Dali (goddess)

Stories of the Svan people depict her taking human lovers and killing them out of jealousy, giving birth to sons such as the culture hero Amirani, and later clashing with her rival Saint George.

As a patron of the hunt associated with hoofed beasts, she has been compared with Artemis of Greek mythology, a Scottish hag called the glaistig, and the maiden who tames the unicorn.

[6][7] According to Virsaladze, Georgian culture exhibits an extraordinary degree of live retention of ancient folklore and traditions, possibly from as far back as 3,300 years ago.

Folklorist Mikheil Chikovani considered the Trialeti Chalice, a Georgian artifact from approximately the 2nd millennium BCE, to depict a round dance or ritual dedicated to a goddess of the hunt comparable to Dali.

[44] In one unusual variation of the hair-cutting motif, a woman wishing to rid her son or her husband of Dali's influence sneaks up on the goddess while she is sleeping and washes her hair, sometimes in deer's milk.

[1] Several tales recorded by Georgian folklorist Elene Virsaladze reflect the deadly consequences for a hunter who wounded or killed one of Dali's marked beasts, or hunted too greedily.

[75] The exact location is uncertain: Tuite mentions the Free Svaneti communes of Mulakhi and Muzhali, while folklorist Anna Chaudhri pinpoints the village of Ghebi.

The story of Dali giving birth on the crags has been passed down as a song accompanied by a traditional circle dance, called Dælil k'ojas khelghwazhale in Svan (transl.

[b] In Georgian mythology, Saint George is regarded as a deity whose primary function is the protection of "men exploiting the world outside their villages for the benefit of the community", such as shepherds, beekeepers, and most significantly, hunters.

[56] In contrast, Virsaladze found the change from singular goddess to coven of spirits to be a confirmation that Dali had been relegated to a secondary role in Svan hunting mythology.

Georges Charachidzé, a French-Georgian scholar of Caucasian culture, recorded that Dali worked with three other Svaneti forest gods to assist the Lord of the Bare Mountain, Ber Shishvlish.

[93][96] Tuite theorized that this partitioning of roles between the two deities was the result of Apsat being adapted into a pre-existing belief system which featured a female figure as the primary patron of game animals.

Ethnomusicologist Maka Khardziani identified Saint George's victory over Dali in the Chorla story as emblematic of the weakening of pagan beliefs in the face of Christian influence.

[90] David Hunt suggested that the story in which Dali attempts to strangle Amirani reflects a Christian rejection of the female goddess, who is reduced to a malicious and "witch-like" figure.

[110] Virsaladze and Hunt have both suggested these changes to the Dali myth are a direct consequence of the Christian church altering existing pagan beliefs to associate them with evil in an effort to discredit them.

[110][111] One elderly man she interviewed during her research in the mid twentieth-century described Dali as both a deity and as a tormenting spirit, indicating that both versions of the myth were still extant in the modern era.

[32][114] Finally, it has also been suggested that Dali represents a preserved version of a particular Western European mythological archetype of a mistress of hunting or beasts, which has become altered or corrupted in other places.

The Mingrelian people of the historical Samegrelo region, to the south of Svaneti, revered a golden-haired goddess of the hunt called Tkashi-Mapa, who scholars view as an equivalent of Dali due to the overlap in their mythological roles and associations.

[118] Tuite, drawing on Chikovani's work in 1972, has proposed that the golden-haired goddess Samdzimari ("necklace-wearer") from northeastern Georgia served a similar, even equivalent role to Dali, though she was not explicitly a hunting deity.

[112] Classical scholar Egbert Bakker discussed Dali as a parallel to the Greek witch-goddess Circe of Homer's Odyssey, highlighting their shared aspects: "protection of animals, sexual predation, dawn and New Year associations", and a "male divine counterpart and adversary".

[133][134] Writing in the 1940s, the Georgian author Demna Shengelaya examined Dali as an equivalent of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, identifying themes of matriarchy struggling against patriarchal values reflected in the stories of each.

[45][136] She suggested the possibility that the mythology surrounding Dali represented a preserved form of "a very ancient cycle of traditions and songs about the interrelations of the mistress, patroness, or sovereign, of the beasts, forest, crags and waters, with a mortal young man".

[137] According to Virsaladze, this mythological motif is a fragment of a matriarchal belief system which venerated nature and life-giving mother deities, later supplanted by patriarchal ideology.

Foremost among these similarities are an association with gold (both as a color and as a precious metal), fertility and patronage of animals, seductive behavior combined with destructive jealousy, and a connection to dawn or the morning star.

[140] Archaeologist Elena Rova, drawing on Tuite's work, wrote that there appears to be evidence of the transmission of symbols and beliefs between the Mesopotamian and Georgian peoples during the Bronze Age.

[141] She described the 2014 discovery of a fragment of a decorated sandstone plaque in the Aradetis Orgora mounds on the Dedoplis Mindori archaeological site in Georgia as the basis for this speculation.

Finally, he found a parallel between the motif of a lady taming the unicorn and the recurring idea of a goddess or supernatural mistress who protects wild game animals.

[38][149] Davidson and Chaudhri concluded that Dali and the glaistig each represent a local version of an archetypal figure of a female guardian of the wilderness, which they suggested is a widespread mythological theme.

[28] They argue that similar figures who ranging from seductive to disturbing were once widespread across various European places and cultures, referencing the forest women of Scandinavia, Greek Artemis, and the Irish Cailleach.

Metropolitan Stephan of the Georgian Orthodox eparchy of Tsageri and Lentekhi strongly criticized the inclusion of the goddess as idolatry, although mayor Badri Liparteliani stated the change was intended to increase the fountain's efficiency and visual appeal.