Blood brotherhood
A blood brotherhood is, in the historical sense, a ritual union ( sworn brotherhood ) of two unrelated men, which is concluded by the ceremonial mixing of drops of blood between them.
Blood brotherhood in different cultures
Blood brotherhoods play a role in various traditional cultures as well as in modern times. Through the blood brotherhood, a special bond between blood brothers is to be achieved, which is otherwise only present in biological brothers . The covenant thus concluded is intended to provide them with the same rights and duties as a couple of brothers. This means that the covenant, once concluded, can no longer be repealed.
The blood brotherhood was the closest connection between two men among the Teutons . The participants pledged to stand by each other unconditionally in their daily life and to be able to rely on the fact that one stood by the other in every imaginable situation with unshakable loyalty and inexhaustible help. Friends held a high position in the Germanic clan thought, but with the blood brotherhood they became real brothers. The blood brotherhood also included the care of the blood brother's wife and children.
The way in which blood is mixed varies from culture to culture. There is, among other things, the reciprocal drinking of the blood pressed out of a tiny stab wound and mixed with water from a vessel (in Mongols ).
In a Germanic ritual, the upper body and feet were bared. The participants sat / stood in a dug hole in the ground (the earth is the mother of life and so the two were symbolically reborn). After the incision was made on the inside of an arm, the wounds were compressed under a spoken oath. With the Teutons it was also customary to let some blood drip into their own footprints. Then a few drops of blood were added to mead or beer (sometimes local soil was also added to the mead / beer). The two took turns drinking from the drinking cup. The first and last sip of the libation belonged to the divine powers and were poured onto the earth. The wounds were then treated with birch leaves and bark.
Historical blood brothers are for example Temüdschin, later known as Genghis Khan, and his childhood friend and later rival Jamukha (Jamucha) Gurkhan . The ritual consisted of exchanging a personal gift and drinking the blood mixed with milk from a mug.
A blood brother couple known from literature are Winnetou and Old Shatterhand , fictional characters of the writer Karl May . In the Terra-X documentation "Karl May" from 2010 and also on the website of the science magazine Geo it is corrected that the blood brotherhood was never known among North American Indian tribes. However, the Apache chief Cochise and Tom Jeffords are referred to as blood brothers on their funerary monuments.
hazards
The exchange of blood during the ritual can transmit diseases such as HIV or hepatitis .
literature
- Leopold Hellmuth: The Germanic blood brotherhood. A typological and ethnological comparison. Viennese works on Germanic antiquity and philology. Vol. 7. Halosar, Vienna 1975, Red Drache Edition, Rudolstadt 2010 (repr.). ISBN 3-900269-03-3 , ISBN 3-939459-48-8
- Dieter Strauch: Oath friendship . In: Heinrich Beck u. a. (Ed.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 27. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, pp. 611–618. (P. 612 with further literature). ISBN 3-11-018116-9
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karl May's Indian vocabulary and their actual meaning (accessed on December 7, 2014).
- ^ Cochise in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 8, 2017.