[gothic-l] Re: Gothic Identity

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., dirk at s... wrote:
>
> > 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,

In addition to my initial answer below, to the above point of yours, I
would like to add another informative example that a Scotish friend of
mine told me recently. As is wellknown, Scottland maintained an
ancient clan-structured society. Just as you said obove, membership in
a clan is perceived to be defined by birth, i.e. decendence from a
common (powerful and noble) ancestor. My friend (of the McRae clan)
told me, however, that this common ancestry is nothing but a myth,
although a well-believed one.

He explained that often one clan, e.g. the McRaes expanded and
absorbed another one. The remaining members of the defeated or
absorbed clan whould than become McRae clan-members and would, to this
day, claim (and belief in )decendence from the common earliest
McRae-ancestor. I offered this example to illustrate that even in a
clan-society, which you have described above identities are dynamic.


....this example was only meant to supplement my initialy reply below,
which still reflects my overall view ....

My initial reply:

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),
tc.
 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


You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/