The Religion of the Warband
Kalin
The Männerbund and its ever-evolving tradition
The ancient warbands of the Indo-European peoples are integral to understanding the way of our forefathers and understanding ancient law of the early tribes spreading from Proto-Indo-Europeans. What Gods did they worship? In what way did they worship? How did they live? and what was their role in ancient civilizations and tribes?All this will be explained to the best of our ability in this article. As a brief introduction to the concept, they were an ancient tradition of warriordom that was lawless, swift and animal-like. Associated with darkness, trickery and death, ironically they were responsible for taking the lands we now call our home (or ancestral home), and some of the most heroic of men were born from this tradition which was carried on in every Indo-European culture. These traditions could even be tied to the beginning of monastic knightly orders stemming from organizations like the Jomsvikings and many other similar warbands. They were mostly made up of aristocratic landless youth, who formed groups of warriors and would take land quickly and violently, taking on the traits of certain animals, in some cultures eventually policing in the lands they had conquered. This was actually an initiation into the warrior caste of Indo-European society, which let the young become—and wage war as—animals before taking on the duties of men with land, families, and responsibility. These themes, although lacking the pagan and animal-like features, seem to reoccur in European history especially in the renaissance and beyond.
Beliefs
The beliefs of these warbands were often deeper and more devotional to the Gods than those of the common folk due to their closeness to nature, living on the outskirts of their realms. But there are specific Gods that can be traced to these warbands, and a special mythos ascribed to them that was preserved in different ways in the post-Christian era. In Germanic culture it was Wotan, or Óðinn in Old Norse, as well as Perchta, possibly an early continental form of Frigg, who is Óðinn's wife. Both of them have folklore relating them to the Wild Hunt, which is a recurring motif in mythology, where there is a host of wild dogs and men led by a mythical hero or deity, often called a soul raving. This even has a cognate in North America with the Ghost Riders. In Irish and Celtic literature, it is Fionn who is leader of the Fianna, and before that his father Cumall (cognate with Camulus from Roman inscriptions). In Armenian myth it was Aram, son of Hayek, who formed the first Männerbund and later was possibly merged with the Iranian Ahura-Mazda, turning into Aramazd. We can infer that they generally worshipped chthonic deities as well, that is deities associated with death and the underworld. The krypteia of ancient Sparta actually worked as a Secret Service, dressing in all black and sleeping exposed to the elements, as well as living off the land. They would attack and slaughter the helots (slaves) for practice as well as to ensure their submission. The Athenians had a similar tradition for some epheboi, who also lived on the outskirts of society, were lightly armed, and wore black tunics. Often they would hunt at night as a tradition and subsist on its nourishment to train in the art of killing.
Worship
The way of worship of the Indo-European warbands was most likely based off the sacrifice of dogs or wolves because of their association with packs and death. This happened often near the winter solstice, the month of October was even called Month of Wolf Men in certain Germanic traditions. The berserkers were frenzied warriors devoted to Óðinn, who may have taken substances like black henbane to induce this crazed state. Depictions often show them with wolf heads or biting the edge of their shields, showing their animal-like traits and adding to their frightful reputation. At Lykaios, certain clans of epheboi would engage in an ancient rite of passage every nine years, which would involve mixing a human’s entrails with those of an animal sacrificed to Zeus; the boy who ate the human entrails would transform into a wolf, would have to live as one in the wild for nine years and not kill a human in order to be transformed into a man again. In Sparta, young boys in training would sacrifice a puppy to Ares before a one-on-one fight with no rules. This dog sacrifice is recorded in some of the earliest Indo-European archaeological sites, with these speculated to have happened in cold, harsh periods of the year. Several sources also mention dog-like priests in Greco-Roman religions. Priests of the cult of Soranus, a Sabine and Etruscan God identified with Apollo, as well as those of Dīs Pater, practiced firewalking and would ritually dance wrapped in the entrails of wolves. In Vedic tradition, boys from age of eight would study heroic stories and practice fighting until the age of 16 when they entered a winter solstice ritual and ritually died in a state of frenzy to be reborn as dogs of war; their leader was chosen by rolling a die. They were cast out to steal food, women, dogs, and territory for four years until the summer solstice, when they ended their raiding. This archetype is associated with Indra and the band of Maruts, sons and followers of Rudra, the God of the Vedic Männerbund associated with war, thunder and death.
Way of life
The way of life of a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European kóryos is that outside the laws of normal society, as addressed throughout this article. The Fianna would roam the countryside for spring and summer and return to the homes of their noble families for lodging and food in the winter months to celebrate holidays. They were often associated with trickery, swift violence, all around animal-, more specifically wolf-like behavior. The association of dogs and wolves with death is most obviously portrayed by mythological canines such as the dog Cerberus, who guards the Greek underworld, and the wolf Fenrir and his kin in Norse myth. The Männerbünde of old would also be considered lawless and take women, land and all manner of goods from the enemy in the name of expansion. It is theorized that the kóryos are responsible, in part, for taking the land of what is now Europe from its non-IE inhabitants. They lived off hunting for sustenance, supplementing with what food they were able to take from their enemies, and they lived in the wild. Most of their attacks were launched at night in the form of ambushes, a sort of ancient special forces if you will.
Role in a proper civilization
In later civilization they bore an almost remarkable similarity to the Japanese ninja, who dressed in black and did things outside the code of a warrior, such as mercenary work, theft, ambushes, and espionage. They even had a relationship with Vedic deities due to their form of Buddhism, which worshipped them. This is more plainly seen in the later evolution of the Germanic bodyguards, who worked as mercenaries for various emperors, many of whom were Christians. The legendary Jomsvikings were in fact an order of monastic mercenaries who did not permit women and children within their fortress, and were solely devoted to the Gods and battle. These types of orders are a precedent for orders like the Teutonic Knights and many other chivalric orders such as the Knights of the Golden Fleece, who were very much pagan-influenced. While losing much of the animal nature of the true kóryos, knightly orders evolved with the behavioral code of chivalry, a more lawful form of knighthood and made this warrior tradition more closely associated with the Law of God(s).
Conclusion
This very important part of our culture, a coming of age, an initiation into manhood, has all but been stripped from our comfortable societies, but seems to reoccur in our modern age from time to time when it is needed most. The Gods do know this age is unjust, and maybe what we need these days are Fiannas and Männerbünde, in a world ruled by tyrants who wish to see us wiped from the face of the Earth. In the end I think they will come again and be stronger then ever. Hopefully, they will help us reestablish our place in the world and the true meaning of our beliefs. We also have to thank the scholars who have uncovered their lives and practices ranging from Proto-Indo-European steppe madmen to the Holy Knights of the Grail in King Arthur's service. This also can be seen in the modern wars we fight today with the kóryos possibly being an ancient form of special forces unit that specialized in stealth, intelligence and brutality.
Bibliography
Tracing the Indo-Europeans: New evidence from archaeology and historical linguistics p.97
"Armenian Traditional Black Youths: the Earliest Sources". Journal of Indo-European Studies