Achilles and the Caucasus - Université de Montréal

Achilles and the Caucasus (K. Tuite) — août 17, 2007 — pg. 13
probably meet a god” (Buxton 1994: 91). In particular, they are
likely to encounter the female supernaturals who watch over the
game animals. The best-known of these is Dæl, the divine patron
of the horned game animals of the high mountain (ibex and
mountain goat) among the Svans, a Kartvelian-speaking people of
the northwest Georgian highlands. Dæl is said to be extraordinarily
beautiful, with golden hair and radiant white skin. Dæl and her
Abkhazian counterparts, the daughters of the god Až o eipšaa, are
reputed to seduce human hunters, who thereupon enjoy great
success as long as they observe a series of taboos imposed by the
goddess. She is extremely sensitive to any kind of impurity, and
especially women’s blood flow. 18 A man must be absolutely
certain that he, and everyone in his household, is ‘pure’ before he
goes into the mountains to hunt. The slightest violation, even if
unintentional, of a taboo is thought to have fatal consequences for
a hunter (Gabliani 1925: 36, 140; Virsaladze 1976). Note that this
is a sexual relation with the usual roles and valuations inverted: the
goddess is pure, unlike a human female, and she makes the
decision to initiate, and terminate, the love affair.
2.1. THE GODDESS, THE HUNTER AND THEIR SON. The goldenhaired
Svanetian goddess Dæl takes many human lovers — usually
hunters who have intruded upon her mountain domain — but only
one is said to have fathered a child by her: a man named Darejan or
Darjelian. 19 While hunting Darejan encounters the golden-haired
18 On similar beliefs in the Hindu-Kush/Karakorum region, see Jettmar, 1975;
Tuite 1996, 1998.
19 In several variants, mostly from eastern Georgia, the father is named Sulk’almaxi
“soul-trout”, an anthroponym that clearly demands to be looked at
more closely, especially in view of the comparison made here between the
Caucasian nature goddess Dæl, the Greek Nereid Thetis, and the unnamed
daughter of the Ossetic sea-god Donbettyr who was the mother of Batradz.
Georgian folklore includes numerous accounts of a “woman (or queen) of the
waters”, e.g. the Mingrelian c’q’ariš-mapa, who shares many features with Dæl,
including golden hair and a fondness for romantic dalliances with fishermen
(Virsaladze, 1976: 120-121). The name Sul-k’almaxi may have originally been
associated with an aquatic variant of the Dæl myth.