If the classical Armenian histories
do not describe the role of women in the dayeak relationship,
the same is not true for Armenian epic and folk literature. A
work of the ninth century IMovses Xorenats'i's political novel,
the History of Armenia) as well as Armenia's epic
(David of Sasun created in the tenth to thirteenth centuries)
both contain information of interest on this topic. Xorenats'i's
novel, despite its late date (and despite innumerable other problems
associated with it) provides a fleeting glimpse of the Armenian
noblewoman's role in dayeakut'iwn--a role (or at least
a presence) on which the historical sources are silent. The reference
in question appears in chapter 36 of Movses' Book Two, in which
(probably fanciful) information is provided about the birth of
Sanatruk, a nephew of the famous king Abgar of Edessa (ruled ca.
4 B.C.A.D. 50). The following passage describes an Armenian
noblewoman as a dayeak (though not as a mere wetnurse):
But we must say why he was called Sanatruk. Abgar's sister, Awde, was traveling to Armenia in winter when she encountered a snowstorm in the mountains of Korduk'. The tempest scattered them all until no one could descry his travelling companion. Now his dayeak Sanota, sister of Biurat Bagratuni and wife of Xoren Artsruni, took the child--for he was an infant--and put him in her bosom, remaining under the snow for three days and three nights. They tell a fable about this to the effect that a marvelous white animal was sent by the gods and protected the child. But as far as we understand the matter, it happened like this: a white dog sent out to search for them, found the child and dayeak. So he was called Sanatruk, which is derived from the dayeak's name, meaning "gift of Sanota" (57).
The assumption behind these words appears
to be that the naxarar woman Sanota Bagratuni-Artsruni
and her husband Xoren Artsruni were raising Abgar's nephew
together-very much like the later Caucasian "mother-nurse"
and "father-nurse".
The presence of women in Armenian dayeakut'iwn is also attested in the third cycle of the medieval epic, David of Sasun. This cycle describes the conflict between two half-brothers, the sons of Mher the Great of Sasun. Mher the Great and his Armenian wife, Armaghan, had a son David. But Mher also had a son (named
Melik') by the Arab queen Ismil Khatun, the widow of Mher's former
enemy. When Mher and Armaghan died, David was left and orphan.
His uncles did not want to adopt him, nor would the child take
milk from any woman in Sasun. Finally, the uncles decided to send
the baby to be raised by Ismil Khatun:
Ismil Khatun rejoiced over DavidAs the boy David grew, his halfbrother's jealousy and resentment deepened. Melik plotted to harm David many times, but each time David's fabulous strength or his "fostermother" Ismil's actions prevented this:
She gave her breast to him;
David took the breast, suckled for a time
One day he refused to take her milk.
For three days and nights David took no milk.
Ismil Khatun wept; she was dismayed
And dld not know what to do with him.
She called [her son] Msrah Melik and asked:
--This child has not taken my breast
For three days and nights,
What shall we do with him?
Msrah Melik said:
--He is stuborn like his race, Mother,
He will bring us grief.
He is an Armenian, we are Arabs,
Don't give him your breast.
Ismil Khatun said:--If he does not take my breast,
He will die.
We will be humiliated before his family.
We cannot neglect him, he is our responsibility (58).
Msrah Melik looked for David throughout the city,
Eventually David was sent back to his
uncles in Sasun, and in time he became the ruler of Sasun. Some
years later his murderous half-brother Melik sent an army and
officials to Sasun to demand seven years' tribute from the Armenians.
David defeated the army, leaving alive only a few messengers to
take the news back to Melik:
Hearing this, Melik became furious; he saw blood
He went home [to his mother Ismil] and said:
--Mother, I wanted to kill David on that day,
But you did not let me.
Now, do you see how defiant he is?
In vain I did what you said.
--No, said his mother, you did not do what I said,
You did what Gosbadin said.
Melik asked:--What did you say that I did not do?
His mother said:--Had you done what I told you,
You would have gone to Sasun
To visit David, twice a year,
And you would have invited him to your home.
That would have pleased him,
He would have thought, 'I have a brother.'
Then no one could have spoken ill of you.
Melik said:--But Mother, I am an Arab,
David is an Armenian. How can he be my brother?
--Melik, said Ismil Khatun,
He would have listened to you...
You did not invite him to your home.
What right did you have
To demand seven years' tribute from him (60)?
In addition to its presence in Armenian
epic literature, dayeakut'iwn also seems to lurk behind
a curious motif found in some Armenian folktales. In these tales,
the hero must befriend a giantess or ogress who stands in the
way of his completion of some mission. An example is the story
of the "Sunset Lad" who, for insulting the Sun, was
comdemned to sleep like a corpse during the day and to come to
life only at night:
One day during his deathsleep period, he had a dream. An old man came to him and said "If you would see the Sun again, you must find the Sun's mother and ask for her forgiveness. Go to a faraway well and descend by climbing down carefully. You will see a cave, and at the entrance of it, there sits a huge giantess with her right breast thrown over the left shoulder and her left breast thrown over the right shoulder. You must quietly and quickly kiss her right breast. When you have done this, she will tell you that you are her child and to ask of her what you will. She will see to the rest. And he disappeared.
Dead during the day, alive at night, Sunset Lad walked for many, many months. Finally he reached the well. Climbing down carefully, he reached the bottom and saw the giantess sleeping. He quietly bent over and kissed her right breast which, as the old man had said, was thrown over her left shoulder. The giantess awakened with a start! "What are you doing here? I would have killed you immediately, but you have kissed my breast: you are my child. Tell me,why have you come here"(61)?
This folktale, and others like it, are
symbolically describing a ceremony in the practice known as linturali,
in which the "adoptee" kissed the breast of the "adopting"
woman, thereby becoming her
"son". The presence of
this motif in Armenian folktales, as well as the information cited
from David of Sasun suggests the existence of dayeakut'iwn
in medieval Armenia (62). Equally important, epic literature
and folktales--unlike the historical sources--affirm the presence
of women in Armenian dayeakut'iwn. Most likely both
women and men had roles in Armenian dayeakut'iwn. The child
being "adopted" was probably presented to the naxarar
woman who cared for the baby during its first few years within
her husband's House. When the child was seven years old, the host
naxarar or dayeak oversaw its training for
the martial world of fourth and fifth century Armenia. Fifth century
Armenian historians concentrate exclusively on the latter phase.
This study has examined fifth century
Armenian historical sources as well as seventeenth to nineteenth
century sources on the Caucasus for information on a form of child
upbringing practiced in ancient Armenia. To a remarkable extent,
the old Armenian sources and the more modern sources complement each
other. Certainly it would be possible to draw conclusions about
Armenian dayeakut'iwn based solely on the material
found in Agat'angeghos, P'awstos Buzand, and Ghazar P'arpets'i.
From their accounts of fourth and fifth century Armenia it is
clear that dayeakut'iwn served a dual function: to preserve
the physical existence of a clan in dangerous and uncertain times,
and to cement and strengthen relations between and among clans
in times of relative peace Although fifth century Armenian authors
use the term dayeak to mean "wetnurse,"
the picture they present of the institution of dayeakut'iwn
includes only men: the "adopting" lord is called
the dayeak and his ward is a boy from another noble clan
The modern sources, on the other hand, emphasize the important
role of the woman in both the "adoption" and raising
of children, and in the "adoption" of mature individuals.
The difference in emphasis between the modern sources and the
classical Armenian sources suggests that an aspect of Armenian
dayeakut'iwn might have been obscured by the nature
of the sources themselves. The presence of women in Armenian dayeakut'iwn
was found--not in the fifth century literary historians --
but in Armenian epic literature and folktales.
Just as the modern sources illuminate
a dim aspect of the ancient sources, so the fifth century Armenian
sources complement the modern sources when it comes to the question
of the function and origin of dayeakut'iwn and atalychestvo.
Grigolia described "Milkrelationship" as "a
form of fictitious bloodrelationship rooted in the adoption of
an individual by amother, or by a social group as a family, community,
clan or even a whole tribe" (63). Later he wrote "the
custom created economic, sociopolitical and psychological
interdependence between individuals, families and communities,
thus forming rules of solidarity and unity necessary for the survival
of the social group itself" (64). Both statements are as true
for fourth and fifth century Armenia as for seventeenth to nineteenth
century Caucasia. But the fifth century Armenian sources describe
an element not visible in the nineteenth century sources. The
European travelers and nineteenth century ethnographers who described
the institution of atalychestvo characterized it
primarily as a social institution concerned with the rigorous
education of children. The "fosterparents" usually
were of a lower economic class than their wards and thus, not
surprisingly, the seventeenth to nineteenth century accounts mention
a strict exogamy between the "adopting" family and the
child's family (65). The classical Armenian sources, on the other
hand, leave no doubt that the protection of a clan's physical
existence was of supreme importance in the establishment of dayeak
relations. Far from avoiding marriage relations with the "adopting"
family, in fourth and fifth century Armenia such intermarriage
was the usual and desired result of dayeakut'iwn, which
was practiced among clans of comparable status
The nineteenth century was the last
century in which atalychestvo was practiced in the
Caucasus. The practice was swept away by the sociopolitical
changes of the twentieth century and by the triumph of the nuclear
family. The nineteenth century, then, is a terminus beyond which
"milkrelationship" did not survive. The fifth century
Armenian sources are also a terminus, but a less absolute one.
Certainly, fifth century references to dayeakut'iwn in
fourth century Armenia are the earliest recorded evidence of the
practice for the Caucasus. However, as was pointed out at the
beginning of this study, Armenians did not begin to write in the
Armenian language until the early fifth century. Dayeakut'iwn
may have been a feature of life across the Armenian highlands
many centuries before the Christian era. Such is the suspicion
of this author and such, it seems, also was the belief of the
epic writer Movses Xorenats'i. Xorenats'i projected dayeakut'iwn
far back into Armenian prehistory--to the times of the legendary
kings Vagharsh and Eruand (66). Indeed, given the worship in ancient
Armenia of a fertility goddess (Anahit), known as the protectress
and benefactress of pregnant women and young children, (67) it does
not seem unlikely that dayeakut'iwn (with specific roles
for both females and males) was practiced among the Armenians
long before the fifth century sources were compiled or written.
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