V. The Role of Women


In addressing the question of the woman's role in Armenian dayeakut'iwn, it is important to note at the outset that all the Armenian sources examined in this study were written or compiled by male clerics. Although the status of women in Armeno­lranian society of the fourth and fifth centuries was quite high, it was the men--and only the noblemen at that--whose deeds were considered worthy of record. Not only are Armenian noblewomen usually left out of the historical sources, but so are the non­naxarar men (the middle­class, the peasantry, and the indigent), to say nothing of non­noble women. Thus, in addition to a class bias, the modern reader will find a definite bias against women and their activities in the classical Armenian sources, a bias of silence. For this reason, it is impossible to know, for example, whether fourth and fifth century girls too were sent to dayeaks for raising. Of the classical Armenian sources, Agat'angeghos and P'awstos Buzand (both of whom described the fourth century) contain one reference each, which might be interpreted as representing younger women as sans (foster­children) of women dayeaks. Agat'angeghos described the woman Gayane (a Greek religious ascetic who sought asylum in Armenia in the late third to early fourth century) as the dayeak and snuts'ich' (nourisher) of a group of women ascetics, including Rhip'sime, (who is called her san). P'awstos Buzand described how a woman dayeak of Hamazaspuhi MamikoneanSiwnik' gathered the latter's bones and buried them (56). But nothing conclusive may be drawn from such brief references.

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 David
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).

As 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:

Msrah Melik looked for David throughout the city,
But could not find him.
He went home and found David asleep by the stove.
Msrah Melik took the cord off his bow and started to strangle David.
Just then his mother walked in, held his hand
And asked:--What are you doing, Melik?
He has been trifling with my mace
And causing a commotion in the city.
His mother uncovered her breast,
Stood before Melik and said:--If you kill David,
May the milk of this breast be forbidden to you.
Melik said:--Mother, David is a snake­brat,
Any harm that comes to me, will come from him (59).

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.



Conclusions


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.

Footnotes 56-67

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