Ancient Bridge of Healing
The pagan shrines hold a special place in the Georgian culture. In the mountain region Khevsureti they are not only know as the abodes of the pre-Christian Georgian deities, but are also mentioned as deities themselves. The shrines are animated beings, that change form, fly and relocate their place.
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Due to their remote placement in the highlands of Georgia, the Khevsuretians have kept many ancient customs, rites and practices that have been dimmed or demolished in the lower Georgian areas through historical layers of colonialism and imperialism. I wanted to explore about my land in more depth and decided to go to the places were indigenous knowledge has been kept for the longest. Thanks to the mobility grant of Culture Moves Europe , I was able to initiate a research project, that focused on the ancient profession of the Qadagis. The research project pertained visiting 20 pre-Christian shrines of local deities throughout the Pshav-Khevsuretian mountainous areas and inquiring about the Qadagi people. The Qadagis were considered as the “tongues of the Gods” and served as an important link between the shrines and the human community. Let me introduce you here to the Qadagis.
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The Khevsuretians have kept precious knowledge. A lot of the insights we have today about ancient Georgian mythology, pre-Christian rites, customs, and the relationships between the deities, the spirits, and the human community is coming from the Pshav-Khevsuretian culture. Pshavi and Khevsureti are mountain regions in Georgia, high in the Caucasian mountains chains. Because of their remote locality and hard to reachable Geography these people were saved for the longest from the multiple imperialisations and colonialisations that Georgia went throughout its long history. In the 19th century the Russian imperial power managed to touch the place after all. From there on starts the long systematic work on diminishing the local culture. Nevertheless, it was only around the 60ies/ 70ies that the deliberate deplacement of people and the breaking of communities started to reach tangible and obvious results in the attempts of creating cultural amnesia.
Then, over the last couple of decades more and more people have left their mountain village homes. Today many villages are completely abandoned, some have very decreased populations of 2 – 4 families.