Category: Insights

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Georgian Devis: Demons or Ancient Deities?

The Khevsur cosmogony1 starts with the battle of “the Children of God”/ “ღვთისშვილნი” against the Devis. “The supreme God”/ “მორიგე ღმერთი”2 sends his children down to earth, so they help the Khevsurians to claim property on the Caucasian highlands. Those lands are inhabited by beings called “Devis”/ “დევი”. The Devis are ambiguous creatures, who seem to be in complex relationships with the local humans. Some are friends with them and others will have them for dinner. The Devis are big, strong and wild. “The children of God”, who help the Khevsurs, on the other hand, carry angel-like properties. They are warriors of God, who fight in the name of a higher spirit, the God in the heavens.

The Khevsurs are pagan people. They worship pre-Christian indigenous deities. It is interesting though, how we find treats within Khesvur beliefs, that are typical for monotheistic religions, such as a strong hierarchy and a concept of evil versus good. The killing of the Devis is justified by their wild nature and their wickedness.3 Even though the Devis are often mentioned in the Khevsur cosmogony and also broadly in Georgian folklore, we don’t know much more about them other than their bad reputation, that stems from an antagonising human viewpoint. So let’s dig a bit deeper. Etymologically the word “Devi” derives from the Zoroastrian “Daevas”, cited as evil forces in the Zoroastrian religious texts called Avestas. If we trace the word even further back we find, that the Zoroastrian “Daevas” – the demons – and the Indian “Devis/ Devas” – the Gods – share origins. So let’s explore together and trace this wild ride from “God” to “Demon”.

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Intro into Indigenous Khevsuretian Cosmogony

Abudelauri Lake


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.

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About Georgian Identities, the Ancestors and Belonging

Ashto-Karati Shrine

Since I landed in my native Georgian lands, I got reassured, that the longing to return, was not merely a nostalgic feeling. My country was calling me and it is happy to have me back. It is happy to have any of us, numerous children, back who left for abroad. Leaving behind domestic chaos, uncertainty, poverty, political messiness, and identity vulnerability. We left for countries with stabler economics, defined structures, and dominant politics in the circulation of educational power.

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Viva La Vida, Belly Aches, and the Need for Love

Viva La Vida by Frida Kahlo

Frida has been with me lately. Wherever I go, she welcomes me. As a book of her letters to Diego Rivera, as a kitchen towel with her self-portrait print, as a key pendant with her eyebrows, as her watermelon painting hung on the kitchen wall of my friend’s apartment, as a picture on a pedestrian’s cotton bag, as a print on the mug behind a store’s vitrage, and now also on my Couchsurfing host’s fridge magnet in Batumi. She is everywhere. She is there for me. She stepped forward as an answer to my call for friendship with the Goddess Ishtar.

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Some Capitalism in our Soft Tissues?

Photo still from “The Holy Mountain”

It’s interesting how deeply the structures we grew up in get entrenched in our bodies and psyche. As a 90ies child, raised in Vienna, I can see how the supermarket culture and the fetish of consumption left a complex and confusing mark on my consciousness. My parents, Georgians, and ex-Sovjet citizens were trapped and betrayed by their government, like so many in the totalitarian socialist regime. Their longing for freedom grew through the decades-long of authoritarian oppression and restriction of people’s free will. They left the Sovjet with the hope for a better life. Capitalism was waiting with open arms. It offered individualism and sold it as freedom.

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About Impatience

Cake

Patience is not my strongest suit. And how honorable of me to become judgy with others when they are impatient. I recognize the jugdemental thoughts in my mind – the impatience with the impatience – about others who are impatient, like the sweet, jolly dog Gaia, the children of the place where I am staying at, and with my body when it urges needs… Because impatience is silly, right? You cannot push anything to become faster when time is needed. How logical of me.

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Rocks And Rivers – Meeting Life, Over And Over Again

Picture by Alex Rodriguez

Happy new year, 2023! We have ventured into yet another year. Life charges ahead. Seasons will change, life will change, new will come, and old will go. Exciting, new things, await us, and hope moves us forward. Then life will come and jar some of the expectations, as it so often does. But then it will bring other unexpected gifts, that now are out of our sight. Things will go, and things will come. Life never fails to flow. Through our mere existence, we are learning to meet life, over and over again.

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Winter, Time for Deep Rest?

It’s the winter season for us Northern Hemispherians. The times call for slowing down, retreating, and resting. Short days, long nights, and cold, wet, and gray weather invite us for deep rest. The darkness is ready to embrace us if we are ready, so we can prepare for the spurting of new life further to come.

It is not so easy to rest, though, is it? At least for those of us who are born, raised, and possibly continue to live in cities. The pace of our structures, environments, and habits don’t really support a lifestyle attuned to seasonal rhythms.

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