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VIOLET ON THE MOUNTAIN
(poem #3). Another hunter, Chorla, was punished for killing too many game animals [SvP 288-296].
The cause of Betgil’s demise will be discussed presently.
SCENE I. The villagers of Mulakh and Muzhal, two neighboring communities of Upper Svaneti,
have assembled to dance a round dance, the murgwæl or ch’ishkhæsh. This dance is an important
component of certain Svanetian festivals. The roe deer (in other versions, a chamois or an ibex) is
said to be white, and it runs through Betgil’s legs into the circle. The disruption of the round dance
by a wild animal is a powerful symbol: The deer, a representative of the world of nature, has
intruded on the realm of human society, symbolized by the circle of dancers. (All versions specify
that the beast ran between Betgil’s legs. This has led at least some to the implication that he was
castrated by the animal’s horns [Howard Aronson, private comunication] — a not implausible
reading given the sexual nature of Betgil’s “offense” against Dali.)
SCENE II. In pursuit of the deer, Betgil heads toward the top of a mountain, specified in one version
as Mt. Totan, a 3000-meter mountain about 10 km south of Mulakh. Although Betgil can see the
tracks of the animal before him, when he turns around there are no tracks visible behind him. This is
clearly no ordinary deer. In one version it is said to be a black demon, which turns into a white roe
deer after Betgil takes off after it; others imply that it is Dali herself. According to some variants the
path behind Betgil is “becoming ruined” (khedomeni): there is no way back.
SCENE III. Betgil is confronted by the goddess Dali, who is frequently portrayed as the secret lover
of successful hunters. She asks him for a trinket she had given him as a token of their love after an
earlier tryst. He has left the string of beads under his pillow, in the bed he shares with his wife, of
whom Dali is jealous. (The appearance of this particular prop is further evidence that Dali and the
eastern Georgian deity Samdzimari [“the bead-wearing one”] have a common origin. See the notes
to poem #30). She decides that Betgil has been unfaithful to her and abandons him on the cliff,
hanging by one foot and one hand. Other versions lay the blame on an affair between Betgil and his
telaghra (son’s or brother’s wife) Tamar. In any event, Betgil has violated the taboo against contact
with mortal women before going hunting [GOM 74].
SCENE IV. Betgil realizes he is doomed. For the sake of his soul in the afterlife, Betgil asks his
mother to bake kut and ch’ishdwar, flat round loaves with cheese in the middle. These two types of
bread have a particular association with the Svanetian rites for the commemoration of the dead. In
one version, Betgil’s wife is asked to dye her headdress red, the traditional funerary color.
SCENE V. Some versions, but not this one, describe the efforts of the villagers to rescue Betgil. In
one particularly difficult version [SvP 282-285], the rock-tower on which he is trapped magically
rises to keep him out of reach of the ladders brought by a rescue party (chukwan k’ichkhærs
migæmalakh, murq’wam zhibav brets’enila). Finally, Betgil falls (shq’edeni) to his death. Three
other variants, including the oldest one, state that Betgil jumps (khosk’ida) from the cliff. I will not
venture into the treacherous domain of interpreting the Betgil poems, but I can refer the curious
reader to two monographs that deal with Betgil and the other doomed-Svan-hunter poems in
considerable detail: Virsaladze’s GOM, and Charachidzé’s PC (especially pp.131-172). According
to the latter, traditional Georgian ideology opposed the life of the hunter or warrior — who prefers
the wide-open spaces far from human habitations, and who kills at will — to that of the peasant,
bound to home, hearth, and village (as mentioned in the notes to poem #54). The conflict is resolved
in mythological language by literally inverting (hanging from a cliff) the hunter who overkills.
57. Dghesam dgheoba visia? (“Today is whose festival?”). Source: MP 114. Recorded by S. Mak’alatia
in the Tushetian village Chigho in 1933. The song was accompanied by an elaborate two-tiered
round dance known as the kor-beghela, “tower-granary,” which was performed at the annual festival
of Lashari [= Giorgi Lasha (see #55 above)] in Tusheti. Mak’alatia provided the following
description of this fascinating dance: “The men formed a mighty ring, each man’s arm around the
shoulder of his neighbor. A second ring formed on top of the first, and this two-tiered circle moved
toward the shrine (khat’i) while singing ‘Today is whose festival? — St. George’s festival …’ The
people all participated in the kor-beghela, because, in their belief, those who did not join in would be
jinxed by the shrine. The kor-beghela must proceed in a direct line toward the doors of the shrine
without collapsing, no matter how long or difficult the path might be. Outside the shrine doors the
kor-beghela rotates three times while calling: ‘May Lashari’s jvari have mercy on you,’ and then
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