[gothic-l] Re: Gothic Identity

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

> The notion that tribal societies were cult-focused has been in vogue
for a
> decade or so and I am curious to know if there is any primary
ethnographic
> evidence to support it.  Anyone?  Before the christian era, Germanic
groups
> fit easily into a tribal structure, each tribe comprised of clans
who may
> have shared a patron deity and places of worship.  But clan
membership was
> determined by birth and lineage and not religious belief.  In the
first
> century AD, I would be a Goth because of my parentage and that, in
turn,
> would determine my gods.  ... is there a single example of a
primitive people who recognize their
> cultural affinity solely through a  "cult" practice?


Hi Steve,

I thought I come back to this point of yours, because from your
reply I fear that my view of a Gothic identity may not have been as
clear as I hoped. Firstly, I believe that we over-interpret tribal
identities especially in the earliest period (1st c. BC to 2nd c. AD),
by applying our modern understanding of a tribe to a people of the
past. At any rate, our view of these Germanic tribes is largely
determined by the categories applied my Roman and Greek writers, who
sought to fit their observations and reports with their own concepts.

The 'average' Goths (2000 years ago) would likely never in his/her
life have met anybody from another tribe like the Vandals or
Burgundians. Most of the time outside contact was limited to
neighbouring villages and people developed their identities on the
basis of this limited contact. Thus, I think that at this stage a
more general Gothic/Gothonic identity was in fact very weak. I suppose
if we could travel back in time and ask a continental Goths of the 1st
c. AD about his identity, he would say that he is the inhabitant of
his village or a certain geographic area.   He would perhaps also say
that he is the worshipper of certain local deities, but that Gaut is
their main god.

Pohl wrote in 'Die Germanen' that the continental Saxon tribal
identity was still very weak as late as the 8th century. Thus,
continental Saxons would identify themselves as Astfali (men of
Eastphalia), Angrivarii (men of Enger), Bardonogavences (men of the
Langobardic Gau) or simply Nordluidi (people north of the Elbe), etc.
The only common thing was that they all worshiped a god Saxnot, while
being identified as 'Saxon' probably meant rather little to them. The
Saxon identity was likely only explicit in relation to outsiders like
Romans or Franks.

Identies are usually defined against something else and I think that
the Gothic migration to the Black Sea was a period when local/regional
identities that had existed and developed for centuries in their
Pommeranian/Masovian homeland broke down and the common denominator of
being a Goths moved to the foreground. Thus, a more ethnically based
Gothic identity emerged against the common experience of moving
together to a distant land. As soon as some sort of stability was
reached this identity could certainly start to disintegrate, e.g.
emergence of Greutungi and Vesi.

I hope from these explanations and examples it becomes clearer what I
meant when I wrote that 6th century Goths were profoundly different
from the continental Gothones of the 1st century,  but at the same
time related to them. Also, my view of a cultic group or cultic
identity should be clearer now.

cheers,

Dirk







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