Each one of these festivals, however, is a great deal more than the putting into activity of some of the above sentiments. In many of them the play-instinct is clearly evident, while in a few such as Vartavar, the whole self, with all its sentiments, instincts, tendencies, and emotions, is given the fullest and most unrestrained freedom. A festival, if it is anything, is a letting loose of the reins; there is nothing to hinder, nothing to keep back, nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and the self reaches out in a higher consciousness of fullness and completeness of living. As such it would be the greatest of fallacies to suppose any one of the festivals to be restricted to a particular sentiment. Nevertheless, it is clear, that the festivals do constitute vehicles of expression for the sentiments that make up Armenian national sentiment.
The general conclusions to which this study unmistakably gives rise are in respect to the national traits of the Armenian people. These traits have been brought out both explicitly and implicitly in connection with the various legends and festivals considered, and it is my purpose, therefore, to summarize and substantiate them at this point. They include, first, the superstitiousness, second, the conservatism, third, the self-sufficiency, and lastly the familism of the people.
First of these qualities, superstitiousness, may be ascribed in large measure to geographical isolation. The country to be sure, is so situated as to form a highway from Europe to the Mesopotamian valley, and from Asiatic Russia to the Mediterranean, and although it has been overrun by Assyrians, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, Persians, Turks, Egyptians, and still others, yet we must speak of it as isolated, for the science that has brought remote countries into contact has not affected Armenia to any considerable degree. Subject to a backward nation, lacking all modern means of communication, the country is shut off and the plows of civilization have not yet furrowed the social soil of superstition. How general these superstitions are is brought out especially by the festivals described, many of which have given rise to a superstition or a group of superstitions. From Vartavar, there came the belief that the dust from the sacred altar served as a talisman for children learning their A B C's; the spring fire festival gave rise to the practice of taking home a glowing brand for good luck; there is the belief that the blessed water will cure various diseases, and that the oil scraped from the anointed foot with a walnut given by the priest after washing the feet at the ceremony of Maundy Thursday, will keep a supply of butter throughout the year. And then there are the beliefs in the miraculous power of the holy oil, manufactured with due ceremony every four years at Sis; in the healing power of the various sacred relics kept at Etchmiadzin and other places, and ten thousand others. There are also beliefs not of a religious character as the above, such as the one in regard to the tetagush, the little locust-eating bird, which is supposed to be attracted by Ararat spring water. The same superstition obtains in other parts of the country with the difference that the inconvenience of obtaining Ararat spring water makes it necessary for the people to believe in the peculiar efficacy of other springs. These illustrations are sufficient, and although it could hardly be proved that Armenians are more innately superstitious than the Anglo-Saxon ancestors who believed only a few generations ago in the power of the malignant eye, and that an innocent person might pass through fire unharmed, yet their superstitious nature and beliefs are present-day facts explained most completely on the ground of comparative isolation from the rest of the world.
