The Ethnology of the British Islands

by R. G. Latham

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ANGLES OF GERMANY: THEIR COMPARATIVE OBSCURITY.—NOTICE OF TACITUS.—EXTRACT FROM PTOLEMY.—CONDITIONS OF THE ANGLE AREA.—THE VARINI.—THE REUDIGNI AND OTHER POPULATIONS OF TACITUS.—THE SABALINGII, ETC., OF PTOLEMY.—THE SUEVI ANGILI.—ENGLE AND ONGLE.—ORIGINAL ANGLE AREA.

There are several populations of whom, like quiet and retiring individuals, we know nothing until they move; for, in their original countries, they lead a kind of still life which escapes notice and description, and which, if it were not for a change of habits with a change of area, would place them in the position of the great men who lived before Agamemnon. They would pass from the development to the death of their separate existence unobserved, and no one know who they were, where they lived, and what were their relations. But they move to some new locality, and then, like those fruit-trees which, in order to be prolific, must be transplanted, the noiseless and unnoticed tenor of their original way is exchanged for an influential and prominent position. They take up a large place in the world's history. Sometimes this arises from an absolute change of character with the change of circumstances; but oftener it is due to a more intelligible[143] cause. They move from a country beyond the reach of historical and geographical knowledge to one within it; and having done this they find writers who observe and describe them, simply because they have come within the field of observation and description.

It is no great stretch of imagination to picture some of the stronger tribes of the now unknown parts of Central Africa finding their way as far southward as the Cape, when they would come within the sphere of European observation. On such a ground, they may play a conspicuous part in history; conspicuous enough to be noticed by historians, missionaries, and journalists. They may even form the matter of a blue book. For all this, however, they shall only be known in the latter-days of their history. What they were in their original domain may remain a mystery; and that, even when the parts wherein it lay shall have become explored. For it is just possible that between the appearance of such a population in a locality beyond the pale of their own unexplored home, and the subsequent discovery of that previously obscure area, the part which was left behind—the parent portion—may have lost its nationality, its language, its locality, its independence, its name—any one or any number of its characteristics. Perhaps, the name alone, with a vague notice of its locality, may remain;[144] a name famous from the glory of its new country, but obscure, and even equivocal in its fatherland.

How truly are the Majiars of Hungary known only from what they have been in Hungary. Yet they are no natives of that country. It was from the parts beyond the Uralian mountains that they came, and when we visit those parts and ask for their original home, we find no such name, no such language, no such nationality as that of the Majiars. We find Bashkirs, or something equally different instead. But north of the old country of the Majiars—now no longer Majiar—we find Majiar characteristics; in other words, we are amongst the first cousins of the Hungarians, the descendants not of the exact ancestors of the conquerors of Hungary, but of the populations most nearly allied to such ancestors. And it is in these that we must study the Majiar before he became European. The direct descendants of the same parents have disappeared, but collateral branches of the family survive; and these we study, assuming that there is a family likeness.

All this has been written in illustration of a case near home. The Majiar of the Uralian wilds, the Majiar of the Yaik and Oby, the Majiar, in short, of Asia, is not more obscure, unknown, and unimportant when compared with the countrymen[145] of Hunyades, Zapolya, and Kossuth, than is the Angle of Germany when contrasted with the Angle of England, the Angle of the great continent with the Angle of the small island. When we say that the former is named by Tacitus, Ptolemy, and a few other less important writers, we have said all. There is the name, and little enough besides. What does the most learned ethnologist know of a people called the Eudoses? Nothing. He speculates, perhaps, on a letter-change, and fancies that by prefixing a Ph, and inserting an n he can convert the name into Phundusii. But what does he know of the Phundusii? Nothing; except that by ejecting the ph and omitting the n he can reduce them to Eudoses. Then come the Aviones, whom, by omission and rejection, we can identify with the Obii, of whom we know little, and also convert into the Cobandi, of whom we know less. The Reudigni—what light comes from these? The Nuithones—what from these? The Suardones—what from these? Now, it is not going too far if we say that, were it not for the conquest of England, the Angles of Germany would have been known to the ethnologist just as the Aviones are, i.e., very little; that, like the Eudoses, they might have had their very name tampered with; and that, like the Suardones and Reudigni and Nuithones, they might have been anything[146] or nothing in the way of ethnological affinity, historical development, and geographical locality.

This is the true case. Nine-tenths of what is known of the Angli of Germany is known from a single passage, and every word in that single passage which applies to Angli applies to the Eudoses, Aviones, Reudigni, Suardones, and Nuithones as well.

The passage in question is the 40th section of the Germania of Tacitus, and is as follows:—

"Contra Langobardos paucitas nobilitat: plurimis ac valentissimis nationibus cincti non per obsequium sed præliis et periclitando tuti sunt. Reudigni, deinde, et Aviones, et Angli, et Varini, et Suardones, et Nuithones fluminibus aut sylvis muniuntur; neque quidquam notabile in singulis nisi quod in commune Hertham, id est, Terram Matrem colunt, eamque intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis arbitrantur. Est in insula Oceani castum nemus, dicatum in eo vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse penetrali deam intelligit, vectamque bobus feminis multa cum veneratione prosequitur. Læti tunc dies, festa loca, quæcunque adventu hospitioque dignatur. Non bella ineunt, non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum; pax et quies tunc tantum nota, tunc tantum amata, donec idem sacerdos satiatam conversatione[147] mortalium deam templo reddat: mox vehiculum et vestes, et si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant, quos statim idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit id, quod perituri tantum vident."

Let us ask what we get from this passage when taken by itself, i.e., without the light thrown upon it by the present existence of the descendants of the Angli as the English of England.