Tchop (Caucasus)
| Tchop 🇦🇲 🇦🇿 🇷🇺 | ||
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| Location: Northern Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan | ||
| Definition: Traditional medical practice based on the belief that small items when stuck in the throat or nose cause illness | ||
| Keywords: Armenia – Azerbaijan – Russia – FSU – Caucasus – Medicine – Healthcare – Tradition | ||
| Author: Maria Vyatchina | ||
| Affiliation: Department of Ethnology, Tartu University, Estonia | ||
By Maria Vyatchina, Department of Ethnology, Tartu University, Estonia
| Tchop (or tchup) is a local term that is used in the traditional medical practice found in different regions of the Northern and Southern Caucasus (Anuchin 1884: 387; Gasanov 1928: 208 - 223; Konjus 1946: 21; Lalajan 1988: 187 - 188; Lisician 1992: 159). Etymologically, the word originates from the Turkish root çöp that literally means “splinter that got stuck”. The practice is based on the belief that a person could suffer a range of long-term symptoms as a result of pieces of food or other kind of small objects getting stuck in the nose or the throat. The condition is thought to affect mostly children however adults may suffer too. Usually, the case is treated with a throat massage or a special blowing technique. Currently, the term is used for both the condition and the treatment. |
Traditionally, in the North Caucasus region, tchop is distinguished from the evil eye. Although the symptoms appear similar their causes are believed to be of different nature. Thus, if someone has been affected either by tchop or by the evil eye, they become physically ill, suffering from fever, weakness, diarrhoea, nausea, and/or inability to eat. It is believed that only a ritual specialist is able to identify the underlying cause. Spiritual healing is needed for the evil eye ailments while tchop is assisted manually. However, some advanced tchop specialists can treat the evil eye too. In some cases, tchop substitutes for tonsillitis, acute upper respiratory infections, and other medical diagnoses. Professional doctors tend to express scepticism and disdain towards tchop. Besides, the tchop treatment due to its growing commercialization is regarded as a fraudulent practice.
A specialist in tchop treatment is called tchopchy. There are several ways of becoming a tchopchy. Some tchopchy claim that their skill run in the family, for example, from grandmother to granddaughter. Another option is tchop as a calling. In some cases, the special ability of the tchopchy is supplemented with formal medical qualifications.
Usually, tchop assistance is sought out by people unable or unwilling to solve their own or their children's health problems in other ways, for instance, by visiting a professional doctor. Traditionally, tchop practicians were women. However, in Dagestan, due to the diffusion of Islam orthodoxy that curtails physical contacts between non-related men and women (even if it is a physician-patient contact), nowadays services by male tchopchy tend to be in great demand. A female tchopchy may refuse to treat boys or men if she considers it contrary to her religious beliefs. Thus, the principles of this historically gendered practice have shifted from its domestic female space to being strongly influenced by the religious norms common in the area.
The Dagestani inhabitants explain the endemicity of tchop in several ways. Firstly, they consider the specific climate conditions in Dagestan such as high humidity, which supposedly can affect the throat anatomy. Secondly, they blame the regional diet. Finally, the high incidence of tchop is linked to children's unsupervised behaviour. All these explanations are based on the underlying idea of small holes in the throat anatomy where items can get stuck. Moreover, recently local people started using the term "esophageal diverticula”, which sounds scientific but appears to be a non-existent medical theory. It is worth of mentioning that visits to tchopchy tend to be viewed as medical appointments.
In Dagestan information on tchop experience is widely spread by the word of mouth and in the social media, such as Instagram. Also, tchop advertisements can be found everywhere, including public transport, street posters and inscriptions on the gates of tchopchy houses. Despite high numbers of tchopchy, the practice continues to be practically invisible to non-locals. Ironically, tourists and visitors confuse tchop ads with an abbreviation for a private security company in the Russian language - TCH-O-P (chastonoe ohrannoe predpriatie).
Nowadays, tchopchy services are in high demand also in other regions of the Russian Federation where migrants from the Northern Caucasus settle. For example, there are large Dagestani communities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Surgut, Tyumen' due to increasing migration (Kapustina 2019: 103 - 118). Migration gave a new meaning to the tchopchy practice. The migrant families visit tchopchy during vacations at the places of their origin following older relatives’ advice and recommendations. Thus, a tchopchy visit could be described as a sign of belonging because locals strongly believe that “tchop happens to the Dagestanis only”.
Studying Tchop helps to reveal certain aspects in the relationships between older and younger generations within extended family, between the science-based medicine and the traditional medical knowledge, urban and rural ways of life, and the relationships within migration networks.
Entries in the online encyclopaedia linking to tchop
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Kako mati (Greece)
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Vilarka (Serbia and the Western Balkans)
References
Anuchin, D. 1884. Otchet o poezdke v Dagestan letom 1882 goda. Sankt-Peterburg: Tipografija A. S. Suvorina: 387
Gasanov, Sh. 1928. Narodnaja medicina v Azerbajdzhane. Izvestija obshhestva obsledovanija i izuchenija Azerbajdzhana, 6: 208 - 223
Kapustina, E. 2019. The boundaries of the djamaat: the particular features of Dagestan’s translocal communities in the context of migration flows within the Russian Federation. The Journal of Social Policy Studies, 17(1), 103-118
Konjus, E. 1946. Istoki russkoj pediatrii. Moscow: Medgiz: 21
Lalajan, E. A. 1988. Trudy v pjati tomah. Yerevan. T.2: 187 - 188
Lisician, S. D. 1992. Armjane Nagornogo Karabaha. Etnograficheskij ocherk. Yerevan: 159