The sacrificial flesh must be shared among the relatives and neighbors to which they would proclaim the traditional felicitating formula, “Let the offer be accepted,” or else it's not a mahtagh. Still and all, the mahtagh’s being edible is not the point; you may do it even with a second-hand outfit, donating a pair of worn-out but still sturdy jeans to some poverty-stricken wretch. Giving is the essence of mahtagh, some kind of offering to be registered by the unseen, unknown forces that are in control of fate, aka chance, aka fortune…
It does not take exorbitant IQ to figure out, that sacrifice to so murky figures calls into question the omnipotence of Acting Gods from leading religions in this best of worlds. However, the reverent religions have long since checked and learned from their bitter experience what hopeless waste of efforts is straining to eradicate certain pigheaded customs that still have a pull among the irresponsible segments in their respective congregations, a hell of a lot of an uphill job to get just a fig if any, so they wisely turn their blind eye to jumping over the fires built on the shortest summer night or round dances designed for seeing the winter off, or mahtaghs and other suchlike activities. What can’t be cured must be endured. Dammit!
Unrestricted repetition would dull anything and any, however profound, byword would turn a gutted fat-chewing stripped of poesy, beauty, meaning:
–Tsahvyd tahnym (I’d haul your pain), how’s ’bout paying for the potatoes? Forgot?!.
–Mahtagh ahnym (a sacrificial offering on me), 2 secs before I gave you 6 a-hundred-drahm coins! Check in your pocket.
–Tsahvyd tahnym (I’d haul your pain), I stick here since morning, there are handfuls of those coins in my pockets.
–Mahtagh ahnym (a sacrificial offering on me), I’m not paying twice for the same potatoes. Don’t wet your whistle too oft when trading.
In the bazaar of Stepanakert, the capital of Mountainous Karabakh, even at a hassle, folks maintain correct, as well as deeply poetic, stance…)
As it was said, a long cool drink from the so-much-longed-for water-spring was not my lot that day, because in the shade of the giant patriarch of a tree there was a huge mahtagh-doing in full swing around two rows of tables for a hundred of participants, and from the thick of the festivity there came a loud yell, “Mr. Ogoltsoff!” And presently my arm got grabbed gently, yet irresistibly, by a burly gray-haired mujik who led me up to a young stout woman sitting at the head of the females’ table. “You were teaching us! Do you remember me? Who am I?” (…well, anyway, she was taught the word “Mister”, but what, on earth, could her name be?.)
“Are you ‘Ahnoosh’?”
My wild guess ignited general delight and tender pride, wow! their Ahnoosh was still remembered by her name among the teaching staff at the local State University. And her father, the principle mahtagh-doer, never loosening his firm welcome clutch, steered me to a vacant place at the far end of males’ table, where they immediately replaced a used plate and fork, brought a clean glass and a fresh bottle of