[gothic-l] Re: Gothic Identity, was: Heyerdahl searching for Odin

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., Alburysteve at a... 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?


Hi Steve,

thanks for your detailed response. Tacitus mentioned the so called
'orignal names' and stated that, for example, the Suevi consisted of
many distinct tribes of which the most noble were the Semnones, who
were the keepers of an important holy place (Semnonenhain). I suppose
that these descriptions have contributed to this view of cultic
groups.

But what exactly these 'super-groups' were, is rather difficult to
assertain. Authors like Kuhn and Kossack (Voelker zwischen Germanen
und Kelten) have argued that their were a number of such
'super-groups' including among others the Mannus-tribes, possibly
Nerthus-tribes, but certainly Suevi.

I think that the fact, that many tribes seemed to have maintained this
'group-name' in parallel to their tribal name underlines the
significance of these groups. E.g.  Alamanni have apparently never
stopped calling themselves Suevi (Schwaben) and Quadi and Marcomanni
'reverted' to the name Suevi when they moved to Spain. Similarly,
Silingi and Asdingi seemed to have given up these names infavour of
the common Vandal-group-name when they moved to the West. For the
continental Gothones and the Scandinavian 'Goths'the god Gaut (a
Gautic tradition) may have played a significant role as focal point of
worship.







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.  Heather does an excellent job of
describing how the
> massive displacement of large segments of many different cultural
groups
> during the fourth and fifth centuries triggered a period of
intensive
> cultural restructuring out of which emerged the Visigothic and
Ostrogothic
> groups.  That these derived predominatly from the Gothic populations
of SE
> Europe is not seriously in question.  That the latter derived from
earlier
> groups situated in or around the Baltic littoral is not an
unreasonable
> question.


I agree!



>
> >Therefore, saying that 'The
> >  Goths' came from this or that place is tantamount to saying that
the
> >  Catholics came from Rome or the Lutherans came from Wittengerg.
What
> >  is important, is that for the transmission of such a cultic
identities
> >  you don't need a migration of people.
>
> This is true only if you accept the (false) thesis that gothicness
is a
> strictly religious construct.


Ok, I may have overstated the point with my example, which was
intended to make it clearer. I don't belief that 'Gothicism' of the
first century is 'strictly' a religious concept, but it may have been
centered around a certain belief-system/ or Gautic tradition, which
may also have included people like the Lemovii, Warinii, who in this
sense could also say that they were Goths. Maybe Ingemar Nordgren, who
supported the concept of a Gothic cultic league in his book, will step
in at this point to elaborate on the concept.




>
> >This view solves the problem
> >  with the different material cultures, and it led people like R.
> >  Wenskus to come up with the concept of the 'traditional core', to
> >  which most authorative scholars like Wolfram seem to adhere.
> >
> >  Thus, the early Goths may have formed an entity similar to the
Suevi
> >  and Vandilii-Lugian cultic groups. The Vandilii (Vandals)- Lugian
> >  groups incorporated tribes like the Harii, Helvecones, Manimi,
Helsii,
> >  Narhavales and later also the names Silingi and Asdingi appear in
this
> >  group. Both the Gothic and the Vandilii-Lugian groups most likely
> >  contained even Celtic parts as well as Germanic parts (see
Wolfram
> >  'History of the Goths').
>
> What do you mean by "entity"?  Culture (belief system, social
institutions,
> kinship structures, language, clothing styles, building techniques,
etc)?  It
> is not stretch to believe that the early Germanic tribes (Goths
being one
> such) shared many (if not all) cultural institutions and that some
of these
> were also shared with (some) Celtic groups.  It is  difficult to see
how this
> renders infeasible the splitting off of a segment of a tribe, one
segment
> remaining (in Scandinavia, for sake of argument) and another segment
> mirgrating elsewhere (Ukraine, for example).  History and
ethnographic
> literature is replete with valid examples of which the isolation of
the
> Crimean Goths is but one.


I certainly agree with the view that tribes/peoples, at times, split
up and seperated; but the problem with the continental Gothones and
the Scandinavian 'Goths' seems to be that archaeologists have a hard
time finding any similarity in their respective material cultures. A
Polish archaeologist recently underscored Hachmann's findings, namely
that comparing archaeological assemblages from the Masovia group and
those from Vaestergotland etc. showed practically no similarity,
leading to belief that the contact between these groups can at best
have been minimal... while it remains uncertain if this contact was
from North to South or South to North.... In fact, the Wilbark culture
is basically an indigenous culture of the Pommerania/Masovia area
developed from the earlier Oxthoefe (forgotten the Polish name)
culture.

On the other hand, to pick up your exampe, Crimean Gothic artefacts of
the 6th/7th century are clearly related to other East Germanic
artefacts from Central/Eastern Europe and are related to the Wilbark
culture via the Chernyakhov culture.





>
> >  The biggest of such cultic groups may have been the Suevi, who
> >  included the Langobards at the Elbe and streched to the
Marcomanni and
> >  Quadi in Moravia. The diverse parts of these larger groups were
often
> >  subject of change and some parts regrouped to form tribes that
adopted
> >  the name of their former cultic group as the 'common denominator'
of
> >  the consitutent parts. Thus, we get the later Vandals, which are
> >  different, but related, to the early Vandili/Lugians and the
later
> >  Suevi, which are also different but related to the early Suevi.
> >
> >  With the continental Goths/Gothones the development was probably
> >  similar, i.e. from a loose cultic group to a tighter more
'ethnically'
> >  based entity. This also implies that we cannot simply link 6th
century
> >  Goths in Italy with 1st century Gothones in Pomerania and regard
them
> >  as the logical development of 'a' people. What all this means is
that
> >  the question of Goths originating in one certain place, be it
> >  Scandinavia or Pomerania, is simply obsolete.
>
> Again, is there a single example of a primitive people who recognize
their
> cultural affinity solely through a  "cult" practice?  English
language and
> culture extend over wide tracts of the world yet there is no
question of its
> place of origin or even the period of time with its constituent
elements
> coalesced into what we currently recognize as English.

> The notion
that the
> "question of origins" is obsolete is an unfortunate over-reaction to
the
> theoretical excesses of nineteenth and early twentieth century
prehistorians.


Yes, you are right, when I said that the question of origin is
obsolete, I meant that it is obsolete in the sense practiced by many
scholars of the 19th early 20th century (e.g. Gustav Kossinna etc).
One can certainly search for the origins, but we should distance
ourselves from oversimplifications like: Goths are either from
Scandinavia or from the Pommerania/Masovia region without allowing for
more imaginative solutions.

cheers,
Dirk





>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steve O'Brien
> Albury, Ontario


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