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Mannus

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This article is about the Germanic figure. For the rural community in New South Wales, Australia, see Mannus, New South Wales.

Mannus, according to the Roman writer Tacitus, was a figure in the creation myths of the Germanic tribes. Tacitus is the only source of these myths.[1]

Engraving of the three sons of Mannus (Carl Larsson, 1893): Ingui plays with a model ship (the Ingaevones lived by the sea); Irmin wears a helmet and sword (the Irminones were famed as warriors); Istaev/Iscio digs in the earth and has a toy horse (the Istvaeones were horsemen and farmers).

Tacitus wrote that Mannus was the son of Tuisto and the progenitor of the three Germanic tribes Ingaevones, Herminones and Istvaeones.[2] In discussing the German tribes, Tacitus wrote:[3]

In ancient lays, their only type of historical tradition, they celebrate Tuisto, a god brought forth from the earth. They attribute to him a son, Mannus, the source and founder of their people, and to Mannus three sons, from whose names those nearest the ocean are called Ingvaeones, those in the middle Herminones, and the rest Istvaeones. Some people, inasmuch as antiquity gives free rein to speculation, maintain that there were more sons born from the god and hence more tribal designations—Marsi, Gambrivii, Suebi, and Vandilii—and that those names are genuine and ancient.

Several authors consider the name Mannus in Tacitus's work to stem from an Indo-European root.[4][5] (See Manu and Yemo#Linguistic evidence.)

The Latinized name Mannus is evidently of some relation to Proto-Germanic *mannaz, 'man'.[6]

Mannus again became popular in literature in the 16th century, after works published by Annius de Viterbo[7] and Johannes Aventinus[8] purported to list him as a primeval king over Germany and Sarmatia.[9]

In the 19th century, F. Nork wrote that the names of the three sons of Mannus can be extrapolated as Ingui, Irmin, and Istaev or Iscio.[10] A few scholars like Ralph T. H. Griffith have expressed a connection between Mannus and the names of other ancient founder-kings, such as Minos of Greek mythology, and Manu of Hindu tradition.[11]

Guido von List incorporated the myth of Mannus and his sons into his occult practice, which were later adopted into Nazi occult beliefs.[12]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Mills, Alice; Stanton, Julie; Parker, Janet, eds. (2003). Mythology: Myths, Legends and Fantasies (Updated ed.). Global Book / Struik / Sweet Water. p. 234. ISBN 978-1-74048-091-8. This is a university textbook and exists in several variants printed for different major institutions. Reprinted 2007, ISBN 9781740480932.
  2. ^ Rauch, Irmengard (2008). The Phonology/Paraphonology Interface and the Sounds of German Across Time. Peter Lang. p. 64.
  3. ^ Tacitus, Germania, chapter 2. Quoted in: Woolf, Great (2010). Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West. John Wiley & Sons. p. 40.
  4. ^ Biliarsky, Ivan (2011). Word and Power in Mediaeval Bulgaria. Leiden: Brill. p. 167.
  5. ^ Dumézil, Georges (1988). Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations. Zone. p. 87. The question remains whether one can phonetically link this Latin mani- '[dead] man' to the [Proto-Indo-European] *manu- which, apart from the Sanskrit manu (both the name and the common noun for 'man'), has given, in particular, the Germanic Mannus (-nn- from *-nw- regularly), mythical ancestor of the Germans ..., the Gothic manna 'man' ... and the Slavic monžǐ.
  6. ^ Harper, Douglas. "man – Origin and meaning". Online Etymology Dictionary. Archived from the original on 14 August 2020. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  7. ^ Whaley, Joachim (2012). Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. Vol. I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1493–1648. Oxford University Press. p. 110.
  8. ^ Strauss, Gerald (1963). Historian in an Age of Crisis: The Life and Work of Johannes Aventinus, 1477–1534. Harvard University Press. p. 121.
  9. ^ Jones, William J. (1999). "'König Deutsch zu Abrahams Zeiten': Perceptions of the place of German in the family of languages, from Aventinus to Zedler". Images of Language: Six Essays on German Attitudes. "Studies in the History of the Language Sciences" series. Vol. 89. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. p. 9. ISBN 978-90-272-4577-9.
  10. ^ Populäre Mythologie, oder Götterlehre aller Völker, p. 112, F. Nork, Scheible, Rieger & Sattler (1845)
  11. ^ Garrett, John (1873). A Classical Dictionary of India: Illustrative of the Mythology, Philosophy, Literature, Antiquities, Arts, Manners, Customs &c. of the Hindus. Bangalore: Higginbotham & Co. p. 383.
  12. ^ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (1992). The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology. New York University Press. p. 56. ISBN 9780814730607. Archived from the original on 4 July 2014. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
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