Re: Vojing and voding

From: Torsten
Message: 66285
Date: 2010-07-10

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "t0lgs001" <tolgs001@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> >This also means that the two senses are not immobile and mutually
> >exclusive, they are stages in the development af a function as
> >changed by outer circumstances. In other words, in an established
> >sedentary state, a Heeres-führer
>
> Heeresführer (without hyphenation) is 100% OK.

Erh, I kind of knew that, but there are people reading here who don't know German.


> >under a duke/Herzog might be 'mere' but in the nomadic
> >people/army (where the people *is* the army) the Herzog and the
> >Heeres-führer is the same person (Attila, Djengis Khan etc).
>
> A "bit" above the "mere" rank of a "general". Esp. such leaders as
> Attila, Temüdjin-Djingis, who were kagans of the khans (some
> kind of "shah-in-shah"). Moreover, many of them were perceived
> by their underlings as members of (even "ancient") "royal" clans
> (often of Scythian extraction) or at least of "white" (noble)
> tribes.


You have a tendency to ignore what I write and substitute what you think. The *ŋWod- would be the whole people, inasmuch as they are on a single campaign. The *ŋWod-in- is its leader, and there's no implication in that of a subdivided hierarchy.


> They weren't always simple "meritocrats".

I don't understand what you are trying to say, other than that it seems you are still distinguishing between civilian and military 'imperium' which is meaningless in a nomadic society at war.

> (AFAIK even Arminius wasn't "hoi-polloi". And some Sarmatians who
> disappeared in Germanic masses also had their own clan symbols =
> tamgas, didn't they?)

And?

> Even in today's governments: often the Heeresführer is the
> minister or secretary of Defense, but his senior colleague, the
> president of the cabinet or the president of the state, is often
> the "supreme chief of the armed forces." (Much the more in
> medieval times the monarch as compared with his carrier of
> the "spatha".)

Civilian society, so irrelevant.


> So, in Asian terms, Odin, if not a deity, but a "prophet", might
> have been a kakhan (kagan) "king of kings" and at the same
> time tarkhan "chief over metallurgy (weapons) and shamanic or
> religious matters" (usually, a tarkhan was a "viceroy" or kind of a
> duke or a Herzog in Western terms). (Unfortunately, I am not
> quite acquainted with the corresponding Scythian-Sarmatian-Alan
> & Persian termini. I vaguely remember only "ban", seemingly
> introduced by Avar's Bayan, and bäg/beg/bey.)

You might be interested in Germanic kingship then
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_monarchy
No distinction between the military, judicial and religious function.

I haven't looked into matters Turkic, which I probably should have done. In this case, however, it doesn't seem relevant.


> George
>
> PS: Anyway, the assumptions "water + hunting" seem quite an
> den Haaren herbeigezogen. Warriors "castes" usually used other
> metaphors in order to illustrate their prowess. Esp. those mounted
> ones in the East, whose beloved symbols were eagles and other
> accipiter-like birds (mythical symbols for many "royal" clans of
> the steppes, esp. the Tögrül bird), the lion, the leopard (cf.
> Turkic names Baybars), the Cervidae (the founding mythical
> symbol for the Hungarians, along with the kartal eagle, the symbol
> of the founding dynasty) and, of course, the horse. Even Goths,
> Gepids et al. borrowed these accipiter symbols & customs (see
> their ornaments and jewelry). The famous Vandals were actually an
> Alan-Vandal symbiosis, as was the Goth-Alan one that founded
> Catalonia. (They were ahead of their times as far as chivalry, the
> long joust lance techniques (against which the Roman legionnaire was
> a consummate victim), the long sword, the curved sabre, esp. the
> Scythian bow and the "arkan" lasso on a pole. Compared to that,
> what could have been a swamp and marsh hopping "Recke" that hid
> in forests? Perhaps a... hit-and-run guerrilla fighter. :-))


He would have been, after the pre-Indo-European, Pre-Uralic civilization, which lived on the rivers before the advent of cavalry and which coined the phrase, disappeared. But the word survived.

cf. the discussion of the reflexes of *ŋW- (> *w-, *n-, *m-) starting at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62123
more here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/63784


Torsten