|
DRENCHED IN HISTORY: VARDAVAR’S MEANING GOES BEYOND A SUMMER SOAKINGwww.ArmeniaNow.com
Painter Lusik Aguletsi decorates the festive table with quick movements. On one edge there is a traditional Armenian Nuri doll made of dried vegetables smartened up with small pomegranates, while next to it is a khachbur and a kskrank (types of dolls resembling small trees) woven of wheat.
But the main decoration of the festive table is the “khndum tokq� tree, which means “bringing joy�. There are still a few days before the festival of Vardavar, but the painter has beautified her house just as Armenians did hundreds of years ago.
“The “khndum tokq� tree was decorated like this in particular by my great grandfathers in Agulis, between Meghri and Nakichevan. Every Armenian woman made these preparations on that day. They symbolized success, fertility, abundance and protection from evil,� Lusik explains.
Khndum tokq is made from cross-like sticks attached to each other then decorated with different fruits – apple, apricot, cherry and cucumber, which symbolize eternal life. The cross is fixed onto a plate in which wheat has been planted in advance, and the edges of the plate are decorated with opened aromatic rose buds.
Aguletsi says that when people talk about Vardavar they only think of throwing water over each other, but the festival has deeper roots and is filled with traditions that many have forgotten. Pouring water over each other is only one of 20 games played in different regions of Armenia on that day.
“The question is how correctly every Armenian woman can observe the ritual in her home. The whole ritual should be presented correctly to people so that they understand it. We have amazing rituals handed down to us from the depths of millennia and today we ought to pass them on to future generations,� she says.
Vardavar has been celebrated in many parts of Armenia on the first Sunday after July 22, and in other regions 98 days after Easter. This year it is celebrated on July 3. It is considered a pagan occasion that Gregory the Illuminator transformed into the festival of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ.
Pagan Armenians marked the festival in honor of the Goddess Astghik, offering her flowers especially roses. The festival mainly took place in the mountains, near springs and lakes, which were regarded as particularly holy places. Offerings honored water spirits and entreated them to provide rains for the harvest and spare them from drought.
“On the day of Vardavar the whole village would gather, decorate an ox in a special ceremonial way and then take it to church for offering. Women and girls wore their best dresses, put garlands on their heads, and took khach burs and kskranks to be blessed in church, along with their infants. Dhol and zurna – national instruments – were played to herald the news of Vardavar,� Aguletsi says.
After the church ceremony, khach burs and kskranks were hung on the walls of houses and in barns to bring abundance and fertility. Villagers hung special blessed wooden decorations – daghdghans – on the foreheads of cattle to keep them safe from the evil eye. Ears of grain were granted to the church so that fields and orchards would be kept safe from disasters, especially hail. Houses were decorated with twigs and doves were let fly.
“We had very beautiful and interesting games. Little ones played the game of Hayk and Bel, young girls and boys played games of disguise. A boy would put on women’s clothes and make his way into the company of girls to be closer to his beloved. People presented each other with different types of trees made from wheat, and in exchange they would receive ghee, butter, flour and eggs,� the painter says.
The women of Agulis played an especially interesting game, the “Chichi Mama� game.
“The Chichi Mama was a woman dressed in white clothes, and other women with copper plates and ladles for instruments called out ‘Chichi Mama, Chichi Mama, what would you like? Chichi Mama would like ghee and eggs, Chichi Mama would like rain� and water was poured on her. Chichi Mama had to keep silent, that is, to be a tolerant woman. Then they gathered and baked cakes for a feast.�
The game of mud was also known. Round bowl-shaped balls were made of mud and smashed forcefully against the ground. The winner was the one who made the strongest sound.
Water games, which are the ones most rooted in the popular imagination today, were added to all of this, and beautiful fires were lit in the villages during the evening.
Aguletsi says: “Every family prepared a stack of dried grass in their yard and watched it all day long to prevent someone else from burning it. A male child of the house then set fire to the stack and the family cooked apples in it for eating. It symbolized that the fruit was ripe.�
Almost all regions of Armenia marked Vardavar with offerings. In Agulis, sheep were slaughtered and hung inside a tonir, with a pilaf placed under it. Fat from the cattle dripped into the pilaf all night long for a dish known as “kashovi� pilaf. Gata was prepared on that day, and fruit and flowers were in abundance.
“Many people do not know today that people fasted for 40 days before Vardavar so as to be able to ask God on that day for their goals to be fulfilled,� says Aguletsi. www.ArmeniaNow.com
|
