The Man Who Used to
Swear by the Prince of the Dead: Structural analysis of an Abkhaz folk-tale
As a certain person
was proceeding along the road, he came across someone else. Half of the person he met was silver,
his other half was gold. The one
who was half-silver, half-gold (зыбжa рaӡныз
зыбжa хьыз [zәbӡә radznәz zәbӡә
xyәz]) spoke
up and said: “You
are not to be afraid of me!”
“Why
should I be scared of you?” said
the other.
“By
what do you swear?” asked the one
whose half was silver and whose other half was gold.
“I
swear by the Prince of the Dead (Аҧсцәаҳа [aphstshwaha]),” said the other.
“Why?” asked the one who is half-silver.
“Because
God created me and set me upon the earth, but the Prince of the Dead is the one
in whose hands my soul lies; when he desires it, he’ll carry me off. That’s why I swear by the Prince of the
Dead,” said the other.
“If
that’s so, just plant your walking-stick here,” said the one who was
half-silver. The other one stuck
his stick in the ground.
“When
the shadow of this stick of yours reaches this far tomorrow, come here, and I
too shall come,” said the one who was half-silver.
The
next day both of them came to the spot.
“Wherever you see me, you’ll recognize me without mistaking me for
another, won’t you?” asked the one
who was half-silver.
“Of
course I’m going to recognize you; even if you’re in amongst a lot of others, I
won’t mistake you,” said the other.
“Here,
take this!” he said and handed him
a mirror, it too half-silver, half-gold.
“Put this in your armpit and keep it there; shew it to no-one. I go wherever there is a sick person,
but apart from you no-one will see me—you too make it your habit to go
there. When I arrive, if I’m
taking my seat towards the sick person’s feet, that person is not going to die;
if I’m taking my seat towards his head, he is going to die. You give yourself the title of ‘Healer
of the Sick.’ Tell those by whose
feet I’m taking my seat—after all, such a one is not going to die—that you’ll
heal him; at the place of one towards whose head I’m taking my seat tell them
that you can do nothing for this illness; in that way you’ll make a good
profit. I am the Prince of the
Dead by whom you swear. You are to
last 100 years!” he said and left.
This
chap, as the prince of the dead told him, would pay a visit every time that
someone was ill. Whenever he
looked in his mirror, he could see where the Prince of the Dead was taking his
seat. If he sat down by the sick
person’s feet, he would start pretending to make some medicines for him,
saying: “I’ll cure this one”; and
of course, he wouldn’t die; when anyone got better, he would take quite a lot
from them. In that way he became
very rich.
Continuing
in that way, he fell ill when he became 100. When he fell ill, the Prince of the Dead came and promptly
sat down at his head. The ill man
promptly lifted up his pillow, turned round the other way and lay down pointing
his feet in the direction of the Prince of the Dead.
“What
are you doing?—I sat down at your head, and you pointed your feet in my
direction!” said the Prince of the
Dead.
“The
reason why I’m doing this, Prince of the dead, in all honesty, is that I don’t
want to die yet; I beseech you—give me a further 100 years! I’m a poor thing, after all aren’t I?!” said the sick person.
“Fine,
have a further 100 years, since you have been swearing by me. But when your age is 200, you’re to
become such as no man has ever seen!” was the curse he laid upon him. What he meant was: “When he becomes 200 years old, let him
become a frog!”
And
thus did it happen with him. When
he became 200, he turned into a frog and with floppy step moved over the land (Hewitt, 2005: 142-150).
Analysis
For
this project, I have attempted to do a structural analysis of a folktale, based
on the principles presented by Claude Levi-Strauss. I have chosen this Abkhazian folktale for two reasons: first, because it originated in the
Caucasus, which is the geographical focus of my dissertation; second, because
it is a highly unusual story and contains a number of elements (mirrors,
chthonic beings) which interest me.
As
Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jacobson have suggested, binary oppositions are
a central feature of language, and are perhaps even fundamental to the human
thought process (A. Berger, 1999: 41).
The most striking feature of this story is its use of binary
oppositions, which I have listed and placed in two columns, as follows:
point A point
B [the
road]
“a certain person” “someone
else”
“half of the person” “his
other half” [dividing
line]
“half silver” “half
gold” [dividing
line]
(left half) (right
half) [dividing
line]
“God” “the
Prince of the Dead”
“set me upon the earth” (birth) “he’ll
carry me off” (death)
top of walking-stick (above earth) bottom
of walking-stick (below the earth)
sunlight shadow [the
walking stick]
“this stick” “shadow
of this stick”
“come here” “I
too shall come” [the
walking-stick]
(first day) “the
next day” [night]
(objects) (reflections) [mirror]
(silver half of mirror) (gold
half of mirror) [dividing
line]
(silver/gold man) (silver/gold
mirror)
armpit (darkness) out
of armpit (light)
(what others see) (what
appears in the mirror)
(see) (not
see)
(lying down) (sitting)
“towards the sick person’s feet” “towards
his head”
“going to die” “not
going to die”
(honesty) (pretense)
(pronouncing the case hopeless) “pretending
to make some medicines”
“100 years” “a
further 100 years” [illness,
return of the =
“200 years” Prince
of the Dead]
reward curse [act
of trickery]
man frog
mortal life eternal
life as a frog [100-year
extension]
(what is commonly seen) “such
as no man has ever seen”
death transformation
into a frog
In
those cases where a “mediating third” can be identified, I have entered that in
a third column. These include some
striking parallels: the mirror
mediates between objects and their reflections, while at the same time objects
mediate between their visible appearance and their shadows. The whole story is replete with these
bipartite, mirror-image structures—even the 200 years are divided into two
periods of 100 years by the return of the Prince of the Dead.
Now
a few other observations: notice
how all the action of this story
takes place in liminal zones (the road, the sickroom). Also, notice that the story does not
specify how the “half silver” and “half gold” are distributed. Based on such details as the planting
of the walking-stick in the ground and the profound contrast drawn between the
head and the feet of the sick person, it would be logical to assume that the
man was divided in half at the waist.
However, Abkhaz people always go about fully clad (high boots, leggings,
long coats), so no part of the body below the waist would normally be
visible. For this reason, we must
assume that the man is divided into two halves laterally. This creates a new binary opposition
between left and right. From the
context it is not possible to determine whether the silver half is on the left
and the gold half on the right, or vice
versa. However, silver is
always mentioned first, followed by gold—and three times the stranger is
described in an abbreviated form as “the one who was half silver” (зыбжa рaӡныз [zәbӡә radznәz]) It is tempting to associate the two
precious metals with the Moon and Sun, respectively. If this is done, we may surmise the reason: traditional Abkhaz culture was
matriarchal; women went to war alongside men, and the Moon was esteemed as a
female entity. In fact, the
“Amazons” of Greek legend very likely take their name from the Northwest
Caucasian root –MZ-, meaning “Moon” (vocalized in Abkhaz as amza) (this is an original observation,
but it has also been noted by John Colorusso, 2002). I do not know, however, what significance right and left
hold for the Abkhaz, or how silver and gold would be associated with them.
The
man’s stratagem of re-orienting himself with respect to the head and foot of
the bed is clearly related to the motifs of mirror-images, and left and right.
Who is this mysterious person, this
“someone else”? The Prince of the
Dead is presented as a counterpart to God, and he is clearly a chthonic
being—the dead are buried in the ground, and the walking-stick is also planted
in the ground. Moreover, he is
strongly associated with precious metals (silver and gold), and is able to
confer wealth on those who honor him.
The mirror, too, is half silver, half gold (presumably its left and
right halves, like the Prince of the Dead), and so it may be said to represent
him in microcosm. He is associated
with darkness and the unseen (the shadow, the armpit, “no one will see me”), as
well as with sickness and death.
Notice
how the Prince of the Dead specifies the time of their second meeting: “when
the shadow of this stick of yours reaches this far tomorrow.” The comings and goings of this
mysterious being are synchronized with the motions of the heavens. Because of the daily advance of the Sun
along the ecliptic and seasonal shift of the ecliptic in relation to the
earth’s axis, the return of a shadow to its position of the previous day will
occur somewhat earlier or later; in the Caucasus, this shift for one day varies
between 9.15 seconds around the summer solstice to 30.04 seconds around the
winter solstice. This corresponds
to an idea which is pervasive in astrology—that spirits associated with
specific subdivisions of the ecliptic circle (especially those associated with
the decanates [10º segments of the ecliptic]) will manifest themselves only at
specific times, which are astrologically determined.
It
is only on their second meeting that the Prince of the Dead makes his dramatic
self-disclosure, and in the same moment rewards his devotee with 100 years of
life.
Mirrors are associated with the
spirit-world in many cultures, including our own (it was formerly customary,
when someone died in a house, to cover the mirrors; and then there is the story
of how, shortly after his death in 1969, Brian Jones appeared to Marianne
Faithfull in a mirror).
In this story, the left-right
division of the mirror into gold and silver halves is suggestive of two
mirrors; such an arrangement will result in a divided image.
This mirror is especially
interesting in that it has two contrasting halves, and because it must be kept
in darkness. The Zohar makes several references to “the
mirror that does not reflect” (cf. Bereshis
A 2:17, “the fourth is the chamber of prophecy of the shining mirror (aspaqlarya
de-nahara); the fifth is the chamber of prophecy of the opaque
mirror (aspaqlarya de-la nahara)”; Pekudei 26:4, “We learned that the mirror which does not shine
showed him within it all the wheels and shapes made below, like a mirror
reflecting within itself every image”; Pinchas
44:31, “this is the mirror that does not shine, being made up of 365 lights,
corresponding to the numerical value of yeshenah
[sleep]”) (Kabbalah Centre International, Inc., 2004). In western occultism, “black mirrors”
are commonly used for scrying (C. Puzuzu, 2005), and the practice has attained
some degree of respectability through the work of Dr. Raymond Moody, whose
“psychomanteum” (a darkened chamber containing a mirror) is used as a
therapeutic device by bereaved persons to contact the dead (Paranormal Insider,
2008). While there is little
likelihood of direct influence one way or the other, it seems probable that the
Jewish and western European use of the dark mirror and that described in this
Abkhaz folktale are comparable manifestations of some very ancient beliefs and
practices.
There may be some parallel between
this half-silver, half-gold mirror and the illustrations found on pages of Saet’lo Xiromant’ia (discussed in my
larger paper), where figures representing Venus and Saturn are portrayed on
facing pages, each holding a mirror in the left hand—an arrangement suggestive
of the shining and opaque mirrors just mentioned, especially in light of the
planetary associations involved.
There is quite a bit of evidence
connecting the Northwest Caucasian peoples to the Neolithic remains discovered at Çatalhöyük
(ca.7500 B.C.), including obsidian mirrors (ApilSin 2003). If this association is valid, it
demonstrates the great importance these people attached to mirrors, even at a
very early date. It will be
remembered, too, that Dr. John Dee received many of his angelic visitations
through the agency of an obsidian scrying-mirror.
The
association of the Prince of the Dead with the sickbed may also have its origin
in the Çatalhöyük
culture, since “they
buried their dead under the beds. The remains of women and children interred
under the woman's bed and the remains of men under the man's” (ApilSin
2003:¶11).
Thus, the Prince of the Dead ((Аҧсцәаҳа) remains a complex and puzzling
entity—a being who comes through the looking-glass, who slips in between the
moments traced by the sundial, or comes up from under the bed.
The
strange conclusion of the story may reflect a folk-belief among the Northwest
Caucasians that frogs were actually aged men. Thus, it appears that the power of the Prince of the Dead
was limited—he could confer years of life, but only at the price of becoming
“such as no man has ever seen.” It
is hard to say whether it would be better to pay the debt of nature or to live
on as a frog!
This
part of the story may be an allusion to the fabled longevity of people in the
Caucasus. The phrase “such as no
man has ever seen” may be seen as a mediating third in relation to several
similar expressions which appear earlier in the story: “wherever you see me”; “apart from you
no-one will see me.” Indeed, a
very common Abkhaz greeting is
“good to see you” (Бзиара убааит [bzyara
wbaayt]).
Much
more could be said, no doubt. The
folklore of the North Caucasus is of great interest to Historical Anthropology
because although the Abkhaz and related peoples have lived in proximity to the
Kartvelian and Indo-European peoples for many millennia, they are completely
different in origin, and their culture is built upon an entirely different
foundation.
Bibliography
ApilSin, Apiladey
2003 “The
Proto-Hattians or Proto-Hattites.”
Retrieved 10 July 2008 from
http://www.ancientsites.com/aw/Post/124385&authorid=802
Berger, Arthur Asa
1999 Signs in Contemporary Culture: An Introduction to Semiotics. 2d edition. Salem, Wisconsin: Sheffield Publishing Company.
Colarusso, John
2002 Nart Sagas from the Caucasus: Myths and
Legends from the Circassians,
Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs.
Princeton University Press.
Hewitt, George
2005 Abkhazian Folktales. Lincom Europa, 2005,
Kabbalah Centre
International, Inc.
2004 The Zohar: the most powerful spiritual tool.
http://www.kabbalah.com
Paranormal Insider
2008 “Psychomanteum: Mirror-Gazing for the Dead.” Retrieved 17 May 2008 from
http://paranormalinsider.com/2008/01/psychomanteum _mirrorgazing_for.php
Puzuzu, C.
2005 “Black
Mirrors.” Retrieved 15 September
2006 from
http://www.spellsandmagic.com/Black_Mirrors.html
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