The Enarees - Transgender Priestesses of Artimpasa

Artimpasa - The Goddess of Fertility

One of the earliest instances of Transgenderism in history comes from the Scythian Enarees or Andreieis, priestesses of Artimpasa, the Scythian Goddess of Fertility.

While not much is known about the Enarees past what we know from Herodotus and Pseudo-Hippocrates, we do know that the Enarees were adept in Divination, supposedly gifted to them by Artimpasa. They would use a strip of bark from the Linden tree and split it into the strips. They would then weave and unweave the strips around their fingers while they gave their prophesies. It is also believed that they likely used cannabis smoke in their rituals.

In their role as Soothsayers when the King or Queen fell sick, Enarees were consulted to find out if their was a culprit responsible for their liege’s sickness, as the Scythians believed that an oath sworn by the royal hearth was broken could make their king ill. A group of six Enarees would place of bundle of sticks upon the ground and untie and retie the bundle while prophesying. If someone was identified and claimed innocence, six more Enarees were brought in to consult on the prophesy. If they upheld the initial prophesy, then the accused was put to death and his possessions shared. If the second group disagreed, then a third group was brought in, and so on until a majority decision was reached. If the majority found the accused to in fact be innocent, then the first group that had initially accused him was put into a wagon filled with brushwood and set alight.

The Enarees were believed to be a hereditary priesthood, though the exact nature of the order is unknown. There is debate as to whether members of the order produced offspring before castration as to ensure the continuation of their bloodline, or whether specific members of the different noble families were simply expected to join.

While Herodotus said the group was called the Enarees, Pseudo-Hippocrates labelled them the Andreieis (Effeminates). This is not the only detail that they disagreed on regarding this group. Herodotus claimed that a group of Scythians plundered a temple of Aphrodite in Ascalon and were cursed with female sickness by the goddess, which has been passed down the generations.

Pseudo-Hippocrates however said that the Andreieis were eunuchs that dressed and acted as women and this was an affliction caused by men wearing trousers and the ‘evils of horse-riding,’ both of which he greatly disapproved of. He says the Scythians however claimed it was caused by the gods and gave the person great shamanistic power. Both he and Herodotus agreed that, regardless of the cause, they had supernatural powers and it was because of the gods that they took on this role and became transgender priestesses.

This in conjunction with the great number of women warriors shows a high level of gender fluidity in Scythian society, with both men and women easily moving between the common/traditional roles of men and women.

CUNLIFFE, B. (2021). Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe. OXFORD UNIV PRESS. (Pg. 219-20, 272-273)