The Ethnology of Europe

by R. G. Latham

Pomerania, too, retains vestiges of its Slavonic population in the Kaszeb, Kassubes, or Kassubitæ, occupants of the peninsula and islands at the mouth of the Oder. The name, too, of the province at large, is Slavonic; po=on+more=sea=coast-land.

The Isle of Rugen was one of the last strongholds of Slavonic Paganism, as is shown by its numerous antiquities, and by the evidence of history. The famous temple of the Obotrite Slavonians was there; though Mecklenburg rather than Pomerania was the part of the continent to which they belonged.

In Prussian Silesia, the Serskie of Lower and the Srbie of Upper Lusatia, still Slavonic, retain their language, and represented the older population of the whole country.

The Saale was the original boundary between the Germans and the Slaves, all between Thuringia and Poland belonging to that stock. Certain as this is from the accounts of the conquest under the Carlovingian empire, the details are difficult for Prussian Saxony, Altmark, and Brandenburg. The Hevelli were on the Hevel: the Stoderani, Brizani, Bethenici, Dossani, and Smeldingi filled up much of the valleys of the Oder and the Elbe: we cannot, however, fill up the whole tract. Yet, the names of the Marches, or Borders, show that the encroachment was gradual. First, and nearest to Germany, is the old march (Altmark); after this, the Middle march (Mittel mark); and then the March of the Ukrians (Uckermark), all originally frontiers between the encroaching Germans and the retiring Slavonians, and all frontiers within the historical period.

But Ucker-mark was a Border, or Debatable land in the eyes of the Slavonians, as well as their conquerors; and the name of its original occupants signified Borderers. The kr-is the kr-in U-krain-, as well as in the word Grenz, which, though German at present, is in origin, Slavonic. The form Uckri, Ucrani, and Uncrani, indicate this. Perhaps, though only perhaps, this Ukrian March—this Brandenburg Ukraine—may have separated the most western Lithuanians of Prussia from the Slavonians of the water-system of the Oder; if so, the word is an instrument of criticism, as it certainly is in many other interesting instances.

In part of the circle of Kotbus, the Sorabian of Silesia is still spoken.

The south-western districts of Prussia east of the Saale, Hesse, an outlying portion of Hanover, and Weimar, along with a narrow strip on the Brunswick frontier, are the only parts of the western half of the Proper Brandenburg Prussia that began with being Germanic; and even here there seems to have been intermixture. The Hanoverian frontier seems to have been wholly Slavonic.

Of Rhenish Prussia, Westphalia was originally Saxon—not exactly Angle or Anglo-Saxon, but slightly differing from the Anglo-Saxon in language. It was Old-Saxon. The Old-Saxon language, however, is extinct, and the blood considerably mixed. Encroachment and conquest of Low Dutch and High Dutch Germans from the South, in the ninth and tenth centuries, effected this. There were, also, a few Slavic colonies. Otherwise the blood is German; though neither wholly Dutch nor wholly Saxon. The old tribes of Westphalian Prussia were the Chamavi, Bructeri, and Angrivarii.

In Berg, Cleves, and the parts about Cologne, the Ubii, Tenchteri, Sicambri, and other allied tribes, were, probably, Dutch rather than Saxon, and Low Dutch rather than High. On the French frontier there is a Keltic basis; Cologne claims a notable amount of Roman blood.

Mecklenburg.—The great Slavonic nation of Mecklenburg was the Obotrites; after them the Wilzi, the Tollenzi, and the Rethrarii of the old pagan town of Rethre. The dukes of Mecklenburg alone, of all the numerous dynasts of Germany, are of Slavonic extraction.