Blacksmith in culture
Blacksmith in culture encompasses the prominent social position and cultural-historical significance that the blacksmith has been given since ancient times in Asia, Africa and Europe beyond his work as a craftsman. In Ugaritic and Phoenician texts there is talk of divine forges; in the Old Testament are the first blacksmith Tubal-Cain , his brother Jubal as the inventor of musical instruments and the other brother Jabal as the progenitor of the nomads at the beginning of the cultures of the East formative mythical and - as in the Middle East Bedouins belonging solluba - real triple connection . King David , who makes kinnor music with the lyre , is also presented in the Bible as a blacksmith and is adopted in this function by the Koran . The togetherness of blacksmithing and music permeates many myths and customs of the Orient and Africa.
In ancient Greece, Hephaestus was revered as the god of fire and as a bringer of culture and the legend of Pythagoras in the forge gives an explanation for the introduction of music theory that was repeated many times into the Middle Ages, but only apparently rational . Blacksmiths appear as the inventors of agriculture and, like shamans , healers and magicians, as "representatives of the sacred". An ambivalent and always distant relationship between the majority society and the group of blacksmiths makes them, in accordance with the double meaning of the Latin word sacer (“holy, consecrated” and “cursed”), an impure and despised caste of craftsmen, but in some regions of Africa it is on an equal footing with sacred royalty Social class that is treated with respect.
In the Germanic creation stories , the gods set up forges before humans were created to make tools. The term "blacksmith" is derived from Old Norse smiðr , which means someone who created (precious) objects. The verb að smíða ("forge") was used synonymously with að skapa ("[he] to create") in the early Germanic scripts , thus "blacksmith" and "creator" corresponded. Among the fairy tales of dwarfs, those of invisible, forging dwarfs, whose hammering can be heard in mountain caves, stand out. In some superstitious ideas, the blacksmith makes a covenant with the devil. Where there is still traditional blacksmithing, it is often mandatory to observe certain customs and avoidance laws.
Two associative strands can be worked out for the cultural-historical complex of topics of the blacksmith: 1) Blacksmith - fire and heat - thunderstorms, rain and fertility - deities that are lame on the feet - sacrifices. 2) Blacksmith - magical powers - connection to the world beyond - initiation ritual. Both strands are connected by the pursuit of salvation and healing.
Ancient oriental and ancient myths
Tubal-Cain and David in the Bible
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According to the Bible, Cain was a farmer and Abel a shepherd. According to Gen 4 EU, one of the descendants of Cain was named Lamech . He had two wives and three sons, each of whom emerged as the creator of one of the three main cultural techniques of the nomadic societies of the time. From the connection with the first wife, Ada , Jabal , the ancestor of the nomads, inventor of the tents and herds, and Jubal , the inventor of musical instruments were born. Goats were born in the area of the Fertile Crescent , which the biblical stories are about, from around 8000 BC. Domesticated, followed a little later by sheep and some time later by cattle, the presence of which indicates a sedentary, rural population. The camel does not appear before 1200 BC. To have been domesticated; the oldest Mesopotamian royal inscription in which the camel is mentioned is from around 1060 BC. On the other hand, the donkey - but not the camel - appears on several clay tablets from the 18th century BC found in Mari . Chr. On. The domestication of the wild ass from Africa took place before the 3rd millennium BC. Instead of. At the time when the biblical story is set, the donkey must have been the nomads' pack animal and Jabal appears as the mythical first donkey breeder.
With the second wife, Zilla, Lamech fathered Tubal-Cain , the first iron and coppersmith , and the daughter Naama . As descendants of Cain, they belong to the nomadic tribe of the Kenites . In the word combination Tubal-Cain, Tubal is interpreted as the proper name, with the addition of Kain indicating the descent and serving to differentiate it from other namesake: from Tubal , the son of Jafet or from the Tibarenes on the southern Black Sea coast mentioned in Greek sources . In the Septuagint , however, Tubal-Cain is represented as Thobel, so -kain may have been added afterwards. These similar-sounding names are derived from the Hebrew verb stem ybl, "flow", "bring" back. The Tibarenes, which were called Tabal in Akkadian and were known for metalworking, are linguistically related to Tubal with an assumed sound shift from l to r . In Ez 27.13 EU Tubal (also Tabal), Jawan ( Ionian ) and Meschech ( Phrygians , mentioned as Muschki in an inscription by Tiglat-Pileser I , r. 1114-1076) in connection with copper processing and slaves. The name Tabal is traced back to Sumerian TIBIRA, "blacksmith". The Akkadian king Naram-Sin (late 3rd millennium BC) mentions a mountain Tibar near Aram in northwestern Mesopotamia . The Meschech (Phrygians) also had to do with metalworking, which is evidenced by the name muschkênu for a social group to which the blacksmiths belonged in Babylon .
The reading of Tubal-Kain as a double name is based on the etymological connection to the Arabic word qain with the context of meaning "blacksmith", from which the professional title "Tubal the blacksmith" results. The Arabic consonant root qyn ("forge", "to be a blacksmith") includes the word qān , which is contained in the formulation qān al hadīda , "owner of iron", meaning "blacksmith". Qyn also occurs in the meaning of "sing", as do related words in Hebrew, Syriac and Ethiopian . This includes the Arabic female form qaina (Pl. Qiyān ), which stands for "musician" and the valued "singing girl" of Arabic musical culture . This creates an etymological connection between Tubal Cain and music beyond the relationship to his brother Jubal. The related stems qyn and qnn can be related to the root qn , which generally stands for “craft”, “work” and the tools required. Since a professionally practiced craft was the matter of the slaves among the Arab tribes, the singing girls, whose “craftsmanship” consisted of entertaining dance and singing, are characterized as slaves and servants. Analogously, qyn in Aramaic is derived from qināna (primarily “blacksmith”, “goldsmith”), qīnā or qīnthā (“melody”, “song”, “song”) and Hebrew qana (“song”). The Arab philosopher al-Masʿūdī (around 895–957) mentions that in Arabic tradition the blacksmith Tubal-Kain is also ascribed the invention of musical instruments, namely the drums. Jubal is said to have invented the two most important groups of instruments, the wind and string instruments. Since the three biblical brothers, donkeys, blacksmiths and music have been in a mythical and socio-cultural connection that has been significant for oriental nomadism until recently.
The Arab singing girls belong to a mythical tradition of women decorating, singing and dancing who appear as seductresses and are called "daughters of Cain" with reference to Naama. The story of the women who lead to sin among the Kenites and their diabolical nature is spread in the treasure cave , an apocryphal script probably from the 4th century AD. In this context, commentaries on the Bible pointed out the similarity between Tubal-Cain and the Roman god of fire and the blacksmith Vulcan, as well as between Naama and the Roman goddess of love Venus .
King David is known as a player of the lyre kinnor , author of the David psalms and inventor of musical instruments after 1 Chr 23.5 EU . In 1 Sam 13.19 EU , David is also placed in a relationship with iron processing. The Philistines , dominated by iron war chariots , had kidnapped all the Israelites' blacksmiths and dominated the region until David conquered Edom and with the ore deposits there was able to lift the Philistine monopoly on iron. According to 1 Chr 22.3 EU , David had a lot of iron and bronze brought in in preparation for the building of the Jerusalem temple . David appears more clearly as a blacksmith in the Islamic tradition, where he is called Dāwūd. In Sura 34:10 , Dāwūd is a singer with a melodious voice and an armourer who makes chain armor .
David becomes around 1000 BC Historically located. According to the relevant Bible and Koran passages, iron must have been known to the Israelites at that time and also used to make weapons. During the fight between David and Goliath , the giant owned an iron spear according to ( 1 Sam 17.6 EU ), the point of which weighed 600 shekels . When they left Egypt, however , the nomadic Israelites do not seem to have had any iron, at least none of the iron items they brought with them are mentioned. No iron was used to set up the Mishkan , the transportable shrine of the Israelites, and afterEx, 27 19 , iron was not allowed to be used for this, only bronze. As an explanation for the prohibition - originally for the lack of iron - a "divine command" was introduced in Ex 20.25 EU , according to which the temple is desecrated using tools made of iron, which is otherwise the material of weapons. Presumably the Israelites got the knowledge of iron processing from one of their neighboring peoples, most likely from the Philistines. One of these at the end of the 2nd millennium BC According to Waldemar Belck (1907), iron-processing peoples could assign the mythical Thubal-Cain by name. For this supposed etymology he used the similar-sounding name of the Phoenician king Etbaal (Itubaal).
Kothar in Ugaritic mythology
In Ugaritic mythology , dating back to the 2nd millennium BC, BC on the Syrian Mediterranean coast in Ugarit and later with the Phoenicians , the god of the craftsmen and smiths Kothar has a close relationship with Kinyras , a musician and in particular a lyre player in Greek mythology . He builds the palace of Ba'al , makes furniture decorated with gold and silver and forges the weapons with which Ba'al defeats his brother Jam in battle. The name Kothar identifies the Ugaritic god as a creative craftsman and experienced specialist. Kothar is related to Hebrew kāsēr, “to succeed”, and Akkadian kasāru, “to restore, to be successful”. He also bears the Ugaritic double name Kothar-Chasis, in which the second component of Akkadian chasāsu , "clever" and "to be wise" could be derived. The vocalized to Kothar KTR the Ugaritic consonantal script is denominated in Akkadian Kusar and Phoenician Kusor . The Phoenician historian Herennios Philon , who cites a certain Sanchuniathon , gives the name in Greek with Chusor and equates the god, whose home Memphis was, with Hephaestus. He describes Chusor as the inventor of iron processing, who also knows poetic language, magic spells and divination. Poetry and evocation were accompanied by music, so the blacksmith god is related to music and song. Linguistically, Kothar is connected to the Kotarat ( ktrt , "experienced"), the professional singers, mourners and advisers of Ugarit.
Kinyras, the mythical king of Cyprus, is considered to be the player of a lyre ; his name is connected to kinnor, the Hebrew lyre, via the consonant root knr , and its name in turn is connected to the Greek lyre kithara . With this kithara is linguistically placed in a Phoenician tradition of Kothar. According to Pliny (in Naturalis historia , 7, 195), Kinyras also founded ore mining in Cyprus and invented the tools required for metal processing: pliers, hammer, lever and anvil.
Cybele from Phrygia
In the vicinity of the Phrygian mother god Cybele, there are some demons and deities whose common features were orgiastic cults, magic with natural forces and the mastery of ore processing. An essential common cult element is the weapon dance with the loud musical instruments aulos (double wind instrument), kymbala ( cymbal ), krotala (wooden rattle ) and rhombos (plural rhomboi , buzzing device ). For Strabo (63 BC - 23 AD), the most ecstatic weapon dancers were the Curetes , Korybanten , Kabiren , Idean Dactyls and Telchins . The Curetes from Crete performed a wild war dance to drown out the screams of the newborn god Zeus with its noise , so that the infant in their care would not be discovered by his bloodthirsty father Kronos . It was by striking lances and shields that the curetes invented the weapon dance. This has a mythical relationship with the manufacture of weapons and ore processing. Correspondingly, the Curetes appear in Diodorus (middle of the 1st century BC) as the inventors of the manufacture of weapons and helmets. According to Diodorus, the Idaean dactyls learned metalworking directly from Cybele. It is said that they invented the use of fire and discovered copper and iron deposits on the mythical mountain Berekynthos. Diodor locates the Berekynthos on Crete , where there is neither a mountain of the same name nor ore finds - presumably a confusion with the Phrygian people of the Berekynthians, because it can be shown that Strabo located the Idaean dactyls by name on the Phrygian mountain Ida .
Because Cybele lives on the mountain and as the owner of the ores there also lives in the mountain, she is nicknamed the Berekynthian mother . Operating the bellows while forging and hammering the metal are rhythmic activities, which is why the dactyls who lived as miners and smiths in Phrygia were considered "the most musical" by the Greeks. Cybele struck the frame drum tympanum , which was invented by the corybants after Euripides (5th century BC), to accompany the wind instrument aulos in orgiastic dances. The play of the bronze cymbals kymbala also earned Kybele the nickname χαλκόκροτος ( chalkókrotos, "ore forged, stamping with ore-shod hooves"). In addition to the old and widespread relationship between blacksmithing and music, the idea of the blacksmith, who has to do with magic and the art of healing, also has a long tradition. In the cult of the Cybele, their followers used the corybants, wind and percussion instruments for healing through music and the types of instruments can be brought into line with the two main activities of the blacksmith.
Hephaestus in ancient Greece
Hephaestus is one of the twelve Olympian gods . As the god of fire and the forge, he is known for his special manual dexterity, which is in contrast to his physical ailments. He is the only lame man among the great Greek gods. Homer's descriptions indicate that Hephaestus came from the island of Lemnos , where he was worshiped by the Thracian people of the Sinti. Because of his limp, which Homer mentions several times in the Iliad and Odyssey , his mother Hera threw him out of Mount Olympus and the misshapen child ended up in the sea near Lemnos. Homer does not portray Hephaestus as a god, but as an ordinary blacksmith who, however, creates works of particularly high quality, such as the weapons of Achilles , the armor of Diomedes and the crater of Menelaus . Most of the works remained with the gods, while others fell into the hands of men.
While such blacksmithing could have been made by talented people, Hephaestus also created objects that had supernatural powers. For Hera he sent a golden throne to Mount Olympus, which, as soon as she sat on it, surrounded her with fine chains and then floated in the air. None of the gods was able to loosen the fetters, which is why Hephaestus had to be brought in, which only succeeded with a trick - Dionysus intoxicated him with wine. According to Hesiod, Hephaestus created Pandora out of fire as the wife of Epimetheus . The goddess Athena dressed the first created woman in a white shimmering robe. For Alcinous , Hephaestus created gold and silver, immortal dogs to guard his house, and for himself, the lame, he created servants of gold, whom he equipped with agility, voice and understanding to help him. Such abilities distinguish the divine Hephaestus. The ability to create something new makes Hephaestus the epitome of the legend of the creative artist. Described by Homer as hairy, covered in sweat and blackened with soot, Hephaestus overcomes the physical handicap on his legs with the tremendous strength of his arms.
The Greeks equated their blacksmith god with the Egyptian god of creators and craftsmen, Ptah , and also called him Hephaestus. Skillful divine craftsmen is the characterization that unites Hephaestus and Ptah. In the Hephaisteion Temple in Memphis , the Ptolemies worshiped Ptah-Hephaistus as the god of fate and oracle. The dwarf-shaped Pataikos has been worshiped as a protective deity since the Old Kingdom (around 2700 - around 2200 BC). From the time of the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BC) Pataikos figurines have been preserved, which were worn around the neck as amulets. In addition, people of short stature generally had a religious and cultic significance in ancient Egypt . Herodotus first described Pataikos as a manifestation of Ptah. The crippled, dwarf-like characterization of Hephaestus in earlier times is anticipated in the much older Egyptian Ptah-Pataikos.
In Roman mythology , Vulcan is the blacksmith god equated with the limping Hephaestus. An epithet of Vulcanus as the soothing of the conflagration is Mulciber ("softener", "smelter").
Oriental wandering blacksmiths
In European cultural history, the biblical David became the patron saint of singers and musicians, while in the oriental-Islamic world he is considered the patron saint of blacksmiths. In general, the blacksmith has been the creator since Hephaestus. According to a widely held belief, the blacksmith lives in a cave in which he also works as a musical instrument maker. Here, at the anvil, the mythical sacrifices are made, which are just as necessary for the use of magical weapons as for the melodious sound of the musical instruments. In the West African story of Gassire's lute, which is part of the heroic epic Dausi recorded by Leo Frobenius among the Soninke , Prince Gassire, who is striving for power, goes to a blacksmith and demands that he build a lute for him. When the lute is finished, the blacksmith takes it to Gassire, who immediately wants to play on it, but it makes no sound. When Gassire complains, the blacksmith says that the lute can only sound if he and his eight sons go into battle and make a blood sacrifice. Only when Gassire escaped into the desert after violent but ultimately lost battles with his only surviving, the youngest son, does the lute begin to sing the Dausi of its own accord . The nomadic migrant blacksmiths in today's Orient, who follow Tubal-Cain, look back on an even older tradition than the African blacksmiths who settled on the edge of the village. Since these groups have largely given up their traditional way of life, research relies on the occasionally exaggerated travelogues and observations from the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Solubba
Reports of the nomadic groups of the Solubba (Sleb), who lived in the area of the Syrian desert from Syria to the Persian Gulf , who clung to the tradition of donkey breeding and made a living with ironwork, as musicians and from the Denied the hunt. Because of their way of life, they have been repeatedly associated with the biblical Kenites on a mythical level. Their actual origin is disputed. The cultic use of a wooden cross as a tribal badge and protection symbol, combined with the etymological derivation of slēb (plural sulaib ) from Arabic salīb ("cross"), made Christian travelers the Solubba appear as descendants of the crusaders ; Further linguistic references to expressions related to the donkey resulted in a legend of origins from ancient Arabic "donkey men" and the derivation of solubba from the name selappayu in Middle and Neo-Assyrian texts made the Solubba preservers of an ancient pre- and extra-Islamic tradition. The Selappayu have been identified as Assyrian blacksmiths.
As a small minority, the Solubba had an economic and social relationship with the Bedouins traveling with camels , by whom they were forced into the role of a subordinate and despised caste. The British diplomat HRP Dickson (1949) states that practically every Bedouin tribe in the region has a small group of Solubba. In anthropological reports from the first half of the 20th century solluba were defined by Max Weber as a pariah nation called. Weber understood it to mean social fringe groups who live in a legally precarious situation, are ritually and socially separated from the majority society and are only tolerated because the dominant majority benefits from the monopoly services offered by the minority. Typical specialized fringe groups, which have since been counted among the pariah in Asia and Africa, are blacksmiths, grave diggers, tanners, professional musicians and showmen by profession.
The Solubba did not keep animals from which they could obtain milk, which is usually a staple food for nomads in the desert. Therefore, they lived in the summer months, when they received no milk from the Bedouins, according to an already in the late 7th millennium BC. Chr. Existing tradition of stalking wild animals, especially gazelles, where they stalked the pack of wild animals so far that they could shoot an animal up close. They did this with a bow and arrow until the 1880s, and later with a shotgun. Their traditional clothing, which consisted only of a gazelle fur coat ( farwah ) sewn together from 15 to 20 skins , which they wore with the fur facing outwards on their bare skin, served as camouflage . Riding on their particularly fast and frugal donkeys, they got close to the wild animals.
The rest of the season, the Solubba settled in a symbiotic community with Bedouins who raised camels, tanned skins and worked metal for them. Both - and keeping donkeys - are despicable activities for Bedouins that they do not do themselves. The Solubba forged axes, sickles, repaired weapons, and mended the Bedouin kettles. In addition, as universal craftsmen, they carved wooden objects such as the pack saddles of camels and pulleys for deep wells. For this they received grain, dates, sour milk ( mereesy ), clarified butter ( samna ) and, in addition, some money from the Bedouins to buy solder and iron. The Bedouins were also dependent on the medical services of the Solubba, who acted as "doctors of the desert". A large part of the healing success of the Solubba, which they achieved, among other things, with an ointment made from the marrow of camel bones, the magical abilities attributed to them, whose acceptance with the suspicion of the Solubba women of magic with herbs and about the Evil eye to feature went hand in hand. The special cultural position of the Solubba also resulted from the dances that women and men performed together for their own entertainment and for the entertainment of the Bedouins. The women, praised for their beauty, danced provocatively with a male partner with their hair down, accompanied by singing and clapping of hands by a women's choir. At the dance festivals, one or more dance couples stepped into the crowd one after the other. Wandering Solubba also entertained the Bedouins as poets and song singers with songs of praise and mockery, to which they accompanied themselves on the one-stringed box lute rabāba (related to the Moroccan ribāb ), an "instrument of the low-born". In addition, the Solubba played double flutes consisting of two parallel tubes with six to eight finger holes each, which, according to Alois Musil (1908), were called together al-makrun and as single pipes zummara (actually a double reed instrument) or shabbaba (common name of the Arabic longitudinal flute) .
The sexual freedom of women, which is unusual for Arabia, the low observance of Islamic religious precepts and all of the aforementioned behaviors and activities degraded the Solubba to a marginal group despised by the Bedouin majority society. Camel herders always claimed a dominant social position for themselves - partly because of the use of slaves. Since the donkeys were the most important material possession of the Solubba and these appeared worthless to the Bedouins, the donkey keepers were considered penniless. This status and their neutrality at least gave them the advantage of not getting involved in tribal feuds and robberies, which were the order of the day among the Bedouins. This allowed the Solubba to live a life free of fear compared to their neighbors, which earlier European travelers perceived as a relaxed, carefree character trait.
Nawar and Zutt
Other groups in the Middle East, classified as pariah because of their social position, who move around or better move as wandering blacksmiths, are the Nawar or Zutt. RAS Macalister (1909) understood both names in the title of his essay the nomad smiths of Palestine, "the nomadic smiths of Palestine ". However, both names refer to a much larger distribution region and go back to the 1st millennium. With Zutt collectively designated early Islamic sources, all different, emigrated from northwestern India groups, including today's Roma are counted in Europe. Zutt (or zott ) is connected via jatt with jat , as a formerly nomadic, now farming ethnic group is called in the Punjab region in north-west India. Medieval Persian and Arabic sources speak contemptuously of the Zutt.
Around 642, the name Zott presumably appears for a settlement on the Iraqi-Iranian border. In the middle of the 7th century, Zott meant a group that presumably consisted of artisans and lived with an Arab tribe. The Zott, like the Dom ( Domari speakers), seem to have been one of the groups that moved west from India in the second half of the 1st millennium. For the assessment of the Nawar at that time, an Arabic lexicon from 981 explains the verb nawara: " To behave, juggle and cheat like a Nuri (plural Nawar)". Nawara can only be related to "fire" in Arabic and means either "blacksmith" or "fire worshiper". The latter would have been meant as an insult rather than with reference to the Zoroastrian religious group .
Attitudes towards the Nawar in Syria and Palestine as the most despised group of the population remained unchanged around 1900. The Nawar were, like the Solubba, disliked because they rode donkeys. The relationship to Islam was described as just as superficial, which is why no good Muslim would want to marry a Nawar woman. The Nawar women danced dressed in colorful skirts and, according to Alois Musil (1908), they also beat the rattles and bell drums , they also blew flutes ( makrun ). With songs of praise and threats aimed at the honor of the audience, they demanded gifts for their performances.
In the literature, Nawar and Zutt are usually mentioned as synonyms. Edward Thomas Rogers (1831-1884), who was consul in Damascus in the 1860s , differentiated between the “Gypsies of Syria” between the three groups Nawar, Zutt and Baramaki. The British African explorer Richard Francis Burton quotes in his work The Jew The Gypsy and El Islam (1898) Rogers with the following sentences: “(1) The Nawar pursue the usual gypsy occupations, stealing, fortune telling, blacksmithing and are at parties and weddings as traveling musicians and Meet acrobats. (2) The Zutt were usually seen with their trained animals, goats, donkeys, which they demonstrated in the streets. (3) The Baramaki are more concerned with the horse trade. They are also blacksmiths and blacksmiths who generally live on the outskirts of remote villages or near the tent camps of small Arab tribes, where they keep stallions ready for horse breeding. They buy worn-out horses that they use veterinary skills to prepare for resale. "
Luri
The Persian historian Hamzah al-Isfahani (around 893 - around 961) equated zutt with luli or luri . Luri (not to be confused with the Lurs ), of whose relaxed way of life Persian poets tell, Firdausi in his Shāhnāme , written around 1000 , to highlight , own donkeys, play the lute and flute. In Persian dictionaries, the meanings of lūlī and lūrī become “shameless, serene, graceful; Musician, woman of easy morals ”explains. The Persian poet Hafiz (around 1315 - around 1390) attests such a dissolute lifestyle to the "black Luri" ( al-Lūrigūn al-sūdān; "black", that is, comparable to the night).
The "black luri" are first mentioned around 1000 as wandering bards, players of wind instruments ( mizmar ) and lutes ( ʿūd ) and as thieves. Today the naming Luri or Luli is a social group with the undefined generic term "Iranian Gypsy" ( Iranian gypsies ) mainly in southeast Iran in the provinces of Kerman and Baluchistan before and also in Central Asia ( Turkestan known). The British colonial official Henry Pottinger (1816) showed little understanding of the Luri way of life: “The Luri ... are a class of vagabonds who have no permanent residence and who, in this and other respects, bear a striking resemblance to the gypsies of Europe . They speak a dialect peculiar to them, have a king for each gang and are reputed to be thieves and robbers. Her favorite pastimes are drinking, dancing, and making music. ... Each group always includes two or three individuals who pretend to understand the obscure practices of ruml and qoorua and other methods of divination, with which they can always be easily introduced to a people so firmly believing in predestination. “The description of the British ethnographer and colonial official John Henry Hutton from 1949 is more balanced:“ The remaining tribes of Baluchistan include the poor Luri - wandering tinners, goldsmiths and silversmiths, singers, musicians, midwives and day laborers. They appear to be related in some ways to the cathedral in northern India, but claim to be descended from the youngest son of an uncle of the Prophet and to come from Aleppo . They are gypsies and mostly live on the Makran coast, whereby nomadism is typical for all Baluchis. ”According to this, a third of the Luri Baluchistans lived in tents or makeshift huts in the 1930s, and a large number undertook seasonal migrations in Balochistan or between Balochistan and today's Pakistani province of Sindh .
Zargar and Kauli
One of the names of all "Iranian gypsies" is zargar, Persian for "goldsmith". The French diplomat in Tehran, Arthur de Gobineau , reports in his essay Persische Studien (1857) about “the migrant tribes of Persia” and among them about a tribe called Zergher-e-Kermâni, the “goldsmiths of Kerman ”, who share their self-assessment clarify an alleged descent from Alexander the Great . According to Gobineau, the Iranian blacksmiths' groups made sieves from horse hair and hand drums in addition to iron objects, others were singers and dancers and their wives often seem to have engaged in prostitution.
Another name common in the country and mentioned by de Gobineau is kaulī . Colonel John Staples Harriot, who was in the service of the British East India Company , knew Luli and Kauli as names for these wandering Iranian ethnic groups. He leads (1829) with question marks their name - and thus perhaps their origin or the path of their origin - back to Kabul (via kāwolī or kābolī, "man from Kabul") and states that Kauli in the province of Fars as a goldsmith and Blacksmiths operate. The derivation of kauli from Kabul is now considered likely.
The Iranian groups that carry “gypsy names ” also include the (Indian) Jat and the Asheq, which is run as a musician group (compare the Aşık type of singers in Azerbaijan and Turkey).
Subba
The Mandaean religious community includes the Subba, who come from the marshland on the Shatt al-Arab in southern Iraq on the Iranian border. The name Subba (Singular Subbī ) is connected to the Arabic word al-Ṣābiʾūn (related to “ Sabier ”, meaning “to enter religion”, “to be baptized”) and refers to their baptism ritual under running water. They call themselves Mandai or Mandaeans. In the Iranian province of Khuzestan , especially in the city of Ahvaz , the Subba were formerly known as gold and silversmiths. Today they live mostly in southern Iraq and in larger cities in other regions where they sell jewelry shops. In the villages of the marshland they work as blacksmiths, musicians, musical instrument makers and boat builders.
Ghagar
The habitat of the nomadic blacksmiths, musicians and donkey breeders in the Orient extends in the southwest to the area around the Red Sea . 19th century travelers reported from Egypt mainly about the groups of the Ghagar and the related Halebi (Helebi). FRS Newbold (1856) describes that the Halebi roam the area of the Nile Delta and trade donkeys, horses, camels and cattle. They live in tents or transportable huts. Her wives are good at palmistry and other fortune telling.
The Halebi are said to have been a separate group or a subgroup of the Ghagar. According to Newbold, in the 19th century the Ghagar lived in their own blacksmiths ' quarter at the foot of the citadel hill , which was called Hosch el-Ghagar . In addition to objects made of iron and brass, the men also sold jewelry and amulets. Her wives were known as tightrope walkers and musicians who played frame drums and rattles. The vocabulary of the Ghagar, the Halebi and a Syrian group called Kurbat was largely identical, according to Newbold, although he noticed some words from Indian languages. Accordingly, the Arabic-speaking metalworkers in the Palestinian West Bank maintain a vocabulary from the Domari and partly from Kurdish languages , which contains a few Hindi words. For the orientalist Alfred von Kremer (1863) Ghagar is the generic term for the entire social group, numerous in Egypt, in which “the men as tinkers, monkey handlers, tightrope walkers or snake guides ... hang around the country, while the women as dancers , Wooers and fortune tellers make money. ”Kremer adds that“ almost the entire retail trade in Egypt ”is in the hands of the Ghagar. In Cairo , according to Kremer, they are also active as snake charmers ( ḥāwī, plural ḥāwiyyūn ) and disguised as snake-eating dervishes , called Rifāʿīya . The Rifāʿīya, who the Ghagar claim to be here, are a Muslim Sufi order with certain high- profile ecstatic practices.
Magic of iron in popular Islam
By Xenophon (430 - 355) are Chalyber (Χάλυβες, Chalybes) known as a warlike tribe that in ancient times in the northeastern Anatolia lived and understood in the processing of iron. Their name is derived from the Greek word χάλυψ ( chalyps, "steel"). Another name of this tribe mentioned by Xenophon, Chaldaoi (Χαλδαίοι), is accidental, for Martin Vogel (1973) not accidental, the same name as that of the Chaldeans , a Semitic people in Babylonia in the 1st millennium BC. Chaldeans were also known as the Babylonian priests, known as magicians and astrologers. According to Robert Eisler (1919), χάλυβος ( chalybos, "steel") is old Arabic jalab ("steel", "pure iron"), Akkadian (j) anibu (" hematite "), Arabic halaby ("wandering tinker ", "tinsmith" ), soluby ("steel smith "), solb ("steel") and salib "(hard") combined: a word context for blacksmiths and donkey nomads.
The widespread magical meaning of iron in the Orient is not understandable with today's use of the ubiquitous commodity, but with the relationship to iron in the early days of its extraction and processing, when this metal was expensive and rare and was initially used primarily for jewelry and amulets. In the first millennia of metallurgy , copper was the common material; Bronze was only used where tin ore was available. Iron was only available as an alloy in the form of iron meteorite . The iron found in this way was initially used to manufacture cult objects, ornaments and as an element to ward off harm. Iron jewelry and amulets used magically are from the Minoan culture of the 18th century BC. From the New Kingdom and from Carthage from the 7th century BC. Known. After iron had later become an everyday material, the idea of the apotrophic importance of iron was often retained in the Orient even in Islamic times. This is expressed in the wearing of bracelets and ankle bracelets, finger rings, earrings and amulets made of iron. There are shocking cups or healing bowls ( tāsat ar-raǧfe or tāsat at-tarba ), copper or brass bowls decorated with verses from the Koran, sayings or magical signs, which are filled with water that the sick person gets to drink after a while. Immersing pieces of iron is said to increase the healing power of the water.
According to popular belief, Djinn can be fended off with iron (any shape) and needles. This also applies to the female spirit being Aisha Qandisha in Morocco. According to an incident reported by Edward Westermarck (1926), the loud cry of a man in the circle of bystanders “give me a dagger” is enough to get rid of this ghost. The spoken word "iron" is worth as much in defense as demons of iron goods themselves, analogue the spoken word "five" (Arabic can chamsa ) an amulet of the protective Fatima Hand ( chamsa ) replace. According to Westermarck, a needle also helps as an amulet against the Evil Eye , because it is made of iron and can pierce the eye. Iron amulets are also needed for small children who are threatened with death in Syria by the dreaded child-bed demon al-Qarīna. In Egypt, the hazzāqa amulet is used for this, which is said to help small children against diarrhea and abdominal cramps caused by al-Qarīna. The demoness al-Saʿlawīya, who appears in the form of humans, animals or plants, for example as a hybrid of a virgin and a donkey, is considered particularly cruel in eastern Syria and southern Iraq. One protects oneself from her with fire and iron.
Africa
Craft and Migration
Africa is an exception to the rule that the Bronze Age preceded the Iron Age . In the Sahel zone , the oldest copper mining sites Akjoujt in Mauritania existed from the 6th century BC. BC as well as among others Agadez and Azelik (in the Middle Ages Takedda ) in Niger from around 2000 BC. And in a second Copper Age around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Elsewhere there is no evidence that copper processing was practiced in Africa prior to iron mining and processing. The African iron processing technology arrived in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. BC either from Meroe in Sudan or from the Maghrebian Mediterranean coast to the south or it was an in-house development of Sub-Saharan Africa. In the Nok culture , iron smelting began in 500 BC. BC or earlier. Apart from the question of origin, iron processing was known to almost all cultures when the first Europeans arrived in the 15th century. Only the pygmies , the Khoisan and the inhabitants of the island of Bioko did not have iron.
The iron and coppersmiths formed distinct social groups in some regions, while elsewhere both metals were worked by the same craftsmen. A specialization could take place between workers who mined and smelted copper ore, that is, carried out the actual blacksmithing work, and the "jewelers" who finely worked the material and took over the trade. Such a division of labor is well documented for West Africa, but it also occurred in other regions. The blacksmith trade was inherited in certain families, but in general anyone could work as an iron or coppersmith if he had the necessary knowledge.
Investigations in Kansanshi on the northern border of Zambia revealed that there were no permanent settlements at the time of the first copper mining in the 4th century. The same was true of copper mines in the Katanga Province of Congo in the mid-19th century . Mine workers often traveled long distances between their villages and the mines and transported the ore to the villages to be smelted there. There was also labor migration over great distances. However, none of this is comparable to the phenomenon of the oriental wandering forge. The black African blacksmiths are and were mostly sedentary with a few exceptions.
Lemba
The wandering coppersmiths of Lemba in southern Africa, which Henri Junod (1908) first described, are an exception . The origin of the Lemba is unclear; According to an original legend, they were stranded in ancient times on the African coast when they came from the north in a boat. Because they want to have carried a traveling sanctuary called ngoma lugundu ("drum of the ancestors"), the myth of which bears a structural similarity to that of the Ark of the Covenant , the drum ( ngoma ) being part of the concept of the African royal drum and some other references they were considered a "black Jewish tribe". The Lemba live as potters and blacksmiths among the Basotho and other ethnic groups, well-liked because of the valued skills they brought with them. According to Junod's description, the Lemba in the copper mining areas of the Venda bought copper in the form of bars called ritsondjolo and transported them to the Basotho villages, where they processed the material into bracelets ( busenga ) made of finely drawn copper wire. The busenga , which are of great value, were exchanged by the Lemba for grain, goats, cattle and even women. They also sold herbal medicines to the Basotho at high prices and introduced the domestic chicken to the Basotho on the Soutpansberg , which was previously unknown in this area.
The Lemba came from afar with magical abilities and as a culture bringer. The bracelets and amulets possessed a spiritual power of the ancestors if they were made from musuku , an amorphous to rectangular bar with finger-like protuberances. By 1930 every musuku was considered a sacred object. Musuku were also used as copper currency in the Venda, Tsonga and Basotho areas, as were bracelets.
Somali
The oriental blacksmiths correspond to several groups in their social position as pariah in the Horn of Africa , especially in Somaliland . These have the lowest status in the Somali clan system . Most despised are the Yibir (also Jebir, Jibbir), whose number was estimated at 1,300 around 1960 and who, as it is said in a description from 1893, “as buffoons, fortune tellers, but also as tanners, saddlers, prayer rugs and talisman bag makers one trunk to another ”. Her name means " Hebrew " in Somali and is said to refer to a descendant of Jews . Socially a little higher than the Yibir and primarily blacksmiths are the Tomal (or Tumaal), who roam all over Somalia . They are also medicine men who make rain and divine fortune from the bowels of slaughtered animals, as well as singers. The midgan , who traditionally hunt, also belong to the social environment of the blacksmiths ; with bow and arrow until the 20th century, using poisoned arrows. Midgan is also used as an insulting collective term for all marginalized and despised groups in Somalia, which stand in an old tradition through the connection of hunting, blacksmithing, magic and music.
Wandering blacksmiths in southern Nigeria
The Igbo blacksmiths in the city of Awka in southern Nigeria are legendary as the founders of the Igbo civilization because, as Chinua Achebe cites in her homage, they made agriculture possible with their tools. In the 19th century, the Awka blacksmiths supplied the southeast of Nigeria to the vast mangrove areas of the Niger Delta , where there was no in-house metalworking. Through agreements between the blacksmith clans, fixed routes were formed, on which the blacksmiths wandered around to offer their goods in shops near the village markets. The Awka smiths made agricultural implements and weapons from iron, as well as anklets made of brass and bells. While some blacksmiths from the eastern city of Abiriba (state of Abia ) temporarily settled in the villages, the majority of the craftsmen migrated from one village to the next in line with the market days. The blacksmiths from Abiriba also made cult objects from copper and brass pieces. These included ofo made of bronze in the form of a straight round rod or a human-like figure with a spoon-like widening at one end. The ritual objects made using the lost wax technique are replicas of the ofo present in every Igbo family, consisting of a bundle of branches . They serve as a sign of authority and symbolize the connection between the head of the family and his ancestors, i.e. between living and dead family members.
Social status
Blacksmith's box in West Africa
In West Africa, blacksmithing is a traditional profession, along with leather processing, wood carving, pottery, weaving and professional music practice. In the Mandinka language , the social status of the members of these professional castes is referred to as nyamakala , whereby nyama with “(spiritual) life force” and kala with “to handle” is freely transferred. Literally kala means “stick”, “branch” or “stalk”. A nyamakala has the ability to deal with and control spiritual forces. The word often has a negative connotation in Mande languages . Nyama stands for “natural force” on the one hand, which can be understood in a spectrum from diabolical, dangerous, morally neutral, necessary to action to positively invigorating, and on the other hand for “garbage”, “waste”, which is the worst evaluation of nyamakala as “scion of the dung heap ”. Negative assessments tend to come from devout Muslims towards professional musicians, the griots .
With the Mandinka , the occupational castes are in the middle of the social hierarchy after the nobles ( horon ) and before the slaves ( djon ). They include the four professions a) singer, griot ( jeli ), b) blacksmith, wood carver ( numu ), c) leather worker, weaver ( garanke ) and d) religious Muslim singer ( fune, finah ). Accordingly, the Soninke Society is divided into nobles ( horro, horon ), professional castes ( nyaxamalo ) and slaves ( komo ). The Soninke professional castes consist of a) singers, griots ( gesere ), b) blacksmiths ( tage ), c) leather workers ( garanke ) and d) wood carvers ( sake ). According to a rough classification, the professional castes are more despised in the northern part of West Africa between Senegal and Lake Chad , while further south in the Guinea region the mentioned professional casts do not exist, but the blacksmiths are delimited independently. In the highlands of Adamaua and in the Mandara Mountains, there is a special feature of a non-discriminatory occupational caste system.
Inadan (singular: Ened) are the names of the blacksmiths who form a traditional caste among the Tuareg and, like elsewhere, also work as healers, botanists and musicians. The Inads are socially low and are despised. Since they mostly descend from black African slaves, they are darker in skin color than the other Tuareg groups. They are feared for their destructive power ( ettama ). If someone does not give up any of his abundance, ettama causes calamity to occur . Since the Inadan have ettama more than any other Tuareg , they can afford to ask for gifts all the time.
Blacksmiths and potters are often in contact with one another. In almost all of West Africa there are marriages between blacksmith and potter. Both professional groups are members of sacred secret societies to which musicians are denied access. Blacksmiths often perform male circumcision and potters perform female genital mutilation . In some places women work as midwives. With the Bambara every member of the blacksmith clan is born into the most important religious secret society Komo, which is otherwise reserved for priests and certain notables. The Komo Bund forms the backbone of the Bambara's social organization and is responsible for most of the cult activities, such as life cycle celebrations, ancestral worship, rituals related to agriculture and political affairs. A blacksmith ( numu, plural numuw ) makes the cult masks and usually heads the secret society. He is responsible for the federal altar, in which the sacred objects exercising power over the village community are kept. The anvil symbolically represents the authority of the blacksmith who, as a whole, watches over the welfare of the community.
Unlike other West African ethnic groups, the Bambara have a close relationship between the tasks of blacksmiths and professional musicians. A blacksmith appears as a singer at celebrations and circumcisions that he performs himself. He makes masks and musical instruments for the rituals. He used to blow the flute when building boats and setting up the forge.
For most of the ethnic groups in the Sudan region , the blacksmith has a religiously and socially influential position. In addition to the activities mentioned, he acts as a grave digger, fortune teller and healer. Often these other social tasks are his main occupation. With the Mafa in the Mandara Mountains, only one member of the blacksmith's guild is allowed to lead the death ceremony. In 1953 René Gardi documented blacksmiths in North Cameroon who struck heavy wrought-iron double bells, iron rattles and large drums and blew trumpets from long calabashes at such ceremonies . They also played there in the Mandara Mountains, the five-stringed bowed harp ganzavar . In a Mafa kiln, the bellows was attached to the top and the air was led through two meter long clay pipes to the floor of the combustion chamber. While a man sat on top of the hot stove and pressed the skins of the bellows, which sounded like a steam locomotive, he sang to it. Next to him sat a second man who sang along and cheered on the man on the bellows with his rhythmically beaten Ganzavar . Apparently, "song and harp playing ... were also essential to make good iron."
Blacksmith and sacred ruler
Blacksmiths played a special role in societies in which the idea of a sacred ruler existed who exercised religious and political rule based on certain magical insignia (drum, chair). The sacred ruler had an extraordinary charisma and a power to influence the fate of his subjects, which is why he had to be kept away from the common people. It seems astonishing that in East Africa (from Ethiopia to the intermediate seas ) he let himself be surrounded by members of the blacksmiths, musicians and other castes who worked for him as bodyguards, guardians of his goods, executioners and musicians in sensitive positions. In Rwanda and Bunyoro , the ancestors of the king were traditionally blacksmiths. According to the legend of the origin of the Tutsi in Rwanda, the forefather Kigwa, who descended from heaven, and one of his descendants was the first king (founder of the dynasty) of the Tutsi, Gihanga. A blacksmith's hammer is handed down from both mythical figures, with which the king struck several times during cultic celebrations dressed as a blacksmith. In Burundi , the king always carried a copper hammer with him and kept it under his bed at night. The first ancestor of the King of Burundi is also said to have been a blacksmith. Then there was an oversized hammer that remained in one place along with the sacred drum, the symbol of royal power. The king as the first blacksmith is a mythological topos of the African sacred rulers.
There is such a tradition in the Sukur region , which is part of the Mandara Mountains in northeastern Nigeria. According to the legend of the Sukur community, the two caste groups Tuva (blacksmiths and potters) and Dumsa (farmers) descend from two brothers who were the first to settle in the mountains. The blacksmith's plan is made up of two lineages, which are called "shaving smiths" and "grave diggers" because of their function. The heads of both groups, the dlagama of the “shaving smiths ” and the dainkirba of the “gravedigger smiths ”, have a ritual function at the ruler's court. The former takes care of the sacred strand of hair on the back of the chief's head, which is considered a sign of dignity, while the “gravedigger” leads the rituals around the chief's burial. The exceptional social position of the blacksmiths among the Sukur is underlined by the legend that they were the first settlers and by the rules of marriage. The chief is allowed to marry a daughter from the blacksmith's clan, for whom endogamy is otherwise mandatory. Otherwise there is a ban on blacksmith and chief from visiting each other in their homesteads. The blacksmith's power base, which was established parallel to that of the chief, suggests that the Sukur's blacksmith craft was very old.
Wherever blacksmiths form a self-contained endogamous group, the question of their origin arises, whether they were there first or later immigrated into the majority society with their special skills. Legends of origin have emerged for both. In a detailed study of the West African caste system, Tal Tamari (1991) takes the view that the occupational castes are likely to have developed through extensive cultural exchange throughout the region, and the Malinke occupational casts by 1300 at the latest and the Soninke and Wolof by no later than 1500 existed, that is, well after the spread of iron processing technology in the region.
magic
Separation
The West African blacksmiths (in Mande languages numu ) greet each other with numu-fing , that is to say with "black" people, as Leo Frobenius (1921) shares the mythical idea. The blacksmiths consider themselves the only dark-skinned people, not to point out the soot in the forge, but to declare themselves to be a separate caste. Where blacksmiths are ostracized, they oppose a feeling of superiority, which they base in particular on their technical skill and their magical abilities. The Muslim blacksmiths in northern Chad (who also make things from wood and leather, including amulets) refer to the Islamic tradition, according to which Adam mentioned in the Koran was the first person to be taught the blacksmith's trade and to sura 57 , called al-Hadīd, "the iron", in which iron is assigned a divine origin. According to az-Zamachshari , Adam brought five iron implements from paradise: an anvil, a pair of pliers, a large and a small hammer, and a needle.
In magical thinking , ore processing is regarded as a supernatural process in which stone (ore) is "transformed" into iron, which can only be achieved if it is accompanied by rituals, sacrifices and compliance with commandments, such as keeping women away from the workplace of the blacksmith. For the Pokot (Suk) in western Kenya , according to a description from 1911, the isolation of the smithy was part of a series of other avoidance laws between men and women. In addition to household appliances, the Pokot blacksmith mainly made spearheads. If a woman sees him at work, the gun will be heavy in his hand, then he will go mad and die, it was said.
Traditional forging was a difficult craft that could lead to injuries, the bellows burst or the entire kiln burst. In such cases, the blacksmith often blamed a taboo or the influence of sorcery for the calamity. The blacksmith had to find out why. If a certain perpetrator was found, he was threatened with severe penalties, up to the death penalty, in order to prevent possible future damage. If sorcery was recognized as the cause of the damage, this meant that the blacksmith's magical abilities were too weak and he had to get stronger repellants in the form of medicines, amulets or other magical objects from another magician. Part of the practice of isolation and the protection of the forge was that it was located in a remote location far away from the residential areas.
hyena
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A “metamorphosis” is not only the smelting of ore, but also the forging process, in which a solid black piece of iron becomes red and soft through fire and, after being reshaped by the blacksmith, returns to its original color and strength. A magical association of the Kujamaat Diola , an ethnic group in the Casamance region in southern Senegal, puts the forge fire in context with someone suffering from leprosy . In the Kujamaat, leprosy is caused by the forge (leprosy is given to a thief or someone who bewitches a child under the protection of the blacksmith) and is cured by the forge. Similar to forged iron, the black skin changes to red in the case of leprosy and turns black again after healing. The leper is essentially a hyena , which in African myths appears as devious, vicious, the meanest of all animals and yet as sacred. In Africa the hyena is analogous to the European conception of the werewolf as a "werehyena", that is, as a human being who, transformed into a hyena, practices magic. Such hyenas appear in popular Islamic ideas of the Bedscha and neighboring ethnic groups in Sudan and Ethiopia. The Kujamaat hyenas are known to eat the corpse of a leper. Lepers are buried in a hurry in the bush outside the village and may only be carried out by blacksmiths. As with the Nya cult in Mali, a dog (as an opponent of the hyena) must be sacrificed. On the other hand, in the origin myth of the Mande in Mali, the first blacksmith Domajiri, the creator and bringer of culture, received his knowledge from a hyena.
obsession
In Africa, obsession phenomena are widespread, for example in the East African Pepo cult. Obsession is based on the idea that mostly malicious supernatural beings unintentionally invade a person and completely control their behavior and thinking. Often this also includes the deliberate, deliberately induced obsession with the help of which the fortune teller carries out his activity. In addition to ghosts, which in principle can afflict anyone regardless of age and gender, the Bantu in eastern and southern Africa are known to have a professional obsession with certain ghosts that only affect hunters and blacksmiths for men and potters and hairdressers for women. Blacksmithing obsession in southern Africa has been reported by the Dimba, Kuvale, Nhaneca-Humbe (all in Angola ), Ovambo (Namibia) and Shona , among others . Prospective blacksmiths who want to act with the help of possessive spirits go through a final consecration ritual with the Nhaneca-Humbe after an initiation training. The candidate is painted with chalk and an animal is sacrificed, the warm blood of which he must drink. While those involved in the ritual dance and sing to the accompaniment of drums and rattles, the novice hammered the anvil with twitching movements - a sign that the intruding spirit has taken control. The initiated blacksmiths ( kimbanda ) can be fortune tellers, healers or mostly both. In the Nhaneca-Humbe, the obsessive spirit is usually the spirit of an ancestor from the maternal line, who was also kimbanda during his lifetime . When the mind is recognized for the first time, it is believed to be the cause of an illness from which the sick person can only be cured through initiation into kimbanda, i.e. through acceptance of the mind.
Fipa
The Fipa (Wafipa) in the Rukwa region in western Tanzania have been ethnologically researched particularly thoroughly because they practiced their traditional iron processing until the 1950s - and thus longer than most other ethnic groups - and for this purpose they were three to four meters tall in the landscape Used kilns that could be seen from afar and attracted the attention of visitors. The Fipa blacksmith (own name: isiilungu , upper blacksmith of the blacksmith clan : umwaami ) was not only the technical manager, but also the magical guardian of the entire iron processing process. Like the fortune tellers, he had the privilege of coming into contact with the ancestors and performing animal sacrifices (cows, goats, chickens) for them, for example before building a new kiln. The umwaami had a basket ( intangala ) with magical ingredients ( ifingila ), consisting of dried plant parts, animal materials such as bones, pieces of skin, teeth, hair and feathers as well as minerals and pieces of iron. These guaranteed his spiritual power, with which he was able to control the process of transformation in iron processing and the defense against malevolent forces. An essential part of the magic basket was a legendary snake called nguvwila (also ingufwila or injuvila ) in large parts of southern Africa , which two to four fearless men had to catch in a daring action using a special trap out in the bush. A human sacrifice was required as bait - according to another version of the story, a rooster was used instead. The boy determined as the victim was locked in a circular trap made of a wooden fence. After a while the snake appeared, crawled into the narrow-meshed enclosure and devoured the boy. When the men returned, they found the snake that had grown so fat that it could no longer escape and killed it. Each top blacksmith received a small piece of this snake for his basket and before building each new kiln, another piece of nguvwila was buried in the ground at the chosen location along with other magical objects. Whether the narrative has a real core or not, it illustrates the magical power of the forge and thus fulfills its function of deterring outsiders.
The possession of the magical objects ( intangala ) was a license for the blacksmith to heal people. The blacksmith proved his ability to heal by being able to forge. Sometimes the healing ceremony took place in front of the kiln and the sacrifice (plants, a chicken head) was placed in the oven. Otherwise, the free-standing kiln made of rammed earth served as a secluded treatment room for the blacksmith-healer. The patient and healer forced their way through one of the openings on the floor into the combustion chamber, symbolically interpreted as a passage through the birth canal. In pre-colonial times, such use of the kilns was reserved for healers from the respective blacksmiths' clan. When the kilns gradually lost their technical function, they were allowed to be used by other healers together with the magical powers attached to them.
Myths from the origin
Dogon
The cosmogonic myths of the Dogon are known through the interpretive renditions of Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen. The creation of the universe is an infinite enlargement of the processes that take place in the smallest plant seed ( kize uzi , "the little thing") before it sprouts. The development took place in the Urei ( aduno valley ). The creator god Amma divided the egg into two placentas, each containing a pair of twins called Nommo, each of which in turn consists of a male and a female principle. The further development of the eight primordial creatures differs in some ways in the numerous retellings. The semi-divine nature of the blacksmith is evident when he is declared a direct descendant of the Nommo. Nommo and the blacksmith are then twins, they are red like copper and consist of red blood. This unlocks the magical power of the blacksmith who can transform into other beings (animals and plants) and justifies the commandment of endogamy. With reference to the creation myth, metal production by the blacksmith is often described in sexual terms. Out of his intended role as a giver of life, he appears as a circumciser.
The origin of Nommo can be explained as follows: One of the first two Nommo fled the egg with a detached part from his placenta before the time set by Amma in order to create a world himself. This being called Yuruga was alone from the beginning. Yuruga returned to Heaven to get his female nommo, but Amma had already reassigned her. So Yuruga returned to the dry earth and began to create faulty and impure people from his placenta because of incest. Amma put the world in order and from the divine eight beings the well-done ancestors of the Dogon developed. Yuruga, on the other hand, is held responsible for the introduction of death. When it hit the earth, the first blacksmith lost some of his life force, a defect that is perceived as impurity. He also broke his limbs in the impact, which is why his joints grew into a shape that would enable him to forge. The Dogon also declare the blacksmith to be a bringer of culture, who was sent to earth by Amma and brought back hoes, seeds, agriculture, the granary, fire, metals, blacksmithing, hunting, animals and plants from heaven.
Berber
With the Berbers , the blacksmith ( Taschelhit amzil , from uzzal , "iron") introduced the craft and agriculture, with his shoulder blades or replicas of them as the first hoes . The water that flows in channels to the irrigated fields is equated with the blood of the blacksmith. A destroyed aqueduct system ( Foggara in the Maghreb ), like a deceased person, requires dances accompanied by drums while it is being restored.
In the oasis of Touat in the Algerian Sahara, Viviana Pâques (1964) learned an origin myth of the Berbers, the structure of which is spread from Morocco to Tunisia to the Libyan region of Fessan and in the south to Mali and Niger . The body of the cosmic blacksmith forms the universe in two different ways. According to one, his head forms the real world and his body (called “belly”) the shadow of the world where the subterranean spirits live. Both spheres are connected by the neck, which is understood as a world tree with 17 branches or as a triple snake. According to the other idea, the blacksmith's body lies stretched out in the local world. His head faces south, like the dead lie in the grave. The blacksmith's star is Canopus (Arabic suhail ) in the south , his body corresponds to the pole star ( bilādi ) and his neck to the Pleiades ( threyyā ). All oases, mountains and the entire country are considered parts of the cosmic blacksmith. The myth of the progenitor of the first blacksmith, from whose dismembered body the world is formed, has approximate parallels in Asia, for example with the Indian prehistoric man Purusha and with Ymir in Nordic mythology.
Gnawa
The Gnawa , a Sufi brotherhood in Morocco that descends from black African slaves , deliver a very complex cosmogonic conception of the world that is expressed in a number of basic symbolic elements. The main character is the blacksmith, who represents the uninterrupted cycle of death and birth and is considered to be the immortal. The blacksmith's wife is his anvil. It fell from heaven as his head after the blacksmith was beheaded in an act depicting the cosmic primal sacrifice. This first blood sacrifice became the mythical model for circumcision. The entire myth complex is revealed in a ceremony as part of an obsession cult.
See main article: Derdeba .
Fessan
An organization of blacksmiths is active in the Libyan region of Fessan , the majority of which belong to the Sufi order of the Aissawa and, socio-culturally, like the Gnawa and the participants in the Stambali ceremony in Tunisia, can be classified as part of the “black brotherhoods”. These all refer to the founder Sidi Bilal . The blacksmiths organize (on the 27th day of Ramadan ) in Ghat an annual festival with obsession dances where they play drums and flutes to summon the spirits with the rhythm. The highlight of the festival is an animal sacrifice, which corresponds to the original sacrifice of the cosmic blacksmith. In Ghat, the blacksmiths trace their origins back to two twin brothers who are said to have brought an ancient hammer with them from Sudan. This resulted in the two exogamous blacksmith groups in different parts of the city, which in their myth of origin can be traced back to the original blacksmith Dāwūd (David). Among the various drums played by men (tubular drums ganga , dendun, goblet drum akkalhal ) and women ( goblet drum abakka ), the large kettle drum tobal stands out due to its cultic significance. It embodies the belly of the original blacksmith and is the instrument of the master blacksmith.
Legend of the giant Abu Kan'ān in Sudan
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Baobab trees standing majestically in the dry Sahel zone sometimes have deep hollows in the area of the main branches on the trunk, in which the water taken in during the rainy season collects. The nomadic Bedouins have known this water reservoir in times of need for centuries, just like the Hamar ethnic group who live in Dar Hamar, an area in the Sudanese province of North Kurdufan . According to legend, the Hamar once came from the west until they met a huge man named Abu Kan'ān in their present home in Northern Kurdufan, who was digging baobabs to collect water in them. Soon the giant was gone from the area. The Hamar used up the water he had planted in the trees until there was nothing left. Now they had to go to it themselves and build cisterns in the trees. That succeeded after days of work and so they could survive until the next rainy season.
Giant stature is a common feature of holy figures and is also passed down in Islamic prophetic legends. According to legend, the old Sao in the vicinity of Lake Chad were a giant family and manufactured meter-high clay tubs as drinking cups. The archaeologists found 1.5 meter high clay urns, with the water content of which the Sao could probably survive in the dry season, a cultural parallel to the Hamar. Although the giant Abu Kan'ān is not explicitly understood as a blacksmith, the legend still contains the structural elements of a legend of origin from an original blacksmith. Abu is the nickname for the progenitor type. Kan'ān can be traced back to the biblical wandering blacksmith "Keniter" and to Cain. The blacksmiths among the Kenyan Maasai are also called ol kononi after the Kenites , a word uttered with contempt by the other Maasai.
Caucasus
Georgia
In the Caucasus region , old mythological ideas have been handed down that go back to a time when there are no indigenous written evidence, so that a pre-Christian religion can only be partially identified. King Trdat III. of Armenia declared Christianity the state religion around 314; a little later, in 337, Georgia officially introduced Christianity as the second country in the Caucasus. Christianization also transformed the natural religious deities, whose cults continued to exist alongside the new religion. Archaeological evidence (bronze disks with signs for the revolving sun) from the 2nd millennium BC Refer to a former sun cult in Georgia. The Greek sun god was Helios . One of his sons, whose name was Aietes , was the king of Colchis in Greek mythology , which was a historical west Georgian empire and at the same time a mythical empire in the Greek Argonaut legend . In the saga of the Argonauts, Aietes promises to hand over the golden fleece to the Greek hero Jason if he succeeds in plowing the Aresflur, a huge field, and sowing dragon teeth with the arch-footed and fire-snorting bulls created by the divine blacksmith Hephaestus.
Another Greek myth that goes back to pre-Homeric times is about the hero Amirani, who is an analogy to Prometheus . Amirani is the son of Dali, a Caucasian goddess of hunting and a human hunter. Like Prometheus, Amirani brought fire to people (by kidnapping Kamar, the beautiful daughter of the heavenly god and symbol of heavenly fire), taught people to use metal as a bringer of civilization and was forged on a rock in the Caucasus Mountains as a punishment. There the hero wages an endless fight to free himself from his chains. Amirani's familiar dog Kurscha licks or gnaws the chains to make them thinner, but the gods send blacksmiths to fix them every year. According to the unanimous opinion, the myth is likely in the early Iron Age, which in the Caucasus after 1000 BC. Began to have arisen. It was modified in many ways, mainly through adaptations after the spread of Christianity. In some versions the punishment is carried out by Jesus Christ instead of the gods and the repairs are done by the smiths with blows on their anvil on Maundy Thursday morning or the day before Christmas. Before the confrontation with the gods, Amirani and Prometheus lived carefree in a paradisiacal primal state. In the world of Amirani men are hunters who make use of nature at will; no farmers who have to work for their lives. Heroes are not family people. The myth can be interpreted as the product of an anti-social, male fantasy.
The mountain peoples of northern Georgia know the mythical blacksmith Pirkuschi, who makes weapons for Kopala, the god of lightning: an iron club and an iron bow. Originally, Pirkuschi was a human blacksmith. Because of his great beauty, 22 women fell in love with him and tormented him with their offers, which is why he asked the supreme god Morige Ghmerti, creator and preserver of the universe, to give him an "ugly appearance" ( Georgian pirkuschi ). When Pirkuschi died, Morige Ghmerti made him a deity.
Ossetians
The “chain of the hearth” as a sacred object of religious worship is one of the ancient customs in the North Caucasus . It was an elaborately forged iron chain that hung on the fireplace above the kitchen stove and represented a symbolic connection between fire and food on the domestic level and on the universe scale a connection between the well-being of the family and the world of the ancestors in heaven. The hearth chain corresponded to the cosmic pillar that connects heaven and earth in the North Asian imagination. At the beginning of the wedding ceremony, the bride walks around the hearth chain several times; in some regions she does this as a farewell when she leaves her parents' home, and a second time as a sign of arrival at the groom's house.
The most important Ossetian deity was Safa, the guardian spirit of the chain and the domestic hearth. Up until the mid-19th century, parents asked Safa to protect their children by putting them to bed and stroking their heads with one hand and touching the stove chain with the other as they fell asleep. In order to take an oath, one held the chain and called the blacksmith. On the third day of Lent, the parents brought small pieces of iron to the blacksmith, who made them glow. When the parts had cooled down, the parents filled them together with some silk, cotton wool and sparrow droppings in a sack that was hung around the child's neck as an amulet.
The blacksmith of the gods among the Ossetians is Kurdalægon. He lives in heaven or in the realm of the dead, where he makes horseshoes for the horses of the deceased. The funeral rites are based on the fact that the deceased should visit Kurdalægon before his journey into the hereafter, who will forge horseshoes and bridles for his horse. The name is from Kurdalægon Kurd-Ala-Uærgon merged , with Kurd translated as "blacksmith" and Ala to " Alani is based", a prehistoric people, considered a precursor of the Ossetians. Uærgon is understood as a proper name, Uælarvon means "the heavenly". Hence the name means "the Alan blacksmith Uærgon". Alæg is also to be understood as a proper name of one of the three Narten families, a mythical people in the Caucasus that appears in many legends. Elements of the Nartenepos offer themselves for comparison with ancient Armenian historical sources. Kurdalægon appears in the myths as a blacksmith who made the body of the greatest warrior of the Narten, Batraz, as hard as steel in his forge. Kurdalægon has restored a hero's injured skull from gold.
Abkhazians
Among the Abkhazians , Shosshu is the patron god of blacksmiths and metalworkers. Oaths and promises were made in his name and above his symbol, the anvil. The feast of the Schosschu was celebrated on the last day of the year. On that day the blacksmith sacrificed a calf or a sheep and his wife as many chickens as the family had members. Livers and hearts of all animals were roasted separately from the other dishes, and the woman baked wheat cakes. Once the food was arranged, the blacksmith placed his tools on the anvil, lit a candle, and threw pieces of cake and offal on the glowing coal. In an appeal to Schosschu, he asked that no one in his family should become ill. Then each family member drinks a sip of a wine consecrated to the patron god before everyone sits down for a big, all-night feast.
Circassian
A Circassian myth is about the long-bearded hero Nasren-Zhache (or Nesren), who insulted the gods and was therefore tied to a rock on the summit of Oschchomacho ("mountain of happiness", the Elburs ), analogous to Prometheus and Amirani . As with Prometheus, an eagle chops out the liver during the day and grows back at night. However, the hero Bataraz supports Nasren in his revolt against the gods. Bataraz overpowers Nasren's guards and frees the chained man. In the corresponding myth of the Abkhazians, the invincible hero Abrskil challenges the highest god, who locks him together with his horse in a cave and nails him to an iron post. Abrskil tears violently at the pillar until it wobbles. Just before he can clear the pillar, a little bird sits on top of the top. The hero takes his heavy hammer to hit the bird and thereby rams the pillar firmly back into the ground.
The Circassian god of iron, weapons and the patron saint of blacksmiths is Tleps. It corresponds to the Ossetian Safa and the Abkhazian Shosshu. Oaths were sworn on him. He forged swords that could pierce iron mountains.
Armenia
The Caucasian heroic figures of the type of Prometheus, who have to pay for their crimes chained to a rock or imprisoned in a rock cave until they are finally redeemed, liberated, and reborn, include the Georgian Amirani, the Circassian Nasren and the Abkhazian Abrskil, the Ossetian Artawyn. It is a variant of the Armenian Artawazd. Artawazd, son of the Armenian king Artaxias I and the Alan princess Satenik, is said to have come from his, the Armenian historian Moses von Choren (5th century AD) Father have been cursed. Artawazd ended up in a cave, bound with iron chains. Two dogs gnawed at his chains every day and Artawazd tried to free himself to destroy the world in revenge. But the chains were constantly being repaired by the blows of the forge. According to this legend, to this day, Armenian blacksmiths strike their anvil three to four times on the first day of the week (Sunday); with the thought of tightening the chains of Artawazd. The series is expanded by the Armenian hero Mher, a legendary transmission of the Armenian sun god Mihr, who in turn belongs to the Iranian Mithra .
Figures from the Nartenepos can be added to the topos “Birth out of a stone”: the Abkhazian Sasryqwa, the Circassian Sosruqo, the Ossetian Sozyryqo or Soslan and, for the Nachisch speakers, Söska-Solsa. The Urartian god Ḫaldi was also born from a rock. The cults of gods from the Caucasus to the Armenian highlands to Iran have been in contact with one another since ancient times .
In ancient Armenian times, weapons were made by the iron smith, while the coppersmith made decorative and ritual objects out of copper. Moses von Choren tells how the iron smith had to make “all-conquering” weapons. Instead of hardening the glowing iron in water , it had to be immersed in the blood of reptiles and dragons . In Armenian myths, the blacksmith is the god-like creator of weapons that heroes use to fight demons. The blacksmith was able to filter out the diabolical element from the fire and forge magical weapons with the remaining, pure divine fire. With the blows of the hammer he killed the devilish forces that opposed the shape.
The rituals around the blacksmith and his workshop, which came from the ancient Armenian tradition to the Christian folk beliefs of the 20th century, are exemplary. As long as there were blacksmiths, one of the established beliefs and ritual acts was that the anvil had to stand in the middle. It was considered sacred, no visitor was allowed to lean against it. When a new workshop was set up, the blacksmith sacrificed a dove and made a cross on the anvil with its blood. In Gyumri , the custom of placing newborn children on the anvil and having them blessed by the blacksmith was maintained in a modernized form until the end of the 20th century: parents brought their infant to have him photographed in front of the forge.
In the days leading up to Easter , the blacksmith was in demand in several ways, above all to make nails that could be used as “weapons”. According to popular belief, the traitor Judas was on the ground when Jesus was nailed to the cross. On the ground, Judas was in covenant with devils and demons floating around there. Imagining this scene, the believers in the villages hammered their forged nails into the ground in order to prick out Judas' eyes and with this punitive action to drive away all the evil for which Judas stood. The blacksmith could only make such magically charged nails on the night from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday .
Iranian mythology
In Iranian mythology , Kaveh Ahangar ("Kaveh the blacksmith") from Isfahan is one of the most famous heroes because he has become a symbol for the liberation of the Iranians from the oppression of the ruler Azhi Dahaka . Every night, the story goes, two people have to be killed so that their brains can be used to make a dish for the snakes that have grown from the shoulders of Azhi Dahakas. The two cooks Armayil and Garmayil manage to deceive the ruler and only serve him a brain in order to save one of the two victims. One day the blacksmith Kaveh instigated a revolt against the tyrant and stuck his apron on a pole, which became the imperial banner Dirafš-e Kāwyānī ("Kāwyānī flag"). The banner in the shape of the script that on the coins of the kings of Persis under arsakidischer depicted rule.
Firdausi tells the story of the 10th century in his work Shāhnāme in such a way that Fereydūn organized the uprising. The uprising ends with the killing of Azhi Dahaka and Fereydūn's enthronement as Shah . In addition to the symbolic content that creates identity for the Persian nation, the act of liberation embodies a universal event. In myth it means the change from demonic to human power and in human history the evolutionary transition from the Stone Age to the time of metalworking. In overpowering the demon, the blacksmith benefits from his magical powers, while Fereydūn guarantees the stability of civilization.
Turkish mythology
Before the time of the Kök Turks , who formed an association of nomadic tribes in Central Asia from the middle of the 6th to the middle of the 8th century, there was a tribe of the Turk who was a vassal of the Rouran tribal federation, which existed from the 5th century was. Otherwise nothing is known about this first, historically tangible Turk tribe, except that they were blacksmiths and that blacksmiths were already in contact with shamans at that time . The magical connection between blacksmith and shaman, both of whom have inherited traditions, is an element of North Asian ideas. After the ninth generation, the Yakuts in eastern Siberia are said to have had a blacksmith with magical abilities. However, if the blacksmith practices shamanic rituals without a sufficiently long line of blacksmith ancestors, a bird with a crooked beak will appear and tear its heart to pieces unless it is surrounded on all sides by fire. Such blacksmith shamans have tools, it is said, that can hammer automatically, moved by magic. So when a shaman descends to the underworld god Erlik (Erlik Khan), he hears metallic blows.
Blacksmiths are held in high regard by all peoples in Siberia. They follow a calling or take on the inheritance of their father, but must be initiated into their profession in order to come under the protection of special spirits. According to Yakutian beliefs, blacksmith, shaman and potter were once brothers. Because the blacksmith was born first, he can burn the shaman's soul, but the shaman born second cannot cause the blacksmith's death. The original blacksmith Kudai Bakshi (also K'daai Maqsin), the protective deity of the blacksmiths, gives the blacksmiths the ability to do their craft. Kudai Bakshi lives in an iron house surrounded by flames. He also has the ability to heal, in particular he can mend the broken bones of heroes. In one of the stories, the blacksmith in the other world is involved in the initiation of the famous shamans and hardens their souls just as he hardens iron. A Yakut proverb sums up their relationship: "Blacksmiths and shamans are from the same nest." In Yakutia , only blacksmiths produce the iron jaw harp qopuz , therefore it is possible that earlier, like the Mongols, the Yakuts also used a shaman's drum , possessed magical significance.
The blacksmith works a material that Turkic peoples have venerated at all times. Iron is believed to be a sacred ( ulu, "great") substance, according to the dictionary of Mahmud al-Kāschgharī , Dīwān Lughāt at-Turk ("Collection of the Languages of the Turks"), from the 11th century. If an oath placed on the saber is broken, this will be punished by the iron of which the saber is made. The Turkish narrative cycle Dede Korkut contains oaths on the saber. In the customs of the Turks, some commandments in handling iron have been passed down, which are supposed to protect against damage. In Turkish legends, blacksmiths with magical skills do not appear as craftsmen, but only as smiths saints, for example in the form of someone working with red-hot iron with a bare fist.
Mongolian mythology
Temüdschin, the original name of Genghis Khan , is probably derived from Mongolian temür , "iron" . Genghis Khan is revered as the protector of the forge, his family members are considered to be the creators of fire according to Lamaist tradition. The Mongolian word for “blacksmith”, darchan , also means “someone who is exempt from tax”, which means “privileged”. The word occurs as an old title in several Central Asian languages, including old Turkish tarqan , to Russian тархан. Genghis Khan was understood to Darkhan not only the forge, but also the privileged, freed from the control of society. The most powerful shamans of the Mongolian Buryats in Siberia come from the Darchan clan . After the plural darchad , some Mongolian ethnic groups named themselves who only had to pay individual taxes, for example for the hunted booty. The habitat of today's Darchan is the Darchan depression named after them in the province of Chöwsgöl in Mongolia .
Mongolian tengri (or tengeri ) originally referred to "heaven" as the natural phenomenon. At the time of the founding of the Mongol Empire , the omniscient and omnipotent heaven was first personified in an animistic belief system to be a "Lord of Heaven" until the number of 99 Tengri mentioned in the Buryat myths became. Of these, 55 belong to the good, White Tengri of the West and 44 to the malevolent, Black Tengri of the East.
The White Tengri sent the heavenly blacksmith Boschintoi to earth with his daughter and nine sons to teach the people, more precisely the ancestors of the blacksmith clans, how to work metal. In an ancient ritual, blacksmiths sacrificed a horse , cut it open, and removed its heart. The soul of the beast was to be reunited with the sky smith. The 99 Tengri known by name were divided into groups, some of which were different for the individual Mongolian tribes, according to their function. The White Tengri embody aspects of the sky, the weather, fertility and two more the protection of the shamans and blacksmiths: The Daiban Chöchö Tengri (“Daiban blue Tengri”) is the protector of the western “white blacksmiths”, who learned their trade from Boschintoi have, and Bolur Sagan Tengri ("Crystal White Tengri") protects the "white shamans".
The evil Black Tengri sent seven brothers to earth who taught their blacksmithing to the first "black smiths" ( kara-darchad ). The white and black smiths still live in heaven, but are below the gods in the hierarchy. One of Boschintois' daughters, Ejlik Mulak (Eelig-meelig), according to a legend, threw fire from the sky.
The souls of the "white forge" became the white zayaan, the souls of the "black forge" became the black zayaan. Buryat zayaan , Kalmyk zayaa ("white spirit", "protector") and Mongolian jayaghan ("fate") are the names of the protective spirits of people and their possessions. Everyone has their own protector. However, the Zayaan can also be hostile. The White Zayaan was revered as the destroyer of the evil spirits of illness.
Buryat ezen , Mongolian ejen , are the spirit lords of areas, places, waters, cattle and all things. This also includes the ezen of blacksmithing and blacksmithing, which emerged from the nine sons of Boschintois: the master of the kettle, the hammer, the pliers, the bellows, the file, the chisel, the anvil, the white ceremony and the Tarim ceremony. In another Buryat myth, the first blacksmith is “Dadaga chara darchan, who came from the western sky” and had 73 sons. For Boschintoi the forging of Buryat poured Kumys in the glowing forge and sacrificed a lamb occasionally.
The constellation Great Bear is called Mongolian dologan ebügen (“seven old ones ”), among the other names there is also Kalmuckish doloon darchan (“seven smiths”). According to the genesis myth related to this name in the Gesar epic, the seven sons of the sky smith, who were blacksmiths themselves, were killed in order to use their skulls to make cups for the ancestor of the western White Tengri, Manzan Gürme. She drank from it and, intoxicated, threw the cups up to the sky. The seven blacksmiths' sons became the protectors of all blacksmiths.
In the related Tungusic myths, the word sele , "iron", occurs frequently , because a number of iron heroes of the underworld appear in it, who are named for their nature: Selergun, Selemege (who ate iron in a Siberian fairy tale), Selontur , Selemtun and others. In an Iron Hero, the body can consist entirely of iron. The birth of an Iron Hero cannot happen naturally; the mother's stomach must be cut open. In one myth, a blacksmith, whose wife is the Earth Mother, turns a shaman into an iron hero. Torontai is the deaf and dumb blacksmith and the son of Gevan, the spirit of the rising sun.
Box in the Hindu Kush
The high mountain region of the Hindu Kush extends across northeast Afghanistan and northern Pakistan . The difficult to access region of Kafiristan south of the main chains of the Hindu Kush was until its late conquest shortly before 1900 and subsequent Islamization by the emirate of Afghanistan, a culturally isolated "land of infidels", in which remnants of indigenous folk beliefs from different times had been preserved. with gods of nature and elements that led to comparisons with ancient Indian ideas. In the Nuristani language groups Kati and Prasun in the north of the area there was a god Mon or Mandi, who was considered to be the first creature created by the supreme god Imra or Mara. One story describes the brother Mons as the first blacksmith who was chased from heaven to earth for violating a taboo. The name Mandi is traced back to Sanskrit Maha (n) deva ("great god"), in ancient Indian texts this was initially an honorary title for gods, which later became a surname of Shiva . Other connections were made between the Kafir beliefs and the ancient Iranian religions.
There are also relationships in the social order. In the second half of the 19th century, English colonial officers found a system of endogamous castes among the Islamized Dard peoples of northern Pakistan (in the Dardistan area ) that they already knew from Hindu India. In Chitral there was an upper class called Ashimadek, which probably emerged as the successor to northeast Iranian conquerors. As a result, the farmers were degraded to a tax-paying, passive class. The craftsmen followed among the peasants; they included the higher-ranking potters and carpenters and the lowest level of the dom (musicians) and mochi (blacksmiths). Musicians and blacksmiths were castes despised by everyone else who could only marry one another. This also applies to the blacksmiths ( akhcer ), potters ( kulal ) and Dardistan Cathedral.
The position of the forge at the bottom of four main castes also applies to Baltistan and some other mountainous regions. The term “caste” only stands for groups with different professions in connection with the purity laws. Those of the Hindu Kush have little in common with the characteristics and customs of Hindu castes in India. For example, the economy in the mountain valleys explains the veneration of the goat, while the cow, sacred in India, is declared unclean and avoided by the top caste (in Gilgit the Shin).
In 1955/56 Karl Jettmar found a completely different social situation among the blacksmiths in Tangir in Baltistan. Here, well-developed farmsteads lay between the fields where the majority of the mountain population, entangled in feuds, lived. The former village houses were largely abandoned, only the blacksmiths were still located near the mosque. The practical explanation was that the blacksmith needs workers and is most likely to recruit them from among the mosque visitors. The second, probably more essential, explanation was that the blacksmith and mosque belonged together as sacred buildings and that the first blacksmith was a grandson of the Prophet. Because the blacksmiths descended from the Prophet Dāwūd, who is said to have been able to shape cold iron by hand, they form an unusual one among the Dards in this region with the high-ranking Sayyid caste , who can be traced back to the Prophet Mohammed Marriage community.
With this social position, some purity laws and rituals of the blacksmith go hand in hand. When the blacksmith begins to work, he first drives away the evil spirits with three blows on the anvil, invoking the name of the Prophet Dāwūd. Women are not allowed near the forge fire, which is considered sacred. The water in the cooling pool next to the forge is drunk as a remedy for every disease. The blacksmith performs minor surgical interventions. While the goat sacrifice carried out for Dāwūd on a Friday in the year , during which the smithy is sprinkled with the animal's blood, is probably a local custom, the beating on the anvil is a widespread tradition. In Europe too, the blacksmith started his work with the “cold blow” in the morning. Investigations have shown that the forge in Tangir can be traced back to immigrant Pashtuns , i.e. from the Iranian language and cultural region. Pashtuns and Sayyids always enjoy a high social position.
Ceremonial dagger in Indonesia
Candi Sukuh
The keris is an artistically crafted dagger on the islands of Java and Bali , which not only served as a weapon in the past, but is primarily preserved as a family heritage and is a ritual object in which the power of the ancestors is preserved. Starting from the courtly culture of the Majapahit empire in the 14th and 15th centuries, the dagger spread as a magical symbol in Indonesia and the Malay Archipelago from Thailand to the Philippines . At ceremonies and official events that are part of traditional culture, the keris represents the personality of its owner. The special property is related to the material iron, from which the blade is made and which in Indonesia is considered charged with magical power. Therefore, the blacksmiths ( Indonesian pandé, pandai, “clever”, “skillful”, “capable” and “[blacksmith] master”) who were employed at the ruling houses were among the most respected craftsmen. There they forged not only keris, but also other weapons, implements for agriculture and household use. In order to produce a particularly powerful weapon for his noble client, the blacksmith had to start his work on a favorable day and make regular sacrifices.
The Balinese blacksmiths base their abilities on their lineage, which they trace back to the ancestor of the blacksmiths, god Brahma . The first blacksmith was Brahma Wisesa, an incarnation of Brahma, who lived as a pious hermit in the mountains and forged iron with his fist. An analysis of the Balinese caste system shows that the position of the blacksmiths in Java and Bali goes back to a very old social order that existed before the introduction of Hinduism in Bali and is based on the former worship of a fire god. The blacksmiths in Bali practice purity laws, with which they differentiate themselves from the Brahmin caste . They do not use the holy water of the Brahmins for ritual purposes, but produce their own holy water. They are also not allowed to seek the assistance of brahmins in religious ceremonies. Spoken sacred words ( mantras ) are essential for the rituals in forging and for the death rituals in the forge . Blacksmiths are the only group of craftsmen in Bali that have their own shrine in Pura Besakih , the island's holiest temple.
Iron and its processing belonged to the magical-religious sphere for centuries before the use of the keris in Southeast Asia, as was bronze, which had been processed into musical instruments on the islands since pre-Hindu times (before the turn of the century), especially the production of hump gongs that were used in court and ritual orchestral formations ( gamelan ) are used. In Indonesia, humpback gongs are not cast like bells , but forged. At the beginning of the 20th century, around a dozen people were engaged in the manufacture of gongs (and other ironwork) at the sultan's courts ( kraton ) of Jogyakarta and Surakarta , in addition to the chief gamelan blacksmith ( empu ), a number of helpers with a precisely defined hierarchy and a specific area of responsibility. Because the blacksmiths appeared particularly exposed to the influence of malevolent spirits in their sensitive work, they had other names that they adopted from characters in the Panji stories. By identifying by name with the mythical hero Panji, the smiths increased their reputation to the level of revered, supernatural heroes. Panji is also considered the first blacksmith to produce keris .
In the Pura Besakih, located on the slope of the Agung volcano , the worship of gods, ancestors, Meru (the world mountain of Indian mythology) and a shrine of blacksmiths are combined. According to the Indian view, gods reside on mountains. The "Lord of the Mountains" was the highest god on Java in the 14th century. The Candi Sukuh, a presumably pre-Hindu temple complex with buildings from the middle of the 15th century on the Lawu volcano (east of Surakarta), is known for its figural reliefs that represent a peculiar fertility and ancestral cult. A free-standing wall in relief shows three figures in profile, acting under a tiled roof. A standing figure on the right, operating a bellows, identifies the entire scene as a house with a forge. The blacksmith crouching down on the left could be the hero Bhima , who, as in the performing arts ( wayang ), wears aristocratic clothing and appears as a spiritual leader in Javanese literature. The figure seems to embody the myth of the supernaturally powerful blacksmith who, as Brahma Wisesa tells, works a sword with his bare fist as a hammer and his thigh as an anvil. In the middle is the dancing elephant god Ganesha , who is generally considered a good luck charm and here possibly symbolizes the transition process in the materialization of metal. Stanley J. O'Connor (1985) interprets the unique scene as a representation of an alchemical transformation of materials into metal in the context of spiritual ideas and tantric rituals.
Toraja
Not only the blacksmith has magical powers, his forge can also become a religious cult area. For the Dayak in the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo , the blacksmith makes the ceremonial dagger pendat in a room that has three altars. The creator god of the Iban on Borneo is Selampandai, a healer and powerful blacksmith. On the wooden writing boards ( papan turai ), on which the Iban used to record their history, the creator god is represented with the symbol of a bellows. One hymn of invocation at a healing ceremony said he could revive the souls of the dead. Among the Dusun in the state of Sabah , the creator god named Kinorohingan is a blacksmith.
Tana Toraja , the settlement area of the Toraja in the highlands of Sulawesi is one of the steadily diminishing areas of Indonesia, in which numerous blacksmiths still work with traditional craft methods (whereby they melt down car scrap as raw material as elsewhere). In the Toraja cosmogony , the epithet of the creator god Puang Matua is "the blacksmith" ( to menampa ). He forged heaven, earth, and everything down to the ancestors of man. The forge is a place of creation. The inauguration of a new bellows is accompanied by a sacrifice and the invocation of the bellows guardian spirit. For an arable culture that tills wet rice fields with spades and sickles, the relationship between rich crops and iron is obvious. A forge was therefore considered a magical place where women had no business. The keris of the Toraja is called la'bo to dolo ("sword of the ancestors"). In some rituals (obsession dramas) he embodies the magical power of iron and the connection to the ancestors and spirits.
East Asian parallels
Thunderbolt in Tibet
In the gods of Tibetan Buddhism , Garwa Nagpo (mGar-ba-nag-po, "black smith") is a divine blacksmith who appears in connection with Dorje Legpa . He is either his servant or his incarnation and rides a brown billy goat while in his right hand he wields a staff with three dorje ("thunderbolt", ideally made from meteor iron ). The "black smith" was adopted from the old Bön belief in Buddhism. He is revered as their protector by the Tibetan blacksmiths. Among the Tu (Monguor) in the Gansu province , he has a function as a weather god, in ancient Tibetan times he was probably part of a goat cult. The goat as a mount still has an apotropaic meaning among the Tu . One imagines that during a thunderstorm her head serves as an anvil for the blacksmith deity, whereby the spraying sparks keep the malevolent weather demons away. A stuffed goat figure without a rider, with a kind of thunderbolt hanging from its paws, protects the fields and receives offerings in return. Thunderbolts have been weapons that Tibetan thunderstorm deities make and throw from ancient times. In the myths of thunder they correspond to the hammer of the Germanic thunder god Thor (Donar). With the introduction of metalworking, the thunderbolt had to consist of meteor iron and the blacksmith was equated with the god of thunderstorms. Garwa Nagpo now received a bellows as a further attribute in addition to the dorje . The connection between blacksmith and thunderstorm deity is mentioned in the Gesar epic, whose mythological content, which is widespread throughout Central Asia, has other parallels to Germanic mythology in addition to the figure of the divine blacksmith. The dorje is called vajra in India . The blacksmith Tvashtri appears as its creator in the Vedas .
The explorer Albert Tafel (1914) reports on the social contempt of blacksmiths and leather workers in Tibet. Dealing with blacksmiths is considered dangerous because they contaminate the hearth fire and are intended to offend the stove god ( Tibetan Thab-lha). The patron god of the hearth must be made benevolent through sacrifice. Marriages with blacksmith families are not allowed. In contrast, the custom in Western Tibet that blacksmiths beat the drums at wedding celebrations draws on the magical, fertile importance of blacksmiths.
One-eyed and one-legged
The music master Kui of the mythical Chinese great emperor Shun (legendary 23rd century BC) is named in the " Book of Documents " ( Shujing ) as the inventor of music. Kui is described as a one-legged. The successor of the emperor Shun was Yu , the conqueror of the flood, who was connected with thunderstorms and danced the bear dance on stones to a (stone?) Drum ecstatically. He is also considered an alchemical blacksmith because he forged bronze kettles, which embodied the principles of yin and yang .
The one-legged mythical creatures of Chinese mythology are mostly related to music and dance. The one-legged red dragon Zhulong (Chu-yin, "torch darkness") with a human face and snake body lives on the "Bell Hill" and has children called "drum" ( ku ). The one-footed owl, which holds the fire in its beak, thus brings the light, belongs to the realm of darkness. Another owl called T'o (or T'o-fei) has a human face and protects against thunder. The night watchman's drum and the forged bellows are also called T'o. The one-footed, divine bird Pi-fang with a human face belongs to the fire demons. It occurs as a forest spirit or earth spirit, can predict conflagrations and, according to one interpretation, embodies the heavenly lightning fire.
According to a Tibetan source about the legendary founder of the Bon religion, Shenrab Miwoche , his grandfather was blind in the right eye and his mother's brother was paralyzed in the left leg. The ancestors of a religious founder who were characterized in this way probably referred to the magical-clairvoyant significance of physical ailments in mythical life stories. The one-eyed blacksmith god in Japanese mythology called Ama no Ma-hitotsu (no mikoto), the "one-eyed god of the sky" ( no mikoto is an attached honorary title of Kami , the deities or ), is related to the ancient and Germanic blacksmith deities Spirits in Shinto ). He is said to have brought iron and the art of forging to the Japanese. The one-eyed Ama no Ma-hitotsus, who did not lose one of his eyes, but was equipped with only one eye, recalls the same quality of the Greek Cyclops , who appear in later sagas as assistants of Hephaestus , and represents an imperfection or physical infirmity a variant of lameness, embodied in blacksmiths like Hephaestus and Wieland . Japanese thunder deities were also mentioned with one eye. From the old one-eyed blacksmith god Ama no Ma-hitotsu, the worship of the now popular god Hachiman evidently developed . The metal that belongs to the "true being" of Hachiman is gold, which is why it is said that a large amount of gold was offered at his main shrine, Usa Hachiman-gū . The Japanese mountain deity Yama-no-Kami is seen in some places as one-legged, one-eyed, or both.
In folk tales, a link is made between the one-eyed and one-legged blacksmith. The Japanese dialect word for "one-eyed", kanji (or ganchi ) is said to refer to the blacksmith ( kanji ) who, after forging a sword to examine its blade, closes one of his eyes. In some regions, a lame or limp is called kanji (or kaji ), supposedly because they usually work as a blacksmith. In the myths, according to Takeo Matsumura ("Studies on Japanese Mythology", four volumes, 1954–1958), the blacksmith gods were designed according to their models in the real world in order to give them "human" properties. Some Turkic peoples have passed down spirits of the dead with one eye that is designed as a forehead eye. With the Jaktuen a one-legged, one-armed and one-eyed ghost occurs and with the Nenets a similar thunderstorm creature . Their conception approaches the mythical topos of "half people" who only receive their second half later and which occurs in Asia, Africa, North America and in European fairy tales.
Myths and Magic in Europe from the Middle Ages
Hephaestus
In the Middle Ages, the Greek Hephaestus / Roman Vulcan comes as skilful, but fußkranker Schmied who produces the weapons for the heroes, as in the retellings of the Trojan War of herbort of fritzlar , Liet of Troye (1210), and Konrad von Würzburg , Trojan War (1281). The stories of the ancient blacksmith and the Germanic Wieland are often mixed up. The German Lucidarius , a collection of knowledge in Middle High German written anonymously around 1190 , depicts Hephaestus as a devilish monster and guardian of the gate of hell.
In John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost , published in 1667, the blacksmith named Mulciber is the creator of the pandemonium in Hell. At Milton, Mulciber has sunk from the heroic bringer of culture to one of the fallen angels, for whom he sets up hell as a home. Instead of creating something noble, he is to blame for the destruction caused by people's greed for gold. The English playwright Ben Jonson, in his poem An Execration upon Vulcan (1640), condemns the mythical blacksmith figure for the damage that the fire causes to cultural property. The poem was Jonson's answer to a personal stroke of fate in which a fire in 1623 destroyed his library. At the same time, there is the change from a blacksmith, once revered as the heavenly fire god, whose fire was considered a blessing for mankind, to a blacksmith in league with the underworld and the devil, whose fire is now primarily understood as a danger. With the introduction of Christianity, the pagan fire-bringer was assigned the role of prince of hell.
The inconsistent couple Venus and Vulcanus is a "singing game" from 1679. There were similar comedic operas and ballets in the 18th century. In the 19th poem of the Roman Elegies published in 1795, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe treated adultery in the vicinity of Hephaestus as a dispute between Cupid and Fama .
Germanic and Nordic heroes
In the Old Norse language , smiðr refers to someone who created something completely new in general or, in particular, valuable objects and other objects. The verb að smíða ("forge") occurs in early writings with the same meaning as að skapa ("[he] to create"), and the blacksmith was therefore seen as the creator. The most important source for the Nordic mythology developed in pre-Christian times is the anonymous collection of poems, Lieder-Edda , written in the 13th century, after the introduction of Christianity in northern Europe . The stories of the earlier Germanic gods are presented from a Christian point of view or transformed into Christianity. In a psalm written in Iceland around 1200 , Christ is referred to as the sky- smith : Heyr himnasmiðr, hvers skáldið biðr ("Hear, sky- smith , what the poet asks"). The personal union of the blacksmith and the creator also passed on to Christ, who, according to an Icelandic stanza fragment dating back to the 11th century, was considered the creator of the world and the master builder of Rome. The hero Ilmarinen , who appears in Finnish cosmogony , was, as is told in the Finnish national epic Kalevala , also a sky smith and forged the vault of heaven.
The Wielandsage appears in different versions in the poem Völundarkviða of the Lieder Edda and in the Thidreksaga . The name Wieland / Weland is, according to Jacob Grimm, a participle form formed from the verb wielan / welan and is probably related to the Old Norse vél (“work of art”, “list”). With the paraphrase vísi álfa ("Prince of the Albums") in the song Edda, Wieland should not be characterized as a prince, but as "wise". Etymologically he would therefore be a “wise artist”. Already King Alfred (r. 871-899) named him in his translation of Boethius , The Consolation of Philosophy , the wis Weland ("wise Wieland").
The far-reaching ideological connections between Teutons and Siberian peoples, in particular the common shamanic ideas, were often pointed out. In addition to the shamanic cult, in which the magician sends his soul on a journey into the hereafter in order to gain new knowledge, an incantation magic with spells was one of his rituals. With both services, the magician took on a priestly function for his religious community. The shaman always undertakes the journey to the hereafter for the benefit of his community and with their sympathy. The question of whether Wieland is to be regarded as a shaman, if he does after the double murder of the sons of Nidung rises on the run in the air (Níðuð) denies Hans Fromm (1999). A shaman only lets his soul fly while his body stays behind and the flight is never for his own benefit. This shamanic habit was undoubtedly known to the Scandinavian peoples, because it is described in Norse mythology in connection with the supreme god and magician Odin . According to Fromm, another argument against Wieland's shaman's flight is that the song Edda does not explain how Wieland could have learned it. For this, a parallel with the flying Daedalus has been pointed out on several occasions .
According to the Thidrek saga (called Velent here), Wieland and the young Sigurd apprenticed to the blacksmith Mime and then to the dwarves in order to learn - as it is expressly said - the craft of iron smith. According to this, the legend came into being at the earliest in the Nordic Iron Age (middle of the 1st millennium BC to the middle of the 1st millennium AD). While nothing is known of a handicap of the Finnish Ilmarinen, Wieland's lameness, like his stories about captivity and liberation, are related to Hephaestus. Wieland's lameness, however, is not innate, but was taught to him at the behest of King Niden.
The name of the blacksmith Mime is characteristic in its presumed meaning “the thinker, the one who thinks”, and the name Reginn for a blacksmith dwarf who, among other things, raises the young Sigurd in the Reginsmál named after him , belongs to the blacksmith type. It can be translated as “the mighty” and is derived from regin , as the creative gods are called.
Norse and Celtic gods
The divine blacksmith Ilmarinen is well known from the Finnish epic Kalevala as the creator of the heavens and the sampo . His epithet is Seppo and his name is derived from the Finnish ilma, "air", "weather", which distinguishes him as a weather god. The name Ilmarinen is also the Udmurt (wotjakischen) Inmar, "God" used. Ilmarinen is also, according to its magical meaning, depicted on a shaman's drum made of Sami from the 17th century. In 1691, the drum was confiscated from a semen who had been charged with sorcery and had to explain the figures on the drum membrane to justify him. He referred to a human-like figure in the top row next to the image of the god of thunder as Ilmarinen, who capsizes the boats at sea due to storms, but can also calm the storm wind. This statement about a shaman's drum is unique because the seeds otherwise attributed these properties to a wind god. Ilmarinen appears to the Finns as an important cultural hero who also created fire and iron in prehistoric times. He performed his cosmic creative work together with Väinämöinen .
The Baltic sky god Pērkons ( Latvian “thunder”) appears as a typical representative of mythical figures derived from experiences of nature. His attributes sword, spear, iron arrow, iron rod or ball mark him as an aggressive fighter, but at the same time he appears as a granting god who brings rain and ensures fertility. When Pērkons works as a sky smith, the sparks fly. He forges jewelry and weapons for the Baltic sun goddess Saulė and for Dieva dēli , the sons of the sky god Dievs .
In Celtic mythology , Goibniu ( Old Irish gobae, gobann "blacksmith") is the divine blacksmith. Together with Credne and Luchta, he is one of the three gods of craft (Trídé Dána). In addition to being a blacksmith, Goibniu is considered a healer. His name is mentioned in an old Irish mantra that is said to help pull out a thorn. He, too, has been compared to Hephaestus.
Forge in fairy tales and legends
In myths, the smiths embody a helpful, positive and a harmful, negative aspect. They forge weapons for the gods or weapons like the mjolnir and swords for the hero who defeats a demon or a monster. Evil blacksmiths use the same skills to make nails for the crucifixion of Christ. When the blacksmith himself confronts a villain, he uses a glowing rod modeled on Thor , who kills the giant Geirröd with a piece of iron . The blacksmith pours molten iron into the throat of a dragon.
The secret societies of the Teutons practiced in their rituals the expulsion of spirits and fertility magic. The practices of the secret societies are structurally related to the seasonal, masked parades during the Mummenschanz and the once ecstatic parades of an army of demons can be found in folk tales and customs as wild hunts . In this context, the magical abilities of the blacksmith played a special role in raising horses. In the legends , horse shoeing brings the blacksmith into connection with ghost horses (demons in horse form). In the legend of the same name, the priest cook is brought by the devil because of her vicious life and ridden as a horse. In another legend, a ghost rider comes to the forge and has his horses shod.
In the story Christ and the Blacksmith , a blacksmith appears as a miraculous healer of horses. The origin of the action motif are the legends about Saint Eligius (around 589–659), who is said to have been a farrier before he became a goldsmith. In the numerous variants of the story, God appears once who severed a horse's foot in order to hoist it, and then put it back on again. When the blacksmith tries in vain to imitate the same thing, God shames him for his arrogance. In an earlier version, Eligius himself performs the miraculous shoeing and a servant imitates it unsuccessfully until Eligius comes to the rescue. The narrative contains the common motif of the process of rejuvenation and its unsuccessful imitation.
Blacksmithing also occurs in other ways as a healing process. As metal casting is interpreted as a transition of matter and a creative process, the healing of the sick means the transition from an old to a new form of existence and thus becomes a process of initiation. With the motif of the old women’s mill , the old are melted into young. Sometimes the blacksmith enters into a pact with the devil to achieve his goals . In the negative aspect of his magical work, the blacksmith becomes a deceiver or murderer who is picked up by the devil or ultimately walks around as a ghost.
Conversely, the blacksmith manages to outwit the devil in humorous tales and hammer him into a sack or banish him on a chair. In the fairy tale blacksmith Siegfried and the devil , he first directs the devil up a tree and then on a chair in order to pierce it with rods. The third time, he lures him into a satchel, which he hits with a hammer on the anvil. Through a trick in which he throws his hat through a crack in the heavenly door, he finally gets to heaven. The versions of this narrative type “blacksmith and devil” are usually assigned to the Schwänken or Schwankmärchen. In the collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales was the blacksmith and the devil first published in the 1812th The soldier Brother Lustig gains access to heaven in a similar way and the blacksmith von Jüterbog can hope for future redemption in heaven after a carefree life.
Dwarves as blacksmiths
According to Werner Danckert (1963), the ancient Chinese music master Kui with one leg and the other one-legged, one-eyed or crippled blacksmiths in Asia and the Nordic world of legends have to do with the earth. He calls the figures with cut tendons, crippled or shortened legs “earth-borns”, like the Greek nymph Anchiale , who dug into the earth with her fingers so that the demonic dactyls (Greek Δάκτυλοι, “fingers”) were born from the scattered earth dust . The men of the Dactyls are said to have discovered iron and invented metalworking, some were blacksmiths, others magicians. The invalid figures, considered to be “strangers”, are associated with the “mountain dwellers” and “underground dwarfs”. The idea of one-eyed and one-leggedness comes up often with mountain deities. Dwarfs in the mountains are strange, mysterious beings and, in many cases, terrifying blacksmiths who cannot be seen, but whose blows can be heard in the mountain caves.
The dwarves not only practice blacksmithing, as mineralogists they also have precise knowledge of the ores in the mountain, in particular they know where gold can be found. They work as miners and ore casters, often on behalf of the gods, for whom they make magical pieces of jewelry. These included the golden magic ring Draupnir , which Odin wore and from which rings of the same weight dripped off every ninth night; Odin's spear Gungnir ; the hammer of Thor, Mjölnir , and the magic ship Skidbladnir of the god Freyr . The dwarves were often forced to do their jobs and then forged for their freedom or their lives. In addition to the magical effects of metals, the dwarfs also know the properties of stones and the effects of herbs that can cause damage or heal. Therefore the dwarfs are feared and valued as healers and as spreaders of diseases and epidemics.
Legends of blacksmiths (mountain blacksmiths, earth smiths) are mainly known from northern Central Europe and Scandinavia and there especially in areas where the near-surface lawn iron stone was mined. Other stories deal with ore-mining miners in the Alps. Some hills were said to be home to blacksmiths. For the storyline it is always crucial that the dwarfs are invisible but can be heard and that there is a clear separation between the world of humans and the dwarfs. It is common for someone to order a metal object from the blacksmiths and deposit goods in kind as payment at the hill town, but not keep to the so-called silent trade agreements . Thereupon the dwarfs take revenge or they break off relations with the humans and disappear.
In silent trading, the deal is concluded without the two partners seeing or touching each other. For example, the client places the object to be repaired along with food (sometimes a coin) on a stone in front of a cave and the next morning he finds the blacksmith's work there. Orders for new products are called in a loud voice at the appropriate places in nature or left on a piece of paper. The dwarf encloses a slip of paper with the delivery, which must be paid exactly. The oldest evidence of a silent trade is a report by the Greek navigator Pytheas (around 380 - around 310 BC), which is handed down in a scholion for the Argonautica of Apollonios of Rhodes (295-215 BC). In it, the seven Aeolian Islands are described as the anvils of Hephaestus. Hephaestus is said to be on the two islands of Lipari and Stromboli , from where his hammering can be heard from afar. In the past, anyone could bring unprocessed iron there and pick up a sword or other ordered item the next day if they left wages for it.
In the prehistoric sagas, the dwarfs behave more unrealistic and surrounded by magic than in the song edda . The occurring in the ancient legends Reginn , the sword for Sigurd Gramr forged, is described as a dwarf, smart man, tough and charming knowledgeable. The sharpest sword of all is the tyrfing . Anyone who uses the sword inevitably kills with it. It was made by the dwarves Dvalin and Durin .
Magic and Customs
In the Islamic Orient, dipped pieces of iron give water in a bowl a healing effect. In German popular belief, as in Dardistan in the Hindu Kush, blacksmith extinguishing water was considered to be particularly medicinal. A magical power is often ascribed to iron. The ideas of the magical blacksmith in the Germanic myths were reflected in their ambivalence in European customs also on the blacksmith. In the region of southern Germany to Alsace and western Hungary, iron votive offerings as human or animal figures have been known since the Middle Ages , which are donated by Catholic believers. The figures are more or less carefully forged, but never cast. The younger figures were formed from sheet iron with poor craftsmanship. Because of his miraculous powers, people turned to the village blacksmith, who was also in demand as a healer and advisor for cattle diseases, to make the votives.
One of the ideas that passed over to the village blacksmith from myths was that skilled dwarfs were at his side at work. Because the mythical blacksmith is able to tie demons and heroes to a rock and hold them with hammer blows on the chain (in the succession of Prometheus also god Loki from the Eddic poetry), the village blacksmith had to go on Saturday and on the eve of a holiday or Give one or three cold blows to the anvil every evening. In Tyrol and Bohemia the custom was widespread that the blacksmith strikes the anvil three times to banish the devil for the following week, and two more strikes so that the chain that the devil is trying to file off again becomes firm. In French-speaking Switzerland , blacksmiths hit three times on the Monday before work began.
If the farrier and wagon blacksmith already practiced his craft in the seventh generation, he was considered to be healing and was able to transfer this ability to his wife with the help of a magic book ("clerical shield"). A healing blacksmith had a method to cure childhood anger disease . The child had to be brought to him in the forge before sunrise, where he laid it naked on the anvil. Then the blacksmith took his hammer, slowly ran it three times over his body and the child was healthy from that hour, it is said.
For the use of the blacksmith extinguishing water there were clear rules in the Christian folk belief. It helped against all diseases, especially against scabies and warts , when it was brought from blacksmiths during the service. Against the " sweet grind " in children in Silesia , you had to come to the blacksmith on three Fridays before sunrise. With the extinguishing water, he struck the cross over the child's head three times and said a prayer.
Inevitably, superstitious ideas have developed around the blacksmith: he has nails in his pocket for a good success of his work. When the hammer falls on the floor and stops, a stranger comes into the workshop. If he burns the horseshoe in too badly on a horse on a Thursday, he will have no skill for 13 days.
In the humoresque The Smith of His Fortune from 1873, the author Gottfried Keller lets the main character Hans Kabis try to forge his happiness in life with a few "masterful blows". But these turn out to be simple self-portrayal tricks. After all, after his lofty goals in life, he ends up as a simple blacksmith who succeeds in making better and better nails over time. The title is based on the saying “Everyone is the smith of his own fortune” meaning “take his fate into his own hands”. The proverb is universally widespread in many languages and, in its first known form in Latin, is based on a poem from 307 BC that has not survived in the original text. BC by the Roman consul Appius Claudius Caecus . Only the wise can forge his own happiness.
What else needs to be forged besides iron are non-material things that come out of the “think tank”, the “intrigue” or the “plan”. The “Reimschmied” writes and the derisively referred to as the “Semmelschmied” bakes bread. The idioms lead back to the originally broader meaning of the word blacksmith as “creative, forming force”. Even the blacksmith as a craftsman used to be less specialized and could also work with wood or clay. There are two words in English for “forge”: to smith and to forge . The former simply describes the work of the blacksmith, the latter can also mean "forgery". The English version of the proverb ( Man forges his own destiny ) also includes the connection with fraudulent actions when it comes to bringing about one's own happiness.
literature
- Hans Wilhelm Haussig (Hrsg.): Dictionary of mythology. Department 1: The ancient civilized peoples. Several volumes. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1973–1994.
- Eugenia W. Herbert: Red Gold of Africa. Copper in Precolonial History and Culture. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1984.
- Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson: blacksmith, blacksmith trade, blacksmith tools . I. Term. In: Herbert Jankuhn , Heinrich Beck u. a. (Ed.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 27, de Gruyter, Berlin 2004, pp. 194–197.
- Siegbert Hummel: The Divine Blacksmith in Tibet . In: Folklore Studies , Vol. 19, 1960, pp. 251-272.
- Karl Jettmar : Blacksmithing Customs in the Eastern Hindu Kush. In: Mitteilungen der Anthropologische Gesellschaft in Wien , 87, 1957, pp. 22–31.
- Ruth Michels-Gebler: Blacksmith and Music. About the traditional combination of blacksmithing and music in Africa, Asia and Europe. Publishing house for systematic musicology, Bonn 1984.
- Martin Vogel : Onos Lyras. The donkey with the lyre. (Volume 13 of the Orpheus series of publications on basic issues in music) Verlag der Gesellschaft für Förder der Systematischen Musikwissenschaft, Düsseldorf 1973.
Individual evidence
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- ^ HRP Dickson, 1949, p. 518
- ↑ Hans Engel: The position of the musician in the Arab-Islamic area. Publishing house for systematic musicology, Bonn 1987, p. 112
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