Kadagi and Mesultane

the Kadag is a Georgian shaman living in the mountains. It is a person (male or female) who has become permanently possessed by one of the lesser (i.e. local/specialized) classes of deities known most commonly as Hat’i (= 'sign'), but also by those of Dzhuar (=' cross ') and Saghmto (='deity'). The Hat'i in numbered several hundred at the turn of the 19th century and the word Hat’i could designate not only a deity of this class but also its manifestation (as a real or imaginary image, object or animal) and the place (temple / sanctuary) where it was worshipped.

the Kadag enters a trance, both during religious rituals and during important events in individual or collective life, and its Hat'i to remains predicted the future in a special secret or sacred language of the Hat’i .

A second type of practitioner of the shamanic type (exclusively female) was the Mesultana – the word deriving from the soul Georgian suli . A Mesultana – usually female, although sometimes as young as a nine-year-old girl – was a woman who possessed "the faculty of visiting the afterlife in spirit."

At times, these women would sink into "a lethargy broken by whispers", after which they would wake up and describe their "journey", communicating the demands of the dead to particular individuals or to the community at large. From their ability to enter these trance states, they would derive honor and prestige.