Cappadocian Firewalker

Description

Greek sources give tantalizing glimpses of shamanic dancers in Anatolia. The entranced Cappadocian priestesses of Castabala walked on burning coals. In the Taurus mountains, the black-robed votaries of Ma whirled with unbound hair, struck themselves with blades, and prophesied. In one of these cermonies, a Phrygian priestess of Sabazios is described slipping a golden snake into her robes and through to the ground: “the snake through the bosom.”

In Bulgaria, Thracian cousins of the Phrygians celebrated the Kotytia in honor of the goddess Kotys. In these torchlit ceremonies in the mountains, the baptai initiates made music, danced in rounds, and handled snakes in ecstatic states.