[14] Tavernier states that in Persian Armenia a man frequently lives with his wife ten years without ever hearing her voice or seeing her face. Of course she does not sleep with her veil over her face, but she is always careful to blow out the candle before she removes the veil, as she is to rise before daybreak in order to put it on again. (Tavernier 1:507.)
[15] Trowbridge, New Englander 33:1 ff.
[16] Paul Terzian, Catholic World 71:509.
[17] This statement is in contradiction to a previous statement that the body of the dead is merely wrapped in white cloth after it has been washed; (see page 60) the use of the white cloth is common among Gregorian Armenians.
[18] Paul Terzian, Catholic World 71:509 ff.
Chapter V
Summary
Such are the festivals treated in the second and last part of this thesis. Is it true that they form a vehicle of expression for the national sentiment created by the large mass of social material of which the legends of Part One are a considerable and important portion? Again it will be necessary to remind ourselves of the chief sentiments included within Armenian national sentiment, i.e., the sentiment of loyalty to the church, the sentiment of reverence amounting almost to worship for the ancient glory of the nation, and the sentiment of love for the country. It would be ridiculous to suppose that every festival was designed to give expression to some one of these sentiments. But that these sentiments are given very clear, very real outward expression in the great majority of the celebrations described, should be so evident at this point as to make further exposition unnecessary. In the summer Festival of Vartavar, the spring Festival of Mihr, Vartan’s Day, and in the consecration of the Katholikos there is the proud and reverent looking back to the times when Armenia was an independent nation; the festival ceremonies of the third group, baptism, betrothal, marriage, and funeral, though they are not positive expressions of the sentiments of loyalty to the church, are yet so completely interwoven with the church and dependent upon it that one is compelled to regard the feeling as something to be taken for granted, while in most of the festivals of the second group, Christmas, Easter, Maundy Thursday, and the Blessing of the Grapes especially, the sentiment is given a more positive expression. As for the sentiment of love for the country, that is identified especially with Vartavar and Vartan’s Day. It is evident, therefore, that each of these festivals and festival-ceremonies forms a medium more or less evident as the case may be, for the expression of one or more or all of the sentiments that make up Armenian national sentiment. Some of them are not to be classified as readily as this, as for example, the festival of Ascension morning, or Fortune-Telling Day, in which the dominant sentiment is one of romantic love, or in the Blessing of the Water, where the desire for a gain in health or wealth is the main psychological fact.
Each one of these festivals, however, is a great deal more than the putting into activity of some of the above sentiments. In many of them the play-instinct is clearly evident, while in a few such as Vartavar, the whole self, with all its sentiments, instincts, tendencies, and emotions, is given the fullest and most unrestrained freedom. A festival, if it is anything, is a letting loose of the reins; there is nothing to hinder, nothing to keep back, nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and the self reaches out in a higher consciousness of fullness and completeness of living. As such it would be the greatest of fallacies to suppose any one of the festivals to be restricted to a particular sentiment. Nevertheless, it is clear, that the festivals do constitute vehicles of expression for the sentiments that make up Armenian national sentiment.