სიმღერის შესახებ

Tekle sings verses she remembers from the writings of her father, a mountain priest in Pshavi.  He was around the age of fifty at the time of writing.

სიმღერის შესახებ

This is a gvrini¹ from Pshavi.

To hear other gvrinis, visit the page of Gogale Arabuli.

¹The gvrini is a lament from Pshavi and Khevsureti, traditionally sung by men while haying to commemorate the souls of the dead.  George Charachidze talks about the gvrini in his 1968 book, Le système religieux de la Géorgie païenne: analyse structurale d’une civilization, and the following explanation is based on his writing:

Traditionally during a funerary ceremony in Khevsureti or Pshavi a woman is possessed by the dead soul and becomes an oracle through which the soul communicates with the living.  The ensuing lament that the soul communicates through the oracle is silently memorized by the men in attendance, who are not allowed to vocally mourn in any way during the ceremony.  Before the men go out to the fields on the first haying day of the year, a feast is held in the name of the most recently deceased. Only after this ritual feast occurs and only under the supervision of the mountain priest are the men allowed to bring their scythe into contact with the grass.  The Khevsurs and Pshavs believed that the afterlife was under the ground, and therefore that the motion of swinging the scythe close to the ground to cut grass was symbolically entwined with the Land of the Dead.  As the men began to mow on the first haying day of the year, they sang the gvrini that the dead soul communicated to them at his funeral. Through this lament they paid homage to the souls of the dead.

სიმღერის შესახებ

სიმღერის შესახებ

ტექსტი: მარიამი წიკლაური

სიმღერა ციხე-გორა ხატზე. 

Tekle sings verses she remembers from the writing of Mariam Tsiklauri, about the mountain shrine of Tsikhe-Gora in Pshavi. It is the clannic sanctuary of the Udzilauri Family, devoted to Kopala.¹

¹Kopala refers to a legendary supernatural being worshipped by Khevsurs and Pshavs, who each have a sanctuary in his name (Karati's Cross in Khevsureti and Tsikhe-Gora in Pshavi). The highlanders especially revered K'op'ala for fighting off evil spirits and helping captive souls find their rightful places in the afterlife. A festival held every July, Kopaloba involves feasts and a horserace (doghi), complex rituals enacted by the living for the dead relatives of their clan, to ensure the welcoming of deceased souls into their designated positions.

სიმღერის შესახებ

Tekle sings verses she remembers from the writings of her father, Bichur Badrishvili, a mountain priest in Pshavi.  

These verses are about his sixth child, a long-awaited son born after five daughters.

სიმღერის შესახებ

ძველი ფშაური დატირება.

სიმღერის შესახებ

ფშაური დატირება.