assuring the health and fertility of people and livestock. Some
of these spiritual subordinates have zoomorphic or monstrous features (e.g.
an ogre imprisoned by the god K'op'ala, periodically unleashed to punish
those who provoke K'op'ala's anger). Most of them, however, are represented
as female, and referred to as "Mother of God", "Place Mother", or simply
the "sworn sisters" (dobilni) of the patron deity. Like Samdzimari,
these auxiliary goddesses are specifically concerned with women's affairs,
dairy production and health, and have semi-demonic natures, with the potential
of bringing harm as well as benefit.
The trajectories
associated with Samdzimari and Giorgi parallel those of human women and
men in traditional highland Georgian culture [Tuite 2001; see Diagram #1].
Samdzimari circulates between the hearth (the interior of domestic space,
the "interior of the interior") and the remote, uninhabited, unreachable
outside ("exterior of the exterior"). St. George, by contrast, circulates
between the public spaces of the community (the "exterior of the interior")
and those outside spaces exploited for the profit of the community (the
"interior of the exterior"). One and same exterior location can take on
both aspects. Kajaveti, in particular,
is represented as the remote and demonic homeland of Samdzimari, on the
one hand, and as an exploitable source of wealth for Giorgi, on the other.
Hence his role as patron of hunters, woodsmen, travellers, warriors, even
livestock-thieves [see Table1]. There is evidence that these imagined trajectories
include interfacial zones in both interior and exterior spaces, at which
the two deities come into contact. The concept of the two interfaces contributes,
I believe, to representations of two social institutions reconstructable,
on linguistic and semantic grounds, to ancient Georgian society: marriage,
and a relation Charachidzé (1968: 101) called "anti-marriage" (Geo.
c'ac'loba, Svan ch'æ:ch'i:lær). The latter
contrasts with the former on a number of parameters: it involves a temporary,
premarital relationship between a woman and man from the same community,
which must under no circumstances terminate in marriage or childbirth (Tuite
2000).
Diagram 1. Trajectories of Samdzimari,
St. George and human women and men.
Table 1. Features and trajectories
of Samdzimari and St. George (Xevsureti)
|
|
SAMDZIMARI |
ST. GEORGE |
|
Foreign origins |
Kajaveti (remote, subterranean kingdom
of demonic Kajes) |
Chechnia, Armenia, Persia … (foreign
human communities) |
|
Circulation between interior
and exterior |
Circulates between domestic "interior
of the interior" and "exterior of the exterior" (Kajaveti as land of demons). Ensures
communication between oracle and deities. |
Goes to exploitable exterior ("interior
of the exterior") to exterminate demons, seize wealth and women of Kajes, return with booty to community |
|
Parallel with "trajectories"
of women and men |
Women circulating (i) in marriage
[insiders marrying out, outsiders marrying in]; (ii) between domestic hearth and
impure outside sites (menstruation and childbirth huts). Brides brought
from other communities reinforce links with exterior. |
Men temporarily leaving village
to seek profit in exterior spaces (hunters, shepherds, travellers, cattle
raiders, etc.) |
The respective
functions of the Xevsurian and Svan St. Georges are sufficiently similar
to be captured by the generalization that the St. George of the Kartvelian
mountaineers, east and west, was responsible for the security and success
of the men of the community in their relations with the outside world, both
inhabited and uninhabited. As for Samdzimari and Dæl, the overlap
is less satisfactory: the functions and attributes of the mountain deity
Dæl are more limited than those of her Xevsurian cousin.
As it turns out, the range of competences
attributed to Samdzimari overlap with those of Dæl and two other
Svan goddesses, both of whom are named after Christian saints. Lamaria 'St. Mary' is the "goddess of the
fertility of the land, of childbirth and the protection of women" [Bardavelidze
1939: 193]. She is also goddess of the
hearth [Nizharadze 1962: 72-76; Chartolani 1961: 175-186; Charachidzé
1968: 286-288], a function for which there appears to be no equivalent among
the Xevsurs, save perhaps for the guardian angel of the household, the
pudzis angelozi.[11] The association of Samdzimari with
milk cows and dairy production link her with the Svan goddess Barbol 'St. Barbara', the "protector
of cattle, multiplier of bulls and cows, granter of abundant milk, giver
of eyesight, protector of healers, defender against and curer of eye pain,
contagious diseases and, in general, all manner of illness" [Bardavelidze
1939; 1941].[12] Lamaria and Barbol can be set in
parallel with that side of Samdzimari's portfolio which is concerned with
women and an important part of their economic activity (in the traditional
sexual division of labor throughout the Caucasus, and in Xevsureti in particular,
dairy production is an exclusively feminine activity). Lamaria, as spirit
of the hearth, is the deity of the central point of the interior, and her
other responsibilities do not take her far from the home (the fields whose
fertility she insures are located in the immediate vicinity of the Svan
village). The same can be said for Barbol. Lamaria and Barbol are invoked
in prayers at the hearth, pronounced downward toward the earth by women
only, the men having been temporarily excluded from the house. At the same
time, women pray to both deities — again, in the absence of men — at sites
outside of the village, representing the other extreme of the goddesses'
trajectory: the remote, uninhabited "exterior of the exterior". These are
sometimes ruined, abandoned buildings, or small shrines called witin, in peripheral locations, where
offerings of cloth, jewelry and beads are made to Lamaria [Bardavelidze
1941; Chartolani 1961: 176-201; Chartolani 1977; Mak'alatia 1977].
The principal deities of the two
highland Georgian communities contrasted here — Pshav-Xevsureti and Svaneti
— can be represented as a quartet of complementary clusters of functions
and symbols: 1. an invisible and inaccessible chief deity; 2. a sort of
divine vizier who mediates between the sovereign deity and human society;
3 & 4. paired female and male supernatural beings representing particular
aspects of female and male social roles, attributes and trajectories. (See
Tables 2 & 3 below). [13]
Table 2. Pantheon of the Northeast
Georgian highlands (Xevsureti, Pshavi)
|
Morige Ghmerti [no shrines; distant from human
affairs (almost Deus otiosus)] |
|
|
K'viria ["Chief of the dry land", "Commander
of the xvtisshvilni"] *mentioned second in invocations
of deities, after Morige Ghmerti *protector of human society *instrument of divine justice *invoked for birth of sons to
perpetuate patriline |
|
|
Samdzimari (Tamar, dobilni as doublets) (1) DOMESTIC FUNCTIONS *dairy production *women's health, well-being, protection
in childbirth; health, healing ["Tamar the Healer"] (2) RELATION TO MEN *"bead-wearing" seductress of
oracles *assures success (or failure)
of hunters *shape-changer (disguised as wives
of oracles) (3) ORIGIN & TRAJECTORY *hypochthonian origins (Kajeti); potentially dangerous, but
can be appeased *circulates between home &
remote spaces (inaccessible forests, Kist'eti) |
Giorgi (K'op'ala/Iaqsar as doublets) *culture hero — demon/ogre slayer *raid in Kajaveti, returns with women [Samdzimari
and sisters], metallurgy, cultic utensils *foreign attributes (Kist'i dress,
Somxoz Giorgi shrine at Ardot'i allegedly founded by Armenian [som(e)x-]) *patronage of men, esp. in exploitation
of outside spaces [shepherds, travellers, raiders] |
Table 3. Svan pantheon.
|
Xosha gherbet [no shrines; distant from human
affairs] |
||
|
Targlezer, Taringzel ["Archangel", invoked second
in toasts] *protector of human society *instrument of divine justice *invoked for birth of sons to
perpetuate patriline |
||
|
Barbol, Lamaria, Dæl (1) DOMESTIC FUNCTIONS Barbol, Lamæria (sometimes invoked as one deity):
dairy production, women's health, well-being; heals eye pains Dæl: herds & milks ibex, deer,
etc. (2) RELATION TO MEN Dæl: seductress of hunters, gives bead
as token; assures success (or failure) of hunters; shape-changer (game
animals) (3) ORIGIN & TRAJECTORY Dæl: foreign origin? (< Wainakh
*da:li = "god"); circulates in inaccessible
spaces (mountain peaks, caverns) Lamæria: hearth goddess Barbol: once circulated throughout Upper
Svaneti [Bardavelidze 1940] |
Jgëræg *patronage of men, esp. in exploitation
of outside spaces *wolves as "George's dogs"; Jgëræg invoked to protect livestock
from wolves. *exterior spaces (contrast with
Xosha Gherbet) |
|
This leaves Dæl as the Svan
counterpart to the other side of Samdzimari, that which is of concern to
the male half of the population: the dispenser of luck at hunting, the divine
lover of selected men. This distinction between feminine and masculine
spheres of activity is, not surprisingly in the context of the Caucasus,
paralleled on the spatial plane: interior/domestic versus exterior. Samdzimari
circulates freely between the exterior — the subterranian kingdom of the
Kajes, the dense forests and the land
of the Kist'ebi — and the interior, manifesting herself as the spouse of
a oracle or priest, making butter and cakes in his family's kitchen. Dæl,
by contrast, is said to inhabit the highest and most inaccessible peaks
of the Caucasus. Her encounters with humans are almost always in her domain,
by her initiative (i.e. her invitations to hunters to share her bed); only
on very rare and special occasions will she appear within the confines
of the village. One such instance was described earlier: the irruption
of the goddess, transformed into a white chamois, into the sacred space
formed by a circle of men dancing the murgvæl (also
known as ch'ishxæsh), a round-dance performed on the
occasion of religious solemnities [Virsaladze 1976: 113-114; Charachidzé
1968: 712]. This intrusion by an animal of the savage exterior caused a general
commotion among the men, and Betgil was sent to hunt it down. The other
instances where Dæl is claimed to have entered a village are her dramatic
appearances at the funerals of hunters who had been her lovers [Virsaladze
1976: 72-73; 298].[14]
Table 4. Lamaria, Barbol &
Dæl partioning functions of Samdzimari.
|
|
Xevsureti
(Eastern Georgia) |
Svaneti
(Western Georgia) |
|
protection of women, domestic
space and dairy production |
Samdzimari *protection of women during childbirth *protector of cows *abondance of dairy products |
Lamaria 'St. Mary' *goddess of the hearth *protection of women during childbirth Barbol 'St. Barbara' *protector of cows *abondance of dairy products |
|
relation to men; goddess of
savage space |
Samdzimari *assures the success or failure
of hunters *goddess of the wild *shape-changer *'necklace-wearer' [< mdziv- 'bead'] *seducer (of oracles) |
Dæl *assures the success or failure
of hunters *goddess of the wild *shape-changer *gives bead as token to lover *seducer (of hunters) |
|
domain and movements |
Samdzimari
*hypochthonic origins (Kajaveti) *circulation between interior-domestic
and exterior space (sojourns among the K'istebi) *patronage of anti-marriage (sc'orproba, c'ac'loba) |
Lamaria-Barbol: women's secret rituals at hearth,
outside of village *invoked during ch'æ:ch'i:lær ("anti-marriage") Dæl: high mountains, caverns (spaces
inaccessible to humans, except for sporadic intrusions into human society:
white chamois passing between Betgil's legs, funeral of lover) |
IV. Motivating the etymology
of Dæl. The
communities of Upper and Lower Svaneti (the upper reaches of the Ingur and
Tsxenis-ts'q'ali Rivers, respectively) have been part of the Georgian nation
since the latter entity coalesced on the basis of political unity and shared
religion in medieval times, and despite the difference in language — Svan
and Georgian are no closer than Icelandic and English — the Svans have identified
themselves as ethnically Georgian since at least the Middle Ages. Upper
and Lower Svaneti have been inhabited continuously since the Bronze Age,
with no archeological, ethnographic or toponymic evidence to indicate that
the Bronze Age inhabitants of Svaneti were other than the ancestors of the
current residents [Sh. Chartolani 1977; Japaridze 1991: 213-214]. More relevant
for the purposes of the present discussion is the solid documentary evidence
of Svan communities to the west of the upper Inguri valley, in what is now
northern Rach'a province, up to the 15th century [Dzidziguri 1970: 190‑1].
The Svan language gives evidence
of contact with several speech communities. Loanwords of Northwest Caucasian
origin indicate that the Svans were influenced by the more technologically
advanced (and more stratified?) Adyghe-speaking communities to the north
and west [Shagirov 1977].[15] An interesting study by Charachidzé
demonstrates the degree of mutual influence of Svan and Ossetian religious
and social ideology (e.g. adoption by the Svans of Indo-European tripartition
of functions attributed to divinities); the two speech communities have
also exchanged numerous lexical items [Charachidzé 1987; Abaev 1949,
esp. pp 291-308]. The ancestors of today's Ossetians are known to have begun
settling in the north-central Caucasian uplands in the latter half of the
1st millenium BCE, moving into territory previously inhabited by communities
speaking Nakh languages, the branch of the Northeast Caucasian language
family comprising Chechen, Ingush and Bats (or Tsova-Tush) [Thordarson 2000].
Before the arrival of the Ossetians, Nakh speakers would have been in proximity
to at least the westernmost Svan settlements, and in a recent article, the
German Caucasologist H. Fähnrich has identified what he believes are
lexical traces of this contact. He proposes a Nakh origin for a dozen Svan
lexemes, and while some of these attributions might be contested, several
appear quite solid: Sv. dam 'Weizenmehl beim Reinigen', cp.
Chechen dama 'Mehl'; Sv. t'q'irsh 'Bodensatz, Schlamm' cp. Chechen
t'q'arshin'Schlamm, Schlammwetter'; and dæl 'Name der Jagdgšttin', cp. Chechen
dela 'Gott' [Fähnrich 1988; Gusejnow
1990/91].
It remains to ascertain the factors
which conditioned the appropriation of the Northeast Caucasian lexeme *dali by the Svan speech community. In
the modern Nakh languages, dela and its cognates mean "god", and
can be used with reference to Allah, as well as to the divinities of pre-Islamic
Nakh religion [Dalgat 1897]. The frontier between the Chechen and Ingush
communities and their Georgian neighbors to the south has long been an active
zone of contact and exchange [Xaradze 1940; Goniashvili 1971]. Some parts
of northeast Georgia may in fact have once been Nakh speaking. The Tushetians
speak a dialect of Georgian characterized by lexical items and other features
claimed to stem from a Nakh substratum. This hypothesis is consistent with
the presence of toponyms of Nakh origin — many of which terminate in /-lo/, /-go/ and /-cho/ — in some parts of Northeast
Georgia, especially in Tusheti [Uturgaidze 1966].
Among the Nakh loanwords noted in
the Tushetian dialect is the lexeme dala, which occurs in the funeral chant
sung at the first anniversary of a man's death, especially a man who died
young. Significantly, this root is employed in the designation of the person
who performs the chant (mo-dala-ve), and in the name of the memorial
ceremony itself (dala-oba) [Mak'alatia 1983: 180-186; Cocanidze
1987: 116-123]. The central event of the Tushetian dalaoba is a horse race involving riders
representing the dead man's family, his mother's brother's clan, and other
families who were close to him. The participants follow a route from the
deceased's home village to that of his mother's brother, and back again,
which symbolizes the the path followed by the soul after death, and that taken
by a newborn member of the community. Until as late as the 1950's in some
localities, women of the northeast Georgian highlands gave birth in crudely-built
huts (sachexi or k'oxi), located at some distance outside
the village. The new mother and her child were considered extremely "impure"
during the first weeks after birth, and were only gradually (re)integrated
into the community through a series of purifications, sacrifices and the
child's formal presentation at the clan sanctuary (xat'shi mibareba) [Mindadze & Didebulidze 1997].[16] This latter ceremony marked the
child's definitive transfer from the clan of birth (the lineage of the
mother, or — in the patrilineal terms employed by the mountaineers — that
of the mother's brother) to the father's clan. The father's lineage will
be the primary social affiliation for a boy for the rest of his life, and
for a girl until marriage. The newly dead follow the same pathway. They are
escorted to Suleti, the "Land of Souls", by their mother's brother to his
andabi, the equivalent of a clan in the
Land of Souls. Some time later their escorts (mgebari) take them to their father's andabi. If the deceased is a male or an
unmarried female, he or she remains there for eternity. The soul of a married
woman follows a longer trajectory: she is first escorted to her MoBr's andabi, then that of her paternal uncles
(i.e. her father's patrilineage), and then is taken to her husband's andabi, where she remains (if she was
married twice, she goes to the first husband's clan for as long as she was
married to him on earth, then spends the rest of eternity in her second husband's
andabi) [Baliauri & Mak'alatia 1940;
Charachidzé 1968: 262]. In both birth and death, therefore, the individual
undergoes an important transition from a primary attachment to a woman
(his or her mother) to affiliation with a father's or husband's lineage;
it is noteworthy that newborn children and the newly dead are considered
impure, and highly polluting, until these transitions are completed.
Table 5. Trajectories of newly
born and newly dead [Xevsureti].
|
|
women's space (impure) |
men's space (pure) |
|
newborn
child |
MoBr's clan (birth clan), birth
hut |
Fa's clan, shrine [xat'shi mibareba] |
|
newly
dead |
MoBr's clan (mgebari) |
Fa's clan [andabi] |
|
|
"exterior of the exterior" |
"exterior of the interior" |
Could the dala of the Tushetians, linked to the
trajectory of dead souls, and the Dæl of the Svans, golden-haired
divine shepherd of ibex, derive from the same source? In particular, was
Nakh *da:li appropriated by the ancient Georgians
as a designation of the female-gendered supernatural ancestral to Svan
Dæl and northeast Georgian Samdzimari and their sisters, perhaps
as the taboo replacement of the original name of this goddess? The associations
of the various patrons of the savage exterior with the world of the dead
is not equally evident in each case. Dæl causes the death of those
hunters who violate her conditions or provoke her jealousy, but seems not
to have any more explicit connection with the Land of Souls. Kajaveti, the subterranian kingdom
of the mysterious Kajes and homeland of Samdzimari, bears
a strong similarity to the world of the dead; recall that the legendary
oracle Gaxua was said to have undergone physical death — including partial
decomposition of his body — in order to be able accompany St. George on
the raid in Kajaveti from which he returned leading
Samdzimari and her sisters. Among the Mingrelians of western Georgia, the
patron of the exterior is known under the title galenishi orta ("Orta of the exterior"),[17] in contrast to St. George, sometimes
invoked as zhinishi orta ("Orta of the above"). This spirit
is the object of a cult performed in remote exterior spaces, such as mountains
or forests, and receives offerings of cheese and a sacrificed goat-kid,
as do Samdzimari and the other Northeast Georgian dobilni. In addition to being called upon
to watch over sick children and women in childbirth, and to assure dairy
production and the health and protection of livestock, the galenishi orta have a special relation with the
souls of the recently dead, a function consistent with their sphere of
activity [Mak'alatia 1979, 2000; Abak'elia 1991]. The souls of the dead,
like women and the female deities under discussion here, circulate between
the interior of the community and a distant world beyond the territory
of the village.[18]
The final matter to be discussed
is why the ancient Georgians borrowed a foreign word to name the female
counterpart of St. George. I will point to two facts as a starting point
for future inquiry in this area. First of all, while the male half of the
divine couple in question bears some variant of the name of St. George [Georgian
Giorgi/Givargi, Svan jgëræ:g, Mingrelian jgege, Abxaz A-ergë, Ossetic Was-tyrdji], the names of the female half
are variegated: she may bear a descriptive title (Samdzimari, the "necklace-wearer";
adgilis deda, the "place mother"; galenishi orta, "the portion/being of the exterior"),
the name of Mary or St. Barbara, or the Nakh loanword Dæl. This plurality
of epithets leads one to hypothesize fairly frequent lexical replacement,
possibly due to taboos on addressing the goddess by her "real" name. Second,
what appear to have been taboo-driven loanwords are by no means rare in
the Caucasus, in particular those referring to elements of the "exterior
world":
(1) The word for daughter- and/or
sister-in-law has been supplanted by reflexes of the Indo-European root
*(s)nus- in Caucasian languages from all
three indigenous families [Tuite & Schulze 1998]. In the virilocal
societies of the Caucasus, brides are brought in from other families, and
as "strangers" suddenly installed at the very heart of the domestic circle,
they were traditionally submitted to various restrictions and avoidance
practices, especially in the period following marriage.
(2) Hunters in Abxazia, Ossetia,
Svaneti and perhaps elsewhere in the Caucasus employed, up until about
a century ago, a "hunting language" consisting in paraphrases and other
types of lexical replacements for the names of game animals, hunting implements,
and the like [Dirr 1925; Gulia 1926; Inal-Ipa 1965: 191-2; Kaloev 1971:
250; Elisa Watson, pers. comm]. Some of these taboo-formations were based
on borrowings; the word psit' referring to the chamois or mountain
goat in many Northeast Georgian dialects [Ghlont'i 1974 II: 1962] is almost
certainly a borrowing, perhaps transmitted by various central Caucasian
dialects, from Abxaz a-psto'ë "animal" [Charachidzé 1968:
457]. Another Northwest Caucasian lexeme which has been appropriated by
neighboring languages is Abxaz a-psaàto' "bird", which surfaces as the name
of the Svan divine patron of birds and non-carnivorous game Apsat' or Apsad; also Ossetic Æfsati, Balkar Apsatë [Abaev 1949: 300, 319]. Also from
an Abxaz source is the name of "Lady Azau, a wife of the Water Guardians",
who appears in an Ossetic version of the Dæl and doomed hunter cycle
(< Abxaz a-dzà7oa "swamp" < a-dzë "water") [Chaudry 1996].
It is my conclusion, therefore,
that the appropriation of the Nakh word for "god" to name the divine patron
of exterior spaces and of high-mountain game animals is consistent with the
ethnographic data concerning her functions, as well as with lexical-replacement
practices observed in many regions of the central Caucasus. The naming taboo
discussed here may well have been gender-specific. Among the Ossetes, for
example, women cannot pronounce the name of Wastyrji, the local St. George,
referring to him instead as lægty dzwar "patron-saint of men" [Kaloev 1991].
Conversely, it may have been the menfolk who avoided pronouncing the original
name, whatever it might have been, of Samdzimari, Dæl, and their sisters.[19]
V. Dæl and the dawn goddesses.
Even without the
hint provided by the title given to this paper, readers may well have already
detected similarities between the attributes of Dæl and those of
the Greek goddess Aphrodite: beauty and nudity, seduction (in particular,
seduction of mortals in mountain settings), and a fondness for gold necklaces.[20] Although Aphrodite is reckoned
among the chief Olympian gods and goddesses, and credible IE etymologies
have been proposed for her name, it is the consensus view that many, if not
most, of her traits and adventures have been adopted from Near Eastern sources.
Writing for the majority, Burkert [1985: 152-6] asserted that behind Aphrodite
"clearly stands the ancient Semitic goddess of love Ishtar-Astarte" [also
Herter 1960; Penglase 1994: 159-179]. Paul Friedrich [1978: 53] sought to
motivate a more complex prehistory of the Greek goddess, with roots in several
interconnected religious traditions of the ancient Near East. Alongside the
heavy Mesopotamian-Phoenician contribution to the cluster of traits, biographical
motifs and cultic practices labelled "Aphrodite", Friedrich uncovers features
which he traces back to the Minoan-Mycenean (and ultimately "Old European",
in Gimbutas' sense) and Indo-European cultural complexes. Of the deities
more or less securely attributed to the Proto-Indo-European religious system,
the one bearing the closest resemblance to Aphrodite is "Dawn" (*Ausôs), although she has a more direct
descendant in the goddess Eos, about whom comparatively little has been
written in the extant Greek sources. In Friedrich's opinion, in pre-Homeric
times "the Greek Aphrodite eventually fuses the features of the early Greek
Eos with many of those of Astarte" [1978: 49]. Recently, Penglase [1994: 163-4]
took issue with the hypothesis of a "composite Aphrodite" with a significant
Indo-European component (i.e. the antecedent of Eos), for which, in his
view, "the arguments are for the most part speculative and not supported
by concrete, defined and reliable evidence". While the evidence put forth
by Friedrich in support of his assertion of a link to the dawn goddess is
indeed less "concrete" than the rich and varied material that the Greek depiction
of Aphrodite owes to Near Eastern sources, I find it compelling for other
reasons. Rather than go into a detailed discussion of this matter, I will
limit myself to two points, which are directly pertinent to the topic of
this paper. First of all, I do believe that the Svan deity Dæl and
Greek Aphrodite share numerous traits, which is, in my view, due to the
similarities that each has to the dawn-goddess complex. In other words, Dæl's
resemblance to Aphrodite is mediated, in a sense, by Eos and Inanna-Ishtar.
Secondly, Friedrich's monograph on Aphrodite has the singular merit of pinpointing
a crucial characteristic underlying the depiction of Aphrodite which is equally
applicable to Dæl and the dawn goddess: liminality [1978: 132-148].
Setting aside Aphrodite for the
moment, here are the common features of the IE Dawn goddess, the Mesopotamian
Inanna-Ishtar, and Svan Dæl, which strike me as particularly significant:
(1). Dawn and the morning star (also
red, rosy, golden coloring and adornments). It goes without saying that rosy-fingered
Eos and her Indic, Baltic and other Indo-European cousins share certain
features associated with the beginning of day, in terms of color, brilliance
and the like. Sumerian Inanna identifies herself as the morning star to
the gatekeeper of the underworld, and is evoked as both Lady of the morning
and Lady of the evening (e.g. in the context "Lady of the morning [or evening]
is radiant on the horizon"), an evident association with the planet Venus
as morning and evening star [Afanasjeva 1991; Wolkstein & Kramer 1983:
101-103]. Dæl is golden-haired and luminescent, and her association
with the morning star in both narrative poetry and ritual was mentioned
earlier. It is worth noting as well that Dæl is invoked specifically
in the context of a New Year's ceremony, that is, a time of transition between
the old year and the new, just as dawn is the transition between night and
a new day. Some poems of the Innana and Dumuzi cycle were likewise performed
annually, at New Year's observances intended to assure the fertility of crops
and livestock [Afanasjeva 1991].
Although Inanna and Dæl are
characteristically depicted as nude, they are also described as wearing
or using golden adornments on certain occasions. Mention was make above
of the beads given as tokens by Dæl to her lovers, and the necklace
from which her Xevsur sister Samdzimari derives her name. In the course
of her celebrated descent to the underworld, Inanna-Ishtar is progressively
stripped of her crown, earrings, necklaces and garments as she passes through
the seven gates of the Land of No Return. That these adornments symbolize
her powers is indicated by her weakness before Ereshkigal, the queen of the
underworld, who deprives her of life straightaway. Conversely, her clothing
and jewelry are returned to her as she rises to the surface of the earth,
more powerful than before [see, among other sources, Penglase 1994: 16-21
on the goddess' "journey of power"]. The Vedic deity Ushas is described exposing
her unclothed body in several hymns ("Belle d'apparence, comme une jeune
fille ornée par sa mère, tu mets ton corps à découvert
pour qu'on le voie" [RgVeda I:123:11, tr. Renou]); elsewhere
her shining adornments are mentioned ("Avec ses parures elle a brillé
dans les portiques du ciel" [RgVeda I:113:14, tr. Renou]).
(2). Sexual predation, especially
of mortal men. The
mortal lovers preferred by preferred by Eos, Inanna-Ishtar and Dæl
are portrayed as hunters or shepherds, that is, men whose activities take
them far outside of the village, into the non-domesticated spaces under the
control of the goddess (typically a mountain-top). These romances more often
than not end unhappily, at least for the mortal lover, who dies or is otherwised
punished as a consequence of his relationship with the goddess. In the case
of Dæl, the inventory of slain hunters includes not only Betgil, but
also a certain Mepsay, who meets his fate in a fashion one can only describe
as bizarre. This hunter is one of the protagonists of the "Dæl in childbirth"
ballad cycle mentioned earlier; it is he who rescues Dæl's newborn
child after it had been snatched by a wolf. In one variant, he turns down
Dæl's offer of her sexual favors, and opts for hunting success instead.
He takes aim at a herd of ibex, one of which has golden horns, a sign that
the beast is a transformation of the goddess herself. Mepsay's bullet ricochets
off the golden horns and strikes his forehead, killing him [Tuite 1994: 44-47,
127].
Eos snatched several humans to be
her lovers, among them Kephalos, and the giant, handsome hunter Orion [Nagy
1990: 242]. Unfortunately for the latter, "when pink-fingered Dawn chose
Orion, you gods at ease in your heaven grudged the union bitterly, even
until chaste Artemis of the golden throne killed him in Ortygia by an infliction
of her gentle darts" [Odyssey V: 121-124; tr. T. E. Shaw]. The
motif appears to have been a popular one at one time; Gantz [1993: 238]
takes note of the "numerous appearances in Red-Figure [ceramics] of a hunter
pursued by a winged Eos".
When
Ishtar attempts to seduce Gilgamesh, he responds with an enumeration of
lovers — men and animals alike — brought to misfortune by her: "Tammuz,
the lover of your earliest youth, for him you have ordained lamentations
year upon year! You loved the colorful 'Little Shepherd' bird and then hit
him, breaking his wing … You loved the supremely mighty lion, yet you dug
for him seven and again seven pits …" and so on [Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VI; tr. Kovacs].
(3). Fertility; patronage or herding
of beasts. Among
the varied functions under their patronage, Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte
are invoked as goddesses of fertility, assuring the fruitfulness of fields,
beasts and humans. Inanna is portrayed giving birth to vegetables and grains
after coupling with Dumuzi under the apple tree. In the Akkadian version
of Ishtar's descent to the underworld, during her absence "no bull mounted
a cow, [no donkey impregnated a jenny], No young man impregnated a girl
…" [Dalley 1991: 158].
Of the Indo-European dawn goddesses,
Indic Ushas, Roman Aurora and, more explicitly, Mater Matuta are linked
to fertility, especially of women [Toporov 1991; Dumézil 1973: 93-199,
304-336]. Etymologically linked, at least, is the Baltic "father of horses"
Ûsinsh (whose name contains the same Indo-European
root *aus- as Eos, Ushas and Aurora), depicted as divine herdsman and patron
of horses [Biezais 1975: 374; Ivanov & Toporov 1991]. Ushas is characterized
as "rich in cows and horses" [RgVeda I:92], and even as "genitrix of cows"(gava:m janitrî; RgVeda I:124:4, also IV:52:2 [Renou
1986: 62, 76]). In view of the ubiquity of bovine imagery in the Vedas,
one should not read too much into these epithets; nonetheless, in Srinivasan's
opinion [1979: 120], the dawn goddess can be interpreted as symbolizing
"feminine abundance"(as does the cow), and as "possessing the generative
power by which new food and new life is obtained".
Dæl is not only the divine
patron of game animals; she is occasionally portrayed escorting herds of
ibex in the high mountains, as would a shepherd leading her flocks, or milking
a female ibex.[21] She watches over the beasts in
her care, and ensures that there was always be enough for the hunters who
comply with her conditions. Under the epithet of "Dæl of New Year's
Eve" she is invoked in the course of the night separating the old and new
year in prayers and offerings for the prosperity of the household, e.g. "Dæl
of New Year's Eve, make us see many a day like today in peace, with a good
heart, with peace and fertility of animals and people" [Bardavelidze 1939:
91].
(4). Ambiguous nature, attractive
yet dangerous. All
of the goddess compared here are characterized by, on the one hand, beauty,
eroticism and the granting of prosperity, and, on the other, a dangerous,
potentially lethal, nature. Inanna and Ishtar were not only goddesses of
fertility and sexual love; they also presided over war and discord. Their
treatment of their former sexual partners is a matter of public record. Despite
her extraordinary beauty, and her capacity for granting success to hunters,
Dæl's reputation for destroying her former lovers was such that she
was regarded with fear and apprehension by Svans travelling in the uninhabited
spaces outside of their villages. "Dæl appears to a man in the form
of a woman, and tempts him. Afterwards she lures him into the forest and
destroys the unfortunate human. Dæl will drive a man insane by tempting
him to lie with her" [Wonya:n 1917: 13]. Nagy [1990: 252] saw in "the ambivalent
function of Eos as the undifferentiated agent of abduction, death and preservation"
(of her mortal lovers, that is) interesting parallels with Aphrodite, as
well as the echoes of primordial representations of the daily movements of
the sun and stars.[22]
Drawing upon Turner's formulation
of the concept of liminality, Friedrich observes that "the liminal is …
dynamic or processual in that it involves crossing over (out of or in to)
relatively stable or fixed structures or "grids". Or it may involve operating
"betwixt and between" the margins of these recognized and accepted categories
of these recognized and accepted categories, rules, groups and structures"
[Friedrich 1978: 132]. In both of these senses — the transitional and the
interstitial — Dæl, Inanna, Eos and their sisters are endowed with
distinctly liminal attributes.
Dawn, which appears to have been
an anchoring trope for at some of these divinities, is of course a transitional
period between night and day. Inanna in addition was linked to the evening
star, and therefore to the liminality of dusk. As we have seen, both Dæl
and Inanna were invoked at ceremonies marking the end of the old year and
the beginning of the new, this being the calendrical correlate of twilight,
one might say. Going further along this line of thought, one can discern
the potential of dawn and dusk as symbols of birth and death. I argued above
that the usage of the root dala- in Tushetian (Northeast Georgian)
funerary practices is to be interpreted in the context of traditional beliefs
concerning the individual's life cycle. In particular, both birth and death
are "impure", and pertain to the woman's [i.e. the mother's] social sphere.
The newly-born, or newly-deceased, individual thereupon follows a trajectory
of progressive incorporation into a male-headed social group, either that
of the father or the husband [Table 5]. It may be pertinent that the Proto-Kartvelian
root *tn-/ten- is ancestral to the Georgian [ten-eb-a] and Laz-Mingrelian [tan-ap-a] words for "dawn", whereas its
Svan daughter form signifies "give birth, be born" [li-tn-e; Fähnrich and Sarjveladze
1990: 68; Klimov 1998: 147].
Encounters between the goddesses
and their mortal lovers characteristically take place in liminal locations:
mountains or pastures, at the frontier between the spatial domain of the
human community ("culture") and the inaccessible spaces appertaining to
nature, the dwelling places of gods and spirits. The men are described
as hunters (Betgil, Orion) or herdsmen (Dumuzi, Anchises); these professions
are doubly liminal, one might say, both in a spatial sense — hunters and
shepherds go far from their villages, into the transitional zones just mentioned
— and in their function as exploiters of animals for the profit of their
community. As has been noted more than once, the contradictions are particularly
acute in the case of hunters, who cause the death of their prey in order
to bring life-giving food to their families, and who, in so doing, invest
themselves with some of the traits of animals [Vidal-Naquet 1992: 39].
It is no ordinary woman whom the
hunter encounters, but a goddess: immortal, awesome and powerful. She is
also pure, i.e., sexual contact with her is nonpolluting, unlike that with
ordinary adult women in Greek, Semitic and highland Caucasian cultures.[23] In contrast to the behavior expected
of mortal women, the goddess takes the initiative, to the point of seizing
or snatching the man of her choice. He is brought, at least temporarily,
into intimate contact with another order of being. Yet, as Georgians and
Greeks alike knew well, and as Anchises exclaimed after Aphrodite revealed
herself to him in all her terrible majesty, "he who lies with a deathless
goddess is no hale man afterwards" [Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: 189-190; tr. Evelyn-White], if
he survives at all.
Nagy [1990] has made a special study
of the motif of distraught lovers leaping from a white cliff into water
in Greek epic and lyric poetry. Among those reputed to have taken the plunge
are Aphrodite (in connection with "her known function as substitute for
the Indo-European dawn-goddess of the Greeks, Eos" [1990: 257]) and the
poet most closely identified with her, Sappho, both of whom were allegedly
crazed with love for beautiful young men with solar associations (Adonis
and Phaon, respectively). Nagy discerns, on the one hand, an astronomical
pattern underlying these narratives: "If we imagine Aphrodite diving into
the Okeanos after the sun, it follows that she will rise in the morning,
bringing after her the sun of a new day" [1990: 258]. At yet a deeper level
of analysis, both the cliff and the ocean are "symbolic boundaries delimiting
light and darkness, life and death, wakefulness and sleep, consciousness
and unconsciousness" [1990: 236], that is, endowed with the sort of liminality
proposed here for Dæl-Inanna-Eos complex. The Greek "lover's leap"
motif is strongly reminiscent of that of Betgil and other hunters falling
(or even jumping, in some variants) from the mountain after an encounter
with their jealous lover Dæl; furthermore, the fatal fall occurs at
the transitional time of dawn.
Also potentially pertinent to a
comparison of the Greek and Svan motifs is the association of the latter
with seasonal rituals. In Upper Svanetia, and in the neighboring province
of Mountain Rach'a (occupied by Svan speakers until the 15th century), at
the foot of the mountain where the hunter is alleged to have died, annual
round dances (samti
ch'ëshxæsh) are performed in late winter or
spring to the singing of the ballad of Betgil and Dæl. In Rach'a,
the dance is believed to influence a change in the weather [Virsaladze 1976:
67; Charachidzé 1986: 131-172]. Although there is no mention in any
of the Svan or other Georgian ballads of the resuscitation of the dead hunter,
Virsaladze [1976: 115-117] believes the portrayal of Betgil can be juxtaposed
to those of Dumuzi-Tammuz, Attis and Adonis, and thus linked to mythical
projections of the annual cycle of dying and regenerating vegetation. Virsaladze
[1976: 63] mentions in passing that the Upper Svan commemoration of Betgil
coincides with the festival of Aghbæ-laghræ:l, the carnival preceding
the Lenten fast. Recently, J. Ruxadze [1999: 131] has compiled, from various
manuscript sources, a description of the colorful and fascinating ceremony
within which the samti
ch'ëshxæsh takes place:
"At the festivals of Aghbæ-laghræ:l and Limurq'wamal [the
"tower feast", its Lower Svan counterpart — KT], the chief element is the
building of a snow tower. Into the center of it is stuck a fir, linden
or other sacred tree … at the top of which is attached a woman's head scarf
as a flag (in Upper Svaneti), or a human-shaped figurine "Lamaria", which
holds a dagger in its hand, and has a wooden phallus hung down in front;
a torn piece of sieve-screen (called a "shield") serves as its face … In
Upper Svaneti, the round dance known as samti ch'ëshxæsh is performed next to the Lamaria
figurine, by six elderly men. While singing they climb up the snow tower
and dance around "Lamaria", after which they shake the tree until the "shield"
falls down. According to their belief, on whichever side the shield-sieve
falls, that side [of the commune — KT] will have a good harvest that year.
Following the old people, children climb the snow tower and compete to
be the first to grab "Lamaria" and make it fall to the ground".
This extraordinary ritual appears
to feature an effigy of the goddess Lamaria, ordinarily associated with
the hearth and domestic prosperity, here placed atop a snowy mountain, like
Dæl, and outfitted with such male attributes as a phallus and a sword.
Furthermore, the participants seek to knock down, first, Lamaria's mask
or "shield", and then the effigy itself. All of this takes place in a (literally)
carnivalesque context of mask-wearing, cross-dressing and bawdy merry-making.
Without more information (Ruxadze's book only came into my hands a few months
ago), I will not attempt to unravel the lush symbolism of Aghbæ-laghræ:l. Suffice it to say that
liminality is written all over it, along with a dive from a white mountain
that resembles that of Aphrodite rather more than that of Dæl's lover
Betgil. One wonders what Victor Turner would have made of it.
To sum up, the Kartvelian, Mesopotamian
and Indo-European dawn-goddess complexes provide powerful conceptual tools
for representing, and overcoming the contradictions inherent in, women's
nature and social roles, as perceived within the dominant ideological frameworks
of these cultural areas. With regard to traditional highland Caucasian
societies, at least, the principal contradictions are these three, although
in effect they are but three facets of one complex representation:
1. Women — especially through the
blood of menstruation and childbirth — are sources of pollution, and therefore
potentially dangerous, yet absolutely essential for the survival of lineage.
2. In accordance with an exogamic
ideology of marital alliance formation, in-marrying women are brought from
outside the local group into the heart of the domestic interior (cf. the
woman's trajectory shown in Diagram 1)
3. The transitional moments of birth
and death are imbued with pollution, and linked to the women's sphere.
Women give birth in isolation from men, and in the period between death
and interment, it is primarily the womenfolk who mourn in proximity to
the body [Baliauri & Mak'alatia 1940]. These liminal phases, of course,
are integral components of each individual's life cycle, and each is accompanied
by a transfer of social attachment to the father's or husband's patrilineage.
The potent, fascinating figure of
Dæl, the golden-haired, glowing, sexual predatory, touchy, jealous
and lethal patroness of the game animals of the high mountains, will of
necessity be reduced to a pallid, skeletal outline in comparative analyses
of the sort attempted here. Even if one were to read through the corpus
of harsh and compelling ballads, round-dance songs and narratives that have
come down to us in collections of Svan folklore — which doubtless represent
but a tiny fraction of the texts that would have been in circulation in
the Svaneti of a few centuries ago — it would be impossible to replicate
the swirling cluster of thoughts and emotions that Dæl would have called
up for a chilled, hungry and anxious Svan hunter feeling his way along the
edge of a precipice in the pale light of dawn. It should be noted, finally,
that Dæl, like her semi-divine and doomed son Amiran, to whom I devoted
an earlier study [Tuite 1998], are featured in songs, dances and tales performed
by men, and presumably composed by them as well. In this case as well, one
would like very much to know how the womenfolk thought of her.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper has gone through many
revisions and mutations since I began thinking about the etymology of Dæl
several years ago. Oral presentations have been made at the departmental
symposium "L'anthropologie du contact" (Université de Montréal,
February 1996), at the Congrès international des études asiatiques
et nord-africaines (ICANAS XXXVI, Montréal, August 2000), and at
the 99th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (San
Francisco, November 2000). Many thanks to all those who offered comments
and advice on those or other occasions: John Colarusso, John Leavitt and
especially Paul Friedrich himself, for making this possible in more ways
than he might realize.
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Département d'anthropologie
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tuitekj@anthro.umontreal.ca