Darejan
Mortal Svan woman; wife of Sulkalmakhi; mother of Badri and Usup; foster-mother of Amirani (giving him the matronymic Darejanis-dze, "son of Darejan"). In the Svan recension, the active agent of Dali's death — discovers Sulkalmakhi's affair with the goddess, follows him to the cave, cuts Dali's golden hair while she sleeps (the seat of her power), killing her. After Dali's death, Sulkalmakhi extracts the premature Amirani from her womb; Darejan raises him alongside her own sons. Both parents die while the three boys are still young; the wilderness-journey structure of the Amirani epic begins from this orphaning. The mortal-killing-goddess motif distinguishes the Kartvelian tradition from Greek and Roman patterns of mortal-divine encounters.
Children
Powers
- Slays the hunt-goddess Dali by cutting off her hair
Relations
- spouse: SulkalmakhiSvan oral tradition (primary)
- mother of: BadriSvan oral tradition (primary)
- mother of: UsupSvan oral tradition (primary)
- foster mother of: AmiraniSource of the Amirani matronymic Darejanis-dze.Svan oral tradition (primary)
- killer of: DaliIn the Svan version, jealously discovered Sulkalmakhi's affair with Dali and killed the goddess by cutting her power-bearing golden hair while she slept. The mortal-kills-goddess motif is structurally distinctive in the Caucasian tradition.Svan oral tradition; Charachidze 1968 (primary)