#enaree

The Scythian Enaree

First batch of androgynous priests of the ancient world.

The thracian ktisti - androgynous iron/silverworker

The scythian enaree - Intersex priest of the snake legged Goddess and Artimpasa

And i was like "what who? The gorgons? But they have snake hair...." but idk

Oh! The Snake-Legged Goddess is the Scythian mother goddess, who was sometimes depicted androgynously, with a beard, as well as with breasts and feminine clothing. She has snakes for legs, hence the name!

She is closely associated with Artimpasa, AKA Ishtar, who had a group of transfeminine priestesses, the Enaree. (I don't remember if this was covered in the original post). They were some of the first people known to use estrogen to transition, by drinking pregnant mare's urine. The Scythians also had transmasc warriors, who inspired the legend of the Amazons. I just love how queer their society is compared to ours, though to them, it was just their gender norms.

The wiki article also mentions Medusa and the gorgons, just because of the snake symbolism.

I highly recommend this video and her whole channel.

"And, in addition to these, there are many eunuchs among the Scythians, who not only perform female work, but speak like women. Such persons are called effeminates... From continued exercise on horseback they are seized with chronic defluxions in their joints owing to their legs always hanging down below their horses; they afterwards become lame and stiff at the hip-joint..." -Hippocrates in his Airs, Waters, Places on the Enaree or Anarya of the Scythian people.

Eunuch is most likely used as a general term here and not strictly to refer to castration, and evidence of castration is tiny. The Hijra Khawaja Sira of India & Pakistan have also been called eunuchs, and that practice of castration is seldom documented to have ever occurred, nor occur today. Hermaphrodite has a very similar historical use, often used beyond the literal definition of the word and more so in the vein of androgynous people & those gender diverse, such as in the sources of Cabeza de Vaca & others in and around Florida in the 1500s. Eunuch has also, in some cases, been used to refer to asexual people, intersex people, aswell as those impotent. 'congenital eunuch' is one word.. and going back to the H word, we also have the 1800s 'pseudohermaphroditism' as a now archaic medical synonym for gender diversity & crossdressing; and as with Eonism, coined by Havelock Ellis and named thus in reference to the famous lady herself—Chevaliere D'eon.

Historically in relation to science and some pre-colonial cultures, there was indeed also a viewed connection between intersex and gender diverse people, and this was further posited in 'the west' by early sexology, and through concepts such as sexual intermediacy / intermediates; but although current science does seem to show that a human brain may have a Propensity to have certain respective physical signs that a person may be gay or gender diverse—also peep the controversial finger length ratio theory for sexuality and gender—, nothing, nor anyone reputable in the field has ever straight out asserted that it must be due to some kind of intersex of the brain. I personally just want science to do it's thing and see what it finds; I don't want to intrude, but alas—I am worthless. Currently, studies have been both elucdating and inconclusive in any staid or consistent sign(s) within the brains many parts, and has only been able to show that SOME brains of trans+ folks over the general cis population seem to have a propensity towards having a certain notable difference, but NOT all did! And some cis people also had this potential marker or what ever if we want to pathologize it! (pls no 😭).

Pseudo-Hippocrates also indicates they typically took on the receptive role during... coitus 🧐! Oh, jolly good! The Enaree often also acted as advisors to the kings, and we're also first to be consulted on a great variety of things.

And here's the video in question as it pertains to my earlier quip about transitioning in Scythian, Sarmatian etc culture, regarding the drinking of.... mare urine... to feminise! Which is what would later give us the imperfect Premarin estrogen substitute in the early 1900s; this and the few next that came after it were not bioidentical to ours, so it came with slews of issues such as risk of liver & heart issues, a belief that has been faultily been transferred over to human bio-identical estradiol that we have today, which does NOT! Now, oral estradiol CAN affect liver function, but it is seldom even prescribed in oral form unless it is at much lower levels—such as for menopausal cis women—that are often negligible and deemed safe.

The Enarei, singular Enaree, were Scythian androgynous/effeminate priests and shamanistic soothsayers who played an important role in the Scythian religion.

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 that an ancient connection existed between gender non-conforming spiritual practitioners and the use of mind-altering substances..[5]

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.[5]

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.[6] 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.[7][5]