Achilles and the Caucasus - Université de Montréal

Achilles and the Caucasus (K. Tuite) — août 17, 2007 — pg. 48
Proto-Achilles is born from the union of two individuals
representing two very different worlds. His mother’s people dwell
in nature, outside of and either above (mountains) or below (sea)
the spaces domesticated by humans. They are an ancient race,
largely female in some traditions (e.g. the Nereids and the Dæls),
with an economy based on herding, hunting or fishing, ignorant of
agriculture (and perhaps even of fire), but immortal. The
Abkhazian legends of the Ats’ans go even further, depicting a
golden age without night, cold, illness, or death. Their relationship
to the supreme deity, the male celestial sovereign I have referred to
as “God” throughout this paper, is problematic: In one way or
another they present a threat to his dominion or a challenge to his
amour-propre.
It was mentioned earlier (§3.1.1) that the goddess of game
animals stands in opposition to a divinity named after St. George,
who functions as the patron of men who exploit the riches of
nature. His patronage of the male gender can take on a more
generalized character as well. A Georgian legend recounts how he
“rewards” a woman by changing the sex of her newborn child from
female to male (Charachidzé 1986: 178). Ossete women do not
participate in festivals in honor of their St. George, Wastyrdji, nor
even speak his name, substituting the expression lægty dzuar “god
of males” (Kaloev 1991c). 49 While St. George and God are
certainly distinct characters in the indigenous Caucasian
pantheons, their functions overlap to the extent that both take a
particular interest in the affairs of men, rather than those of women
(Charachidzé 1968). In the context of the Amiran cycle, it is to be
noted that Svanetian texts credit the finding and naming of Amiran
to either “Christ God” (krisde ƒermet (Davitiani et al 1957: 257))
or St. George (Z&g´ræg).
The father of Proto-Achilles is a mortal, a hunter intruding
upon the domain of the goddess. As a man sojourning in the wild
49 A similar taboo has been described in Khevsureti (northeast Georgia), where
women refer to St. George of Qaqmat’ as “my husband’s (or father’s) deity”
(K’ik’nadze 1996: 221).