In the ancient believes of the shamanist Turks, the White Mother who carries on her shoulders the cycle of life and, who by gathering in herself the primary forces of nature symbolizes the infinite uncons­cious Secret, lives nearby a magical milk lake situated on the top of the highest mountain of the world. One of her servants named Aynsit brings from this lake a drop of milk which she puts in the mouth of every new born baby, giving it thus a spirit and life.
Anatolia, the land of mothers, had been for ten thousand [year]s the land where the Mother Goddess was worshiped by its inhabitants. But with the appearance of the Greek gods this holy woman was torn into pieces and her different aspects were projected to different female fi­gures as if one could noL bear the co-existence of both the mothering and sexual aspects of the woman in the same person. This is perhaps due to the danger of incestuous encounter with the mother.
The milk represents the good and the evil, the creative and the destructive forces, the poison and it's antidote. But a mother who is giving her milk to her child does not only feed her but she also gives it her love and the capacity of falling in love. How a woman who is split out of her erotic feelings can be able to teach her child to love another person and especially if this child is a girl, a human being of the same gender.
The milk represents also the forbidden and the permitted which in accordance with the laws of incest establishes new parental ties. This is especially the case in certain Turkish families in which the mot­her's milk is not available for a reason or another and the new born child is breast fed by a nanny. A woman who is neither the mother of the child nor his or her father's wife but who still shares her holy milk between her own children and the children of the other woman, making them by this way brothers and sisters: a parental tie which relies on milk.
What is the function of the breast feeding nanny? Is she simply a woman who fills the emptiness left by a dried and leaving breast or is she a person trying to regulate the good and evil aspects of this holy liquid which is the milk? Do the roads of the nanny and the psycho­analyst come across anywhere?