Dali

Kartvelian goddess of the hunt and protectress of wild herds; Kartvelian polytheistic deity preserved in Svan, Pshav, and Khevsur oral traditions. Long-golden-haired and radiant; dwelling on inaccessible cliffs. Took mortal hunter-lovers; mother of the culture-hero Amirani. Killed by Sulkalmakhi's jealous wife Darejan, who cut her hair while she slept; her death-request to Sulkalmakhi to cut open her womb produced the prematurely-born Amirani. After the rise of Christianity in Georgia, her importance waned — Saint George was syncretically promoted as having power to overrule her, and she was sometimes conflated with the malicious nature-spirit ali. Tuite 1998 has compared her to Artemis as a "patron of the hunt associated with hoofed beasts."

Children

• Amirani

Domains

• hunt and wild herds
• sexual relations with hunters

Powers

• Take the form of the wild herd
• Kill with her golden hair
• Grant or withhold hunting luck
• Glow with radiant light
• Take the form of game animals

Epithets

• Dali latin · Dali · folkloreThe golden-haired goddess of the hunt and the wild beasts of the high cragsSvan and Georgian highland tradition (secondary)

Relations

• killed by: DarejanReciprocal of kartvelian_darejan.killer-ofSvan oral tradition; Charachidze 1968 (primary)
• lover: SulkalmakhiThe hunter Sulkalmakhi (Svan name; Darjelan in Pshav variant; Iamani in others). Pregnancy ended in her death.Svan oral tradition (primary)
• mother of: AmiraniSvan oral tradition (primary)

Sources

• existence: Svan, Pshav, Khevsur oral traditions; the Amirani epic in regional variants; Charachidze, La Religion des Géorgiens de la Montagne (1968); Tuite, "Achilles and the Caucasus" (1998); Hunt, Caucasian Hero-Tales (2012); Bardavelidze, "Drevneishie religioznye verovaniya gruzin" (1957) (primary)