If I had seen the mountains again.If I had saddled my horse again,
And placed colourful saddlebags on him again,
To go into the mountains.
If I could pass through Tbatana again,
For the children to hand me apples.
If I had once again seen the Bats horses on the Mountain of the Kists.
If I could return to the source of the Alazani.
If I had milked the nanny goats one last time,
And oncemore carried the wooden pail full of milk.
If only I could return to Tsovata again,
And return from there and die here.
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This poem or song was most likely written by a certain Longishvili in the late nineteenth-century. It is dedicated to an ageing shepherd, who (as the narrator) laments the fact that he is too old to leave the Bats village of Zemo Alvani and return to the mountains of Tusheti and Tsovata one last time.
I have two recordings of this piece in Bats - one spoken, the other sung - which I hope to be able to put online soon. This is my meagre translation into English - the full cycle was Bats into Georgian into French into English, so this translation is probably anything but accurate! (I am not even sure the French version I was working from is complete.)
"A horse" in Bats sounds like "don" (plural "dui"). A saddle is "kekh", a bridle "orzri", a saddlecloth "kekhkevan" ("saddle-carpet"), and saddlebags are "terzi". ("Real" Bats were carried in these saddlebags as babies - I met a man born in 1958 who claims that this was the case when he and his family went into the mountains in summer.)
A stirrup is "abjunt". In Georgia, it is common to drink special, more important toasts from a horn - During a dinner in Zemo-Alvani however, I partook in a toast drunk from an actual stirrup, whose base (the part upon which you place your foot) was an iron disk about 2cm deep. It was designed to be used as a cup when removed from the stirrup thong and turned over. My host assured me it was very ancient. (There is a large one on display on the first floor of the Samstkhe-Javakheti museum in Akhaltsikhe.)
Horses and horsemanship play a very important part in Bats (and, more generally, Tush) culture, even to this day. Skilled horsemanship is greatly admired, and in many of the portraits on this website, a riding-whip is as important a symbol as the traditional "khanjal" knife.
Every summer, many "doghi" (horse-races) are held all over Tusheti, and to win one of these is considered a great triumph. I have been fortunate enough to see two such races: One held for Zezwaoba ("The Day of Zezwa Prindauli" - See relevant entry), and one held in 2007 high up in the mountains of Tusheti, in Tsovata, to mark Dadaloba, "The Day of God[s?]".
This particular race took place across the valley floor, and involved about a dozen or so riders. They galloped across the valley towards the "khati" (a small church or chapel, found all over Tusheti) of the ruined Bats village of Indurta - Having reached the foot of the slope leading to it, they quickly dismounted and scrambled up to the church on foot (as dictated by tradition) as fast as they could. The first person to reach the khati was a boy of no more than 12.
A long time ago, when a Bats man died, his friends would gather at his house (where his body lay before burial). Sitting on their horses, they would form a line, and sing a song of mourning called "dalai" (from "dal", "God" - I hope to put a recording online soon). Following the funeral, a "doghi" would be held to honour the memory of the deceased.
To give you a vague idea of what a "dalai" ceremony must have looked like, here is a picture taken at the Akhmeta "cheese and traditional arts" festival last year.
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A Kabard Horse named "Tajfun"
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I have two recordings of this piece in Bats - one spoken, the other sung - which I hope to be able to put online soon. This is my meagre translation into English - the full cycle was Bats into Georgian into French into English, so this translation is probably anything but accurate! (I am not even sure the French version I was working from is complete.)
"A horse" in Bats sounds like "don" (plural "dui"). A saddle is "kekh", a bridle "orzri", a saddlecloth "kekhkevan" ("saddle-carpet"), and saddlebags are "terzi". ("Real" Bats were carried in these saddlebags as babies - I met a man born in 1958 who claims that this was the case when he and his family went into the mountains in summer.)
A stirrup is "abjunt". In Georgia, it is common to drink special, more important toasts from a horn - During a dinner in Zemo-Alvani however, I partook in a toast drunk from an actual stirrup, whose base (the part upon which you place your foot) was an iron disk about 2cm deep. It was designed to be used as a cup when removed from the stirrup thong and turned over. My host assured me it was very ancient. (There is a large one on display on the first floor of the Samstkhe-Javakheti museum in Akhaltsikhe.)
Horses and horsemanship play a very important part in Bats (and, more generally, Tush) culture, even to this day. Skilled horsemanship is greatly admired, and in many of the portraits on this website, a riding-whip is as important a symbol as the traditional "khanjal" knife.
Every summer, many "doghi" (horse-races) are held all over Tusheti, and to win one of these is considered a great triumph. I have been fortunate enough to see two such races: One held for Zezwaoba ("The Day of Zezwa Prindauli" - See relevant entry), and one held in 2007 high up in the mountains of Tusheti, in Tsovata, to mark Dadaloba, "The Day of God[s?]".
This particular race took place across the valley floor, and involved about a dozen or so riders. They galloped across the valley towards the "khati" (a small church or chapel, found all over Tusheti) of the ruined Bats village of Indurta - Having reached the foot of the slope leading to it, they quickly dismounted and scrambled up to the church on foot (as dictated by tradition) as fast as they could. The first person to reach the khati was a boy of no more than 12.
A long time ago, when a Bats man died, his friends would gather at his house (where his body lay before burial). Sitting on their horses, they would form a line, and sing a song of mourning called "dalai" (from "dal", "God" - I hope to put a recording online soon). Following the funeral, a "doghi" would be held to honour the memory of the deceased.
To give you a vague idea of what a "dalai" ceremony must have looked like, here is a picture taken at the Akhmeta "cheese and traditional arts" festival last year.-
The following was taken from Robert Chenciner's amazing Daghestan - Tradition and Survival (RoutledgeCurzon 1997, pp.88-91):
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Horse death cults were first brought to the Caucasus by the Scyths, whose barbed arrowheads have been found widely in Daghestan, confirming Heredotus’ history, written in the fifth century BC. In the first century AD, Strabo mentions that the West Caucasian Albani also had horse funeral cults. The last traces of this tribe were among the Uden [Udi] in Georgia and in the villages of Nich and Vartashen in Azerbaijan, where there are several widely spread 17th to 19th-century horse tombstones, a partial survival. […]
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Other archaeological finds, as well as later Turkic Kumyk epic songs, confirm that horses were buried with their owners. The southern Kumyks paraded horses in a circle around the corpse, like Atilla the Hun’s horsemen. A carved stone relief from Koubachi, dating around the 13th century, shows a horse sacrifice. A man stands poised with a sword, with the horse in the background, and the second man holds a beaker to pour a libation with the horse’s blood, a religious offering taken from his ewer accompanied by a prayer. […]
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“During a Chechen funeral, observed by Sjigren in 1846, an animal was sacrificed and its right ear cut off and thrown into the grave. He was told that 80 years earlier, the widow of the corpse also had her ear cut off and thrown into the grave. This was later replaced by the sacrifice of the top-knot of her hair.” […] Many Caucasian mountain families would bankrupt themselves on a funeral feast. “The corpse was dressed in new clothes and laid out for two to four days.” (There is a photo of a Khevsur funeral, where the horse is being presented to the corpse, laid out on a rug, wearing a karakul hat, with his face covered by a cloth. […])
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“On the day after the burial, the first memorial feast began and for three days, hundreds of guests were entertained. Everything they enjoyed benefited the soul of the dead and the belief therefore prevailed that those who partook of the feast could never be satisfied. This was rapidly followed by a second bed, or laying-out, feast to release the deceased into the after-life from the lying-down position. The main event of this feast was a horse race and the prize was the [new] clothes of the deceased. The villagers picked the best available horses and sent them to a village several miles away.” […]
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“For the outward journey, the leader was given a small white flag as his badge and his companion riders held forked sticks with apples and nuts fastened on them to present to their host and the elders of the village. The following day (according to Shah Ahriev, quoted by Dubrovin), they would return, starting early. First the horses would walk, but nine miles from their village they would start to gallop. Meanwhile, the owners of the horses would each send out a few riders to meet the incoming horses and push them faster. Due to the whipping and the great distance of the race, the horses were so tired that even the winner only arrived at a slow trot. An elder who was an initiate of the cult would consecrate the winning horse to the dead man. The horse was given beer and the rider was given a piece of mutton and three loaves of bread. The elder asked the owner of the victorious horse if he would give it to the deceased to take it wherever he wished. The next three horses were then pledged to the ancestors of the dead man.”
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A variant was the Kumyk custom, continued up to late last century, where they drove away the dead man’s horse, after marking it by cutting off the tail or the mane, so that no one who had known the man would take it and so prevent him getting to the next world.
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For a detailed description of the celebrations held for a "doghi" amongst the Khevsurs, please click here.
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A Kabard Horse named "Tajfun"-
The Caucasus is famous for its horses, and the Kabard horse is perhaps one of the most sought-after breeds in the region. A saddle horse, the Kabard is not a fast galloper, and is not particularly large (average height 145cm); yet it shows incredible endurance, and is considered to rank among the best breeds for mountainous terrain, being able to travel 50km in 2 hours.
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There are only four blood lines in the breed, which is to be found in Kabardino-Balkaria and Stavropol krai. A fifth line was added in the 1960s, the result of cross-breeding with English thoroughbreds. "Anglo-Kabards" are noted for their strength, speed, and vigour, and are considered a perfect combination of the endurance and sure-footedness of the Kabards with the greater strength and speed of the thoroughbreds. This information - and more - can be found on the website of the Department for Animal Science of the University of Oklahoma, Wikipedia (obviously), and there is even a video about Kabard horses on YouTube!
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For more information on horses in the Bats (and, more generally, Vainkah) cultures, please also see the posts on Robert Bleichsteiner and on the "Hordune-Din", "The Sea-Stallion."
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