A cave that might have been the inspiration for Hades, the Greek underworld. It’s an interesting spin, but I have to think that it is just a nice hook to drum up some publicity for a site that’s important in its own right.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/story/2012-02-25/Alepotrypa-Cave-Hades/53237894/1//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js
An interesting comment by Tacitus, Agricola 21, quoted by Prudence Jones & Nigel Pennick in A History of Pagan Europe:
[Boudicca’s rebellion in 60 CE] nearly succeeded, but after it was put down and the punitive victor, Suetonius Paulinus, discreetly removed to another command, a series of new governors and their financial directors set about a systematic process of Romanization. As Tacitus observed with some acerbity, “Among the conquered it is called culture, when in fact it is part of their slavery.” Did it ever stop being part of our slavery, I wonder? Or have we successfully become Rome’s heirs rather than her slaves? Would contemporary Romans agree?
My first reaction is that as long as the Roman army occupied Britain, the Roman culture adopted by the native rulers was, as Tactus says, actually a badge of their slavery. When the occupying army withdrew, and native culture (or a blended culture) re-emerged, Roman culture was no longer a badge of slavery, but now merely a foreign influence similar, say, to the preeminence in Europe of French culture under Louis XIV. But, perhaps that is also a form of slavery. There are, I think, some obvious connections with the imperialism of the modern global monoculture, and the anger in the Muslim world about the loss of indigenous traditions.
We are all captives of our culture, and co-participate in its creation. So, we are all in some sense slaves of some culture, although perhaps we prefer that it not be a foreign culture. What’s interesting to me is how easily this topic relates back to Nietzsche’s discussion of slave mentality and the superman, where so much of our common culture is all about control of the individual, contrasted with the natural aristocrat who (supposedly) creates his own values.
Recent events in a certain community call to mind one of my favorite passages from Thaddeus Golas’ The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment:
"Every person who allows others to treat him as a spiritual leader has the responsibility to ask himself: Out of all the perceptions available to me in the universe, why am I emphasizing the ignorance of my brothers? What am I doing in a role where this is real? What kind of standards am I conceiving, in which so many people are seen to be suffering, while I am the enlightened one? My experience is that everyone believes he or she is capable of leadership, but very few do it well."
I’ve been very interested the past few weeks in Myths & Nationhood, Geoffrey Hosking and George Schopflin, eds. (Routledge, 1997). It seems to me that investigating the role of national myths in fostering identity applies equally as well to reconstructionist religions, particularly those with a folkish element. I was particularly struck today by Anthony Smith’s “The ‘Golden Age’ and National Renewal.” His thesis is that:
“The return to a golden age is an important and probably an essential, component of nationalism. Its role is to re-establish roots and continuity, as well as authenticity and dignity, among a population that is being formed into a nation, and thereby to act as a guide and model for national destiny. . . . By serving as a model and guide to that destiny, ethnic antiquity, and especially the golden age, becomes a source of continual inspiration, establishing the authenticity and continuity of the community’s culture and conferring dignity on nations-to-be and well-established nations alike.” Smith finds five functions of a golden age myth: to satisfy a quest for authenticity, to locate and re-root the community in its own historic and fertile space, to establish a sense of continuity between the generations, to remind members of the community of their past greatness and hence their inner worth, and finally to point toward a common destiny.
He also finds three tests for practical usability. First, the myth must be authentic on many levels. It cannot be merely an invented tradtion or a patchwork. It should be reasonably well-documented, and capable of being connected and made relevant to the people concerned. Secondly, it must have the potential for inspiration, meaning that it has a mythic quality that can strike a chord in the heart (as well as being applicable to all citizens of the nation). And, thirdly, it must be capable of reinterpretation in the light of changing social and political needs.
Here is a brief excerpt:
“These concepts serve a number of functions for both individuals and communities in a nationalist epoch. The first is to satisfy the quest for authenticity. For nationalists themselves, this has become a lietmotif of their struggle. They seek to ‘realize themselves’ in and through the nation-to-be, believing that the nation has always been there, concealed under the debris of the ages, waiting to be ‘reborn’ through the discovery of the ‘authentic self’. The interesting thing is that many people, who are not part of the nationalist elite or movement, have engaged in their own quests for ‘authentic identity’ and have come to embrace the need for authenticity in their own lives and as a part of the wider community that needs to be purified of external accretions.” Sounds like the Reconstructionist community to me.
In a little section called “Spiritual Overinsurance,” Jonathan Kirsch (God Against the Gods) writes:
“Thus, for example, a pagan might be a devotee of the stately old gods of Rome and Greece whom Homer calls ‘the Olympians’ -- Apollo and Zeus, Aphrodite and Athena -- and at the very same time, a worshipper of the Syrian goddess known as the Great Mother, the Persian god called Mithra or the newfangled cult that conjoined the Egyptian goddess Isis and a freshly minted god called Serapis, a conflation of two older Eygptian deities. One famous pagan called Praetextatus, a contemporary of both Constantine and Julian, is described on his epitaph as a proud collector of pagan priesthoods and initiations of all kinds: ‘high priest of Vesta, high priest of the sun, a priest of Hercules, an initiate of the mysteries of Dionysos and Eleusis, priest and temple guardian in the mystery of Cybele, and Father in the mystery of Mithras.’ It says as much about paganism, as about Praetextatus that he used to joke with the pople that ‘he might be tempted to become a Christian by the prospect of being Bishop of Rome.’
“So welcoming was polytheism that even the holiest figures of monotheism were recruited into Greco-Roman paganism. One emperor . . . adorned his private chapel with ‘statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of Christ,’ writes Edward Gibbon of Alexander Severus (208-235) . . . .
“Even Yahweh, regarded by strict monotheists who wrote the bible as the one and only god, was made over into the deity called Iao and given a place among the many gods and goddesses of paganism. . . . [T]hey wanted to make sure that they did not forfeit the blessing of the right god by making sure to worship all gods -- a practice that historian Robin Lane Fox describes as “spiritual over-insurance. . . .
“’Whilst all nations and kingdoms honor their respective god, the Romans respect the gods of all the others, just as their power and authority have reached the compass of the whole world,’ boasts the pagan orator Caecillus. ‘They search out everywhere these foreign gods, and adopt them for their own; nay, they even erected altars to unknown gods.”
Normally, I enjoy Jonathan Kirsch, but God Against the Gods is really just a popular history of the transition from paganism to Christianity in the Roman empire. I read it in an evening, and didn’t see anything that I didn’t already know, or that any reasonably well-informed lay person wouldn’t already know. I’d recommend it primarily to people who already know that the triumph of Christianity was largely the result of politics, but who are bit fuzzy on the details.
The passage quoted above caught my eye for a very personal reason. I’m becoming increasingly annoyed by pagans and neopagans both who talk about “working with more than one pantheon.” I didn’t mind at first, but after a year of hearing it everywhere, it’s like a kind of water torture.
Who thought up this silliness, anyway? It sounds like Llewellyn Press nonsense to me. First, I don’t like the implicit idea that being a pagan involves working with a pantheon. It sounds like something from wicca and magic circles. I don’t work with my gods; I fulfill my duty by according them appropriate honor. Secondly, I’m not particularly fond of the implicit assumption that the gods can be neatly divided into discrete cultural packages. I guess some people suppose that gods are a consumer package like any other commodity -- you do a bit of comparison shopping, then choose the style you want (but be careful that they go with the 9-piece living room suite from Sears, and make sure you can afford the payments).
The older I get, the more I go back to the core set of beliefs I already had when I was 14, and the more I’m prepared to ignore all the fluff I’ve learned to tolerate since then. I think of myself as a polytheist. I have my own set of preferred personal and family gods, who happen to be Norse. But I don’t deny the existence of the others. In fact, I think a good case can be made that the Christian god and the Greek and Roman gods are the appropriate civic and cultural gods of America. If I occasionally offer a pinch of cornmeal to Tonantzin as Queen of the Americas, or a pinch of incense to Hermes as a patron of lawyers (and thieves), I don’t see that I’ve given offense to my family gods, and I certainly don’t think of myself as “working with more than one pantheon.”
In fine, it seems to me that all the hand-wringing on this subject is really only possible among people who aren’t polytheists in the traditional sense of the word, people who have some kind of new-agey “all the gods are one” philosophy. If you accept, as I do, the proposition that each of the gods is a distinct being, it’s only a short step to “spiritual over-insurance.”
Royal Roman ruins go back to age of myth
Newfound palace dates back to city’s legendary origin
ROME - Legend has it that Rome was founded in 753 B.C. by Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of Mars, the god of war, who were suckled as infants by a she-wolf in the woods. Now, archaeologists believe they have found evidence that at least the time frame for that tale may be true: Traces of a royal palace discovered in the Roman Forum have been dated to roughly the period of the eternal city’s legendary foundation.
By coincidence, tomorrow is the Quirinalia, a Roman festival honoring Quirinus, a Sabine god who came to be identified with Romulus.
I saved this piece for myself but now I don't remember where I found it, or if indeed the text here is quoted from Richard Reese.
by Richard Reese
The story of progress - that each generation is better than the one before it is about 200 years old. These 200 years have been the most tumultuous and destructive years in the history of the planet. In fact, the history of civilization is not a story of progress, but a story of continuous decline.
The Christian tradition begins in the Garden of Eden of the hunters and gatherers. The Fall symbolizes the dawn of civilization. Yahweh, a Semitic storm god, could see that farming was destroying Creation. For much of the Old Testament, he urges his Chosen People to destroy the hideous cities of the defilers of the Earth. But the farmers beat the nomads, and the Christian prophets tell us that we are now sitting in the shadows of an onrushing Armageddon.
In the Norse myths, it’s the same cycle. The human gods conquer the powerful forces of nature, rule for a while, then are destroyed by the revenge of nature at the battle of Ragnarok. The ancient Greeks saw human decline as a series of historic ages. Hesiod writes of the Golden Age: “They lived like gods, free from worry and fatigue; old age did not afflict them; they rejoiced in continual festivity.” This was followed by the Silver Age, a matriarchal era of agriculture, when men obeyed their mothers. This was followed by the Bronze Age, a patriarchal era of war : “Their pitiless hearts were as hard as steel; their might was untamable, their arms invincible.” This was followed by the Iron Age, a time “when men respect neither their vows, nor justice, nor virtue.”
Oct. 20, 2019: I find online a composition with the same title and apparently written by the same author, but the content is very different.
I must be missing something. I just don’t get this thing that some heathens have about tribes and kindreds. Oh, I totally get the importance of family in the heathen ethic. What I don’t get is how someone could think that he or she is authentically living that ethic by creating an artificial group based on a common religion. I would call that a community, not a kindred. I understand the concept of intentional communities. The idea of intentional kindreds or intentional tribes seems a bit forced. Okay -- more than a bit.
Still, I’m open to understanding if I can find someone who can explain cogently why it isn’t just some modernist silliness.
I’m in the minority here, being neither folkish nor modernist myself. I’m a heathen because it’s the proper religion for me, not because I have some special calling from the gods. My ancestors came from Sweden. My surname is my badge of membership in their kindred. If I want to follow a non-Christian path, the only proper path for me is the pre-Christian religion of my kindred. It doesn’t matter whether I get along with them. In fact, I have ongoing issues with a few of them. It doesn’t matter that many of them are Christian. They’re still my kindred. It does help that the gods planted in my heart a passion for Norse sagas. It also helps that my Mom instilled in us a proper respect for tomten and encouraged us to pray to our ancestors when we need help. (After a few martinis, she’ll also remind us that we’re descended from Freyr and it doesn’t hurt to thank him for our prosperity if we want it to continue.) Christian or not, it’s inevitable that I’d be required to pay the proper respect to the Elder Kin. And, being more of the not, really my only choice is how much I want to learn about my ancestral faith and the obligations that go with it. I can flirt with any religion or philosophy that takes my fancy (and I often do), but I can’t not give proper honor to the gods of my ancestors. It just wouldn’t be proper.
But that’s just me. I don’t expect anyone else to see things the same way. We see people whose surnames announce their membership in a Gaelic kindred taking leadership positions in heathen organizations, and no one thinks it’s odd that they choose to honor gods foreign to them. Or, perhaps they have some sort of maternal connection to the Germanic peoples but they don’t take it seriously enough to legally change their surname to associate themselves with those maternal kindreds. Or, they adopt illogical names -- like Thorsson when in fact they are not sons of a man named Thor. I have an online chum -- most of you know who she is -- who happens to have no known Scandinavian ancestry, but she takes her religion seriously. Unlike some people who merely pay lip service to the idea of kindred and honoring the gods, she changed her name to a properly Scandinavian name without the pretension of filiating as the daughter of a god or goddess. She would disagree, I think, but it seems to me that by changing her name she severed her kindred ties, at least as far as our gods are concerned, and brought herself before the gods as a new woman and an honorary Swede. Such stoutness of heart! Surely, this is the kind of approach to the gods that they would never deny.
One of the things that bothers me is that the heathens who talk about the importance of kindred don’t care as much about their own kindred as they do about participating in a modernist project to re-create a tribal society. They don’t seem to notice that our society uses hereditary surnames as a badge of kindred membership. And, for most of us, those surnames were adopted 800 years ago. So long ago, in fact, that they have moved from being indiciae of family membership, beyond badges of clan membership, and solidly into being tribal labels. My surname is only 250 years old, and the surnames of some of my Swedish cousins are less than 100 years old, but most Americans belong to British and Continental patrilineages going back to about 1200 CE. Yet, somehow, their heathen members don’t regard membership in these tribes as important. They want to create new tribes.
I dislike saying -- or even thinking -- that anyone is wrong in matters of faith. But, it’s pretty easy to be dysfunctional in such matters. I hope someone tells me I’m wrong. I’m hoping that someone can explain to me how ignoring your own kindred to create an artificial tribe is an authentic way of honoring your relatives and giving the gods their due.
Fritterfae responded:
Kin and kindred are people you are genetically related to, and who fall within your anthropologic structures of kinship. Would you include adopted children among your kin? And what about marriages that bring people of different ancestry or religious traditions together, are your in-laws among your kin?
Kith was another of those old terms that gets tied with kin a lot. Kith refers to your familiar friends, neighbors, and probably some of your relatives (perhaps the not-so-close ones).
But both of these are of anglo-saxon origin, so why don’t the heathens use an actual scandinavian term like “släkting” for actual relations or “själsfränder” for people of like mind and avoid that silly confusion.
As for tribes of intention, I think that’s a valid distinction. The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, http://www.unpo.org/, has members that include:
“indigenous peoples, occupied nations, minorities and independent states or territories who have joined together to protect their human and cultural rights, preserve their environments, and to find non-violent solutions to conflicts which affect them.”
Radical Faeries have discussed at length their identity as tribe, and whether or not we should actively consider ourselves a separate people. Why? When we have no established qualifications as members of the tribe, we can’t decide on who or what is Faerie, we have these constant splits over what we do and don’t do as a group, etc. etc. There’s something in our spirit that tells us we are among these people. Does that mean we reject or disrespect our heritage, our families, no. We take on additional names, sometimes even changing our names legally to our Faerie names, does this mean we disrespect what we were given at birth, no, we have discovered ourselves. At least that’s how I see it.
But I’m of the touchy-feely Pagans, as well as a moral relativist. No conviction is so firm as to be unflexible with me. So, take my explanations as you will.
Then I said:
My post might have been a bit clearer if I had taken time - as you have - to define kith and kin, then made the point that intentional tribes are really kiths, not kindreds. Uncountable years ago I belonged to a wicca group called Cyth Dana, which was the founder’s version of Community of the Goddess Danu ;)
Would you include adopted children among your kin? And what about marriages that bring people of different ancestry or religious traditions together, are your in-laws among your kin?
Of course I would include adopted children. Else what would be the point of adoption? It might take some work, but I think you could fairly extrapolate from what I wrote that I regard the surname as the determinative factor for membership in a kindred, and that would naturally include anyone adopted into the kindred. I’m not much impressed with arguments that family is defined by blood. It seems to me, rather, that families are defined by cultural structures - which is why the surname is the badge of membership.
As for in-laws, history shows that the Germanic peoples took marriage so seriously in part because it linked the ørlög of two families. In the oldest literature, one often sees children being named for, say, an uncle by marriage, or the father’s father-in-law from a previous marriage. No blood relationship to the new child. What was being honored was the union of the fates of the two families. The child was thereby linked not just to its own kin, but also to the kins of its affinal relatives.
Radical Faeries have discussed at length their identity as tribe, and whether or not we should actively consider ourselves a separate people.
Not my place to judge a system that works for you, but I am willing to say that in my opinion the Radical Faeries are an intentional community of people called out of the common herd by the gods. It would be impious not to honor that call on its own terms. I personally have too much American Indian in me to be troubled by any Anglo prejudice against having as many names as you can wring out of the universe. Every additional name, in my book, is its own dose of power. But, when you legally change to your Faerie name, you are changing your relationship to your kindred. I’m assuming that the name someone would take is something other than the name of a maternal kindred, so to my way of thinking the change severs the primary tie to kin, and replaces it with a primary identity as a Radical Faerie. As a heathen, it would trouble me greatly to do something like that, but I can understand that personal identity as a Radical Faerie could take first place for some people. Whether the change is disrespectful or a rejection of kindred is something the individual would have to work out between himself, his kin and his gods. If you’re not starting from a heathen premise that family plays a primary role in religion, I’m not sure that a heathen perspective is even relevant.
But I’m of the touchy-feely Pagans, as well as a moral relativist. No conviction is so firm as to be unflexible with me. So, take my explanations as you will.
I’m glad you took the time to comment. When I wrote this entry, I never expected to have the challenge of thinking about the Radical Faery perspective. I could never be one of you, but I have a special place in my heart for the spirit embodied by the Radical Faeries.
Wednesbury reponded:
Well, I have to admit that I see nothing wrong with trying to re-create a tribal society myself. I don’t see anything dysfunctional in it, although I will admit that at best all we can achieve at the moment are proto-tribes. My thought is that since ancient heathendom was originally practised in a tribal setting, then the same should hold true for modern heathendom. If this is indeed the case (and it is possible that i am wrong), then the best idea would be try to re-create a tribal society.
Here I must stress that I differentiate between kindred and tribe. One’s kindred is one’s blood kin or those that have been legally adopted into the family. One’s tribe is a group of people, not all of whom are going to be necessarily related by blood, with whom one shares a common history, heritage, et. al.
Anyhow, I have to disagree with you that “who talk about the importance of kindred don’t care as much about their own kindred as they do about participating in a modernist project to re-create a tribal society.” My kindred, whether heathen or not, is central to me. And it seems to be for most theodisc types. One cannot have a tribe without kindreds. I am lucky to have heathen who are part of Miercinga who are related to me by blood. As to my Christian relatives, I simply regard them as non-participants in the tribe.
Of course, the one flaw I can see in trying to re-create any sort of tribal society is that it is going to be somewhat artificial at the outset. I think at best what we are doing now is creating proto-tribes that may one day become full fledged tribes. But I do think it is a worthwhile project. And I don’t see it at all in conflict with blood kinship--in fact kinship is needed if it is to succeed at all.
Then I said:
Just so we understand each other, I also see no problem with trying to re-create a tribal society. My issue is only with the means.
The problem I see with current efforts is that they treat tribe as synonymous with a type of particularly close community, when in fact tribes were larger kinship groups, albeit fictive in many cases.
I’m not up on current anthropological theories but back in the day when I was studying, tribes were thought to have formed around a core kinship group. While there was probably a large accession by recruitment, one of the salient features was the fiction of a common descent from a semi-divine eponymous ancestor - the Saxons from Saxnot, the Ingvaeones from Ingvi, and so on. Among the Teutons, kingship was elective but only from among the male members of a sacral family, almost certainly the family around whom the proto-tribe coalesced, and to whom new members were tied by bounds of adoption, marriage and conquest.
It strikes me as a bit disingenuous to posit a necessary connection between tribalism and religion, then ignore the pieces such as a common descent and a sacral dynasty that would have mattered most to our ancestors. I’m sympathetic to the dilemma that these elements, if necessary, could be an almost insurmountable barrier to creating modern tribes. Nevertheless, I have to think that what matters is the whole system, not just the easy parts.
Of course, none of this will be anything new to you. The piece that’s missing for me is how you get from here to your particular brand of tribalism.
When I think about the ways tribalism might be re-energized (not re-created), I think about the Scottish clans. My understanding is that they are actually tribes, the word clan having taken on another meaning among anthropolgists and ethnographers. They have the fiction of a common descent (which is nevertheless an actual descent, at least in the maternal lines for many clan members). And, they have chiefly families, some of whom are desendants of ancient dynasts. Indeed, if I remember correctly, McLean of Duart is thought by many historians to be descended in the male line from the Yngling dynasty of Uppsala.
My own bit of tribalism extends only as far as memberhip in the Clan Sinclair Association. I am descended - maternally - from the Sinclairs, and through them from the ancient Jarls of Orkney, from whom the Sinclairs derived their Earldom. If I were ever to be tempted into a tribalist project, I think it might be a cooperative project with other Sinclair heathens (or some other family group with whom I have an actual familial connection). Considering the high interest many Sinclairs have in their Norse heritage, I don’t think it’s an unlikely scenario.
And he said:
Well, I’m not sure that current efforts do treat tribe simply as type of particularly close type of community. The Ealdriht and the groups that emerged from it were always aware of the importance of kinship. Whether by design or by coincidence, I am related to a good number of my fellow theodsmen. Some of those relationships are very close--Swain is my brother. In other cases, the relationship are more distant--Brian is my second cousin. In some cases they are so distant that we simply share descent from Penda and Alfred through William the Bastard. But there are relationships there and they have always played an important role in the Ealdriht and now the groups descended from it.
The problem is that not everyone who wishes to be part of any given tribe (or proto-tribe, as the case may be) are not going to be necessarily related blood. I could not seriously see restricting membership of a tribe to blood relations as this would seem too restrictive to growth. Ultimately, while blood is important, there are other matters, such a shared belief system, shared customs, shared history, that are as important. Besides which, I see a tribe as composed of kindreds, of extended families. Not everyone in a tribe is going to be a close relation, or even a slightly distant one.
Anyway, I see it, this is something that will take time. Over time we will establish our own customs and develop our own shared history. People will marry and have children. This is how I see us achieving a truly tribal society. I admit that it is going to be difficult and it is not without obstacles, but I honeatly think that it can be done.
And I said:
Well argued. Although I disagree, I think it’s only fair to let yours be the last word.
Wodening responded:
Well, I know you were going to let Eric’s be the last word here, but I have something to add. I think part of the problem is we are seeing tribes differently. The Clan Sinclair is a clan.... not a tribe. In our particular brand of neo-tribalism we break it down into tribe, clan, family, or in our own Anglo-Saxon terms, þ&eacure;od; sibb, mægð. The sibb could also be called a kindred. Your mægð are folks immediately related to you; brothers, sisters, first cousins, aunts, uncles, mother, and father. The sibb are all related to you out to five or eight generations (for example Brian Smith of Néoweanglia is mine and Eric’s sixth cousin by blood). The þ&eacure;od; are all those that claim a common line of descent no matter how common, share a common history, and a common identity. Now this is the only place we really have to stretch things. Instead of claiming a common descent as the ancient tribes did with ancestors like Ingvi, Irmin, and Esta (mentioned in Taticus’ Germanic), we are more vague... folks that are of English descent OR participate in an English derived culture.
All that aside House Wodening, our sibb, is very much the sort of thing you were talking about with a theorerical cooperative project with other Sinclair Heathens. So we are indeed approaching it in a way you seem to think we should. Beyond that, I think we may simply be using terms differently.
Welgá!
Swain
Then he added:
Well, I think part of the problem is that Asatruar in American decades ago adopted the term kindred without really thinking about what it meant. What they were really trying to say I think was tribe or, at least community. Believe me though there has been go arounds in the Heathen community about the true meaning of the word kindred.
As to forming an articial [sic] tribe, whose to say that means throwing off your own true kindred and ignoring them is part of forming a tribe? The majority of my family are Xian as are my wife’s, and we are still very much a part of them, and yet, also very much a part of our Heathen tribe. I simply cannot see where you are coming up with one would have to ignore their own family in order to form a Heathen tribe.
Maybe it is different in the path you have chose, but in Germanic Heathenry probably 90% of the folks I know still feel they are a part of their real (birth, genetic, what have you) family, Xian or not.
I responded:
I don’t know why I’m so disappointed in yours and Eric’s response. I guess I just thought there’d be more. I’ve thought on and off all day about how best to respond. The easy answers would be to let myself be distracted by the details -- Do you really think the Anglo-Saxon mægð is well-enough understood be considered a subunit of the Sippe/sibb? How do their traditionally cognatic structures play into your use of them as subunits of a tribe? Or perhaps you do not envision the tribe you’re creating as agnatic? Why have you set the limit of the sibb so much further than the Anglo-Saxons seem to have done? Why do you disagree with the contemporary schools of thought that define the Scottish clans as tribes? Looking at your descent from Penda, which I assume is one of the scholarly conjectures currently in favor, where did you find one that passes through William the Bastard?
I’d love to know the answers to these questions, and others, but I would be doing injury to our topic if I went off on a tangent.
I’m sympathetic to many of your arguments, but you seem to be glossing over my principal concerns. As I read your comments, it seems to me that the bottom-line answer is that you’re choosing the path that seems practical. Perhaps you regret a few of the compromises you are making, but you regard them as necessary to achieve your goal. (It’s taking a bit of reading between the lines, so correct me if I’m wrong.)
You and Eric both objected to me saying that forming a modernist tribe amounts to throwing off your own kindred. I think you mis-read or misundstood my meaning. I don’t want to patronize you, but I do want to be very clear about this point, and I’m not sure how accustomed you are to thinking about kinship in scholarly terms (as opposed, let’s say, to educated terms).
Each of us belongs to a named lineage, typically agnatic. This lineage is marked by the use of a particular surname. It should not be confused with a bilateral kinship group (that is, with the relatives you think of as your relatives on both sides). If your surname is English, and I assume it is, it’s probably about 800 years old -- perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less. You were born into that group. And, here’s where the misunderstanding seems to arise.
I am not saying that forming modern tribes involves a rejection of your aunts and uncles and cousins -- your bilateral kinship group. I’m saying that forming a modern tribe with people of different agnatic lineages -- different surnames -- evidences a disrespect for the lineage you were born into.
Just to play the devil’s advocate for a moment, you could respond that Rice Miercinga is composed primarily of people who trace their surname line back to the area of Mercia, with a few folks here and there who have been formally adopted and changed their surname. I could have very little objection to that, except to churlishly quibble about whether such a project should be centered in Mercia. If you were to add that arrungs take into account a person’s proven descent from the nobility of Mercia, at whatever period, and that you see House Wodening becoming the sacral family for the tribe -- well, I might not personally want to join your project, but I would hold it in high esteem as an authentic reconstruction project.
My real, heartfelt objection to modern tribalism is that there is no way to claim on behalf of your entire named lineage that you belong to this tribe or that. It is only possible to subtract small sub lineages from their authentic surname group and attach them to new groups.
