ON THE CREATION OF MAN AND SOCIETY, CONCEPTS OF EVOLUTION

The dawn of mankind

Ask og Embla af Pieter Jansens

On the sixth day man was created, after the creation of heaven and earth and all living things in the sea, sky and earth. The seventh day the omnipotent god was tired and needed a rest. When the newly created man felt lonely some time after his creation, god decided to perform surgery and created a consort from his the man’s flesh, from his rib. Although a quite amusing folktale in Flanders claims god laid the rib in the grass in order to close the wound. As he turned all of his attention to the job at hand a cat snatched away the rib. God threw his operating knife at the cat, thus cutting of its tail. But the rib was lost and god decided he couldn’t operate a second time n poor Adam. So in the end he thought it best to make used of what he had at hand, the cats tail. According to the story, this is why woman ofter appear sweet but have a false character.

Anyway, this consort or woman was to be the reason man was cast
out of paradise.

At least that is what the bible tells us.

After having created Midgard out of the body of the slain primeval giant Ymir, 3 Gods walked along the beach, they discovered 2 pieces of wood and decided to create a new being, or to be more precise 2 beings, man and woman, both were created in the same act of creation as equals. And the Gods didn’t need any rest afterward.

Both man and woman were created in the same act, but from different kinds of wood. Ask, the man, was created from an ash tree, Embla, the woman from a piece of elm. The use of 2 different kinds of tree accounts for the obvious differences between the sexes.

As the sagas describes both pieces of wood were dead and soulless.

Old Norse:

and þau né átto, óð þau né hǫfðo,

lá né læti né lito góða.

And gaf Óðinn, óð gaf Hœnir,

lá gaf Lóðurr ok lito góða.

Benjamin Thorpe translation:

Spirit they possessed not, sense they had not,

blood nor motive powers, nor goodly color.

Spirit gave Odin, sense gave Hœnir,

blood gave Lodur, and goodly color.

In this extract, the 3 Gods are Odin, Lodur, sometimes seen as the equivalent of Loki, and Hoenir. In the prose Edda, we find Odin and his 2 brothers Villi and Ve. This is the version I favor, since it provides a insight into the relationship Frigga had with both Villi and Ve. But I will come back to that a bit further on in this text. On the other hand, the choice of Loki and Hoenir also has interesting implications, since this would imply that slyness, cunning and indecisiveness have been essential elements of humanity ever since it creation. It is also noteworthy that some of the earlier researchers view Villi and Ve as other aspects or characters of the one God Odin, in other words the 3 Gods would be simply one, but represented by his different aspects, a bit comparable go the 3 faces of Shiva in Hinduism.

In this point of view the creation of man would solely e the result of the bonding of the sky father and the earth mother. This would make Thor our big brother, which would explain why he is protector of mankind. That in the original Germanic believes this earth mother aspect was present and held in high regards is made quite clear by Tacitus. He claims the Germanic people believe to be descendent from Tiusto,”a god born from the Earth“. This vision is also confirmed by the Anglo-Saxon fertility ritual of aecerbot, where the plowman recites “may you be well Earth, mother of man”.

Thus we must conclude that the input of the earth mother may have been much more important then one might think from the simple lecture of the myth of creation. Since it was written down in a time when Christianity ruled, this shouldn’t really amaze us.

Of course the above accounts mustn’t be taken literally. It is a symbolic description of the creation of man as the symbiosis of several elements, a symbiosis made possible due to the intervention of the Gods.

On the one hand we have raw matter (the wood) which belongs to the reign of the Earth Goddess. The Earth Goddess should in this account be equated to Frigga. I explicitly choose Frigga, and not Jord. As a matter of fact there are quite a lot of elements that indicate that originally Jord and Frigga must have been one and the same. But I will treat this subject in another contribution. That Frigga is a Goddess related to earth is made obvious by the account on Balder’s death. She takes an oath from all things touching the earth, including trees since they belong to her domain. The mistletoe never touches the ground, so it is beyond her domain, and she cannot command it.

The raw matter of the wood is then given 3 attributes. Form and blood – symbols for life- were given by Villi and Ve. Frigga thus interacted with her husbands brothers, cf my previous reference to the relationship Frigga had with both of them. Should the creative action have stopped here, the gods would have created just another animal, but the supreme sky god intervened and gave a third gift, unique to creation as we know it on Earth, namely spirit,and conscience. Thus man initially was created from 4 basic elements.

What we have now is a raw man, gifted with possibilities, ready to start his march into civilization, ready to swarm over the earth, out of Africa so to say.

Man was ready, the gender of homo was created but he wasn’t quite human yet, as another extract of the sagas proves.

Paleontology learns us that it still took quite a while before physically modern man started to have the spark of true imagination and creativity. Even when already modern in appearance, man didn’t start to make art from the very beginnings. Archeology learns us that this only started much later. It shows us that quite suddenly ,out of the blue, man started to create art. At present this is estimated to have taken place about 45.000 years ago, when the first rock paintings appear, but the date keeps getting set back in time. In our context the exact date isn’t important, but mythology offers an insight to why this happened. Even though at first sight, its myth seems quite unrelated to what i mentioned before.

So lets leave our 3 Gods fooling around with the earth Goddess on the beach and make a giant leap into time. The halls of Asgard have now been build, surrounded by mighty walls, and a mighty war is fought between the Vanir and Aesir. After the conclusion of a peace treaty, the gods spit in a vessel in order to seal the agreement, and a very wise man is created from this brew. He goes by the name of Kvasir. This God traveled the 9 realms and spread wisdom until he was killed by 2 dwarfs who mixed up his blood with honey and thus created a very powerful mead. This mead gave inspiration and creativity to those who drank from it. I will not go into the travels of this pot of mead. It suffices to say that Odin got a hold of the pot of mead and in the form of an eagle flew with it in his pawn back to Asgard. He was however pursued by the previous owner of the mead, also in the form of an eagle, During this pursuit, Odin spilled quite some drops of the mead in Midgard, where it spilled on man. Thus poetry and creativity were brought to us. Only then did man become who the being he is today. The interesting part is that this spark of creativity is given to mankind on a later moment, long after the initial act of creation, and t is done by accident. Again this mythological account shouldn’t be interpreted literally, but it clearly indicates that the sky god accidentally gave another gift to mankind, after man had already been created, just as archeology and paleontology seem to prove.

Evolution

The previous account automatically brings us to the concept of evolution. Does our creation myth exclude the concept of Darwinian evolution, as many people who believe in creation by a God reject the evolution theory? As a matter of fact it does not, on the contrary. I have just made it clear that at least mankind did evolve. But as we go further back and spit very deeply in the saga’s that have been passed on to us, we can find indications of the evolution theory in general.

As a matter of fact I have notice that few religions directly reject or exclude the concept of evolution, as long as we accept that myths are a form of symbolic speech, used to explain difficult subjects to people, just as you would explain a difficult or abstract concept to a child by means of examples it does understand.

Let’s again make a brief bridge to mosaic tradition. Man was created on the sixth day, after Yahweh had created heaven and earth, then the fish, land dwelling creatures and finally the birds ( in that order). This corresponds very closely to the image of earth’s time line you find in every child’s book on dinosaurs.

In Nordic myth we find relics of the same reflections though a little less explicit. And again, we must always remember that mythology only records those elements that were conceived as important to the people of the time. Norse myth clearly states the world was created before those who dwell in it. There is no direct evidence as to the creation of plants and animals, However, since mankind was created from two pieces of wood, it is clear that plants had exist previously to man’s creation.

We also learn something about other being, the dwarfs. The dwarfs – in my opinion- are a faint memory of mans encounters with other earlier human species, such as Neanderthal man or Homo Floriensis in Asia. In the eyes of a Homo Sapiens both of them would be seen as human like but both ugly and awfully small. The dwarfs were created from the maggots feasting upon the flesh of the dead Ur-giant Ymir. This tells us maggots preexisted humanoid life. Although this also describes clearly what our ancestors felt of dwarfs and thus of other humanoids. They were seen as a lower, disgusting abstract of man. Perhaps this is reminiscent of conflict actually being played out in prehistoric times. Actually, by now science is certain hat modern man and Neanderthal man have met and even interbred.

Very recent research seems to suggest – contrary to the ruling opinions up til now, that at least some of neanderthals weapons were superior to those of modern men. Now, didn’t the sagas suggest the dwarfs were great weapon smiths? A lot more can be said on this subject, but let us for the moment be content to state that the myths on the dwarfs, the myths regarding changelings, etc might in effect reflect memories to a time of difficult co-existence between modern man and the last remnants of Neanderthal man. The latter may in fact have abducted children in a desperate attempt to incorporate the same bodily beauty or physical features of our own ancestors into his offspring.

Unfortunately, next to these few indications our myths offer few clues to the evolution of other species, but as we have seen it most certainly doesn’t contradict it.

Does the creation of mankind as described in our myths, if we accept evolution, mean that this evolution has been directed or steered to its present state? It doesn’t have to be interpreted as such. We can imagine the Gods having a grand team meeting or project steering wherein the decide upon some basic rules, that would define how living creatures would evolve in the future. Mythology indicates they did did the same with the inanimate things such as the movement of heavenly bodies, sun and moon etc. After that, they may have put the rules in a pot, shook it, and just stood by to observe what happened. Thus man himself may not as such have been not predestined to appear, but the basic rules of evolution that would eventually lead to his existence were firmly established.

Equality of man and woman.

As we have seen before, both man and woman were created in a single act of divine creativity. Unlike mosaic tradition women are not simply a derivative of man. On the contrary, they are equal.
In effect, if we compare the situation of woman in Germanic society to their situation in Roman or -even worse- Greek society it is quite clear that their social position was much better. Note that I would never claim that woman were always treated equally to their men, there are ample examples in the sagas where woman are forced into marriage, but then again this was often done by men who also forced other men to abide to their will.
I will never claim woman could do whatever they wanted and desired or freely choose their own destiny. Some things where clearly taboo to them. Yet the sagas show us that women did have certain rights, unknown in other cultures of the time. They could become warriors, the best examples are the shield maidens. There is also the example of Hervör in the Heidriksaga.

In opposition to this, Greek myth mentions very few female mortal warriors apart from the amazons. But Greek myth also describes these amazons as Scythians, this means enemies of Greek society, barbarians.

Germanic women could also assume positions of power. According to Landnama book some of the original settlers were woman, that settled on their own account and weren’t simply following their husband. The best known of these matrons is Audr.

Women were without any doubt honored as fortunetellers, even the Romans testify that the Kimbri consulted old women on the route to be followed. Female soothsayers were called volvas and female sorceresses had their own kind of feminine magic , Seidr, that was tabooed for all men (except Odin and Loki so it would seem).

I would also like to stress that equality in past societies doesn’t necessary imply that either sex could assume the tasks of the other, as it does in our present society. It often meant, that psychologically and legally both sexes were equal, the value of a person wasn’t influenced by their gender. It didn’t always imply that society accepted a man to do a woman’s job or vice versa. Taboos were established and had to be honored. In our present day society taboos are much less common and are far less a hindrance to the development or self expression of both woman and man Both can evolve into the person they desire to be or see themselves fit to be.

Equality, rather then birthright.

Were all men equal? The answer to this question seems to be a simple no, as thralldom existed, but it isn’t quite as simple as that. Myth indicates that all people sprang from Askr and Embla. This clearly means all people and corresponds to findings of modern science. It has been proven that all mitochondrial DNA can be retraced to just a small number of woman, some 100.000 years ago, and all y chromosomes can be traced to a single man. this of course doesn’t mean there were no other people around, it simply means those other peoples mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosomes were lost. It doesn’t mean they didn’t pass on any other part of their genome, it simply means that the specific DNA that defines their gender never got passed on up to our days.

Thus in principle all people were created equal, and when we look at hunter-gatherer populations we can see they still live in societies with little social stratification. Your value to the group is determined by your experience, age or level of wisdom. This may very well represent the situation of the indigenous tribes in the early neolithic. Yet as time passed by we see that in established farmer societies certain houses get bigger then those surrounding them. A kind of chieftain seems to emerge. We also see a stratification in grave types.
Large collective memorial buildings are being replaced by singe burial stone chests or mounds. Partly this may be due to the incursion of Indo-European patriarchal societies, but I also believe that stratification is natural to societies that become more complex. Primitive societies that start to grow and enter into conflict with other surrounding societies, when led by a few strong and just individuals may have proven to have had an evolutionary edge compared to the less structured societies that surrounded them. An -clearly oversimplified- example can illustrate this.
Whilst egalitarian societies still have to choose a leader when under attack, and whilst they are thus still debating the strategy to follow, the forces of a strongly hierarchical society could skip that part and attack without hesitation. Every soldier knew his place and was expected not to think for himself but simply to obey.

In a combat situation, even if the initial strategy dictated by the commander would have been stupid when attacking an equally structured army, the simple fact of a clear strategy imposed from above and executed without hesitation will almost always result in victory on a group that has to make compromises during debates on strategy.
A military leader of the dictatorial kind will also adopt more risky strategies than the democratic organized group since the latter will always think about preserving a best as possible their own lives whilst planning their tactics. The dictator isn’t “hindered” by these “caring” reflections. He may easily decide to chose a strategy which implies to sacrifice an important part of his army, when this tactic will assure victory by his remaining forces.
All he needs to do is ensure his soldiers strongly believe in a paradise after death in order to make sure they won’t hesitate. Whereas in an egalitarian army one might find it much harder to recruit the battalions to be slaughtered. Add to this the fact that a dictator wouldn’t need to tell the doomed men of their faith, whilst in an egalitarian society, every man would be conscientious of the faith that awaited them. Psychologically, this is a great advantage for the dictatorial army.
Adapt this theory to the savage lawless times of the neolithic, and you can easily see why strongly hierarchical societies tend to conquer less organized societies. And after the conquest when the remnants of that previous society will have to be integrated in the society of the victors, it is clear they will automatic be placed at the bottom of society, after all they lost.
Note that only rarely a conqueror will totally obliterate the subdued peoples since there subjugation both is a re-compensation for his faithful followers and offers an economical advantage (as a workforce without any rights).

The above is clearly an oversimplification, but it helps to comprehend how inequality in more complex societies is almost automatically created. And it also explains why more egalitarian societies are often at loss against the armies of dictatorial societies. It is no coincidence that even in western armies, drill, obedience and hierarchy remain highly praised values.

But we have deviated a bit from our subject. It would seem that due to several poorly known reasons the strongly hierarchical and mobile Indo-European armies were met with a stronger opposition to their rule, when they finally encountered the more egalitarian societies in the present Jutish peninsula.
It would seem that, though Nordic society got hierarchised, it never developed into the very strong hierarchy of other Indo-European societies of the time. Sure, there were kings, there were jarls and free men and slaves, but social promotion remained possible, a slave could earn his freedom, become a free man and even rise to nobility. Serfdom was far less institutionalized then it was in the south, e.g. the Roman society. In Roman society at a certain time,slaves made up the largest part of the population of Rome. Even slaves themselves held slaves. Without the combined labor force of these millions of slaves the Roman empire would have collapsed earlier then it did. In Germanic society this was never the case. There were slaves, but they were mainly spoils of war, and never did they outnumber the freemen. Sure some freemen had bonds of clientism with other wealthier freemen, but as a general rule they entered into this relation out of free will, and -at least in the case of the jungmannschaften- had the right to end this contract and offer their services elsewhere.

Then what about Rigstala. Rigstala describes how the 3 groups of society came into existence. It also gives the impression that social rank is passed on from father to son. Isn’t this contradictory to what has just been said?
Again this depends on your reading of the text. As a matter of fact Rigstala is one of my favorite poems. It contains a number of levels.
First of all it is clear that when Rig started his voyage, all people were equal, it is only after his passing that social stratification began. This confirms that at he time of creation all men were equal.

Secondly we must remember that the Rigstala was written for a noble audience, and in the end of the viking age, when society had become far more hierarchic under the influence of christian societies to the south.
Kings began to rise to universal power, local free bondi were subjugated to the jarls and the power of the local things was being restricted.
And in fact the new powerful men needed to assure the justification of the new situation in a mythological context, just as the Frankish royals deducted their right to rule from a divine source and just as the English kings all claimed descendent of Woden.
Rigstala must be seen in that context, and actually is a prelude to the forced introduction of Christianity, which proved for Scandinavian nobility to be a much stronger justification of their power then the old religion.
Christianity had already proven its” worldly “value among other Germanic peoples.( Actually to an important extend the rather swift convertion to Christiany of the north, but also the Baltic and even many of the traditional Germanic tribes, was succesfull due to the well considered politics of newly established powerfull men. Its goal was first subjugation and unification of the kingdom rather then it was due to real religious considerations or convictions of the truth in the christian message. To become Christian assured the king of the support of the church and its literate monks, it would ensure the creation of a religious and territorial hierarchy which could be used to control the masses and to structure the country in a feudal manner).

This does however not imply that Rigstala is worthless, on the contrary, when we read it carefully there are some clear lessons to be learned from it. To me what we must retain from this saga is the concept that that all more of less complex societies need some kind of stratification. Without this stratification anarchy and chaos and in the end the subjugation by a less compelled party that plays the game based upon the rules of power are inevitable.

What this saga doesn’t imply, in my point of view is how this stratification is achieved. In a democracy, we are free to choose our leaders. We choose our leaders but cannot say we wont comply with the laws they establish, if we don’t like these laws afterward.
Every society also needs planners and workmen, it also needs cultivators of food, as well as moral figures, and persons that maintain order.

What Rigstala certainly doesn’t imply is that persons performing certain tasks are automaticaly to be better rewarded then those that perform other tasks.
This is a modern conception and it is quite volatile. A simple example can illustrate this. 70 year ago when my grandfather was young, a plumber was considered to be of lower education, his salary wasn’t very high, and certainly less than that of a person that had gone to school until his 18th birthday. Nowadays, plumbers are often well paid, better then most people with an academic education. This is simply due to the fact that the numbers of plumbers have diminished enormously, whilst the number of highly educated people has exponentially increased.

The thing

A final aspect that proves that Nordic society considered equality as a higher good is found in the thing. All over Northern and North-Western Europe we find remnants of thing, hagengerichte, vierscharen etc. This shows that almost everywhere in the Germanic world, groups of pears would meet and decide upon basic laws. We also know that these groups would choose man of valor to lead them in times of war. These men were to be obeyed without hesitation until the same thing would decide otherwise. Those who didn’t obey were treated as traitors. Kings do not seem to have been an original Germanic invention, they were rather lead by earls or as it is called in German “herzogen”. “Herzog” is a word that clearly defines the function of this public figure, it is the person that led (zog) the army (heer).

We do see that when these societies get into contact with other more hierarchic societies like the Roman society, they tend to evolve to kingdoms. Some examples. In Caesars time we see the first,contact between Germanic people and Romans, the Germanic leader Ariovistus is refered to as a dux or earl. In the time of Octavian, we find Marbod as the king of a mixed Germanic-Celtic kingdom. To the north Arminius starts out as a dux, but is later on murdered by a member of his entourage because they believed he desired to become king. In the time of the great migrations, a lot a Eastern Germanic tribes, such as the Goths and Vandals have replaced the initial duxes by kings. The Frankish empire also makes the switch quite early, as do the English kingdoms. Only up in the north this process is much slower. Even in Charlemagne’s time we an find that he was battling the dux Windukind of the Saxons. Yet at the same time we encounter a rex Godfred in at least southern Denmark. Whilst it is almost certain that in Norway and Sweden the jarls still held sway as they would continue to do during most of the viking age.

Apart from being an illustration of the process I mentioned earlier, we clearly see that these societies became less democratic as the threat to their survival as an independent entity increased. We see regal power in the north solidifies when the Frankish empires gain in power, we see back in Roman times that centralized power is stronger in peoples in direct contact with the Mediterranean world.
The history of the north also learn us that the process wasn’t irreversible. At some times we encounter a rex, that is later on replaces by a number local reges or jarls.

We also know that the duces chosen to lead the people into battle were chosen from a select group of tribe members namely the nobles. Not every free man could become dux, only those that could retrace their ancestry to a deity would be accepted. But it seems all men could vote for the candidate of their choice. This was no doubt already an early adaptation in order to limit the complexity and the duration of the procedures related to the choice of a leader. Less candidates automatically diminished the time needed to choose a leader and thus increased the reaction speed in case of hostilities.
Later on when a dux becomes king his powers are no longer limited to a single campaign, but to his lifespan. At that time we notice that the regal power doesn’t immediately become inherited. The king was still formally elected, sometimes even during the lifespan of the father, who was still in office at the time. A famous example is the election of Charlemagne and his brother, whilst their father Pippin was still alive.

The choosing of a king was thus fundamental to the system that in the German empire it became institutionalized. The system of the elector counts was maintained until far into the middle ages.

A final indication that the thing as an assembly of all free men and -as an assembly of equals -was considered to be a cornerstone of society can be found in the Icelandic Landnama bok. It clearly stated that many settlers moved to Iceland, because the increasing regal power tried to subjugate the freedom of freeborn men.

And the fact that at the thing, it was often the right of the strongest that prevailed does not negate this conclusion. Every man had the right to use whatever means he could to get what he wanted at the thing. Since every man was equal, any lower men was allowed to try to move up in society and once he had accumulated enough power he was allowed to use it. This strongly resembles the American way of looking at democracy, whereas in Europe we in generally realize that, although equal in origin, it is very hard for a person to rise from the lowest cast to the highest. Americans still strongly believe in the concept of the American dream due to their historical context.

The basic democratic ideas of the Germanic Thing can be proven by the following extract on Þorgnýr the Law speaker as related in the Heimskringla. It proves that even men of power were subjected to the final acclamation of the assembled peoples in the thing meetings. The fact that the king initially obeys is quite revealing.

“Then Thorgny stood up; and when he arose all the bondes [yeomen] stood up who had before been sitting, and rushed together from all parts to listen to what Lagman Thorgny would say. At first there was a great din of people and weapons; but when the noise was settled into silent listening, Thorgny made his speech.

The disposition of Swedish kings is different now from what it has been formerly. My grandfather Thorgny could well remember the Upsala king Eirik Eymundson, and used to say of him that when he was in his best years he went out every summer on expeditions to different countries, and conquered for himself Finland, Kirjalaland, Courland, Esthonia, and the eastern countries all around; and at the present day the earth-bulwarks, ramparts, and other great works which he made are to be seen. And, more over, he was not so proud that he would not listen to people who had anything to say to him. My father, again, was a long time with King Björn, and was well acquainted with his ways and manners. In Björn’s lifetime his kingdom stood in great power, and no kind of want was felt, and he was gay and sociable with his friends. I also remember King Eirik the Victorious, and was with him on many a war-expedition. He enlarged the Swedish dominion, and defended it manfully; and it was also easy and agreeable to communicate our opinions to him. But the king we have now got allows no man to presume to talk with him, unless it be what he desires to hear. On this alone he applies all his power, while he allows his scat-lands [territories paying protection money to the Swedes] in other countries to go from him through laziness and weakness. He wants to have the Norway kingdom laid under him, which no Swedish king before him ever desired, and therewith brings war and distress on many a man. Now it is our will, we bondes, that thou King Olaf make peace with the Norway king, Olaf the Thick, and marry thy daughter Ingegerd to him. Wilt thou, however, reconquer the kingdoms in the east countries which thy relations and forefathers had there, we will all for that purpose follow thee to the war. But if thou wilt not do as we desire, we will now attack thee, and put thee to death; for we will no longer suffer law and peace to be disturbed. So our forefathers went to work when they drowned five kings in a morass at the Mula-thing, and they were filled with the same insupportable pride thou hast shown towards us. Now tell us, in all haste, what resolution thou wilt take.

Then the whole public approved, with clash of arms and shouts, the lagman’s speech.”

Conclusions

Now then, what does all of this imply for the modern Asatruar?

1 the creation of men was made possible due to the creative act of several gods, among which the sky father that used attributes of the earth mother to create mankind

2 this doesn’t exclude the concept of evolution, since we can imagine that the gods simply made up the rules and let the whole thing loose, rarely intervening themselves

3 sometime after the initial creation of man, we got the gift of creativity. It would seem this gift was more or less accidentally bestowed upon us.

4 man and woman were created as equals, but not as identical beings, other kinds of wood were used in order to make possible the obvious differences between the sexes

5 all men were created equal

6 when we started to evolve into more complex societies we obtained the knowledge that complex societies require some form of hierarchy if they wish to survive. This is the key message of Rigstala. This poem must however be read with the understanding that in its present form it was written down in a society were the regal power tried to solidify its hold on society

7 the thing or parliament of equals is a cornerstone of all Germanic societies, it seems that our present western societies are best served by a form of Democracy, which doesn’t mean other societies must make the same choice.

Pieter, February 2015.