Enaree

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Not to be confused with Inari.
Detail of the Karagodeuashkh kurgan headdress, showing Artimpasa or her chief priestess in the center surrounded by priestesses and an Enaree on the right[1]

The Enarei, singular Enaree (Ancient Greek: ἐναρής), were Scythian androgynous/effeminate priests and shamanistic soothsayers. They performed Artimpasa's cult and played an important political role in Scythian society as they were believed to have received the gift of prophesy directly from the goddess Artimpasa (conflated by Herodotus with Aphrodite).[2] The Enarei wore women's clothing, performed women's jobs and customs and spoke in a feminine manner.[3][1] They were accepted and revered in Scythian society.[2]

Scythian religion included shamanism and divination, both nature and deities worship and had no temples. Herodotus describes its divination practices: the method employed by the Enarei differed from that practised by traditional Scythian diviners: whereas the latter used a bundle of willow rods, the Enarei used strips cut from the bark of the linden tree (genus tilia) to tell the future.[4] Scythian shamanism involved religious ecstasy through the use of cannabis,[1] with modern authors claiming that Enarei likely performed those rites, just like 'gender-crossing shamans' of other cultures.[3][1]

Herodotus, who uses the term "androgynos" (ἀνδρόγονος), explains their effeminate condition with the story of the Scythians who pillaged the temple of Aphrodite Urania at Askelon, and all their descendants after them, afflicted by the goddess with the “female” sickness.[5] Hippocrates, who speaks about the Enarees in his work On Airs, Waters, Places, theorized that they were impotent as a result of continuous horseback riding, and it was for this reason they have adopted feminine roles.[2] Hippocrates also underlined that only the noble and powerful men (who got to ride horses) became Enarei.[2]

The archaeologist Timothy Taylor in his 1996 book The Prehistory of Sex proposed a theory that Enarei drank pregnant mare urine to induce hormonal feminization.[6] He bases his theory on some pastoralist peoples custom of consuming animal urine,[6] Ovid poems mentioning virus amantis equae ("slime/flux of mare in heat") as an ingredient (in Medicamina Faciei Femineae it is a "baneful"/"hurtful" one) witches would use[7][8] and modern usage of conjugated equine estrogens for transfeminine hormone replacement therapy. Despite the lack of direct evidence, this idea has gained popularity and has been both cited[9][10] and passed off as a fact[11] on the Internet.

Hippocrates wrote that Enarei would "play the part of women", which has been interpreted as referring to being the passive person in a homosexual intercourse.[1] Aristotle described them with the word "malakia" (soft, effeminate), which also carried connotations of the sexually receptive homosexual party.[1]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Randy P. Conner (1997). Cassell's encyclopedia of queer myth, symbol, and spirit. pp. 129–131. ISBN 0304337609.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Hippocrates. On Airs, Waters, Places . Part XXII – via Wikisource.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Ascherson, Neal (1995). Black Sea (1st ed.). New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 0-8090-3043-8. OCLC 32548776.
  4. ^ Herodotus, The Histories IV. 67
  5. ^ Herodotus, The Histories I. 105. § 4
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b Sanjida O'Connell (1996-09-28). "DIGGING FOR SWINGERS". The Independent. Retrieved 2021-07-18.
  7. ^ Ovid. "The Amores: Book I Elegy VIII: The Procuress". www.poetryintranslation.com. Retrieved 2021-07-18.
  8. ^ Ovid. Medicamina Faciei Femineae  – via Wikisource.
  9. ^ Bland, Jed (2005). "Ice Maidens and Iron Age Warrior Princesses". Gendys Journal.
  10. ^ Savage, Helen (2006). Changing sex? : transsexuality and Christian theology (Doctoral thesis). Durham University.
  11. ^ "canmom". canmom. Retrieved 2021-07-18.
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