TransCaucasus

First Page

2010-01-12T19:32:00.003+04:00

-
This blog has no longer been updated since 2009. Some entries have been deleted, and some images may no longer display properly.
-
Please go to www.batsav.com, where you will find all the original posts and many, many more entries.
-

The Shrine of St. Marina in Mtiuleti

2009-08-30T20:53:00.006+04:00

view facing south
-

The Shrine of St. Marina near the hamlet of Ebralidzeebi, across the Aragvi River from the village of Kvesheti in Mtiuleti, along the Georgian Military Highway.

-

view facing west
-

The shrine is built atop an old stone tower, which - judging from the ruins which surround it - was once part of a group of quite large buildings.

-

the interior
-

The shrine contains a holy flag (Georgian: drosha), bells, and drinking-horns and other vessels.

-

view facing east
-

hands and dots

-
On the south face of the tower are hand-prints, pressed into plaster on either side of a group of dots (which might mark the spot where one should touch the tower with one's forehead).
-
Here is an old (1975) photograph of the chapel, copied from S. Kurtsikidze & V. Chikovani's amazing Ethnography and Folklore of the Georgia-Chechnya Border (Munich: LINCOM 2008):
-

-
Note: The feast-day of St. Marina (Georgian: marinoba) is on August 12. The shrine is accessible only on foot, having crossed the Aragvi River close to the village of Kvesheti.
-
-

A Song in Tsova

2009-08-06T14:17:00.001+04:00

-

-

The Traditional Tush Family

2009-07-22T19:26:00.003+04:00

The Traditional Tush Family - Structure and Economic Activity
-
The basic unit of Caucasian society is the extended family, a grouping of several lineages collectively owning and exploiting a same estate. In Georgia, the extended family is particularly found in the western mountains among the Svans and in the east among the Tush, the Mokhev (inhabitants of Khevi), and the Pshav. Even as late as the early twentieth century it was not rare to find family communities composed of more than forty members, living under one roof, cultivating and exploiting collective property, and placed under the authority of the oldest man. Here is, for example, the composition of a Tush family, which remained undivided until 1913; the Djidjuriani, from the village of Shenak'o, were twenty-five individuals: the "Father of the House" (mamasakhlisi, i.e. the patriarch) and his wife, an unmarried son, five other sons and their wives, their eleven children, and the wife of one of the latter. They collectively owned a thousand two hundred heads of cattle (ovin and caprin), ten cows, a pair of oxen, and thirty horses, and they cultivated an area of land equivalent to fifteen "dailies" (dghiuri, i.e. a surface of land which regularly required a day's work to be cultivated).
-
In another village, the Ganaani family was made up of three generations, a total of nineteen family members, of which ten were men. They owned between a thousand and a thousand five hundred heads of small cattle (ovin and caprin), eight cows, a pair of oxen, and six "dailies" of land. The elder son was in charge of the entire estate. Of his three younger brothers, two were responsible for the so-called "interior" or "inside" farming, i.e. they tended the family's fields, and the third was responsible for making cheese and other milk products. Among the next, younger generation, the son and the nephews of the family head (his son and the six sons of his younger brothers) devoted themselves to pastoral activities, helped by eight shepherds - seasonal workers foreign to the community and in the family's employ. Livestock farming was the most important part of the Tush economy. Tending to the needs of the family's cattle required fifteen men, whereas only two could acquit themselves of the "inside" farming. This disproportion explains the existence of a practice which differentiates the Tush from the other mountain tribes: almost all the male members of the family were needed to care for the cattle; consequently, it was the women who tended to the fields - ploughing and sowing them, etc. When this seasonal work was over, they devoted themselves to their main activity: the production of wool, weaving, the making of clothes, etc. Female work was organized by and under the direction of the "Mistress of the House" (dedasakhlisi, i.e. the matriarch); this role automatically belonged to the wife of the oldest man: the wife of the "Father of the House" (1st generation) or, if she died, the wife of the elder brother (2nd generation); the woman's age was never taken into consideration - only that of her husband. And as for the role of patriarch, it always belonged to the oldest man.
-
The matriarch was also responsible for another important task: she was in charge of the accumulation of unconsumed goods - milk products, meat, grain - and had to see to their storage and preservation. These reserves were called the saodjakho, "for the family", and were destined to remain intact as the family's private wealth, and were not to be shared. In cases of absolute necessity, part of this wealth could be used by the family, but always collectively. This treasury also included sums of money, which were sometimes considerable, and which were also placed under the authority of the "Mistress of the House". Among the Tush and the Pshav, the profits resulting from the sale of livestock or products were hoarded, and not reinvested. Gains were thus buried forever and none would profit. Rapiel Eristavi commented upon this in 1855:
-
"This branch of agriculture [livestock farming] provides people with relatively important profits; the monies resulting from the sale of hides, of wool, of cheese and milk, are carefully entered in the families books. Among the Pshav and the Tush one may meet with well-off families who own forty or fifty thousand roubles, among which one may still find fifty kopeck coins, which are now no longer in use. This phenomenon is unsurprising, for the mountaineers - instead of reinvesting their money and replacing it into the economy - bury it in the earth."
-
This practice is important, for it shows to what extent mountain societies remained outside of the merchant economy, which was nonetheless penetrating most Georgian provinces. As in most archaic civilizations, the mountain tribes had no conception of goods being able to bear another value than their intrinsic value. As money was only defined by its value as a means of exchange, it was condemned to remain foreign to their economic system, for these peoples essentially provided for their own needs without resorting to commerce. Gaps in production were filled by barter and - possibly - pillage, whose economic role would merit closer study.
-
-

Pshavi

2009-07-15T14:35:00.008+04:00

-

a view of pshavi from google earth
(the valley running north-south on the left-hand side is that of the pshavis aragvi river;
the 12 villages of pshavi are in the perpendicular valley, running east-west)
-

the turn to pshavi off the main road north from tbilisi towards barisakho and khevsureti
-
-

I recently (June 2009) went to Pshavi for the first time, in the company of Thomas Wier, an aspiring linguist here in Georgia to study kartvelian dialects (Tush, Pshav, Khevsur, Mokhevian, etc.). We were meant to go with someone from the Arnold Chikobava Institute of Linguistics in Tbilisi, but this being Georgia, it never happened, and Thomas and I decided to head up to Pshavi on our own.
-
Although we got no further than the village of Shupakho, we did get to meet Lazare Elizbarashvili, the khevisberi (or "Valley Elder") of the Sacred Shine of Iaqsar.

-

lazare elizbarashvili, the valley elder of shuapkho and guardian of the shrine of iaqsar
-

the sacred shrine of iaqsar (hidden in the trees up on the right)
-

Iaqsar is the khati of the village of Shuapkho, a pagan divinity (winged, in some narratives) in the Pshav-Khevsur pantheon, the sworn brother of Kopala, like him a slayer of devi, devils.

-
-

To download the locations of the 12 villages of Pshavi for Google Earth, please click here, and download the ".kmz" file.

-
-

Here is a recording of Lazare Elizbarashvili's father Ioseb, his predecessor as khevisberi of the Sacred Shrine of Iaqsar, officiating during the feast (dgheoba) of Iaqsar in the 1980s.

(This prayer was recorded from Mirian Khutsishvili's ethnographic film Pshavi.)

Ethnographic Map of Tusheti

2009-05-12T16:13:00.003+04:00

tushetis istoriul-etnograpiuli dzeglebis kartograpireba
[historical-ethnographical map of Tusheti]
Courtesy of Giorgi Mamardashvili from the State Museum of Georgia. The definition is poor, but familiarity with the region should enable one to glean some information from the map.
-
-

-

Ethnographic Map of Qvara-Tianeti

2009-05-12T16:09:00.003+04:00

qvara-tianetis salotsavebi
[map of holy places in Qvara-Tianeti]
Courtesy of Giorgi Mamardashvili from the State Museum of Georgia. The definition is poor, but familiarity with the region should enable one to glean some information from the map.
-
-

-

Ethnographic Map of Pirikita-Khevsureti

2009-05-12T16:07:00.002+04:00

pirikita khevsuretis djvar-khatebis ruka
[a map of shrines and holy places in pirikita khevsureti]
Courtesy of Giorgi Mamardashvili from the State Museum of Georgia. The definition is poor, but familiarity with the region should enable one to glean some information from the map.
-
-

-

Ethnographic Map of Piraketa-Khevsureti

2009-05-12T16:01:00.005+04:00

-
piraketa khevsuretis djvar-khatebis ruka
[a map of shrines and holy places in piraketa khevsureti]
Courtesy of Giorgi Mamardashvili from the State Museum of Georgia. The definition is poor, but familiarity with the region should enable one to glean some information from the map.
-
-

-

Georges Dumezil

2009-03-06T16:17:00.010+04:00

Georges Dumézil was born in Paris in 1898, the son of a clacissist, and became interested in ancient languages at a very young age. According to the Wikipaedia entry, "it has been said that he could read the Aeneid in Latin at the age of 9". Having finished school, he went to France's elite Ecole Nationale Supérieure in 1916.

His studies were interrupted by the First World War (the Battle of Verdun took place the year he became a student): He was mobilized, and fought in the war as an officer in the French artillery. After the war, he resumed his studies, and obtained his agrégation in Classical Literature in 1921.

He spent a few months teaching in France, before becoming a lecturer at the University of Warsaw. In 1924, he received his doctorate, having written his doctoral thesis on "The Feast of Immortality" in Indo-European mythologies, thesis in which he compared the origins of the Greek "ambrosia" and the Indian drink "amrita", which was believed to render the man who drank it immortal.

Dumézil apparently found the academic climate in France rather stifling, and moved to (the then nascent republic of) Turkey. He became Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Istanbul in 1925, where he taught for six . He learnt Turkish, and travelled in Turkey, Russia, and the Caucasus. It was also in Turkey that he first came across the Ubykh language, which was to fascinate him for years, and the experience and knowledge of the Caucasus he gained during these years was to make him the foremost French (and francophone) caucasologist.

He left Turkey in 1931, and moved to Uppsala in Sweden, where he taught at the University for 2 years before returning to France in 1933. Back in Paris, he held the Chair of Comparative Religion of Indo-European Peoples at the famous Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.

Named a member of the prestigious Collège de France after the war (1949), where he held the Chair of Indo-European Civilization (created specially for him), Dumézil would go on to teach at the Collège for almost 20 years, before moving to Princeton University (1968-1971).

Prof. Georges Dumézil was elected to the 40th Chair of the Académie française on October 26, 1978, and was formally received by the illustrious Claude Lévi-Strauss - his colleague, patron, and fellow student of mythology.

Doctor honoris causa of the University of Uppsala (1955), of Istanbul (1964), of Berne (1969), of Liège (1979), Associate Member of the Académie royale de Belgique (1958), Member of the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (1968), Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et belles-lettres de Paris (1970), Honorary Member of The Royal Irish Academy, Section of Polite Literature and Antiquities (1974), Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (1974), Prof. Georges Dumézil died on October 11, 1986.

-
-
Dumézil published many books and articles. The following list concerns itself only with those related to the Caucasus:
-
Légendes sur les Nartes (Institut d’Études Slaves, 1930)
Textes populaires ingush (A. Maisonneuve, 1935)
Contes et légendes des Oubykhs (Institut d’Ethnologie, 1957)
Contes lazes (Institut d’Ethnologie, 1957)
Études oubykhs (A. Maisonneuve, 1959)
Documents anatoliens sur les langues et les traditions du Caucase (A. Maisonneuve, 1960-'67)
Le livre des héros, légendes ossètes sur les Nartes (Gallimard, 1965)
Le verbe oubykh, études descriptives et comparatives (Académie des Inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1975)
Romans de Scythie et d’alentour (Payot, 1978)
-
-
Two books from the author's library:
-

-

-
-

Travels in Tusheti

2009-01-30T00:18:00.003+04:00

-

-

When on my way back from the Dadaloba festival in the summer of 2008, I came across an English family on their way around Tusheti on horseback. I had been in touch with dad - Chris Wills - by email many months beforehand, and both parties were much surprised to bump into each other in Patima's wonderful guesthouse in the small hamlet of Djvarboseli!

Here is a link to their blog, a fine tale of horsemanship and feasting, and probably the best account of a wonderful stay in Tusheti! And for more information on how to get to Tusheti in the first place, please see this entry on my blog.
-
-

Khevsur Warriors

2009-01-14T15:24:00.005+04:00

I do not wish to become embroiled in the common nonsensical discussions about the Khevsurs being the descendants of Crusaders who somehow got lost in the Caucasus on their way from Europe to the Holy Land. Even a basic knowledge of geography suffices to know that Khevsureti is a long, long way from the routes followed by the Crusaders from Europe!

Regardless: This old studio photograph (probably taken in Tbilisi) is so wonderful that I feel I must post it!

-
-

no shields here - just swords
-

There is a growing interest in and enthusiasm for "Caucasian martial arts", mostly on the internet, and there are even displays of "authentic" Georgian "martial arts skills" during folkloric festivals here in Georgia (see www.mtavari.ge for more information - the site is in Georgian). Here is an extract from The Religious System of Pagan Georgia by Georges Charachidze (Paris, 1968 - in French; my translation):

-
Nevertheless, the kadag [a powerful soothsayer; the gods were thought to communicate through him] intervenes in matters of law; firstly, in precise circumstances such as the vendetta and the "duel", called parik'aoba or tch'ra-tch'riloba. In some ways, tch'ra-tch'riloba represents the legal form of the vendetta, if the protagonists belong to different clans. tch'ra-tch'riloba means "cut" or "wound" [in the Khevsur dialect of Georgian]: the two adversaries kneel facing each other, the sword held in the right hand, the shield in the other; they cannot break up [their fight]. They may only strike each other's faces, the sword's sharp point being used to inflict wounds; the wounds must be light, and may not go down to the bone. The fight takes place within the surrounding wall of the shrine; it is prescribed by the men of the council, the judges, either to end a debt of blood which may exist between two clans or as an ordeal to separate two plaintiffs belonging to the same clan. If one of the fighters receives a severe wound, the man responsible for inflicting it and/or his clan must "buy back his blood" [from the wounded man and/or from his clan]. The wound is measured with grains of cereal, each one being equivalent to [the payment of] one cow. Wherefrom springs a practice of certain Khevsur doctors who, at the bidding of the wounded man, deepen his wound down to the bone. Sometimes, instead of ending the vendetta, the tch'ra-tch'riloba restarts it, following a disagreement regarding the gravity of the wound inflicted or the good faith of the "surveyors of the wound" [those who judge its severity]. It is obvious that in this situation the "judges" are incompetent: by deciding that the fight should be held, they had already divested themselves of the case and had accepted the subsequent divine judgement beforehand. If even this divine judgement was for whatever reason inoperable or unacceptable, a retrial was useless: one addressed oneself directly to the divinity, i.e. to the kadag. Such cases were commonplace, if one may judge from the persistence, the popularity, and the violence of tch'ra-tch'riloba. Vaja Pshavela [a famous nineteenth-century Pshav writer and poet] tells that he counted more than 50 wounds on the face of a single man. G. Eladze, describing the custom in 1949[!], concludes by recommending governmental action with a view to transforming these bloody fights into a simple sport. (pp. 183-184)
-

-

Here is a Youtube video showing old films and photographs of parik'aoba or tch'a-tch'riloba. The first few seconds (filmed in the late 1920s) are a good example of this practice, as the two fighters are not wearing chain mail hoods (which were included in all the early photographs of the Khevsurs, which prized dramatic effect over ethnographic accuracy).

-
-

Two Songs by Lela Tataraidze

2009-01-13T18:12:00.004+04:00

Lela Tataraidze is Tusheti's most famous singer. She was first described to me as

TuSeTis jeniper lopez

i.e. "Tusheti's Jennifer Lopez" - some indication of her fame and popularity! She was born in Dano, a small, nearly abandoned hamlet in Pirikiti Tusheti. Like most Tush families, hers had no doubt been spending the harsh winters down in the valley of the Alazani, in Kvemo Alvani (where her house - and indeed her mother! - are still to be seen). Her haunting songs are THE music played by all the Tush, irrespective of origin (Tchaghma, Pirikiti, Gometsri, Tsova, Tbilisi Tush, etc.), and some of them - particularly "How beautiful is Tusheti!" - have come to represent the very soul of Tusheti - indeed, to the detriment of other Tush artists: Ask any Georgian (or Tush) to name a singer from Tusheti, and every single one will come up with Lela Tataraidze. But ask them to name a singer from Tusheti other than Lela Tataraidze, however, and you will most likely draw a blank.
-

Here are two of her many songs:

-
"ra lamazia tusheti", or "How beautiful is Tusheti", and a lamentation for the death of several [Tush] people carried away in an avalanche (in the 1970s or -80s, I believe).
-
-
For more traditional Georgian songs - not from Tusheti, however - please see my previous post on two songs by Sandro Kavsadze.
-

Journalists on Google

2009-01-09T17:58:00.002+04:00

Notice the peak in August? Those are all the journos frantically searching the web for information on Georgia and South Ossetia!
-
-

The 2008 Dadaloba Celebrations

2008-08-20T13:13:00.005+04:00

I spent a wonderful week up in Tusheti, travelling to Tsovata via the Gometsari valley with two friends - Peggy Scremin, the "Attachee de Cooperation" at the French embassy in Tbilisi, and Lali Laliashvili, a French-speaking half-Tush girl from Kistauri. We were the guests of the three "shulta" ("hosts") of this year's celebrations: Zura Garsevanidze (the former mayor of Zemo Alvani), Besik Kaishvili, and Petre Ushurauli (the master shepherd!).

Our driver (a Tsova, naturally!) tops up the Niva's tank with a jar of moonshine petrol in Kvemo Alvani before we embark upon the epic drive over the mountains into Tusheti.

The road up to Tusheti (looking from the Caucasus mountains down towards the Alazani Valley and Kakheti).

The compulsory glasses of chacha (Georgian grappa - triple-distilled grape mush from the bottom of the wine press) on top of the 3,000m Abanos Pass which separates Tusheti from Kakheti. Because of the pass' high altitude, the road to Tusheti is only open to cars from mid-June to mid-September (and only passable to shepherds and horses from mid-May to late September).

The (superb) view from the Abanos Pass down into Tusheti.

The Sulak river basin, with Omalo ("the capital of Tusheti") and its fantastic castle in the background.

The end of the road: Pati's fabulous guesthouse in the hamlet of Djvarboseli, "the byre of the Cross", where we spend the night on our way to Tsovata.

The superb view down the Gometsari valley from Pati's guesthouse, as photographed from the bathroom [i.e. loo].

The view from Pati's guesthouse up the Gometsari Valley, with the path to Tsovata in the foreground.

The next day: Early morning preparations for the ride/walk to Tsovata.

Even Nivas (!) can go no further.

A pack-horse.

The path that leads to Tsovata, looking down the Gometsari Valley back towards Djvarboseli.

The Tsovatistsqali River (a tributary of the Gometsris Alazani), looking towards Tsovata.

Our host in Tsovata: Mirza. (Looking festive, as usual.)

Nightlife in Tsovata: The young Tsovas compete in lifting weights on their hand made bench-press.

What dreams are made of (for young shepherds in Tsovata).

The eve of Dadaloba. Mirza and his horse, with k'en sameb, "the old [church of the] Trinity" on the sacred hill in the background.

Another, better view of the old church of the Trinity and the sacred hill. (Note the "stone man" on the latter's summit.) Women are not allowed to walk upon the hill, and it is not considered proper and respectful for them to even approach its flanks.

Celebrating the victory of Mirza (black t-shirt) in the "doghi" ("horse race"), a ritual horse race which is held yearly, and is the high-point of the Bats festival of "dadaloba", "the Feast of God the Father".

Zura Garsevanidze, the former mayor of the Bats village of Zemo Alvani (in Kakheti), and one of this year's three "shulta" ("host"). His saddlebags both contain a (live) sheep, which will be taken down the Tsovatistsqali valley from Indurta to Tsaro, where their sacrifice will mark the beginning of the "doghi" ("horse race").

Rezo, a Bats who works as an airline pilot in China, was this year's "tamada" ("toast-master", i.e. master of ceremonies). Here he stands, addressing the (male end) of the table during the feast which follows the "doghi" ("horse race").

The Autocrat of the Banquet Table

2008-03-31T13:35:00.002+04:00

-
An extremely interesting study of the history and rituals of the Georgian supra and its tamada toastmaster-cum-dictator is available here as a pdf on Prof. Kevin Tuite's website.
-

Petroglyphs

2008-03-15T16:02:00.006+04:00

The following are petroglyphs from Dano (Pirikiti Tusheti, Lela Tataraidze's village), photographed by Prof. Kote Tchrelashvili.

Musical Instruments of Georgia

2008-03-10T01:43:00.005+04:00

khalkhuri hangebi ("national melodies")

Maizer Gazdeliani, the director of the adila musical ensemble and a keen musician and instrument-maker, has created this website in association with the Tbilisi and Kutaisi State Museums. It includes detailed descriptions and photographs of all the different wind, string, percussion, keyboard etc. instruments used in Georgian folkloric music, as well as many regional variations thereof (check out the "four-tone concert panduri"!).

A View of Zemo-Omalo

2008-02-03T22:37:00.000+04:00

-
A beautiful 360-degree View of Zemo-Omalo, the (old) "capital" of Tusheti, print-screened from the Tusheti National Park website (there is a link in the list on the right)
-

Travel to Tusheti

2008-02-02T12:19:00.002+04:00

If you are thinking of travelling to Tusheti - this summer, perhaps - then I can recommend your employing "MN Georgien Travel". This company is run by Maia Veshaguridze, a "lamzur yeuH" ["pretty girl" in Bats] whom I met during my numerous stays in Zemo-Alvani.

Without wanting to cast any doubt upon the professionalism and capability of the many other companies which offer tours to Tusheti, I feel sure that Maia - as a native Bats (i.e. Tush) - would be able to provide an additional "edge" to your stay in the region! Her company's best offer is a 10-day (walking, mostly) tour which would take you from Akhmeta in Kakheti up the Pankisi Gorge to Tbatana, over a c.3,000m pass to the source of the Alazani river, over another c.3,000m pass to Tsovata, from Tsovata along the Gometsari valley to Omalo, and then down from Tusheti over the Abanos pass (c.3,000m, again!), back down to Kakheti... an exhausting but unforgettable and truly AMAZING trip!

Besides speaking Georgian, Tush Georgian(!), and a little Bats(!!), Maia is also fluent in German (she studied History in Hannover, and has spent many years in Germany), and one of her colleagues in the company speaks very good English.

-
-

Her company's website is here. (I have also added a link; top right corner of this blog.) And should you wish to contact her, you can do so at: --contact--at--mngeorgientravel--dot--ge.

Should you have any more questions about travelling to Georgia and - more specifically - to Tusheti or to Tsovata in order to meet the Bats people, I would be delighted to help!

-
-
For an account of an English family's trip through Tusheti on horseback in the summer of 2008 (just before the war between Russia/South Ossetia and Georgia broke out... not that the fighting even got remotely close to the beautiful mountain scenery of Tusheti!), please go to this page, or go directly to their blog.

-
-

The best time of the year during which to go to Tusheti is - unsurprisingly - summer, but not for the usual reasons (i.e. warm weather and plenty of sunny photographs): The [truly amazing] road to Tusheti - which begins in Georgia's eastern province of Kakheti, a three-hour drive from the capital Tbilisi - crosses into Tusheti over the 3,000m-high Abanos Pass. The pass is only open to cars from early June to mid- or late september, and is only open to the rugged local shepherds from late April to mid-October... Good drivers can be found in the villages of Kvemo- and Zemo-Alvani in Kakheti; one should expect to pay around 120 Georgian Lari (roughly 80$) for a one-way trip in a Soviet or Japanese 4x4; the drive from Kakheti to Omalo takes around 7 hours (for a mere 80km - this should give you some idea of the road conditions!).

-
-

INDEX

2008-01-29T13:09:00.019+04:00

PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM SLOWLY TRANSFERRING THIS BLOG TO ITS NEW HOME AT www.batsav.com.
-
SOME OF THESE POSTS MAY ALREADY HAVE BEEN MOVED, AND SOME PHOTOGRAPHS OR OTHER IMAGES MAY NO LONGER BE VISIBLE

-
For a general introduction to the Bats people, their history, culture, and language, please click here. I have also reproduced (in full) a lengthy article on the Bats written by Prof. Roland Topchishvili from the University of Tbilisi, which can be read here.

-
For photographs - old and new - this page would be an excellent place to start. There are many other photographs on this website: More historic images, and some recent photographs taken in Tsovata, others taken by my friend Pridoni Beroshvili.
-
To see a composite, annotated satellite image of the Tsovatatistsqali Valley, the ancestral homeland of the Bats people, please click here.
-
To read about a festival called "Zezwaoba-Dalaoba", which involves a dramatic horse race, please visit this page, and for more information on Bats/Vainakh/Caucasian horses and horsemanship, please click here.
-
I have also translated a very interesting chapter about the traditional "doghi" funerary horse races, i.e. a horse race like that held to mark the anniversary of the death of Zezwa Prindauli (see Zezwaoba), which you can read here. More information on animal symbolism in funeral ceremonies and monuments can be found on these two pages - one is dedicated to a pair of horse-shaped tombstones still standing in situ south-west of Tbilisi in Georgia, and the other to a pair of eastern Anatolian ram-shaped tombstones held by the archaeological museum in Diyarbakir.

-
For information on Caucasian languages:
1. A Table outlining the 37 Caucasian languages and their corresponding 123 dialects
2. Their numbers (of speakers) and geographical distribution
3. Their phylogenies (i.e. their "family trees"): South Caucasian ("Kartvelian"), (North-)West Caucasian ("Abkhaz-Adyghe"), and (North-)East Caucasian ("Nakho-Daghestanian")
4. A Table showing some linguistic isoglosses among Caucasian Languages
-
Robert Chenciner (of Eastern Caucasological fame) kindly asked me to publish his notes on the feast of Wastyrdjy, or the Feast of St. George as celebrated in North Ossetia. His blow-by-blow (or, rather, toast-by-toast!) account of the feasting and religious rituals makes for a fascinating read!
-
Mr Chenciner has also sent me a digital copy of a book on the Andi people of Daghestan, published in Makhachkala in 2002. I plan to slowly edit and publish several extracts from this book here on my blog. The first installment is a copy of the Adat (laws) of the Andi, as well as a text concerned with the levying of tribute by the Andi upon a neighbouring village.
-
I have also published a short post and links to various works of Prof. Shorena Kurtsikidze and Prof. Vakhtang Chikovani, who are both experts in the ethnography of the Caucasus - particularly of Khevsuerti-Pshavi and the surrounding area. There is an amazing series of photographs taken by Prof. Chikovani on the website of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a very interesting pdf article written by both profs on the ethnography of the Pankisi Gorge in northern Georgia.
-
For information on Caucasian rugs and kilims, please read this post.
-
For information on how to travel to Georgia without flying(!), please click here. I also have a small post on the abandoned railway project which was to link Georgia and Chechnya. It seems that quite a few people end up on this blog when searching for ways of travelling between Turkey and Georgia, so I have written down a few recommendations on how to go from Trabzon to Batumi and Tbilisi.
-
I have also translated (from the French!) some Vainakh i.e. Chechen and/or Ingush etc. legends, such as:
1. The Hordune-Din ("The Sea Stallion")
2. The Seven Sons of the Snow-storm (an Ingush [Nart] Prometheus)
3. The Star of the Winds (or how it came to be that winds blow in the mountains)
4. Pharmat, "The Blacksmith of the Country" (another Promethean legend)
5. A list of Vainakh divinities.
-
I have also just compiled a small bibliography of works relating to the Caucasus, which can be found here.
-
The Deutsches Museum in Munich has a scale model (1:10) of an Ossetian brewery, built according to descriptions of the famous traveller and caucasologist Adolf Dirr, which I have copied here.
-
Et specialement pour vous les Francais, j'ai mis en ligne la traduction francaise du "stumar-maspindzeli" ("L'Hote et l'Invite") et du "gvelis tchamieli" ("Le Mangeur de serpent") de Vazha Pshavela, traduit par Gaston Bouatchidze.
-
For Google Earth fans, I have uploaded downloadable ".kmz" files to my blog showing all the villages of Khevi (a.k.a Kazbegi), Pshavi, and Khevsureti (including Arkhoti), as well as a highly-detailed Soviet military map of Pshavi.
-
I have also copied and compiled some very interesting demographic figures on the population of Khevsureti which I found in Sergi Makalatia's Khevsureti (Komunistis Stamba, Tbilisi: 1935).
-
I uploaded a song in Bats/Tsova-Tush to YouTube which I filmed in Zemo Alvani.
-
Kevin Tuite from the University of Montreal let me copy his interview with Pilipe Baghiauri - tav-khevisberi (chief priest) of the Pshav commune of Gogolaurta in Georgia.
-
Dr. Mamardashvili from the National Museum in Tbilisi kindly gave me (low-resolution, alas!) copies of the Museum's ethnographic maps of Tusheti, Qvara-Tianeti, and Piraketa- and Pirikita-Khevsureti.
-
Prof. George Hewitt from SOAS let me reproduce his article entitled The Russian Academy and the Caucasus in the XVIIIth Century, which contains some very interesting information on the first academics to study the Caucasus and its peoples in detail.
-
Prof. Tuite also passed on to me a catalogue of the collection of Mirian Khutsishvili's ethnographic films, which he filmed all over Georgia. The catalogue comprises Prof. Tuite's descriptions of all the films. Mirian Khutsishvili - who started filming in the 1950s - still works for the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi, and is a remarkable man!
-
I have also copied the sections relevant to the Caucasus of the UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
-
I also created a post entitled "Through Foreign Eyes - The Bats/Tsova and the Tush in Ethnographical Literature", where I copy all the references to them I have come across in the many books I have read.
-
-
-

Please bear in mind that you can return to this Index page (and indeed to any other particular entry) by using the "menu" on the right-hand side!
-
And feel free to contact me at --alexjtb--at--gmail--dot--com--! Any comments or suggestions would be VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! If you leave comments on this blog without logging into Blogger, please make sure to include your email address, as I will not be able to reply if it is hidden.

-
Cette page EN FRANCAIS - "Chauves-souris" se refere forcement au peuple Bats...
Diese Seite AUF DEUTSCH Die "Fledermaeuse" sind selbstverstaendlich das Batsische Volk...
Ver esta página EN ESPANOL Con "murciélago" se refiero obviamente al pueblo de los Bats y no al murciélago...
-

Dadaloba 2008

2008-01-26T09:37:00.000+04:00

Sheltering from the Sun in Indurta during Dadaloba

The annual "dadaloba" festival of the Bats people will take place in Tsovata in late July/early August. (The word comes from the Nakh "dal", "god", with the added Kartvelian "-oba" suffix meaning "the day of".) Drinking and toasts will start early in the morning - "as usual", cynics will say - and two horse races will be held around midday, before all join in a long and memorable feast! (Please see this previous post for photographs of last year's festival.)

Last year, about a hundred people showed up, most of them Tchaghma-Tush and other Georgians from the lowlands. One small group of men arrived on foot from a side valley; I was told that they had walked all the way from distant Alvani, a three day journey up the Pankisi Gorge and past Alaznis Tavi i.e. the source of the Tushetis Alazani river. (This route is the old road to Tusheti, which was used before the new, motorable road was built from Pshaveli in the early 1960s.) All were dressed in normal clothes and city shoes, and one of them carried a little bread in a plastic bag... They must have been as tough as old boots!

The feast was held on the valley floor itself, between two parallel lines of stones, which have probably been lying there for that purpose for centuries, and consisted of mutton cooked in several different ways (boiled, boiled then fried, etc.), and some vegetables brought up from the lowlands, along with a little bread and endless jerrycans of wine. Needless to say, one does not attend this festival for these culinary delights... Best to wait for the following day, when fresh "khinkali" dumplings (akin to large ravioli) are prepared en masse.

The Supra (feast) to mark Dadaloba, with the Men's Khati (church) in the Background
-

The Author's route will surely be the same as that followed last year, viz. First travel to Zemo-Alvani from Tbilisi, and the following day join others in a "Tush Taxi" i.e. a sturdy 4x4 driven by a grinning madman, to fight our way up the appalling road over the Abanos Pass (c.3,000m) all the way to Djvarboseli via Omalo and the Tushetis Alazani valley. Having spent an extremely comfortable night in the Djvarboseli guesthouse, one must walk the remaining few kilometres to Tsovata, which takes about a day.

Tusheti as seen from the Abanos Pass

FRANCAIS DEUTSCH ITALIANO ESPANOL ETC.

2008-01-24T12:52:00.003+04:00

-
Thanks to "Google Translate", the entire blog (or individual posts) can be translated!

Pour voir ce site en Francais, cliquez ici!

Um diesen Blog auf Deutsch zu sehen, bitte klicken Sie hier!

Ver esta página en español.

Italiano?
-
руски?
-
-

The Gods of the Vainakh

2008-01-14T20:46:00.000+04:00

The following is a list of Vainakh divinities - from "Amaga-erda", the protector of lakes, to the "Votshabi", the spirits which watch over herds of aurochs. This list was copied from Mariel Tsaroieva's amazing Anciennes Croyances des Ingouches et des Tchétchènes ("Ancient Beliefs of the Ingush and the Chechens", published in 2005), which I found in a remainders bookshop in Brussels today. Ms Tsaroieva is of Ingush origin, and holds a PhD in History of Religion from the prestigious Institut National des Langues et Civilizations Orientales in Paris. A former teacher of romance linguistics at the state universities of Chechnya-Ingushetia and Kyrgyzstan, she has published many articles and books on folklore and "geolinguistics", both in Russian and in French.

The list reads as follows:

The Gods of the World

"diala" – the god-father

"tusholi" – the goddess-mother

"kurkhars" or "tshugul" – the hairstyle of Ingush women

"tq’a" – the god of the universe

"nana latta" – mother earth

"h’al-erda" – the sky-god

"mago-erda" – the god of magic and of wisdom and knowledge

"eshtar" – the god of the afterlife

The Astral Divinities

"malkha" – the sun-god

"but’ " – the moon-god

The Gods of Nature

"seli" – the god of (thunder-)storms and lightning

"dardza-nana" – the goddess of snowstorms

"mikha-nana" – the goddess of the winds

"khi-nana" – the goddess of rivers and springs

"amaga-erda" – the protector of lakes

"hagar-erda" or "hirga-erda" – the aurochs-god or the rock-god

"amgali-erda" and "saniba-erda" – the tribal gods

"kherkh-erda" – the god of fruit-trees (also protector of great trees, with the "naj-gantskhoi", the spirits which protect "naj", "oak trees")

The Gods of Various Domains of Rural Life

"elta" – the god of hunting

"votshabi" – the spirits which protect herds of aurochs

The “Masters of the Woods” and their daughters or sisters, the "almas"

"tamij-erda" – the god of stock-breeding

"mat-tseli" – the god of agriculture and of justice and equality

"matir-diala" or "matar-diala" – the god of haymaking

"mats-khali" – the god of renewal (of crops)

"boalam-diala" – the god of plants (vegetation) and of travellers

The Gods of Social Life

"susan-diala" – the protector of women and of maternity (i.e. the protector of mothers)

"agoi" – the protector of girls

"orkhus" or "orkhush" – the god of fecundity and procreation

"dika-seli" – the god of goodness and kindness

"arda" – the god of boundaries (or of boundary-markers?) and of clan possessions

The Gods of Work and Handicrafts

"sela-sata" – the protector of handicrafts and know-how

"p’harmat" – the blacksmith-god

"malar-erda" – the god of intoxicating drinks (i.e. the god of alcohol)

"moloz" – the god of war

The Gods of Disease

"una-nana" – the goddess of contagious diseases

"higiz" or "hegiz" – the goddess of smallpox

Some Forgotten Gods of Antiquity

"ami" and "h’ur-ami" or "fur-ami" – perhaps the god of good tidings and the goddesses of the winds, respectively

"baini-seli" – the god of agriculture, perhaps, now replaced by "mat-tseli"; apparently related to the Georgian Mokhevi (i.e. the inhabitants of the Khevi, the valley of the Terek between the Djvari Pass and the Daryal Gorge)

"falkhan" – probably related to Mago-erda, the god of wisdom and knowledge

"suvsa" – probably the ancient goddess-mother

"sampai-tsuge" or "siampai-tsuoge" – probably the ancient god of trees or of forests; sometimes worshipped as the rain-god

"mizir" - ?

"miq’al" - ?

"ralo" - ?

Robert Bleichsteiner

2008-01-13T14:42:00.001+04:00

Prof. Robert Bleichsteiner was a noted ethnographer and anthropologist, whose fields of research and expertise were the Orient and the Caucasus.

He was the Director of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna, but his career had rather extraordinary beginnings, during the First World War: Bleichsteiner twice visited a prisoner-of-war camp (Kriegsgefangenlager Eger, in northern Bohemia), where he collected many myths, legends, songs, expressions, riddles, etc. among the Russian prisoners of war, particularly among those from the Caucasus. (This research was published as Gesänge Russischer Kriegsgefangener - the third volume deals exclusively with the Caucasus.)

Bleichsteiner wrote many articles and books - on Georgia, Tibet, Caucasian languages, etc. - but surely his most unusual and amazing contribution to learning was the incredible Roßweihe und Pferderennen im Totenkult der kaukasischen Völker ("The Consecration and Racing of Horses in the Funerary Cults of the Peoples of the Caucasus"), which appeared in the fourth volume of the Wiener Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik ("Viennese Contributions to Cultural History and Linguistics"), published in Vienna in 1936.

-
-
The saddled horse in the background awaits the soul of its deceased master to take him to Paradise.
-

For more information on equestrian funerary cults and the roles played by horses during funerals, please go to these two previous posts: "A Batsbi Poem and Some Notes on Horses and Horsemanship" and "The Batsbi way of Death".

The Tsar's Photographer in the Caucasus

2007-12-20T02:00:00.001+04:00

The following photographs were taken in the wider Caucasus region by Sergei Mikhailovitch Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944), a former chemist-turned-photographer who had been commissioned by Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, to document the many notable places and peoples which made up the vast Russian empire. The photographs are part of the Prokudin-Gorskii photographic archive, which is the responsibility of the Library of Congress in Washington.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (Murom, Russia, 1863 - Paris,1944)

Two Songs by Sandro Kavsadze

2007-12-13T17:24:00.007+04:00

-
-

[Please note: This post should be entitled "Three Songs by Sandro Kavsadze". I recently added a third song, "gutnuri" - a ploughing song from eastern Georgia - but I cannot rename the entire post for fear of making many different links redundant.]

-
-

Sandro Kavsadze was one of Georgia's greatest singers. Born in 1874 in the village of Khovle (in the Kaspi district of Western Georgia), he was first taught to sing by his father, Grigoli Kavsadze, a priest. Later, Sandro continued to study song at the seminary in the town of Gori. His teacher there, Simon Goglichidze, was a renowned singer himself, and within a few years Kavsadze had become an expert, and had been designated Goglichidze's deputy and substitute. (A certain Iosep Djugashvili, later known as "Koba" and "Stalin", also studied in the seminary in Gori, and was a contemporary of Sandro's.)
-
In 1893, after finishing his clerical studies, Kavsadze formed his own choir and performed concerts for charity; he also formed choirs in Tbilisi (in 1896) and Poti (in 1897). In 1911, Sandro left his group under the direction of his brother Mikheil, and moved to western Georgia. He formed several choirs there, in Satchkere, Tkibuli, Chiatura, Zestaponi, and Kutaisi, and Kavsadze also taught Georgian folk music in schools and high-schools. In all, he spent twenty years in the region of Imereti, where he made an enormous contribution to the revival of traditional music and folklore.
-
Almost twenty years later, in 1930, Sandro was given the (rather Soviet) title of "Artistic Figure of Merit", and the thirtieth jubilee of his work was celebrated. In 1935 he was asked to move to Georgia's capital Tbilisi, where he was commissioned to set up and prepare an Eastern Georgian Folkloric Ensemble for the "Decade of Georgian Culture", an art and folklore festival which was to be held in Moscow.
-
In 1937, Kavsadze and his ensemble travelled to Moscow, where they performed to great acclaim, winning an award. After the festival, a meeting was held in the Kremlin between the Politburo and all the festival's participants; this meeting gave rise to the following anecdote:
-
The story has it that the festival's participants – singers, dancers, artistic directors, etc. – were gathered in the Kremlin's Georgievsk Hall, where they were nervously awaiting Stalin's arrival. At last, the Man Himself entered the room – A "hurrah!" resounded, but Stalin lifted up his hand to bid those gathered be silent. He looked around the room at length, clearly searching for someone. Everyone became anxious: Whom was he looking for?? What should they do?! At last, Stalin asked in a low voice "if Sandro was there." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and the crowd parted to form a passage: at one end, Stalin; at the other, Sandro. It was of course protocol that the person meeting Stalin should walk up to him, but Sandro didn't move – a clear slight to the Great Man. They stared at each other for a few seconds, surrounded by the stunned crowd. Stalin then took the first step, followed by Sandro, and they met in the middle of the room, and embraced each other. "You have not changed," said Stalin, giving Sandro a pat on the back. Sandro remained silent, and patted Stalin on the back. "Indeed, you have not changed," repeated Stalin, patting Sandro on the back again. They conversed in low voices, Stalin asking Sandro if there was anything He could do for him? "Give me your pipe," said Sandro – The pipe has been a Kavsadze family heirloom ever since.

After Moscow, Sandro and his ensemble were bidden to travel onwards to Leningrad (formerly St. Petersburg, and now St. Petersburg again). However, shortly after the festival, Sandro (by then 63 years old) fell ill, and was hospitalized in the Kremlin. Lying in the hospital, Sandro received a letter. On the envelope was written "To Comrade Alexandre Kavsadze, from Stalin." The letter read: "Greetings to Sandro! ["sandros gaumardjos!" in Georgian] I happened to learn from Egnatashvili that you are in the Kremlin hospital. This is bad news, but the doctors tell me that you will get better soon. If you need anything, please let me know, for I am ready to help you in any manner. May you live for a thousand years! Your Soso, 1937."
-
Too ill to continue touring, Sandro remained in Moscow, and the Ensemble continued under the direction of his son, Davit Kavsadze (1907-1952). Having arrived in Leningrad, they repeated their success, and for his achievements Sandro was awarded an Order and was named "Honoured Artist of the Georgian [Soviet Socialist] Republic".
-
Sandro returned to Tbilisi shortly afterwards, where he died on 12 June 1939. He was buried in the city's Vake cemetery, in Georgia's Pantheon.
-
-
In 1986, the Russian "Melodiya" label re-issued 16 old recordings of Sandro Kavsadze and his Ensemble ("Sandro Kavsadze – Georgian Songs from the Archive", Melodiya M30―46085―86). I believe this record has itself been re-issued as a CD.
--
Most of the songs on this record were recorded by Sandro and his Ensemble in Moscow in 1937, but the quality of several of Sandro's 1909 (London Gramophone Company?) recordings (of which there are four on this record) remains unsurpassed to this day, most particularly his solo renderings of an "Urmuli" – a Kakhetian cart-driver's song – and of "Mtao, gadmishvi" ("Let me pass, O Mountain"). The two are considered to be masterpieces.

-
"mtao, gadmishvi", "Let me pass, O Mountain!"

-
-
"urmuli" - this would have been sung by a carter on his way from Kakheti to Aghzevan (in Armenia) to buy salt. "Pull, ox, pull. Soon it will be day..."
-

gaswie, xaro, gaswie,

sacaa gaTendebao...

aRzevans wavals marilze,

aRzevans waval marilze,

marils movitan brolsao,

aRzevans waval marilze,

marils movitan brolsao,

jer dedas gadavexvevi,

merme Svilsa da colsao ...

RmerTo, mec gadmamxedevi,

RmerTo, mec gadmamxedevi

erTxel wyalobis TvaliTao da...

RmerTo mec gadmamxedevi

erTxel wyalobis TvaliTa...

Torem [...]

col-Svilis codva-braliTa

Harahali, harahalo! [a stylistic device – the Georgian equivalent of Alpine yodelling, perhaps; the meaning is unclear]

Pull, ox, pull!

It will soon be day.

Harahali, harahalo!

I will go to fetch salt from Aghzevan [(?); somewhere in Armenia];

I will go to fetch salt from Aghzevan;

I will bring back rock-salt.

I will go to fetch salt from Aghzevan;

I will bring back rock-salt.

First I will embrace my mother;

First I will embrace my mother,

Then my child and my wife.

Harahali, harahalo!

Lord, look upon me, too;

Lord, look upon me, too,

Once, with your benevolent gaze.

Lord, look upon me, too,

Once, with your benevolent gaze.

Otherwise [...]

My family’s misfortune.

Harahali, harahalo!

-
-
"gutnuri", "Ploughing Song" from eastern Georgia
-

muSa var da...

musha var da…

I am a worker, and…

...kidec vici

…kidets vitsi

…therefore I know

muSis gulSi Tu rac aris

mushis gulshi tu rats aris

what lies in the worker's heart.

is uremSi gabmulia

is uremshi gabmulia

He is harnessed to the cart,

qedmodrekiT rogorc xari

kedmodrekit rogorts khari

bowed like an ox.

mis garujul Tma da tansa

mis garudjul tma da tansa

His tanned hair and body

mudam asxams oflis Rvari

mudam askhams oplis ghvari

Are always dripping with sweat.

Sromobs muSa Tan RiRinebs agondeba macxovari

shromobs musha tan ghighinebs agondeba matskhovari

The worker is toiling and singing and remembering Christ at the same time;

agondeba da mxnevdeba

agondeba da mkhnevdeba

He is remembering [Christ], and this encourages him,

da iseva Sromas nagrZobs

da iseva shromas nagrdzobs

And he continues to toil.

agondeba da mxnevdeba

agondeba da mkhnevdeba

He is remembering [Christ], and this encourages him,

da iseva Sromas nagrZobs

da iseva shromas nagrdzobs

And he continues to toil.

da vinc uSromlada ylapavs

da vints ushromlada qlapavs

And those who eat without working,

imaT mtrada mainc ar grZobs

imat mtrada maints ar grdzobs

He still doesn’t consider them his enemies

muSa var da kidec vici

musha var da kidets vitsi

I am a worker and therefore I know

muSis gulSi Tu rac aris

mushis gulshi tu rats aris

What lies in a worker's heart.

is uRelSi gabmulia

is ughemshi gabmulia

He is bound to the yoke,

qedmodrekiT rogorc xari

kedmodrekit rogorts khari

Bowed like an ox.

The two songs were perhaps recorded in Tbilisi in 1909 by Franz Hampe, a sound engineer working for the Caucasus office of the London Gramophone Company. The LGC had an overseas office in Tbilisi from 1901 to 1918, and during this period succeeded in recording hundreds of songs from even the most remote regions of the Caucasus mountains.

A CD entitled "Before the Revolution: A 1909 Recording Expedition in the Caucasus and Central Asia by the Gramophone Company", released by the Topic record label in 2002 and entirely compiled from material recorded by Franz Hampe and his colleagues at the London Gramophone Company, is available for purchase on the usual websites.

The Caucasian recordings which feature on this CD are in many different languages: Ossetian, Chechen, Ingush, Kabard, Kumyk, Armenian, Georgian, and Azeri. The two Armenian songs are particularly outstanding. The CD is otherwise noteworthy for its numerous recordings of Sart melodies; the Sarts in question were a turkicized Iranian people living in the urban centres of Turkestan and the Ferghana valley. The answers.com entry on the Sarts is quite good, and there are some stunning photographs of Sarts in the Prokudin-Gorskii photography archive, such as this one:

For more information on Mr Hampe and the exploits of the London Gramophone Company in the Caucasus and Central Asia, an excellent article by Will Prentice on the subject was published in the 23rd edition of Playback, the bulletin of the British Library's National Sound Archive.

Books on the Bats

2007-10-25T19:29:00.000+04:00

-
Here are some books on the Tsova Tush/Bats, courtesy of Prof. George Hewitt, Professor of Caucasian Languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he is also the Head of the Department of the Languages and Cultures of [the] Near and Middle East.
-
-

-
The Cover
-

-
Frontispiece
-

-
and Chapters of A. Shavkhelishvili's History and Ethnography of the Tsova Tush/Bats. (Tbilisi 2001)
-
-
Followed by a List of Songs and Poems to be found in a book by J. Longishvili (he of "shatilis asulo" fame; Tbilisi 2001)
-

-
-
-

-

-
-
-
And finally, a Batsbur-Georgian-Russian Dictionary, compiled by the Kadagidze Brothers. (Tbilisi 1984)
-
-

Old Photographs of Batsbis in Tsovata

2007-09-04T18:11:00.000+04:00

-
-
-
-

These three photographs seem to have been sold as some sort of souvenir, perhaps of “A Visit to Tsovata”. The prints were framed with cardboard, and were almost certainly destined to be hung on walls. (The photographs may also have been taken as part of an ethnographic expedition, and have found their way onto people’s walls at a later date.)
-
The photographs [web_mikeladze_]”01” and “46” were clearly taken in succession, as they share the same background, and the bearded figure standing in “01” is seated in “47”. Equally, the woman standing on the left in “01” can be seen standing on the right in “46”.
-
To judge from the clothes and the apparent condition of the people photographed, the predominance of wood and stone (local slate) to the exclusion of any other building material, and the steep slope which can be seen in picture “01”, these photographs were most likely taken in situ in a Batsbi village – perhaps in Tsaro or Indurta.
-
These clues, in addition to certain technical aspects of the photographs themselves (they are most likely long exposures on glass plates i.e. were taken with an old field-camera), point to a date somewhere in the late nineteenth century, perhaps in the 1880s or 1890s.

The Batsbi Way of Death

2007-09-04T18:01:00.001+04:00

-
These three photographs seem to have been taken as records of Death, and the presence of a dead body in two of them is quite startling!
-

-

Nothing is known about [web_mikeladze_]”30” beyond the fact that the photograph is clearly a particularly early one (1880s-1890s), but the picture – in common with photograph “44” – is an interesting illustration of the fact that one of the attributes of a Batsbi man in death seems to be the presence of a horse (his horse?) in the photograph. Robert Chenciner's book on Daghestan (1997) relates that the saddled horse present at a man's funeral or memorial is a remnant of Scythian horse burials! A race would be held, the winning horse being the one most suitable to carry the deceased man's spirit to Paradise...

(The horse is on the far right, its neck and part of its head visible against the carpet. See also this previous post.)

-
-

More is known about the scene in photograph “25”, as it has a detailed inscription on the back – The dead man is Ikako Utchilauri, murdered by Alexi Tsikhelishvili because he refused to lend the latter the princely sum of 3 rubles. The mourners are Ikako Utchilauri’s relatives and – somewhat surprisingly, perhaps! – relatives of Alexi Tsikhelishvili’s.

-
The third photograph – “44” – is also an image taken following a Batsbi man’s death, but has an intriguing difference: the absence of a body. Either this photograph was taken to commemorate the death – at the end of a customary period of mourning, for example – or the man’s body was never found or could not be retrieved for burial. Present are the man’s mother, wife, two children, another man – perhaps the brother of the deceased, or that of his wife – and the man’s horse, saddled and ready to go, but the protagonist himself is missing, and is represented by an outfit of clothes, including knitted socks and gloves, which has been lain out upon a “nabadi” felt. (Note also that the left arm of the coat, where the hand would be, has been placed atop the knife.)

Judging from the lie of the land in the background, and from the abundance of wood and clearing, this photograph was almost certainly taken in the Kakhetian lowlands, where the Batsbis had to cut down trees to clear the land and to use the wood for their new homes.
-

Batsbur Language Consonant and Vowel Systems

2007-09-04T17:31:00.000+04:00

-
-

These tables were shamefully stolen from this page and this page of the University of Frankfurt's Titus Website. (You might like to use the IPA chart (PDF) as a reference. There are also sound recordings on this website.)

Batsbi Population

2007-09-02T16:46:00.000+04:00

From 1803 to 1918, Georgia was a “gubernia”, a “governorship”, of the Russian empire. The Russian administration responsible for the Georgian province of Kakheti (and others, perhaps) carried out several population censuses during this period – in 1831, 1873, and 1886 – censuses which naturally also considered the population of Tusheti and therefore of Tsovata.

The census of 1831 registered 278 Batsbi households, some 1,531 individuals (5.5 per household). According to the census of 1873, the number of Batsbis was slightly higher – some 1,571, a 3% increase. And in 1886, a total of 1,533 Batsbis were registered , representing 337 families (4.5 individuals per family).

It would seem that the census of 1886 was much more comprehensive. In it we can discover that there were 49 villages in Tusheti as a whole, of which four were in Tsovata (and therefore inhabited by Batsbis): Indurta, Sagirta, Tsaro, and Etelta. The remaining 45 villages were inhabited by Georgian-speaking Tush – the so-called Tchaghma, Pirikiti, and Gometsari Tush – whose number was recorded as being 4,174 individuals representing 830 households, an average of 5 per household, and 2.7 times superior in number to the Batsbis.

This data is however complicated by the fact that scientific and ethnographic data accounts for another four Batsbi villages in Tsovata: Nazarta, Nadirta, Mozarta, and Shavtsqala. However, it is believed that these villages were largely abandoned in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, their inhabitants moving to the other four village mentioned above. In addition to this, the migration of the Batsbis from Tsovata to the Kakhetian lowlands took place during the first half of the nineteenth century, in the 1830s - The data of the 1908 census is the first to take into account this migration, the increase in numbers reflecting the relatively easier conditions of life in the lowlands.

Batsbi Fraternization, Marriage, and Traditional Justice

2007-08-31T18:24:00.000+04:00

The aliens in Tsova Tusheti [i.e. non-Batsbi strangers, individuals or families from other regions having settled among the Batsbis in Tsovata/Tsova Tusheti from neighbouring Khevsureti or Chechnya, for example] were frequently those seeking to escape blood feuds. They were accepted in the Batsbi community on certain conditions, and after a period of several years’ observation the host Batsbi village or community would collectively decide upon the status of the new arrivals, and upon the issue of their official assimilation into their host, Batsbi community. This assimilation can be described as a form of adoption, of fraternization, whereby strangers would be officially adopted by a Batsbi family or extended family, taking their name, and becoming full (and to a large extent equal) members of their adoptive community, with the same rights and obligations as all the other family members.

This official adoption would follow a precise ritual, which was to be performed in the “Sameba” (“Holy Trinity”) church [in Tsovata?] during the Whitsunday holidays, in which all the Batsbi villages took part. The stranger who was to be adopted [i.e. an individual migrant or the head of a family] would sacrifice a white bull to the church, and sacred beer would be brewed in the church, and all concerned and attendant would join in a great feast. After this ritual, a newcomer would be considered as a member of a particular Batsbi family, as full “blood brother” and kin, and would be under the protection of his adoptive family. This ritual being dependent upon the collective decision of the stranger’s host community, following several years’ observation, it stands to reason that in some cases the hosts would decide not to accept a stranger’s claim to fraternization, and, consequently, the ritual would not be held and the newcomers would be banished.

In the early twentieth century, among the Batsbis living in Zemo Alvani in the Kakhetian lowlands, a foreign herdsman by the name of Baramidze sought to become related to the local [Batsbi] Mikeladze family. The corresponding “bull ritual” was held, but, later on, a red stain was discovered on the sacrificed animal’s hide. After this event – which in any case cannot have been very popular with the local Russian administration – such processes of fraternization were stopped, and the bull ritual disappeared.

A White Bull destined to be sacrificed during a peace conference [i.e. fraternization] between the Dinka and Nuer tribes in the Sudan in 1999.

Conjugal unity was considered to be sacred – Unfaithfulness was extremely shameful, disgraceful, and would have been an extremely rare occurrence, particularly among such small, mountain communities. Traditional habitual justice provided for severe punishments for rape, adultery, promiscuity, or other forms of extra-marital sexual relationships. A rapist would be executed, and the husband of an unfaithful wife could punish her by disfigurement, such as shaving her head or cutting off her nose or an arm; public indignation would also cause individuals deemed to be at fault to be shunned by the community. However, some ethnographers have stated that bigamy existed among the Batsbis: In marriages where the wife was found to be sterile, after a period of several years she herself would set out to look for another wife for her husband, in order to provide him with an heir.

As late as the early twentieth century, Batsbi society was to a large extent regulated through traditional, habitual justice.

For depriving someone of an arm or an eye, the guilty person had to pay 120 bulls. For breaking a tooth, 3 cows. For kidnapping a woman, the punishment would have been excommunication, banishment and exile, or death. Until the twentieth century, ransom for murder or manslaughter was common in Tusheti: A certain sum had to be paid in copper pots or salt [i.e. extremely valuable commodities unobtainable in the region]. If a person guilty of killing someone – whether intentionally or by accident – was unable to pay the decreed ransom, he and his family would have had to flee their home, for he (and his nearest relatives) would have been at risk until the age of 60!

This information was taken from Roland Topchishvili's article on the Tsova-Tush/Bats people. Prof. Topchishvili is Professor of Ethnology at the Javakhishvili Institute of History of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, and is a specialist in the ethnography of Georgia and other Caucasian regions.

Batsbi Weaving

2007-08-31T18:03:00.000+04:00

Here are some pictures relating to Batsbi carpets and felt, cropped from other photographs on this website.

- -
-The upper transversal bar of a very large upright loom (see image immediately above)

A Batsbi "Nabadi" (pressed felt)

-
A beautiful "buteh" pattern. (See identical carpet in previous post)

Some Bats Links

2007-08-27T11:11:00.000+04:00

From "The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire"
-
From Wikipedia: the Bats people, and the Bats language
-
From the University of Frankfurt's "ECLING" Project (Endangered Languages in Georgia)
-
From Ethnologue
-
From the Volkswagen Foundation's "DOBES" Programme (documentation of endangered languages)
-
From the University of Graz's Languages of the World Server
-
From Roland Topchishvili's Article on the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia Website
-
From the "Europe and North Asia" Chapter of the Encyclopedia of the world’s endangered languages
-
(Any more submissions would be very gratefully received!)
-

The Batsmobile

2007-08-26T12:33:00.000+04:00

A picture of "the Batsmobile" - i.e. a Lada Niva 4x4 full of Batsbis - and three of the Road to Tusheti: looking down towards Kakheti from the Abanos Pass; an Abandoned Electrical Pylon on the Pass itself; and looking down towards Tusheti.

-
-

Etymological Dictionaries

2007-08-14T11:57:00.000+04:00

Have you ever wanted to look up the etymology of a High East Cushitic word? Is the origin of a term in West Central Khoisan still a mystery to you? Are you one of the 0.002 people per day who wonder what the verb "to smear" is in Proto-Lezgi? Do you sometimes ask yourself what the correspondences of Nostratic affricatives are like? Then these databases are for you!

Photographs of Tsovata during Dadaloba

2007-08-09T11:07:00.000+04:00

Apologies for the appalling quality of these photographs - The delicate Japanese electronics of my camera didn't like being left out in the rain. (For the full, boring, yet tragic story, please see this previous post. And for some nicer photographs - courtesy of Pridon Beroshvili at Indurta.com - please click here!)

The Draw to decide who the next "Shulta" Families will be.

The Classic View of Indurta.

A Double Rainbow in the Evening Sky over Jvarboseli.

A young Caucasian Sheepdog in the Tsovatistsqali Valley.

Sheltering from the Sun in Indurta.

The Supra (Feast) for Dadaloba, with the Men's Khati in the Background.

Peto.

The Men's Khati (Church) in Tsovata.

Preparing for the Feast.

Leftovers.

The Women's Khati (Church) in Tsovata.

The Skyline in Tsovata at Dusk.

The Guesthouse in Jvarboseli.

Tusheti as seen from the Abanos Pass.

From Jvarboseli to Tsovata by Satellite

2007-08-09T10:42:00.001+04:00

The Route from Jvarboseli to Indurta.

A Few Words on the Origins of the Bats People

2007-08-06T13:08:00.000+04:00

As their two different names indicate, the Tsova-Tush/Bats are Georgians, sharing all the characteristics of their Georgian neighbours in Tusheti, and yet are profoundly different by virtue of their second, Nakh language (i.e. from the Nakh branch of Caucasian languages - See the language's lineage here.)

There is no definite information as to the origins of the Tsova-Tush/Bats. Most observers can agree upon the fact that they migrated to Tushetia in the mountains of north-eastern Georgia several centuries ago, and that they previously lived in Vainakh lands. ("Vainakh", "our people", i.e. Chechnya or Ingushetia.) This seems to me the most likely theory. A relatively detailed and complete account of the migrations of the Tsova-Tush/Bats people, based upon a story related by an elderly (b.1928) inhabitant of Zemo-Alvani, goes as follows:

"Six shepherds who lived in villages in the Georgian lowlands - one from the village of Matani, at the southern end of the Pankisi Gorge, and the others from the region of Kiziqi - stayed in the Gometsi Gorge of Pshavi [a mountainous region of north-eastern Georgia] for a long time, searching for better pastures for their flocks of sheep. A man named Sveluri joined them in Pshavi, and told them of a certain Jarieri Gorge in Ingushetia, which he said was rich in excellent pastures. The Georgian shepherds, interested by his account of this distant gorge, moved there with their flocks and families, and settled in Ingushetia permanently. Years later, they began to intermarry with the local Ingush people, and the Ingush language [like Chechen, a Nakh language] naturally became the native tongue of their descendants. After having lived in Ingushetia for a long time, the successors of the Georgian migrants were forced to leave their village and seek out a new home and new pastures. [The Tsova-Tush/Bats claim to this day that their ancestors were forced to leave Ingushetia/Chechnya to escape forced conversion to Islam; an Ingush narrative accounts for their departure on grounds of a dispute over pasture property-rights.] They left Ingushetia and spent several years wandering from place to place in Chechnya, then in Tianetia [another mountainous region of north-eastern Georgia], finally settling in the villages of Chontio, Girevi, and Hegho in northern Tushetia [in Pirikiti Tushetia]. After several years there, they moved to the nearby Tsovatsqali Valley, which became "Tsovata", the homeland of the Tsova-Tush/Bats people."

--------------------------------

Zezwaoba - Dalaoba

2007-05-29T12:56:00.001+04:00

The 2007 "Zezwaoba" ("the day of Zezwa [Prindauli]") was held last Sunday 27 May in Kvemo- and Zemo-Alvani.

At 12:00, a score horsemen set out from the [Chaghma-] Tush village of Kvemo-Alvani, and rode the 4 kilometres which separate their village from the [Tsova-/Bats] Tush village of Zemo-Alvani.

One of their number bore the Tush "drosha" ("flag"), a large, purple silken flag attached to a spiked wooden staff, the staff's crown bearing five multicoloured woollen socks, and two cloth streamers (one white, one red).

The group consisted of 6 (relatively-elderly) men, and a dozen or so wild-eyed Tush youngsters. The men were singing the traditional song which marks this occasion - the so-called "dalai".

In Zemo-Alvani, early preparations had been made to receive the cavalcade (which was initially expected to arrive at 10:00, but this being Georgia they were three hours late):

On the steps of the abandoned Soviet "dom kulturi" ("house of culture", i.e. cultural centre) lay a "pardaghy" (a "kilim"-type carpet), and placed upon the carpet were salt, bread (bearing three beeswax candles), sheep's cheese, barley (for the horses), wine and beer with glasses and two large "khantsi" drinking-horns, a small bundle of wool, and strips of white cloth.

Considering the late arrival of the horsemen, things were pretty quiet in Zemo-Alvani. A small group of listless men (including the author) hung around on the steps or in the shade of a large tree, and anxiously awaited the riders.

Three hours and several false alarms later ("they are coming"; "they left ten minutes ago and will be there in five", "my friend called me and said that they were on their way", etc.), we heard the sound of singing and horses' hooves clattering on the asphalt, and suddenly the group was upon us! They galloped along the road, the purple "drosha" glinting in the sun, the singing growing louder and louder, and wheeled towards our motley group without slowing down, pulling up abruptly at the carpet's edge. The sound of their arrival was one of the most impressive events the author has ever witnessed.

Immediately, they were handed glasses and the horns of wine, and ceremoniously greeted to the Zemo-Alvani carpet. Having drunk their glasses (and poured the remainder of their drinks onto their horse's rump or neck), they sang the first of three "dalai" songs [I hope to soon put a recording on this site]. Then, having eaten their bread and sheep's cheese, the sang the second "dalai", upon which their horses were fed handfuls of barley. Followed the third "dalai", and the strips of white cloth were knotted to the horses' bridles. And barely thirty minutes after having arrived - the "Dalaoba" part of the festival being finished - they were off again, back to Kvemo-Alvani to prepare for the traditional Zezwaoba "doghi" (horse race).

Having followed them (by BMW, much to the author's regret), we arrived on the main square of Kvemo-Alvani, where two hundred or so people had gathered to await the arrival of the riders who were taking part in the race. The "start" was six kilometres away, in a field(?) called Takhtis Bogiri, the winner being the rider who touched the "drosha" first, which was held by a Tush man in the middle of the road.

After another seemingly-interminable wait, the riders were spotted at last, galloping towards the square! The winner was ten year-old Lasha Gagoidze on his horse Kazbega, and he was presented with the traditional gift of a ram, which was rather unceremoniously draped (trembling for all it was worth) in front of him - where the pommel of his saddle would have been, had he actually had a saddle.

A remarkable fact is that only a few of the riders sat on saddles and used stirrups: Most of them rode bareback, or on a saddle-cloth, often finely-embroidered. Holding the staff bearing the "drosha", he rode around the assembled crowd to much applause.

Barely fifteen seconds after Lasha came two other riders, equally-young. One of these horses stumbled and fell exhausted to the ground, and was promptly manhandled to the side of the road, out of the way of the other riders.

Valiant and increasingly-desperate (but somewhat brutal - the Tush do not pamper their horses!) attempts were made to revive and reanimate the poor beast.

These included, in order: kicking the horse's chest and stomach; repeatedly jumping with joined feet on its chest; cutting the horse's septum [the piece of cartilage which separates the nostrils] with a knife; inserting a short stick of some sort deep into each nostril (presumably to remove any blockage); pouring a bottle of fizzy Georgian water down its throat; something akin to heart massage; inserting a piece of spiky grass up its penis; and even a young boy washing his arm with soapy water and venturing deep into the horse's rear. (I am not quite sure what the latter two operations were supposed to achieve).

But unfortunately all to no avail, and the poor animal was manhandled onto a Kamaz truck which bore it away.

And after "Zezwaoba" ("the day of Zezwa"), late at night, comes "Jejwaoba" ("the day of fist-fights"), for every self-respecting Tush is blind drunk, but the author did not witness this!
-
-
Should you want to read more about the ritual of doghi horse races, please visit this page.
-

Dalaoba

2007-05-25T11:46:00.000+04:00

(Not to be confused with "Dadaloba" - see previous post.)

This Sunday 27 May a ceremony will be held in the villages of Kvemo- and Zemo-Alvani to commemorate the day in 1659 when the Tush people - the Bats/Tsova, Chaghma, Pirikiti, and the Gometsari - were granted land in the Alazani Valley in Kakheti, in recognition of the valuable assistance they provided against invading Persian forces during the battle of Bakhtrioni.

The following is an account of the battle (copied from the website of the Orthodox Church in America):

"In the 17th century the Persian aggressors razed churches, monasteries, and fortresses and drove out thousands of Georgian families to resettle them in remote provinces of Persia. The deserted territories were settled by Turkic tribes from Central Asia. In the chronicle The Life of Kartli it is written: “The name of Christ was not allowed to be uttered, except in a handful of mountainous regions: Tusheti, Pshavi, and Khevsureti.”

But the All-merciful Lord aroused a strong desire in the valiant prince Bidzina Choloqashvili of Kakheti and, together with Shalva and his uncle Elizbar, princes of Aragvi and Ksani provinces, he led a struggle to liberate Kakheti from the Tatars. (The Persian governor of Kakheti, Salim Khan (ruled 1656–1664), had been encouraging the Tatar tribesmen to profane the Christian churches.)

Fearing that the enemy, who had already conquered Kakheti, would soon move in and also dominate Kartli, the princes Bidzina, Shalva, and Elizbar united the forces of those two regions in preparation for the attack. After much deliberation, Bidzina announced his intention to his father-in-law, Prince Zaal of Aragvi. Zaal’s soul was spiritually pained by the countless misfortunes and injustices his country had suffered, and he quickly pledged his support for the effort. He agreed to participate in the insurrection anonymously, while the Ksani rulers Shalva and Elizbar would command the armies.

On the moonless night of September 15, 1659, the feast of the Alaverdi Church (The feast of St. Joseph of Alaverdi) the united army of all eastern Georgia assembled and crossed over the mountains, past the village of Akhmeta, and launched a surprise attack on the Persians from Bakhtrioni Fortress and Alaverdi Church. The invader’s armies were so utterly crushed that their leader, Salim Khan, the Persian governor of Kakheti, barely succeeded in escaping from the avengers, after he had abandoned his family and army.

The victorious Georgian army offered prayers of thanksgiving to the Lord God and Great-martyr George, the protector of the Georgian people, who had appeared visibly to all during the battle, riding his white horse like a flash of lightning and leading the Georgians to victory."

Following this decisive (but short-lived) victory against the Persians, it was decided to reward the Tush forces which participated in the battle. When asked whether they wished for gold, weapons, or land, the leader of the Tush answered that his people had no land [in the Alazani Valley, where their flocks of sheep could spend the cold winter]. He was therefore told that, as far as he could ride his horse, the land thus encompassed would be granted to him. Setting out from Bakhtrioni, he rode as far as Takhtis Bogiri (near the village of Laliskuri), where his horse - no doubt exhausted from the battle - collapsed and died. The area of the Alazani Valley which he thus secured includes the villages of Zemo- and Kvemo-Alvani, where the Tush live to this day.

This Sunday, 20 horsemen will set out from Kvemo- to Zemo-Alvani. They will be greeted by a carpet, upon which will be placed water, salt, bread, barley, and (obviously, for this is Georgia!) wine and vodka. Without dismounting, they will first drink the water and the alcohol, then sing the first of three ceremonial songs, called "dalai" (from "dal", "God"). They will then eat the bread and the salt, and sing a "dalai" for a second time. Then their horses will be fed the barley, and the riders will intone the third and last "dalai". A piece of white cloth will be tied to the horses' bridles, and the riders will set off to Takhtis Bogiri, where they will make ready for a "dori" (a horse-race) which will take them back to Kvemo-Alvani. (Horses which will participate in this race cannot do so without the piece of white cloth.)

More soon.

Dadaloba

2007-05-18T23:09:00.000+04:00

The annual "Dadaloba" festival will be held in Indurta (in Tsovata) on Sunday 5 August. --- This day - now a "supra"-style feast attended by a handful of Bats - apparently used to be a sort of "day of judgement" (the name's etymology). Incredibly, according to what I have been told, crimes in ancient Tsovata basically went unjudged (and therefore unpunished) until a decision was made during this one day in August. On "dadaloba", a meeting attended by all the village headmen - usually the heads of the Bats families - passed judgement upon crimes committed during the previous year. --- Expect a "dori" (a horse-race), music, and feasting.

A Bats Poem & Some Notes on Horses and Horsemanship

2007-05-09T13:12:00.001+04:00

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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.
-

The following was taken from Robert Chenciner's amazing Daghestan - Tradition and Survival (RoutledgeCurzon 1997, pp.88-91):

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 17^th to 19^th-century horse tombstones, a partial survival. […]

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 13^th 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. […]

“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. […])

“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.” […]

“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.”

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.

For a detailed description of the celebrations held for a "doghi" amongst the Khevsurs, please click here.

-
-

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.

-
-

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!

-
-

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."

Some notions of the Bats' language

2007-05-08T12:15:00.000+04:00

As previously mentioned, the Bats people rightly consider themselves to be Tush (and therefore Georgians), but their language - "batsbur mott" - has almost nothing in common with Georgian.

Put simply, it is not a Kartvelian language, despite a significant proportion of loan-words from that family: It is a close relation of the Chechen and Ingush ("vainakh", "our people") languages, and is classified as a separate branch of the Nakho-Daghestanian or "Northeastern" group of Caucasian languages. It is not known to ever have had an alphabet - a modified Georgian alphabet is used instead. (When it is written down at all, that is!)

It is frighteningly-complicated; this is mostly because of the language's bewildering number of verbal genres. I have no clear idea of what exactly a verbal genre is, but I can provide an illustration of why Bats is such a special case:

Take, for instance, the imperative "come" (as in "come here, x"):

When spoken to one man ("stak"): "volal stak";
To several men ("vaser"): "bolet vaser";
To one woman ("pstwin") or one girl ("yeuh"): "yolal pstwin" or "yolal yeuh", respectively;
To several women ("psti") or several girls ("makhar"): "dolet psti" or "dolet makhar";
To one child ("bader"): "dol bader"
To several children ("badri"): "dolat badri"

Consequently, "Hello", "Peace be with you" (perhaps descended from the Arabic, Muslim "Salaam aleikum"?) varies according to whom one is wishing it to:

To a man, "marshikhValo" [my emphasis];
To a woman, "marshikYalo";
To several men, "marshikhBalueshe";
To several women, "marshikhDalueshe".

As you may have noticed, plurals are anything but straightforward...

"Man"/"men" - "stak"/"vaser";
"Woman"/"women" - "pstwin"/"psti";
"Girl"/"girls" - "yeuh"/"makhar".

"One cow" is "tsa yett" - "ten cows" is "itt jabu";
"A sheep", "tsa jelre" - "ten sheep", "itt je";
"Dog", "peu" - "dogs", "pertcheu".

The following is a brief comparison between the numerals 1-20 in Chechen and in Bats:

1 - "tsa" [identical or near-identical in both languages]
2 - "shi"
3 - "kho"
4 - "di"
5 - "pkhi"
6 - "ialkh" in Chechen, "yetr" in Bats
7 - "vorkh"
8 - "barkh"
9 - "is"
10 - "it"
11 - "tsait" ["one-ten"]
12 - "shit"
13 - "khoit"
14 - "dit" in Chechen, "devait" in Bats
15 - "pkhit"
16 - "yalkhit" in Chechen, "yetkhit" in Bats
17 - "vorkhit"
18 - "barkhit"
19 - "tkhest"
20 - "tkho"

The words for "water", "father" and "mother", "I" and "you", "guest" etc. are identical, but - rather confusingly - equally-ancient words such as "bread", "the Earth", "flower", "star", "knife", and "wolf" are completely different (the order is [English] - [Chechen] - [Bats]):

water - khi - khi
father - dad - dad
mother - nan - nan
I - so - so
you - ho - ho
guest - hash - hash

bread - bepig - mekk
the Earth - laita - metkhenmak
flower - zezag - bubuk
star - seda - terelch
knife - urs - nekk
wolf - borz - akk

For you real amateurs, here are some useful sentences:

"I love you" (man to woman) sounds like "son ho iets" (woman to man, "so ho viets");
"Happy birthday" (man to man) is "so vien de";
"No problem", "tsa tsom tsoda";
"We are drunk" (men, obviously), "wakhini";
"How are you?" is "mohvah" to a man, "mohyah" to a woman or a girl;
"Let's go" (men and women), "dakhentve";
"Thank you", "dakinda" ("thank you very much", "zoresh dakinda");
"Delicious", "tchamli";
"Cheers" (when making a toast) is "marshmakesh khilotwe";
"To the health of all children" (toast) is "badrikhilal marshmakesh";
"Good morning" is "urden marshrolia";
"Pretty girl" is "razen yeuh";
"Good-bye" is "gazishril" when said to one person, "gazishrilat" to several;
"What is it?" is "vukh da?";
"I would like", "I need", is "son dets";
"It is raining" is "kariatr";
"Blood feud" is "tsig etsar", "blood taken";
"A Georgian" is "kuikh", and "Georgia" is "kuikhta";
"My name is x" is "sokh tse x";
"Come here, guest" is "hash deuh" ("guests", "hash dahu");
"Do you like this song?" is "tsonala ho e mokk?";
"Yes, I do" is "ha, son tsonala";
"I understand" is "so dakvahen vas" (man), "son dakvahen ias" (woman) (or "khatse son");
"I miss you" is "hotsulob hohias" (?).

And, finally, a few more curiosities:

"A scratch" (or perhaps the verb "to scratch") is the same as "a shot"/"to shoot": "kebsar";
"Snow" sounds like the English "Love", but "it is snowing" is "datkhr";
"My darling", "hoch lavalos", also means "I am ready to die for you";
"Wine" is "ven" or "matchar", loan-words from Georgian. (The Georgian word "ghvino" is thought by many to be the term which gave us our word "wine".)

Bats seems to be extraordinarily precise (and concise!, as the example given below demonstrates) when it comes to indicating time:

(-1) Yesterday - "psare"
(0) Today - "tkha"
(1) Tomorrow - "ka"
(2) The day after tomorrow - "lamu"
(3) The day after the day after tomorrow - "ul"
(4) The day after the day after the day after tomorrow - "kalu"
(5) The day after the day after the day after the day after tomorrow - "palu"
(6) The day after the day after the day after the day after the day after tomorrow - "tchalu"

Love - "detsar-vetsra";
Revenge - "mastkho nanietrier" (?).

"Here" - "ese";

"There" - "isi";

"Over there" - "osi";

"This" - "e";

"That" - "o".

Some thunderstorm-related terms are:

"Lightning" is "taplekh";

"Thunder" is "gurgur";

"Thunderstorm" is "mossi" (the same word as "bad");

"Wind" is "moss" ("it is windy" - "mosba");

"Rain" is "kari".

The seasons of the year:

Summer - "khko"
Autumn - "stabo"
Winter - "ah"
Spring - "doha"

Some useful verbs:

I am - "so vas";
You are - "ho vakh";
He/She/It is - "o va";
We are - "ve batkhr";
You are - "shu desh";
They are - "obi da".

I see - "songu";
You see - "hongu";
He/She/It sees - "okvengu";
We see - "vengu";
You see - "shungu";
They see - "okarngu".

I have - "sogo";
You have - "hogo";
He/She/It has - "okgo";
We have - "vego";
You have - "shugo";
They have - "okargo".

The months of the year are:

"ianvar"
"teberval"
"mart"
"epral"
"vardob"
"tibat"
"mkatat"
"aguist"
"enkenob"
"ghviob", "the month of wine"
"giorgob", "the month of St George"
"krishob", "the month of Christ"

(For anyone familiar with the names of the months in Georgian, it will have immediately become apparent that the Bats words are mostly loan-words from Georgian.)

-
Some popular toasts:
"To children" is "katsketchokhilal" (preferably the more correct "badrikhilal");
"To the [host] family" is "hekurekhilal";
"To women" is "pstiankhilal".

Step 3: Switch back to Colour

2007-04-18T15:50:00.000+04:00

Back to Colour Photography

Bakuriani Ski Resort - The brand-new Mercedes and the construction site of a new hotel gives away the whole game, really. But this is basically still just a pretty, sleepy village high up in the [Lesser] Caucasus mountains.

Edo Khatchaturianshvili's horse Tarzan rolls himself in the fresh snow in Bakuriani; I went riding with him for a day, and he suggested we go to an Ossete village a few kilometres away. His surname is very interesting, and speaks volumes about the fact that many, many different peoples inhabit the Caucasus and Transcaucasus: The suffix "-shvili" means "child of" in Georgian, and "-ian" is its Armenian equivalent; so Edo "[Georgian] Son of [Armenian] Son of Khatchatur, an interesting combination.

Edo and Tarzan again (I was riding on Manan). The village in the background is called Didi ["big"] Mitarbi; it is still an Ossete village, so populated by a people completely and utterly different from the Georgians. (The Ossetes are an Iranian people; the descendants of the Scythans, Sarmatians, and Alans, their language is in the same family as Pashtun, spoken in Pakistan and Afghanistan.) Initially home to forty or fifty families, most of them fled in 1991 when fighting broke out between Georgians and Ossetes, and moved to the separatist region of South Ossetia and its self-proclaimed capital, Tskhinvali. Almost all the houses stand empty now, and only 30 people still live in Didi Mitarbi.

Some of the Ossetes who stayed: Vazha, his mother Elena, and Viktor. Vazha and Viktor know only a few words of Ossete, and I doubt they could have a real conversation in that language. "Hello" or "good-day" in Ossete sounds like "bai-riai dabonkhors"; "please", "tugeneni"; "thank you", "buznek"; and "good-bye", "khorzai bazai". Vazha's mother Elena still speaks Ossete, and with her help I was able to collect thirty or so words, and record a few minutes of her speaking. They were extremely kind to me, inviting Edo and I to stay for lunch in their old house, plying us with their food and drink, very keen to entertain the ethnolinguistic fancies of the strange foreigner from Belgium, and all I could leave as thanks for their welcome was some "German" ham, which they were surprisingly keen on.

A Shipwreck named "Desire" (in Turkish), along the coastal road near Batumi, on the Black Sea. Apparently, this particular stretch of road is notorious for car accidents, drunk drivers careering out of the curve into the sea. It is the only curve for miles, and people do drink a lot around here, so it's not so surprising perhaps.

A view of old Batumi. Nothing much is happening in this picture, but I quite like it nonetheless. In case you're wondering, the sign reads "stomatology".

And last of this series, and equally insignificant, is the first colour picture I had taken for a very long time. The colour of the flowers obviously caught my eye, but the trees are still very much me "thinking in black and white" (whatever that really means).

Step 2.5 - Become a War Hero

2007-03-23T13:06:00.000+04:00

I am now a General with the Cossacks. I have so many medals from so many different campaigns - from Afghanistan to the Volga - that I have back problems. (And I look like a fool!)

Step 2: Georgia

2007-03-17T16:50:00.000+04:00

(Step 1 - Turkey - being incomplete, I went straight to Step 2. And no, I did not collect 10,000.)

Now I am in Georgia - or Sakartvelo as it is known to Georgians (who call themselves Kartveli, plural Kartvelebi... don't ask) - and besides living in Tbilisi, I am enjoying a few exploratory trips into the rugged countryside.

These following pictures were taken during such an expedition - they are of Lake Tsalka, about 100km due West of Tbilisi. The road is so bad, and the surroundings so desolate, that it took four hours to drive that distance in a Lada jeep.

The infamous A303 road from Tbilisi to Tsalka and beyond. My map marks it as a "main road, asphalted", but I think that may have only been the case when it was built in the 1960s.

Lake Tsalka, with my (honorary) Georgian uncle looking pensive, as usual.

And a "panoramic" view of the lake itself. (Please click on the image for a better view.)

Step 0.5: From Istanbul to Georgia via Kars

2007-03-17T16:13:00.000+04:00

These pictures were taken between Istanbul and Kars (train, 2,000km) and between Kars and Posof (minibus, 200km). My initial intention was to spend longer in Turkey, but after waiting in vain for the weather to improve I decided to press ahead and return later in Spring.

-
Four views from my compartment aboard the Dogu Ekspresi train, which daily runs the 2,000km from Istanbul to Kars, eastwards across Anatolia.
-

A few shots of Kars, including a shot of myself acting in a rather colonial manner, and two views of the old Armenian church. There are no Armenians in Kars now though, obvisouly. The church has been a mosque for some time, and is an official monument under the protection of the Turkish Ministry of Culture. Overall it seems to be in good condition, although I was not able to find anyone to unlock the door and let me inside.

A pseudo-panoramic view of Kars from the fortress. (Please click on the image for a much better view.)

And four views of the road from Kars to the Turkish-Georgian border at Posof/Vale, including the last minaret I saw (from the window of a somewhat rustic loo).

For more information on rail travel to or in or from Turkey, please visit this excellent page, part of the amazing "The Man in Seat 61" website, a triumph of British enthusiasm for travelling by rail.

The timetable for the Istanbul-Kars "Mountain Express" train can be found here, on the Turkish Railways website. The train leaves Istanbul Haydarpasha Station (on the Asian side) at 08:35 (Day 1), and arrives in Kars at 22:00 (Day 2), stopping at Izmit, Eskishehir, Ankara, Kirikkale, Kayseri, Sivas, Erzincan, and Erzurum along the way. I recommend a private compartment (roughly 70 Euros, sleeps 2) in the first class carriage, especially in winter, when the compartment's radiator is a godsend. The views from the train are absolutely stunning.

For more on travel in Turkey, you could also consult Tom Brosnahan's excellent Turkey Travel Planner, or delve deeper into Seat61.com.