The Shamanic Themes

in Georgian Folktales

The Shamanic Themes

in Georgian Folktales

By

Michael Berman

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales, by Michael Berman

This book first published 2008 by
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
15 Angerton Gardens, Newcastle, NE5 2JA, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright 2008 by Michael Berman
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-84718-586-X, ISBN (13): 9781847185860

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... vi
Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
The Prologue: The Tale of Tales ............................................................... 15
Chapter 1: The Earth will take its Own ..................................................... 17
Chapter 2: Davit ........................................................................................ 37
Chapter 3: About the Young Man turned to Stone .................................... 47
Chapter 4: The Horse Lurja ....................................................................... 59
Chapter 5: The Daughter of the Sun .......................................................... 68
Chapter 6: The Pig Bride ........................................................................... 85
Chapter 7: Tsikara ..................................................................................... 90
Chapter 8: The Frogs Skin ....................................................................... 99
The Epilogue: The Kinto and the King.................................................... 108
Bibliography............................................................................................ 111
Index........................................................................................................ 116

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In 1795, Johann Blumenbach was trying to categorise the races of the

world and using skull types as one of the bases for his work. He came
across a particularly beautiful skull, one that he felt represented the
loveliest characteristics of the majority of European types. It had belonged
to a Georgian woman (Anderson, 2003, p.15). And it was a Georgian
woman who first aroused my interest in the country and its traditions. This
coupled with my interest in Religious Studies and shamanism in particular,
led to the writing of this book. So my thanks go both to the woman in
question Ketevan Kalandadze, now my wife, and Jonathan Horwitz, my
teacher and founder of the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Studies,
without whom this study would never have materialized.

INTRODUCTION

To sum up Georgia in a single phrase would be to describe it as a

country of contrasts. In an area the size of Ireland, people can ski in the
morning, swim a couple of hours later in a warm Black Sea, stand with
their backs to some of the worlds most awesome mountains (the Caucasus
have 12 peaks higher than Mt Blanc), yet face an arid, desert terrain,
where former inhabitants carved towns into hillsides as the only shelter
(Naysmith, 1998, p.6). Bounded by Russia to the north and northeast,
Azerbaijan to the east, the Black Sea to the west, and Armenia and Turkey
to the south, Georgia or Sakartvelo (the homeland of the Kartvelians
which is how the Georgians refer to themselves) also contains one of the
worlds most prolific, reputedly the oldest, and probably the least known
wine districts, together with tea and tobacco plantations thriving 40km
from regions too cold even to grow tomatoes in1. For these reasons and
many more, when people ask you what it can be compared to, there is
really no answer as it is a place that cannot possibly be pigeon-holed, as
any visitor to the region will unfailingly confirm.
Although the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian Churches took
the place of the old religions in Europe and across western Eurasia,this
applied mainly to the urban centres.
Beyond the borders of Romes control, in the most northern and eastern
fringes and on the western isles, and in the rural environments amongst the
country folk or pagani, the old religions continued, perjoratively
designated after them as Paganism. Even when officially Christianized, the
religion of the Pagans remained an assimilation, merely an overlay of the
newer cults, or it passed unnoticed under other names, with its myths and
beliefs adapting and surviving primarily in less objectionable forms such as
1

Viticulture may well have begun either near the Caspian or in a region including
Colchis, where at two sites dating to the fourth millennium BC the earliest material
evidence has been found, in the form of grape-pips in accumulations associated
with stores of chestnuts, hazlenuts and acorns, these too being for food, at the same
sites. These accumulations could indeed have been the outcome of food-gathering
rather than of harvesting of cultivated vines, but this seems rather unlikely
(Burney & Lang, 1971, p.11).

Introduction
folktales and bizarre or quaint festival rites (Ruck, Staples, et al., 2007,
p.3).

This is very much what occurred in the case of Georgian paganism too.
Not only can reminders be found in the traditional dances, songs, and rites
still being performed, but also in the folktales still being told. Bilocation
(the apparent ability to be in two places at the same time), having animal
familiars and / or healing powers, undertaking spiritual journeys, carrying
out soul retrievals, and practising divination, are all elements to be found
the stories chosen for inclusion in this collection, and they are also, as we
shall see, all elements typically associated with shamanism.
[A]lthough Georgia has been a nominally Orthodox Christian country
since the 4th century, an indigenous pre-Christian religion was actively
practiced in many parts of Georgia up to the beginning of this century and
even more recently in some areas, where, with the restriction of official
Georgian Orthodox activities under the Soviet regime, syncretistic
Christian-pagan rites conducted by the village elders had become the sole
forms of worship (Tuite, 1995, p.13).

Even after so many centuries of Christianity in Georgia, many

elements of paganism live on in the country to this day:
Hellenism and Zoroastrianism are long forgotten, but the people have gone
back to far older traditions. The cult of the Moon God lives on in the
veneration of St George, who is also known as Tetri Georgi, or White
George. The Georgian Shrovetide festival of fertitlity and rebirth is
entirely pagan in inspiration. It is called Berikaoba, and involves
processions and orgiastic carnivals in which the act of sexual intercourse is
mimed, and ancient phallic rites are perpetuated from year to year (Burney
& Lang, 1971, p.224).

The custom of spending Easter Monday eating and drinking in

cemeteries, by the tombs of ones ancestors, clearly has pagan origins too.
The Georgian-French scholar G. Charachidz describes and analyses
Georgian paganism in Le systme religieux de la Gorgie paenne
(1968), though it has to be said that not all specialists in the field share his
view. The Georgian ethnographer Zurab Kiknadze, for example, regards
the religious system described by Charachidz as an innovation cobbled
together out of Christian elements in the late middle ages, after Mongol
and Persian invasions had cut off the mountains and other peripheral areas

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

from the cultural hegemony of the orthodox Orthodox center (Tuite,

1995, p.13).
Yet another possibility exists however, which is that the origins of
Georgian paganism date back even further into the distant past, when
shamanism was practised in the land.
Let us consider Georgian cosmology, for example. As is frequently the
case among indigenous peoples who practise shamanism, the universe is
believed to consist of three superimposed worlds. They are: (1) the space
above the earth (the celestial world); (2) the earthly space (the surface of
the earth); (3) the space below the earth (the netherworld). On the highest
level are the gods; on the lowest, the demons and dragons; between the
two, in the middle world, men, animals, plants, etc (Bonnefoy, 1993,
p.255).
As for Georgian paganism, it is perhaps best described as a revealed
religion, not one that was revealed at the beginning of historical time by
means of speech that has been preserved orally or in writing, as is the case
with Judaism or Islam, but one that is made manifest each time the soul of
a human being is possessed by a Hati (a divinity). That person, who is
then regarded as being officially possessed, becomes a sort of shaman and
is known as a Kadag. When the Kadag goes into trance, on the occasion
of a religious ritual or an event marking individual or collective life, he
speaks, and it is then the god who is speaking through his mouth
(Bonnefoy, 1993, p.255). The priest-sacrificer is similarly chosen by what
can be termed divine election made manifest through possession. His
function however is multi-purpose, not only to perform rites but also to act
as the political and military chief of the community.
While the more accessible central lowlands of Georgia have served as
a virtual crossroads between the East and the West,
the inhabitants of the northern Georgian mountain districts, both east and
west of the Likhi rangesome of which had never yielded to a foreign
army until the tsarist periodhave held on to their ancient folkways and
pre-Christian religious systems to a degree unparalleled in modern Europe.
Until very recently, [for example] oracles (kadagebi) practiced their trade
within a few dozen kilometers of Tbilisi; [and] animal sacrifices and the
pouring of libations, traditions reminiscent of Homeric Greece, are still
commonly observed in many parts of Georgia today (Tuite, 1995, p.11).

Introduction

Additionally, the kind of Georgian spoken in the mountain districts of

Pshavi, Khevsureti and parts of Racha has also limited the influence on the
region from outside in that it bears a stronger resemblance to the literary
language of eight centuries ago than to the speech of modern Tbilisi. The
Zan dialect spoken in Mingrelia, [for example,] and to an even greater
extent the dialects of Svaneti, are incomprehensible to Georgians from
other parts of the country (Tuite, 1995, p.12).
The north Georgian mountain districts in particular thus provide a rich
and relatively untapped source of material for both collectors of folklore
and anthropologists alike. And in some areas, especially in the provinces
of Pshavi, Khevsureti and Tusheti, shrines constructed of stone can be
found, many of them adorned with the horns of sacrificed animals, which
are still in use today (see Tuite, 1995, p.15).
Before proceeding any further, we should perhaps pause at this point to
consider what the process of an outsider trying to understand narratives
that are representative of another culture actually entails, as this is
precisely what the author of this particular volume is attempting to do. As
such an outsider does not share the cultural knowledge of the peoples
whose narratives he or she is considering, this also means
that he does not know what world the narratives refer to. Nor does he know
the ways of telling about this world. He lacks 1) the ability to perceive
knowledge of the world in the manner of the [members of that other
culture] , 2) an understanding of how the [members of that other culture]
organize this knowledge into a narrative, and 3) an understanding of
how the information in the narrative should be interpreted (Siikala, 1992,
p.204)

Moreover, none of these problems that the Westerner faces can be fully
solved by background reading, however extensive such reading might be.
On the other hand, as an outsider, the Westerner can see the narrative with
a new pair of eyes, and thus appreciate aspects to it that the insider might
not perhaps consider or that the insider merely takes for granted and
glosses over. And for this reason, though fraught with obvious difficulties,
the outsiders attempt to understand and to present appreciations of such
narratives is still an enterprise that is more than worth undertaking and one
that can, without a doubt, pay rich dividends, as hopefully this study will
show.

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

Although the traditional Georgian religion is commonly described as

polytheistic, in fact this is a fallacy as there is a clear distinction between
the Supreme God (Morige Ghmerti), creator and sustainer of the universe,
and all other divine beings, as there is in other so-called polytheistic
religions such as Yoruba. And many of the deities have taken on Christian
names, as is the case with Santeira in Brazil for example, so that as in
some parts of Europe what we find is that the worship of particular saints
was actually founded upon the worship of pagan deities.
Among the principal figures are St. George (Giorgi; in Svan Jgrg),
the Archangel (Georgian Mtavarangelozi; Svan Taringzel), and a hunter
deity and protector of wildlife in the high mountains (in Svaneti
represented as the goddess Dl or Dali). Important female figures include
Barbal St. Barbara, a fertility deity and healer of illnesses; and Lamaria
St. Mary, protector of women. Kriste Christ presides over the world
of the dead (Tuite, 1995, p.14).

When we look in more detail into Georgian paganism, as it has been

called, what we find is evidence to indicate that at one point in time some
form of shamanism could well have been practised in the region.
The people of the northeast, for example, have a Giorgi or Givargi
(Saint George) who, like his Svan namesake Jgrg, watches over men
and protects them on those occasions when they leave the village to seek
the riches of the outside world2. And like Jgrg, he has a female
counterpart: known as Samdzimari or Samdzivari:
In a myth transmitted through Xevsurian epic poetry, Giorgi and his human
scout, a legendary oracle named Gaxua who underwent temporary death in
order to make the trip, descended into the hypochthonian kingdom of the
Kajes a race of supernatural blacksmiths with magical powers. There
Giorgi succeeds in annihilating the Kaj army, whereupon he takes
possession of their metalworking equipment, their treasures, a one-horned
cow, and three daughters of the king of the Kajes, one of whom is
Samdzimari [also known as Samdzivari] (Tuite, 2006, p.169).

As well as the Saint George of the mountains, there is also the Saint George of
the Georgian plains, the only divinity whose worship has been more or less
preserved in Plains Georgia. Possession plays an important part in his rituals, but
unlike in the mountains, the possessed are generally women, whose souls are
seized to punish them for sins they are said to have committed (see Bonnefoy,
1993, p.257).

Introduction

This descent into the kingdom of Kajes can be described as a

shamanic journey of initiation from which Giorgi brings back a spirit
helper. Evidence to support this hypothesis is the fact that Samdzimari,
like Dl in Svaneti, can be described as the mediatrix par excellence, in
the context of a religious system in which women, human or supernatural,
frequently appear in this role: legendary male oracles (Geo. kadag) are
said to receive their communicative powers through the experience of
nightly visits from Samdzimari, who can take on the form of a mortal
woman Tuite, 2006, p.169). Her main function is to intervene between
the shaman and his god when the contact is broken. Always available, she
takes possession of the abandoned shamans soul And reestablishes the
link with the departed god (Bonnefoy, 1993, pp.259-260). Thus one of
Samdzimari's key attributes is her ability to circulate between inaccessible
spaces and human societyin other words, to act as an intermediary or
mediator between people and divine beings, which is very much the role a
shaman plays.
There is also evidence to indicate that there were psychopomps,
another role traditionally undertaken by shamans. Contact with the souls
of the dead, for example, is entrusted to the female mesultane (she who is
with the souls), whereas the male kadag (oracle) requires the services of
Samdzimari to do so. There were also mgebari (escorts) who took on the
role of accompanying the newly deceased to the Land of Souls, more
commonly known in shamanic cosmologies as the Land of the Dead.
The word psychopomp, etymologically, means a deliverer of souls
and is derived from two Ancient Greek wordspsyche meaning "soul" or
"spirit," and pompos meaning sending. Other examples of figures who
have acted as psychopomps include Ganesh the doorkeeper in Hindu
mythology, Hermes, Mercury, the Greek Ferryman of the River Styx, the
Christian Holy Spirit, and the Norse Heimdal. The Greeks and Romans
believed the dead were ferried across the river Styx by a boatman named
Charon, and they paid him by placing a coin in the mouth of the deceased.
The Land of the Dead played a significant part in the belief system of
the Ancient Egyptians too, as can be seen from the texts of the so called
Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Pert em hru, which reveal the unalterable
belief of the Egyptians in the immortality of the soul, resurrection, and life
after death The sacred temple mysteries of Isis and Osiris gave initiates the
opportunity to come to terms with death long before old age or disease

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

made it obligatory to do so, and to conquer it by discovering their own

immortality (see Grof, 1994, pp.9-11).
Until as late as the 1950's in some localities, women of the northeast
Georgian highlands gave birth in crudely-built huts (sachexi or k'oxi),
located at some distance outside the village. The new mother and her child
were considered extremely "impure" during the first weeks after birth, and
were only gradually (re)integrated into the community through a series of
purifications, sacrifices and the child's formal presentation at the clan
sanctuary (xat'shi mibareba) [Mindadze & Didebulidze 1997] (Tuite, 2006,
p.176).

This marked the child's definitive transfer from the the lineage of the
mother to the father's clan and the newly dead followed the same
pathway, being escorted by their mgebari to the equivalent of a clan in the
"Land of Souls", known as Suleti.
For further evidence to support the hypothesis that some form of
shamanism was once practised in the region, we can point to the images of
Dl in Svan oral literature and ritual, in which she takes on the form of a
shape-shifter, an attribute again commonly associated with shamans, in the
story of Dl and the doomed hunter, for example:
The story starts off with an encounter between the goddess and a
legendary hunter called Betgil, selected by Dl to be her lover. She gives
him a token of their love in the form of a bead, ring or charm (depending
on the version of the story) and then makes him promise to avoid all
contact with human females from that day on, even including his own
wife. For as long as he remains in the goddess's good graces Betgil enjoys
remarkable success in the hunt. When one day, however, he breaks his
promise, sleeping with either his wife or his sister-in-law, the goddess
changes herself into a white chamois and chases after him as he tries to
escape by climbing up a mountain. On reaching the summit the goddess
resumes her original form and confronts the terrified Betgil, who falls (or
some say jumps) to his death on the rocks below (see Tuite, 2006, p.166).
Xevsur shrines that are consecrated to Samdzimari by name, or other
female spirits with similar characteristics, are known to every Pshav and
Xevsur community. And associated with the male-gendered patron deities
(called xvtisshvilni "children of God") of villages are auxiliary goddesses,
not only capable of assuring the health and fertility of people and their
livestock but also with the potential of bringing harm, thus reflecting what

Introduction

is generally found to be the case in shamanismthe eristic nature of the

spirits ( see Tuite, 2006, p.170).
What we have seen is that both Dl and Samdzimari, by either
crossing out of or in to relatively stable or fixed structures, or by operating
"betwixt and between" the margins of these structures, are endowed with
the ability to operate wthin liminal states in the same way that shamans
traditionally do for the purpose of mediating between the two worlds. (see
Tuite, 2006, pp.181-182). Not only that, but it is also interesting to note
that encounters between the goddesses and their mortal lovers
characteristically take place in liminal locations too: mountains or
pastures, at the frontier between the spatial domain of the human
community (culture) and the inaccessible spaces appertaining to nature,
the dwelling places of gods and spirits (Tuite, 2006, p.182).
All this points to the very strong likelihood that some form of
shamanism was practised in the region and, as we shall see, this is
reflected in the folktales of the country.
As for storytelling,
even before the Soviets this was a land of myths and tales as tall as the
peaks themselves In Armenia, Noahs Ark lies on the borders. In
Azerbaijan, the Garden of Eden is said to lurk somewhere in the south.
Georgia is not to be outdone. If her neighbours boast of the genesis of man,
Georgia claims to have been home to the gods. Prometheus was bound to
one of her great peaks, his liver torn daily by the circling birds of prey
(Griffin, 2001, p.2).

And not only that. According to traditional Georgian accounts,

Georgians are descendants of Thargamos, the great-grandson of Japhet,
son of the Biblical Noah (and Thargamos is the Torgom of Armenian
tradition). Moreover, the ancient name of Georgia was Colchis, which was
associated for centuries with the Greek myth of Jason and his 50
Argonauts, who sailed from Greece to Colchis to capture the Golden
Fleece. The legend describes how Medea, the daughter of the King of
Colchis, assisted Jason in his adventure, but in the end was deserted by
him.
It should therefore come as no surprise that Georgia contains such a
rich source of traditional tales, as this collection reveals. It should also
come as no surprise that the stories are the products of so many different

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

influencesincluding pagan, Christian and Islamicin view of the troubled

history of the land. However, it is the shamanic influences that we are
primarily interested in here, and that will form the focus of this work. So
let us start by defining what we mean by shamanism and the shamanic
story before we venture any further.
For the purposes of this study, a shaman is understood to be someone
who performs an ecstatic (in a trance state), imitative, or demonstrative
ritual of a sance (or a combination of all three), at will (in other words,
whenever he or she chooses to do so), in which aid is sought from beings
in (what are considered to be) other realities generally for healing purposes
or for divinationboth for individuals and / or the community. What this
suggests is that Eliade's focus on the journey as the defining feature of
shamanism is not a true reflection of what actually takes place, at least not
in the case of the demonstrative and imitative forms.
As for the practice of shamanism, it is understood to encompass a
personalistic view of the world, in which life is seen to be not only about
beliefs and practices, but also about relationshipshow we are related, and
how we relate to each other. And when this breaks downin other words,
when it is not taking place in a harmonious and constructive waythe
shaman, employing what Graham Harvey likes to refer to as adjusted
styles of communication, makes it his or her business to resolve such
issues.
In shamanism the notion of interdependence is the idea of the kinship
of all life, the recognition that nothing can exist in and of itself without
being in relationship to other things, and therefore that it is insane for us to
consider ourselves as essentially unrelated parts of the whole Earth
(Halifax in Nicholson, (comp.), 1987, p.220). And through neurotheology,
this assertion so often heard expressed in neo-shamanic circles that all life
is connected, can now be substantiated:
Through the new medical discipline of neurotheology developed largely at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it has been shown that during
mystical ecstasy (or its equivalent, entheogenic shamanic states [states
induced by ingesting hallucinogens]), the individual experiences a blurring
of the boundaries on the ego and feels at one with Nature; the ego is no
longer confined within the body, but extends outward to all of Nature;
other living beings come to share in the ego, as an authentic communion
with the total environment, which is sensed as in some way divine (Ruck,
Staples, et al., 2007, p.76).

10

Introduction

The peculiar interconnectedness of communities through ties of family

and obligation found in Georgian society would suggest that this is a
concept that Georgians are more than familiar with. Rather than being a
product of Soviet rule, the sharing or pooling resources and wealth has
long been practised by the people. It has also served to sustain them
through the recent hardships they have had to endure.
Although the form of social organization practised can best be
described as patriarchal, with all authority being vested in the head of the
family groupthe mamasakhlisi, literally the father of the house, it is
likely that it was originally matriarchal. For when hunting was the basis of
the economic life of the community, when the men were frequently absent
on expeditions in search of food and the mortality rate among them was
high, the women would have acted as heads of the households. And this
continued among the mountain peoples until relatively recently (see Allen,
1932, p.35).
Another reason to believe that the organization of society was once
matriarchal can be found in the language. One of the features that makes
the Georgian language unique in that it has the odd distinction of reversing
the almost universal sounds for mother and father, so that mama is father
and deda is mother, which could well indicate that the tribal peoples who
inhabited the region were at one point in time matriarchal, worshiping the
sun, not the moon, as the supreme female deity and that they passed on
their lines of descent through the mothers rather than through the fathers
side. And even today, though the Georgian language has no genders, the
sun, mze, is still thought of as feminine (see Anderson, 2003, p.151).
Although there is no mention of hereditary shamans as such in the
history of Georgian paganism, the khevisberi in the northeast Georgian
highlands would seem to have fulfilled a similar role. It was
the khevisberi, far more than any distant priest or power, who directed the
spiritual, ritual and moral affairs of the mountains. He was and is elected
by his peers, not on the basis of age or wealth, but for his deeper qualities
[specialized ritual, mythological, and esoteric knowledge inherited from
his ancestors]. Sometimes his office is given to him in dreams. He decides
on all questions of law, presides over festivals and sacred ceremonies; he,
alone, approaches the shrine and undertakes the sacrifice and in so doing
brings peace to the dead and placates the deities (Anderson, 2003, p.144).

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

11

As for the shrine, the sacred space where ceremonies are performed, it
is known as the khati. It is the place
where people gather to make offerings, to eat and drink and sacrifice and
also to dance and sing ritual, improvised songs, the kaphiaoba. The word
khati has other significant religious and spiritual meanings [too]: it is the
name given to the Sons of God, pre-Christian deities like gudani and
lashari, to whom the mountain people gave special devotion, and it also
means icon or just image (Anderson, 2003, p.97).

What we can see from this is that shamanism, albeit it under different
names and in various forms, has thrived for millennia and, it has to be said
that it is hard to imagine a tradition surviving for so long in so many
cultures unless there were effective components to it (see Walsh, 2007,
pp.120).
In her paper South Siberian and Central Asian Hero Tales and
Shamanistic Rituals, the Leipzig researcher Erika Taube suggests that
Folktalesbeing expressions of early stages of the development of human
societyreflect reality: material culture, social relations, customs, [and]
religious beliefs. When folktales were being formed and appeared as vivid
forms of spiritual and artistic expression in correspondence with the
general social development, those elements, which nowadays are usually
regarded as phantastic creations of human mind, were strictly believed
phenomenons, i.e. they were accepted as facts. Therefore, it is not at all a
new idea that such tales sometimes reflect shamanistic beliefs and
conceptions (Taube, 1984, p. 344).

If they were forms of artistic expression, however, then they could

well have been regarded as such by those they were told to and we actually
have no way of knowing whether they were accepted as facts or not. On
the other hand, what we can show is that they do reflect shamanistic
beliefs and conceptions, and this will become apparent once we start to
analyze them.
Sir James Frazer made a similar claim in his abridged version of The
Golden Bough, first published in 1922: folk-tales are a faithful reflection
of the world as it appeared to the primitive mind; and that we may be sure
that any idea which commonly occurs in them, however absurd it may
seem to us, must once have been an ordinary article of belief (Frazer,
1993, p.668). In reality, however, there is no way we can be certain that
any idea that appears in such tales must once have been an ordinary article

12

Introduction

of belief as, not being able to get inside other peoples minds, we cannot
possibly know what was actually the case.
On the other hand, as Emily Lyle (2007) points out in the abstract to
her paper Narrative Form and the Structure of Myth, what we can be
reasonably sure of is that At each stage in transmission of a tale from
generation to generation, modifications take place but something remains.
Thus there is a potential for material to be retained from a time in the
distant past when the narrative was embedded in a total oral worldview or
cosmology. In view of the fact that in the past shamanism was widely
practised in the regions where the tales in this study were told, it is
therefore highly likely that a shamanic worldview and shamanic
cosmology is to be found embedded in them.
Stories have traditionally been classified as epics, myths, sagas,
legends, folk tales, fairy tales, parables or fables. However, the definitions
of the terms have a tendency to overlap (see Berman, 2006, p.150-152)
making it difficult to classify and categorize material. Another problem
with the traditional terminology is that the genre system formed on the
basis of European folklore cannot be fully applied universally.
Consider, for example, Eliades definition of myth. For Eliade the
characteristics of myth, as experienced by archaic societies, are that it
constitutes the absolutely true and sacred history of the acts of the
Supernaturals, which is always related to a creation, which leads to a
knowledge, experienced ritually, of the origin of things and thus the ability
to control them, and which is lived in the sense that one is profoundly
affected by the power of the events it recreates (see Eliade, 1964, pp.1819). However, many stories are lived in the sense that one is profoundly
affected by the events they recreate without them necessarily being myths.
Moreover, a number of the stories that will be presented in this study could
be regarded as having the above characteristics but would still not
necessarily be classified as myths.
Another problem encountered is that a number of the definitions of
what a myth is are so general in nature that they tend to be of little value.
For example, the suggestion that a myth is a story about something
significant [that] can take place in the past or in the present, or in the
future (Segal, 2004, p.5) really does not help us at all as this could be
applied to more or less every type of tale. For this reason a case was
argued in Berman (2006) for the introduction of a new genre, termed the

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

13

shamanic story. This can be defined as a story that has either been based
on or inspired by a shamanic journey, or one that contains a number of the
elements typical of such a journey. Like other genres, it has its own style,
goals, entelechy, rhetoric, developmental pattern, and characteristic roles
(Turner, 1985, p.187), and like other genres it can be seen to differ to a
certain extent from culture to culture. It should perhaps be noted at this
point, however, that there are both etic and emic ways of regarding
narrative (see Turner, 1982, p.65) and the term shamanic story clearly
presents an outside view. It should also be pointed out that what is being
offered here is a polythetic definition of what the shamanic story is, in
which a pool of characteristics can apply, but need not.
Characteristics typical of the genre include the way in which the stories
all tend to contain embedded texts (often the account of the shamanic
journey itself), how the number of actors is clearly limited as one would
expect in subjective accounts of what can be regarded as inner journeys,
and how the stories tend to be used for healing purposes.
In his Foreword to Tales of the Sacred and the Supernatural, Eliade
admits to repeatedly taking up the themes of sortie du temps, or temporal
dislocation, and of the alteration or the transmutation of space (Eliade,
1981, p.10), and these are themes that appear over and over again in
shamanic stories too3.
Additionally, given that through the use of narrative shamans are able
to provide their patients with a language, by means of which
unexpressed, and otherwise inexpressible, psychic states can be expressed
(Lvi-Strauss, 1968, p.198), it follows that another feature of shamanic
stories is they have the potential to provide a medium through which
psychic states that might otherwise be difficult to put into words can be
expressed.
Finally they are all examples of what Jrgen Kremer, transpersonal
psychologist and spiritual practitioner, called tales of power after one of
Carlos Castanedas novels. He defines such texts as conscious verbal
3

Despite the criticism now levelled against Eliades work, without him the current
interest in shamanism would probably never have materialized. So instead of
dismissing Eliade out of hand as someone who merely popularised various
ethnographic reports written by others, by casting a critical eye over what he has to
say and by being selective, it is felt there is still a lot of value to be found in his
writing and thus justification for referring to it.

14

Introduction

constructions based on numinous experiences in non-ordinary reality,

which guide individuals and help them to integrate the spiritual, mythical,
or archetypal aspects of their internal and external experience in unique,
meaningful, and fulfilling ways (Kremer, 1988, p.192). In other words,
they can serve the purpose of helping us reconnect with our indigenous
roots.
The chapters that follow present selected examples of these tales and
represent what is probably the very first attempt to both recognize and
trace their shamanic roots.
In Marxist anthropological theory, shamanism represented one of the early
forms of religion that later gave rise to more sophisticated beliefs in the
course of human advancement, a view that Marxism incorporated from its
predecessorsocial evolutionism. The premise of Marxism was that
eventually, at the highest levels of civilization, the sacred and religion
would eventually die out (Znamenski, 2007, p.322).

Though history has of course since disproved this, the theory clearly
had a great bearing on what was written in the former Soviet Union about
shamanism, and also on peoples attitudes in the former Soviet Republics
towards such practices.
On the other hand, it has been suggested that all intellectuals driven
by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied
with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order
to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more
indigenous (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). Although this might apply to
searching for the roots of Christianity in Georgia, when it comes to
searching for the roots of pagan practices, interest on the part of the people
of Georgia, at least in my experience, has not been so forthcoming. This
impasse, coupled with the effects of the repressions against religions,
including shamanism, unleashed by the Soviet government between the
1930s and 1950s, along with the recent surge of interest in the Georgian
Orthodox church, a backlash to the seventy years of officially sanctioned
atheism, makes research into the subject no easy business. However,
hopefully this study will at least in some small way help to set the process
in motion.

THE PROLOGUE
THE TALE OF THE TALES

George Papashvily (1898-1978) was an author who married American

Helen White after emigrating to the United States from Georgia in the
1920s. Together they wrote Anything Can Happen (1944), which
chronicled his immigrant experiences. The book was a bestseller, and was
made into a 1952 movie by Paramount Pictures. The Tale of the Tales that
forms the Prologue to this book, comes from Yes and No Stories: A Book
of Georgian Folk Tales, which the couple compiled together and that was
published in 1946.
There was, there was, and yet there was not, there was once a boy who
lived far away in time and in place from where you read these words.
This boys greatest delight was to hear the stories the men of his
village told every night as they gathered around a campfire.
From the minute the flames flared high until the last coals shut their
red eyes and fell asleep in their soft black blankets spun from soot, the boy
listened while the men, in turn, each told a tale.
Then one night as the stories were going around, the oldest man turned
to the boy and said: Now its your turn to tell one.
I cannot, the boy said. I do not know how to begin.
That is easy, the old man answered. For stories always begin the
same wayThere was, there was, and yet there was not. It means that
what comes after is true and true but then again not so true. Or perhaps it
means that what is true for two men is not true for three.
I will try, the boy said. There was, there was and yet there. No I
cant tell a story. I cant even read.

16

The Prologue: The Tale of Tales

So much the better, the old man told him. Neither can I. Those who
read have stories of their own they keep locked up in books. We have ours
and they are better for they live with us day by day in our hearts.
But I am afraid I might not remember every word of the story exactly
right.
What difference does that make? No two people ever tell any story
the same way. Why should they? A story is a letter that comes to us from
yesterday. Each man who tells it adds his word to the message and sends it
on to tomorrow. So begin.
Well, the boy said, There was, there was andHe looked around
the circle and saw all the eyes watching him and the rest of the words
turned to pebbles in his mouth and he stopped.
Go on, the old man said, Go on, or you have no right to listen any
more. To listen to stories without ever telling one is harvesting grain
without sowing seeds; it is picking fruit without pruning the tree.
When he heard this, the boy knew he could hesitate no longer and so
he began:

CHAPTER ONE
THE EARTH WILL TAKE ITS OWN

In his Introduction to the collection Georgian Folk Tales, D.G. Hunt

suggests The Earth will take its Own is ostensibly a description of the
search for immortality but that it can also be interpreted as an analogue of
a lifelong husband-wife relationship. However, the parallels between the
tale and the shamans journey are either not apparent to the above-named
translator or overlooked by him, which is unfortunate as it is precisely the
shamanic features that help to make this tale so special.
Despite the fact most Georgians would describe themselves as
Orthodox Christians, folk customs with pagan origins, such as the use of
songs in rituals for healing purposes that are chanted over sick children,
are still practised alongside Christianity in the mountainous regions of the
country and the origins of this particular tale could well date back to preChristian times when shamanic practices were more than likely
widespread in the region judging from the beliefs that are still prevalent
today.
The batonebi, for example, are spirits who are believed to live beyond
the Black Sea and they are sent out by their superior in all directions, in
order to test the loyalty of mankind. During the daytime, the batonebi
move about on mules. In the evening, however, they return to the houses
of the sick and reside in the bodies of the stricken. Batonebi are to be
obeyed without question, as resistance only enrages them. Nonetheless,
their hearts can be conquered with tenderness and caresses; thus, it is
possible to protect oneself from calamity. They are said to enjoy gentle
songs and the bright sound of instrumental music.
The blisters from chickenpox (qvavili, literally: flowers) and the
redness from measles (tsitela, literally: redness) are said to be signs of the
arrival of the batonebi. In preparation for the ritual, the patients bed and
room are decorated with colourful fabrics and flowers. Visitors wear red or
white garments and walk around the sick person with presents for the

18

Chapter One

batonebi in their hands. A table full of sweets and a kind of Christmas

tree are prepared for them too. If the illness becomes worse, the family of
the patient turn to the ritual of asking-for-pardon (sabodisho) and a
mebodishe (a woman who has access to the batonebi and acts as a
mediator) is invited to contact them to find out what they want and to win
them over. Once the patient recovers, the batonebi have to be escorted on
their way, back to where they came from.
A translation of the lyrics to one of these songs is presented below.
Laynany was collected in 1987 at Akhalsopeli (a district of Qvareli) by
members of Ensemble Mzetamze, an ensemble of ethnomusicologists
dedicated exclusively to the musical traditions of Georgian women and
from whom the information on this folk custom was obtained, and the
lyrics were translated by my partner Ketevan Kalandadze:
Iavnana, vardos Nana, Iavnanina,
Nana da Nana, vardo (my rose), Nana, Iavnanina.
We are seven sisters and brothers, Iavnanina.
We travelled through seven villages, Iavnanina.
We entered the villages so quietly, Iavnanina
that not even a single dog barked, Iavnanina.
We entered the yard so quietly, Iavnanina,
And got into the beds of the ill, Iavnanina,
So that the mother did not notice, Iavnanina,
Nobody noticed, Iavnaina.
I picked violets and made a bouquet of roses, Iavnanina.
I spread them over our ill ones, Iavnanina.
Iavnana, Vardos Nana, Iavnanina.

This version of the story was taken from Georgian Folk Tales,
translated by D.G. Hunt, published in 1999 by Mirani Publishing House in
Tbilisi, Georgia. To the best of my knowledge, nobody else has worked on
the interpretation of this story in English before and this version, together
with three variants included in the same volume, is the only English
translation that is currently available.
The tale, which was translated into Russian, was then translated by
Hunt from Russian into English. It has been suggested, however, that
poetry is a kind of speech which cannot be translated except at the cost of
serious distortions; whereas the mythical value of the myth is preserved
even through the worst translations (Levi-Strauss, 1968, p.210). And if
that is indeed true, the poor quality of this translation can be said to be of
less significance than might otherwise be the case.

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

19

There lived a certain widow and she had an only son. The son grew up
and saw that only he had nobody he could call father. Why does
everybody else have a father and only I dont have one? he asked his
mother.
Your father died. What does it mean died? Does it mean that he
wont come back to us any more?
He wont come back to us but well all go thereto where he is, said
his mother. Nobody can run away from death.
The young man said, I didnt ask anybody for life, but Im already
alive and I dont want to die. Im going to find such a place where they
dont die.
For a long time his mother begged him not to go, but her son did not
listen, and he set out to look for such a place where they do not die. He
went round the whole world. And wherever he went, he asked the same
question, Is there death here?
There is, they answered him.
The young man became sad: there is no such place where they do not
die. On one occasion, when he was walking across a plain, he saw a deer
with high branching antlers. The young man liked the deers antlers very
much, and he asked the deer, Dont you know somewhere where they
dont die?
Theres no such place, said the deer, but until my antlers grow up to
the sky, I wont die; but when they grow up that high, my death will come
too. If you like, stay with me and you wont die while Im alive.
No, said the young man, either I want to live eternally, or I might
just as well die where I come from.
The young man went on further. He crossed the plain, he went all
through the valleys and reached the mountains. He saw a raven sitting on a
crag, cleaning himself, and shedding his downy feathers into a huge deep
gorge below. The young man asked the raven, Dont you know a place
where they dont die?

20

Chapter One

No, said the raven. Here Ill live until all of this gorge is filled with
my downy feathers, but when its filled, then Ill die. Stay with me and
live on until the time when I die.
The young man looked into the gorge and shook his head. No, he
said, either I want to live eternally or I might just as well die where I
come from.
The young man went on further. He passed through the whole world,
and approached the sea. He walked along the shore, not knowing where to
go. One day passed, two days passed, but nothing could be seen. On the
third day he saw something shining in the distance. He walked towards it
and there stood a crystal castle. The young man walked around the castle,
but he could not find any kind of door. For a long time he was tormented,
but at last he noticed a small streak, and he guessed that this was really the
entrance. He pressed with all his strength and the door opened. The young
man went inside and saw, lying there, a young woman of such beauty that
the sun itself would envy her if it saw her.
The young man liked the woman a lot and she fancied him too. The
young man asked, Beautiful lady, I want to get away from death. Dont
you know a place where they dont die?
Theres no such place, said the young woman, why waste your time
looking for it? Stay here with me instead.
He said, I wasnt looking for you, Im looking for such a place where
they dont die, otherwise I would have stayed there, where I have come
from.
The young woman said, The earth will take its own, you yourself
would not want to be immortal. Come, tell me, how old am I?
The young man looked at her: Her fresh cheeks, the colour of roses,
were so beautiful that he completely forgot about death.
Fifteen years old at the very most, he said.
No, answered the young woman, I was created on the first day of
the beginning of the world. They call me Krasoy, and I will never become
old and will never die. You would be able to stay with me forever, but you

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

21

will not want tothe earth will call you. The young man swore that he
would never leave her.
They began to live together. The years flew past, like a moment. Much
changed on the earth. Many died. They turned into dust. Many were born.
The earth changed its face, but the young man did not notice how the time
had flown. The young woman was always just as beautiful, and he was
always just as young. Thousands of years flew past.
The young man missed his old home, and he wanted to visit his people.
He said, I want to go and see my mother and family.
She said, Even their bones no longer remain in the earth.
He said, What are you talking about! Altogether Ive only been here
for three or four days. What could have happened to them?
The young woman said, As Ive been telling you, the earth will take
its own. All right, go then! But remember that whatever happens to you,
youve only got yourself to blame. She gave him three apples and told
him to eat them when he started to feel miserable.
The young man said goodbye to her and went. He walked, and he
walked, and he saw the crag that the raven had been sitting on. The young
man looked: all the gorge was filled up with his downy feathers, and there
was the raven himself, lying all dried up. It grew dark in the young mans
eyes, and he wanted to go back again, but already the earth would not
allow him, it drew him forward. He went further, and he saw, standing on
the plain, the deer. His antlers reached the sky, and the deer himself was
dying. The young man realised that much time has passed since he left
home. He went on further. He reached the area where he had been born,
but he did not find either relatives or acquaintances. He asked people
about his mother, but nobody had even heard of her. He walked alone and
nobody knew him. At last he met a certain old man, and told him who he
was looking for. The old man said, That woman, as I heard from my
grandfather and great-grandfather, lived once; but how could her son be
alive now? There went though the whole land the rumour about this
person. But what they say about him! They regard him as some kind of
freak.

22

Chapter One

The young man carried on walking alone. He came to that place where
once there stood his home, and he found only ruins, which were already
reddened with moss. The young man remembered his mother, his
childhood, his companions, and he became sad. He decided to eat the
apples that the young woman from the crystal castle had given him. He got
out one apple, ate it, and suddenly there grew on his face a long grey
beard. He ate the second apple, and his knees gave way, the small of his
back bent and he fell to the ground without any strength. He was lying
there, unable to move either an arm or a leg. He called a passing boy,
Come close to me, Boy. Get the apple out of my pocket and give it to
me. The boy got the apple, and gave it to him. He took a bite of it and he
died right then and there.
The entire village community came to bury him.
***
During the course of the following pages, the intention will be to show
how the tale does not exhibit the functions that are generally
acknowledged to be typical of fairy stories that were isolated by Propp
(whose research was based on an analysis of Russian tales), how it does
not fit into any of the forms described by Choloqashvili (a Georgian
expert on the folktales of her native country), how it need not necessarily
be interpreted psychologically, and how instead the story exhibits a
number of features that are characteristic of the shamanic journey as
previously described in this study. And from this the conclusion will be
drawn that all this strengthens the arguments for seeing the tale as a
shamanic story rather than as an example of any other genre.
Although The Earth will take Its Own would at first sight seem to
contain a number of the elements typically found in a fairy talewith one
of the members of a family (the young man) absenting himself from home,
with the interdiction to seek eternal life being violated, with Krasoy
playing the part of the villain, and with the apples (introduced as a gift)
serving as the magical agent or helpera number of the functions Propp
(1968) lists are clearly missing. For example, the hero and the villain
(Krasoy) never join in direct combat (cf. Function XVI), the hero is not
branded (cf. Function XVII), and the villain is not defeated (cf. Function
XVIII). Moreover, the last two functions proposed by Propp are entirely
missing from the talethe villain is never punished as in Function XXX,

The Shamanic Themes in Georgian Folktales

23

and the hero is not married and does not ascend the throne as in Function
XXXI.
When I contacted Rusudan Choloqashvili (author of the 2004
publication Imagery and Beliefs in Georgian Folk Tales and a Professor of
Philology at Tbilisi State University) and asked her whether she though
Propps functions could be applied to Georgian tales, her opinion was that
they could but she agreed this particular tale was clearly an exception. (We
spoke on 3/8/2005 with the help of an interpreter). Professor
Choloqashvili pointed out in the course of our conversation that the
sugestion the story might be based on a shamanic journey would of course
not have been acceptable in Soviet times and was consequently not one
she had ever considered before, though she agreed it was a distinct
possibility.
Choloqashvili refers to three types of folktale that can be found in the
Georgian traditionanimal tales, fairy-tales, and what she refers to as
novelistic tales. A character of an animal tale fights to get some food; a
character of a fairy tale fights to find a fiance; and a character of a
novelistic tale strives for a tremendous property (Choloqashvili, 2004,
p.183). Our tale would seem to fit into none of these categories. She goes
on to add that In spite of the differences between these subgenres on the
whole they have a common plot: the hero goes to get a marvellous thing,
overcomes obstacles three times, gets the desired thing and returns as a
winner (Choloqashvili, 2004, p.189). Our hero, however, has no such
luck.
Another observation Choloqashvili makes is that It is inconceivable
to end a fairy-tale with the death of the hero (Choloqashvili, 2004,
p.187). Yet once again our tale proves to be the exception. In fact, the only
way in which our tale can be said to be characteristic is that in a tale we
observe rewarding of a customs keeper, as well as punishment of a
customs infringer (Choloqashvili, 2004, p.187). In other words, our hero,
by trying to live forever breaks with convention and suffers the
consequences of so doing.
As The Earth will take its Own does not seem to fit comfortably into
any of the three categories described by Choloqashvili, it remains to be
ascertained which category, if any, it does fit into. It would not be
inaccurate to describe it as a shamanic fairy tale. Contrary to what one
might expect, fairy stories are not necessarily safe in that they frequently

24

Chapter One

confront the child with the basic human predicaments we inevitably have
to face in life. For example, many such tales start with the death of a
parent, as this particular story does, thus creating the most agonizing
problems just as it would in real life (see Bettelheim, 1991, p.8). If one
has found true adult love, the fairy tale also tells, one doesnt need to wish
for eternal life If we try to escape separation anxiety and death anxiety
by desperately keeping our grasp on our parents, [or a lover who becomes
a substitute for the parent] we will only be cruelly forced out (Bettelheim,
1991, p.11).
For the shaman natures wilderness is the locus for the elicitation
of the individuals inner wilderness and it is only here that the inner
voices awaken into song. The inanimate sermon of pristine deserts,
mountains, high plains, and forests, instructs from a place beyond idea
concept or construct (Halifax, 1991, p.6). In other words, it is only when
the young man leaves home and sets out on his quest through unknown
territory that the inner voices come into play, and the journey he embarks
on can in fact be interpreted as an inner journey.
It is only in non-ordinary reality that time stands still, where Krasoy
can remain forever young and so can the young man, if he chooses to stay
there. So it can be seen that it is clearly into non-ordinary reality that the
young man journeys, thus justifying the tales inclusion in this study as an
example of the proposed new genre.
Hanging on to ones immaturity when it is time to become mature
brings about tragedy for oneself and those closest to one (Bettelheim,
1991, p.140) The young man is tempted into trying to remain forever
young and then has to live with the consequences of the decision he
makes. Gaining independence and transcending childhood require
personality development, leaving the safety of the home and journeying
into the unknown, but the young man merely transfers dependence from
his parent to his lover and by the time he realizes his mistake it is too late
to do anything about it. In this respect, the story can be seen to highlight
the dangers of a childish dependence clung to for too long a time
(Bettelheim, 1991, p.142). However, while a psychoanalytical
interpretation of a tale like the one we have chosen to analyze here can be
highly illuminating, at the same time it has to be remembered the term
psychoanalysis had of course never been heard of when tales like this
were first told, and it thus only presents us with part of the picture.