Enaree

The Enarei, singular Enaree, were Scythian priests and shamanistic soothsayers who played an important role in the Scythian religion. They were female-identified, and assigned male at birth.

Name

The English name Enaree is derived from the Ancient Greek name recorded by Herodotus of Halicarnassus as Enarees (Εναρεες), itself derived from the Scythian term anarya, meaning "unmanly." The term anarya was itself composed of the elements a-, meaning "non-," and "narya," which was derived from nara-, meaning "man."

The name Anarya was more accurately represented in Ancient Greek by Pseudo-Hippocrates as Anarieis (Αναριεις).

Religious role

The Anarya were affiliated to an orgiastic cult of the goddess Artimpasa in her form strongly influenced by Near Eastern fertility goddesses, and the rites of the Anarya thus combined indigenous Scythian religious practices of a shamanistic nature, which were themselves related to those of indigenous Siberian peoples, as well as ones imported from Levantine religions.

Rituals

The Anarya used cannabis in their rituals, including both those of a communal and those of a funerary or psychopompic nature, thus being among the earliest spiritual practitioners to have used cannabis to achieve altered states of consciousness, implying that an ancient connection existed between gender non-conforming spiritual practitioners and the use of mind-altering substances..

The Anarya participated in Scythian funeral rituals, which included shamanic practises, and after the burial of the deceased, they would ritually cleanse themselves with the vapour of cannabis, which is attested archaeologically in Saka tombs from Siberia, which contained tripods, braziers, pelts, and charcoal containing remains of cannabis leaves and fruits, with one of the Pazyryk burials containing a pot, inside of which were cannabis fruits, as well as a copper censer used to burn cannabis.

Divination

The Anarya also acted as seers and performed a particular form of divination which used the inner bark of the linden tree, unlike the methods of traditional Scythian soothsayers which used willow withies. The method of divination of the Anarya consisted of cutting the inner linden bark into three pieces, and plaiting and unplaiting these pieces around their fingers to obtain answers.

The Anarya were especially consulted when the king of the Scythians was ill, which was itself believed by the Scythians to be caused by a false oath being sworn upon the king's hearth. Once the Anarya had identified the suspect who had sworn the false oath, the said suspect would claim to be innocent. If the Anarya maintained the accusation, six more soothsayers were consulted, and if they upheld the original accusation, the suspect was executed by being beheaded. If the additional soothsayers declared the suspect was innocent, the process of consulting more soothsayers was repeated, and if the larger number of soothsayers still declared the suspect to be innocent, the initial accusers were executed by being put into a wagon filled with brushwood which was set on fire, and their sons were all killed.

Regalia

Like all ancient priesthoods, the Anarya differentiated themselves from ordinary mortals through their dress, behaviour, and sacred rituals. Therefore, in addition to adorning feminine wear, the Anarya might also have worn additional regalia, such as drums used in shamanic rituals and antlered headdresses similar to those found in Saka horse burials and those worn in more recent times by Siberian shamans.

Sceptres capped with ornate pole tops, which have been discovered throughout the steppe from Mongolia to the Great Hungarian Plain were also used by the Anarya as symbols of authority: these pole tops often included rattles, and the oldest of these date from the 8th century BC, are from Tuva and the Minusinsk Basin, and are topped by a stag or ibex standing with its feet together as if perched on a rocky eminence. The more recent pole tops are more elaborate in design, such as one found in the Oleksandropilskiy kurhan, which is in the shape of a goddess with her hands on her hips, and another one from the same kurgan in the shape of a griffin in a frame from which two bells hang, and a third from that same kurgan which splits into three branches each topped by a bird of prey holding a bell in its beak. The rattling and tinkling of the sceptres' bells invited the audience to the impending rites.

Androgyny

Scythian origins

The Anarya belonged to the most powerful Scythian aristocracy. They were born male, but wore women's clothing, performed women's jobs, spoke like women, and were believed by the Scythians to be inherently different from males and that their androgyny was of divine origin; according to indigenous Scythian shamanic traditions, the Anarya were considered "transformed" shamans who changed their sex, which characterised them as being the most powerful shamans, due to which they inspired fear and were thus accordingly given special respect in Scythian society, and the Scythians ascribed their androgyny to a "female disease" causing sexual impotency.

The institution of the Anarya might have been influenced by the ancient traditions of Goddess worship and shamanism practised by the populations of the Eurasian steppe since the Palaeolithic. Like the Anarya, these shamanic traditions used cannabis and other hallucinogenic substances to acquire an altered and ecstatic state of mind. Such traditions of "gender-crossing shamanism," whereby individuals born as male obtain the power of prophecy and of becoming religious figures possessed by spirits by abandoning their masculinity, have been preserved until recent times by indigenous Siberians.

The Greek Pseudo-Hippocrates later incorrectly ascribed the androgyny of the Anarya to the Scythians' practise of riding horses and wearing trousers.

West Asian influences

During the 7th century BC, the Scythians expanded into West Asia, during which time the Scythian religion was influenced by the religions of the peoples of the Fertile Crescent. The Scythians believed that the androgyny of the Anarya originated during this period from a curse by the goddess Artimpasa to the perpetrators of the sack of the temple in ʾAšqalōn of the goddess ʿAštart, who was herself an androgynous vegetation-fertility goddess who was believed to have the ability to change men into women and women into men, and whom the Scythians identified with their own goddess Artimpasa; this curse was hereditary and was inherited by the descendants of the perpetrators of the sack. The gender non-conforming androgyny of the Anarya was thus also typical of the cult of the Levantine celestial ʿAštart.

The Anarya combined the traits of both the "transformed" shaman of the steppe peoples and the gender non-conforming priests of the West Asian Great Goddess, such as the Kelabim (𐤊𐤋𐤁𐤌) of ʿAštart, the Galli of Kubeleya, and the Megabuzoi (Μεγαβυζοι) of Artemis.

Heredity

Given the hereditary nature of the Anarya and the belief that the curse of ʿAštart affected the looters of her shrine at ʾAšqalōn as well as their descendants, the Anarya appear to have lived their early lives as men, with their gender transformation happening late in their lives after they found out that they were no longer able to have sexual intercourse.

Sexuality

It is unknown whether the Anarya practised ritual castration or merely refrained from heterosexual intercourse, although they were not celibate, and the writings of Pseudo-Hippocrates concerning them suggest that they also played the receptive role during anal intercourse with men.

See also

• Gala (priests)
• Galli

Sources

Further reading