John Colarusso - Nart Sagas: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Circassians and Abkhazians

NART SAGAS from the CAUCASUS

ART SAGAS from the CAUCASUS

MYTHS AND LEGENDS FROM THE CIRCASSIANS, ABAZAS, ABKHAZ, AND UBYKHS

Assembled, Translated, and Annotated by

John Colarusso

With the Assistance of
B. George Hewitt, Zaira Khiba Hewitt, Majdalin (Habjawqua) Hilmi, Kadir Natkhwa, and Rashid Thaghapsaw

With a new foreword by Adrienne Mayor

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD

COPYRIGHT 2002 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PUBLISHED BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 41 WILLIAM STREET, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08540

IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 6 OXFORD STREET, WOODSTOCK, OXFORDSHIRE OX20 1TR

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

FOURTH PRINTING, FIRST PAPERBACK PRINTING WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY ADRIENNE MAYOR, 2016

PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-0-691-16914-9

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE CLOTH EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

NART SAGAS FROM THE CAUCASUS : MYTHS AND LEGENDS FROM THE CIRCASSIANS, ABAZAS, ABKHAZ, AND UBYKHS / ASSEMBLED, TRANSLATED, AND ANNOTATED BY JOHN COLARUSSO WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF B. GEORGE HEWITT [ET.AL.].

P.CM.

INCLUDES BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES.

ISBN 0-691-02647-5 (CLOTH : ALK. PAPER)

1. TALESCAUCASUS.2. MYTHOLOGY, CAUCASIAN.3. CIRCASSIANSFOLKLORE.4. ABKHAZO-ADYGHIAN LANGUAGES. I. COLARUSSO, JOHN, 1945

GR276 M952002

398.209475dc212001036861

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE,

PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK HAS BEEN SUPPORTED BY A GRANT FROM THE LOCKERT LIBRARY OF POETRY IN TRANSLATION, MADE POSSIBLE BY A BEQUEST FROM CHARLES LACY LOCKERT (18881974)

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN COMPOSED IN DANTE TYPEFACE, AND IPA TIMES FROM ECOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS

PRINTED ON ACID-FREE PAPER.

PRESS.PRINCETON.EDU

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

To my very own Satanaya,

Linda,

for her endless patience and invaluable support,

and to the memory of

Hans Vogt,

an esteemed colleague and friend whom I never had the pleasure of seeing but without whose encouragement and help none of this would ever have transpired

CONTENTS l

FOREWORD l

The extraordinarily rich folk literature of the Caucasus is virtually unknown in the West because the regions ancient myths and legends were preserved orally instead of in writing. And the high mountain, thick forests, valleys, craggy cliffs, rocky gorges, isolated valleys, and lonely seas of grass have ensured that the region and its cultures remain little-known today. In antiquity this territorystretching 1,000 miles from the Black Sea east to the Caspian Seawas part of Scythia-Sarmatia, home to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples whose lives centered on fine, fast horses, archery, falconry, herding, hunting, raiding, plundering, and warfare.

A cauldron of myriad ethnicities and languages, the Caucasus has seen geopolitical turmoil for thousands of years. Isolated by topography, restlessly on the move, subject to violent struggles, with entire peoples displaced and some erased altogether, the diverse ethnic groups kept their shared and unique ancient traditions alive in poetry, ballads, proverbs, and oral stories. Outside influences in the mountain fastness arrived quite late: Mongol hordes from the east, Islamic armies from the south, Byzantine-Medieval Christians from the West, and Russians in the modern era. In antiquity, the Caucasus region embraced Pontus, Armenia, Media, Colchis, Abkhazia, Iberia, and Albania. Today the region is divided into southern Russia and a host of republics established (and still disputed) after the Soviet Unions collapse in 1991: modern Abkhazia, Adzharia, Adygea, Karachay-Cherkessia, Karbardino-Balkaria, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia-Alania, South Ossetia, Georgia, northeastern Turkey, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nakhchevan, and Azerbaijan. And within each of these modern borders, various ethnic groups maintain their own dialects, customs, and histories.

The multiplicity of these names of modern nations harks back to the staggering ethnic diversity and ebb and flow of peoples across the Caucasus in antiquity. Each group, tribe, and clan passed down versions of stories featuring warriors and demigods of the mythic past known as Narts. Narts were imagined as larger-than-life, heroic, and sometimes supernaturally powerful but with mortals emotions and foibles. As the first saga in this collection relates, given a choice by God, they chose courage, honor, risk, and glory over long lives of comfort, declaring, If Our Lives Be Short, Let Our Fame Be Great!

These translations of tales from Circassian, Abkhazian, Abaza, and Ubkh bring to life a nearly forgotten, strange, and wonderful world of primeval giants, evil monsters, magnificent horses, wise elders, impetuous adventurers, sly tricksters, witches and magical spells, earthy humor, and colorful heroes and heroines. The sagas are filled with fantastic exploits as well as realistic details of daily life. Colarussos commentaries provide historical contexts, explain arcane meanings and local customs, and point out comparative folklore and fascinating mythic parallels.

In contrast with the ancient Mediterranean world, where oral myths were first captured in writing around 700 BC, most Caucasian languages did not possess alphabets until the twentieth century. The myths and chronicles from the heart of Eurasia were preserved in collective memories and perpetuated by the spoken word in countless tongues over generations, preserving themes and motifs related to those in Greek and Asian mythologies layered with Eurasian folk legends of later dates.

The non-Indo-European languages of the Caucasus are extraordinarily complex and subtle. Described by outsiders as mellifluous, percussive, hissing, throaty, and gargling, Caucasian languages are characterized by chains of harsh consonants leavened by only one or two vowels. The exotic-sounding, difficult-to-pronounce names in the Nart sagas are typically consonant-heavy.

Many of the numerous languages of the Caucasus appear to have changed little over the last two millennia. Remarkably, some traces of ancient forms of some of these languages were recently discovered, with the expertise of John Colarusso, on a number of ancient Greek vase paintings of the sixth to fourth centuries BC. The vases depicted Scythian and Amazon warriors, dressed and armed like real nomad mounted archers of the same era whose graves have been excavated around the Black Sea and across the steppes. Next to these barbarian figures are strings of meaningless Greek letters. Scholars had long assumed that the letters were mere gibberish, signs of illiterate vase painters.

Speculating that the mysterious letters might represent foreign languages spoken by nomads, I enlisted David Saunders, vase specialist at the Getty Museum, and we sought out John Colarusso, the leading expert in Caucasus languages. It was an amazing experience for all of us when John recognized many of the so-called nonsense inscriptions as phonetic renditions of phrases and names in ancient forms of Ubykh, Abkhazian, Georgian, and Circassian spelled out in the Greek alphabet. Some of the inscriptions described the actions pictured on the vase, while others were nicknames of Scythian and Amazon warriors, such as Battle Cry, Worthy of Armor, One of the Heroes, Armed with a Sword, Noble Princess, Iron, Dont Fail, and Brave Adversary.