The Wursol
The ceremony begins either on Tuesday or Friday and lasts two days. On the first day the candidate goes early in the morning to the ordinary dairy of the village at which he is to be wursol; at Kars he goes to the kudrpali. He receives food from the palikartmokh and eats it sitting on the seat (kwottün) outside the dairy. He stays near the dairy till the afternoon. When the palikartmokh has finished his afternoon work and has distributed butter and buttermilk, one of the men of the village comes to the candidate and says, “Niròd!” The candidate throws off his cloak and is given either a full tuni or a piece of this garment called petuni. The palikartmokh then stands in front of the door of his dairy, and the candidate stands opposite to him and asks three times “Tunivatkina?”—“Shall I put on the tuni?” The palikartmokh replies each time “Vat!”—“Put on!” Then the candidate raises the garment to his forehead and if he has been given a complete tuni he puts it on; if only a petuni he puts it in the string of his kuvn. This string is [[148]]ordinarily called pennar, but is now called kerk, and this part of the ceremony is called kerkatiti. The fact that this name is given seems to indicate that properly the complete garment should not be given till a later stage of the proceedings.
The candidate then finds seven leaves called muliers and seven shoots or nan of the same plant and goes through exactly the same ceremony at the stream as in the ordination of palikartmokh, putting the shoots in his back hair at the end. This part of the ceremony is called muliniròditi, and its object is to make the candidate a palikartmokh as a step towards becoming wursol. He is taken through the lower degree on his way to the higher.
After muliniròditi the candidate goes to the wall of the dairy and stands outside it. The palikartmokh brings a firebrand from the dairy and lights with it a fire of muli wood, at which the candidate warms himself. The firebrand must be one of the three following kinds—kid, pasòr or kiaz. After warming himself, the candidate goes to fetch bark of the tudr tree, which must not be cut, but knocked off with a stone. He also brings seven perfect tudr leaves, and goes again to the dairy stream. He pounds the bark on a stone and dips it in water, squeezes the water into one of the tudr leaves, drinks, throws over his head and puts the bark on one side exactly in the same way as before, but using tudr bark and leaves instead of the shoots and leaves of muli. After doing this seven times he dips the pounded bark in water, sprinkles his head and face three times, puts the bark in his hair, and, going a little way off, shakes his head.
The candidate then goes again to find bark and leaves of tudr, and repeats the whole ceremony and continues to repeat it till he has done it seven times—i.e., he drinks out of the tudr leaves seven times seven. After this he goes to the wood near the stream (at Kars, called Tarskars) and the palikartmokh comes to him there with the ertatpun filled with buttermilk, and with four leaves of the kind called kakuders. Two leaves are given to the candidate and two kept by the dairyman, and each folds the leaves in the usual way to make a cup (ersteiti). The dairyman then puts the ertatpun between his [[149]]thighs and, holding it there, depresses it so that he can pour buttermilk into his leaf-cup; from this he pours into the leaf-cup of the candidate who then drinks, and this is repeated till the latter is satisfied. The palikartmokh brings food and fire from the dairy and both stay in the wood for the night, being allowed to have companions. The place where they sleep is called tavarpali.
In the morning the candidate again goes for tudr bark and leaves, and carries out the whole ceremony seven times as on the previous evening. He then goes to the tavarpali and waits there till the palikartmokh has finished his morning work, when the candidate again receives buttermilk and food. Then both go out together to look after the buffaloes.
When they return in the afternoon the candidate goes to the dairy stream and bathes from head to foot. This bathing is called tudraspipini (tudr I have washed), its object being to wash off the tudr bark previously used. After this he takes a piece of the cloth called twadrinar and, using it as a girdle in addition to that he already wears, he goes to the wall of the dairy while the palikartmokh digs up a vessel called mu which is buried in the buffalo pen. (At Kars the mu which is used is that of the tarvali.) The palikartmokh then puts the mu on the ground and stands by it. The candidate asks three times, “Muvatkina?” “Shall I touch the mu?” and the palikartmokh replies each time “Muvat!” The candidate then touches the mu, and by doing so becomes a full wursol. The mu is reburied by the palikartmokh.
All the ceremonies so far have taken place at or near the ordinary dairy, either tarvali or kudrpali, or at the stream belonging to one or other of these dairies. The candidate now for the first time goes to the dairy in which he is to be wursol (the wursuli) and prostrates himself at the threshold. He next enters and prostrates himself to the patatmar and then to the ertatmar. He takes up and puts in its place one of the vessels of the ertatmar and then one of the vessels of the patatmar. He salutes the mani (kaimukhti), lights the fire and the lamp and prays, using the prayer of the village. He then cleans the vessels and goes to milk, doing mani terzantirikiti with the first milk as usual. [[150]]
I was especially told that if the candidate for the office of wursol wishes to scratch his head during his ordination ceremonies he must do so with a stick, but this is probably a feature of all ordination rites.
In the case of the wursol, it seemed that there is a difference in the ceremonial according to whether the dairy is occupied or not when the new dairyman enters upon office. The foregoing account applies to the case in which the dairy is already occupied and the new dairyman replaces another, so that there is no break in the continuity of the dairy proceedings. If the dairy should be unoccupied, I was told that the candidate would have to sleep for two nights in the wood, and there would almost certainly be additional purifications, but I did not learn the exact nature of the proceedings in this case.
Though I was only told of this difference of procedure in the case of the wursol, it is not unlikely that there is a corresponding difference of procedure in the case of other dairies when the dairy has been unoccupied. There will certainly be a ceremony of purification of the dairy, such as takes place when the buffaloes migrate to a new village, and probably the dairy vessels will also have to be purified.