Vainakh
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Vainakh is the term given to the Chechen, Ingush and Kist peoples of the Caucasus region. The term "Vainakh" means "our people". All these peoples speak Nakh languages and share a common culture.
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[edit] History and culture
The Vainakh Land is situated high in the mountains, crossed by numerous canyons with vast hollows. Exactly in this part of North Caucasus - in the basin of the rivers Chanty-Argun, Sharo-Argun, Assa and Fortanga rivers - and their tributaries the most noteworthy ancient masterpieces of local peoples are concentrated.
[edit] Towers
Towers built by Vainakhs can be divided into two groups, dwelling and combat ones. The towers intended for residence had two or three floors and were topped with a flat shale-made roofing. The floors was resting on a special stone pillar in the center, built of stone blocks. As the fragments of so-called cyclopean constructions masoned of huge stones, found in settlements Doshkhakle, Kart, Tsecha-Akh, Orsoi, ets., testify the first dwelling towers could be date 8000 BC. The craftsmanship of the builders reached its peak in the 13-16th centuries.
Combat towers were 30-meters high, with four of five floors and a square base approximately six meters width. The propped ladder led to the second floor. The defenders fired at the enemy through special loop-holes and the top of the tower had mashikuls – overhanging small balconies without a floor. Combat towers were usually crowned with pyramid-shaped roofing built in steps and topping with a sharpened capstone. This type of tower construction flourished in the period from 14th and to the 17th century.
Structures combining the functions of a living and combat towers can be called semi-combat. They were smaller in size than the living quarters, but a bit wider than combat ones, and had loop-holes and mashikiuls.
The towers used to be decorated with petrographs with the preferable subject of solar signs and the depiction of the author’s hands, animals and the like. Good wishes and prayers were expressed in petrogliphs. Tower decoration was rather modest. Of special interest was Golgopha-cross on the combat towers, serving a protection sign of sorts.
[edit] Sanctuaries, temples and mosques
A whole number of peculiar monuments, natural included, served for ritual services. Vainakhs chose mountains (Tsei-Lam), lakes (Galanchozh-Ami) and some species of plants pear-tree in particular, for exercising rituals. Most primitive were pillar-shaped shrines, sielingi, not high stone rectangular structures with a niche for candles. Sielingi were raised on the village outskirts and at the graveyards for protect both the living and the dead. Shrines in the form of small houses topped with ridged step roofing, like Myatsil Sanctuary on the Mount of Mat-Lam near the town of Vladikavkaz are more famous. Such a large range of shrines belonging to Vainakhs testifies to a developed pantheon of gods and a complicate ritual system, including supreme God Dela, Goddess of Fertility Tusholi, phallic cults, etc. praying was held in front of shrines and domestic animals were sacrificed.
Beginning from the 11th – 12th century obvious attempts from Georgia to baptize local tribes became noticeable. The Tkhaba-Yerdy Church consecrated to St. Thomas in the Assa Valley, and some other churches intact primarily in Ingushetia, date approximately to that historical period.
Orientation to Islam especially intensified in the 18th-19th centuries. Tower shaped mosques in the villages of Makazhoi, Khimoi and others can serve good example of contemporary clerical architecture.
[edit] Necropoleis
Burial vaults or crypts remained from the pagan period in the history of Vainakhs. They were built either a bit deepening into the ground or half underground and on the surface. The latter formed whole “towns of the dead” on the outskirts of the villages and reminded sanctuaries from the outside, with a dummy vaults constructed of overlapping stones. The deceased were placed on the special shelves in the crypts, in clothes and decorations and arms.
The general Islāmic rituals established in burials with the further penetration of Islam inside the mountainous regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Stone steles, churts, inscribed with prayers and epitaphs, began to be erected at the graves and more prosperous mountaineers were honoured with mausoleums after death. The Borgha-Kash Mausoleum dating to the very beginning of 15th century and built for a Noghai prince is a good example of these.
[edit] References
Jaimoukha, A., The Chechens: A Handbook, London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
