On the Waters of Jassa

We have previously discussed the “Jassa” mountains and gave a teaser of the “Far North” reach of the Jassa name.

However, it is a fact that the name Jassa or variations thereof appear in northern Belarus and Russia and we thought we ought to mention such appearances.  They are interesting not just because they seem to be captured in the name of a Polish Deity but because such names appear in many, many other places.

To start with we have the rivers:

• River Jessa (Ecca) (Belarus) which turns into the Ulla which, as is speculated below, may have been called Jassa during the “Polish times”, i.e., before the partitions of Poland.  The Ulla river ultimately joins the Daugava.

Jessa River has the additional curious feature that it starts its run very close to Lake Sialiava (Sialaveanie!?):

• River Issa which (Russia) which starts around Sebezh and continues North until it becomes part of the Velikaya (which, in turn, heads towards Pskov).

All together now:

Then we have the lakes:

• Lake Lacha (aka Jassa) – that, as mentioned above, we’ve already discussed here.

• Lake Yassy – forms a nice triangle with the aforementioned rivers.

The problem with these names is that they look like signs of “Iranian” Alans (their description by Ammianus Marcellinus does not resemble today’s Iranians) who have been, usually, seen as related to the Ossetian peoples.  We’ve been accustomed to seeing Iassi in Romania (and people named that also in Hungary) but that is because we can pretty much trace their arrival from historical sources.  Likewise, we are not shocked by seeing the Yassy name also in Tatarstan as here:

After all, Alans were supposed to have lived on the fringes of Europe – becoming, by virtue of their location, the first victims of the Huns so this, kind of, makes sense (and may be a “Tatar” appellation too).  We even get Lake Essey far East in Central Siberia:

But we are not aware of any Alans (and, yes, they were the ones that joined with the Vandals and Suevi on their way to Africa) this far Northwest in European Russia.  Alans were supposed to have been horse riders of the steppe (perhaps related to their Western cousins (?) the Yazyges) – not travelers through the deeply forested lands of Northern Belarus and Russia.

The same was noticed by others before, e.g., Heinrich Kunstmann:

What gives?

Perhaps the name has nothing to do with the Alans? (in case you are wondering, the Alan chieftain names, such as we have records of, do not sound, at all, Slavic, e.g., Sangiban of Jordanes or Goar of Gregory of Tours).  Perhaps these river names were some sort of border indications of where the Mongol Yassa rule began?  But that word was derived from Dzyassik and, in any event, the Mongols didn’t reach that far, at least not for very long.

The name Jassa appears in many contexts as seen here (and many others).

Here are the known paths of those Alans who headed to Africa (including their part in the Vandalic kingdom and their part (supposed) in the sack of Rome):

And maybe there were different Alans?  Maybe, there is something to palanioru(m), Palania or Alanos, quos dicunt Sclavos really referring to the Alans (just as the uhlan cavalry seems to)?  And there are other hypotheses that are more “appropriately” northern, e.g., Alainen sounds vaguely… Finnish (meaning employee, subordinate, ancillary!).

Copyright ©2015 jassa.org All Rights Reserved