Barbarian
The term Barbarian was originally used to denote any foreigner of a different culture and language background. While it did not originally have a pejorative connotation, it was used by those of relatively advanced civilizations and thus came to refer to people from more primitive cultures, whose people usually relied on physical strength more than intellect. Today, "barbarian" is used to mean someone violent, primitive, uncouth, or generally uncivilized. Although intellectual advances have been the most valued, there are historical examples in which barbarian cultures and actions contributed to societal progress.
Origin of the term
The term "barbarian" is not derived from the name of any tribe or cultural group; there is no country called "barbar." Instead, the Berbers, a group of whom were originally known as Numidians, received the name "Berber" from the Roman term barbara or barbarian.
The word "barbarian" comes from the Greek language, and was used to connote any foreigner not sharing a recognized culture or language with the speaker or writer employing the term. The word was probably formed by imitation of the incomprehensible sounds of a foreign language (“bar-bar”). Originally, it was not a derogatory term; it simply meant anything that was not Greek, including language, people or customs. Later, as the Greeks encountered more foreigners, some of whom learned Greek but spoke with a strange accent, the term took on the connotation of uncivilized.
Historical perspective
Throughout history, any tribe referred to as barbaric was automatically regarded as primitive, violent, and uncivilized. Such a stigma was mostly due to Greek views on those who threatened Greek civilization and culture (e.g. Persian or Gothic tribes). The Romans inherited this view from the Greeks, and in their encounters with different tribes across Europe usually called those tribes “barbarian.” However, being war- and conquest-oriented, the Romans admired barbarians as fearless and brave warriors. Attila the Hun is among the best known leader of such barbarians. In the latter stages of the Roman Empire, around the 4th and 5th centuries CE, the Romans even started to recruit young barbarian males to serve in the Roman army, a practice known as the barbarization of the Roman Empire. Gothic and Vandal soldiers were employed to protect the empire's outer borders. However, this encouraged barbarians to attack the Romans more, due to the perceived weakness that barbarization produced, and, in the long run, aided in the final breakdown of the empire.
Berbers
The Berbers (also called Imazighen, "free men", singular Amazigh) are an ethnic group indigenous to Northwest Africa, speaking the Berber languages of the Afroasiatic family. There are between 14 and 25 million speakers of Berber languages in North Africa (see population estimation), principally concentrated in Morocco and Algeria but with smaller communities as far east as Egypt and as far south as Burkina Faso.
The Berbers have lived in North Africa for as far back as records of the area go. References to them occur frequently in ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sources. Berber groups are first mentioned in writing by the ancient Egyptians during the Predynastic Period, and during the New Kingdom the Egyptians later fought against the Meshwesh and Lebu (Libyans) tribes on their western borders. Many Egyptologists think that from about 945 B.C.E. the Egyptians were ruled by Meshwesh immigrants who founded the Twenty-second Dynasty under Shoshenq I, beginning a long period of Berber rule in Egypt, although others posit different origins for these dynasties, including Nubian ones. The Byzantine chroniclers often complain of the Mazikes (Amazigh) raiding outlying monasteries, and berbers long remained the main population of the Western Desert well into the Nineteenth century.
For many centuries the Berbers inhabited the coast of North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. In historical times, they have expanded south into the Sahara (displacing earlier black African populations such as the Azer and Bafour), and have in turn been mainly culturally assimilated in much of North Africa by Arabs, particularly following the incursion of the Banu Hilal in the 11th century.
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe which according to their own traditions originated in Scandinavia (specifically Gotland and Götaland). They migrated southwards and conquered parts of the Roman empire.
They were settled for some time in the Vistula Basin. From there they migrated towards the south-east. They battled with, and temporarily subjugated, the ancestors of the Slavs, who lived between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea and ultimately settled in 'Scythia' a vast undefined region that includes modern Ukraine and Belarus. A united tribe until the third century, it was during that period that they split into the eastern Goths or Ostrogoths and the western Goths or Visigoths.
Though many of the fighting nomads who followed them were to prove more bloody, the Goths were feared because the captives they took in battle were sacrificed to their god of war, Tyz [1](the one-Handed Tyr), and the captured arms hung in trees as a token-offering. Their kings and priests came from a separate aristocracy and were honored as gods, according to Jordanes' Getica a condensation of the lost twelve-volume history of the Goths written in Italy by Cassiodorus.
A force of Goths launched one of the first major "barbarian" invasions of the Roman Empire in 267 (Hermannus Contractus, quoting Eusebius, has "263: Macedonia, Graecia, Pontus, Asia et aliae provinciae depopulantur per Gothos"). A year later, they suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Naissus and were driven back across the Danube River by 271. This group then settled on the other side of the Danube from Roman territory and established an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia, as the Visigoths. In the meantime, the Goths still in Ukraine established a vast and powerful kingdom along the Black Sea. This group became known as the Ostrogoths.
The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early sixth century under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom for nearly two decades.
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Huns
Hun is a term that refers to a specific group of Central Asian nomadic tribes, who appeared in Europe in the 4th century. It has also become a more general term for any number of Central Asian equestrian nomads or semi-nomads. Most of these peoples are recorded by neighboring peoples to the south, east, and west as having occupied Central Asia roughly from the late 1st century to the mid-5th century.
Dionisus Periegetes talks of people who may be Huns living next to the Caspian Sea in 200 C.E. which is coroborated in 214 C.E. by Choronei Mozes in his "History of Armenia" who introduces the Hunni near the Sarmatians and goes on to describe how they captured the city of Balk (which is Kush in Armenian) sometime between 194 and 214 explaining why the Greeks call that city Hunuk. With the Xiongnu out of the way, we meet a century of lull, then following attempts by the Liu family of Tiefu Huns to re-establish Hunnish states in western China (see Han Zhao) Chionites (OIONO/Xiyon) appear on the scene in Transoxiana as Kidara's Huns begin to press on the Kushans in 320 and the Jie ethnicity Hou/Later Zhao kingdom competes against the Liu family. Back west, the Romans invited the Huns east of the Ukraine to settle Pannonia in 361 and in 372, under the leadership of Balimir their king, the Huns push toward the west and defeat the Alans. Back east again, in the early 5th century Tiefu Xia is the last Hunnish dynasty in Western China and we meet the Alchon and Huna in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At this point deciphering Hunnish histories for the multi-linguist becomes easier with relatively well documented events in Byzantine, Armenian, Iranian, Indian and Chinese sources.
Huns made an appearance in Europe in the Fourth Century AD, where the Romans invited them to settle Pannonia in 361.
The establishment of the first Hun state marks one of the first well-documented appearances of the culture of horseback migration in history. Under the leadership of Attila the Hun, these tribes people achieved superiority over their rivals (most of them highly cultured) by their state of military readiness, high mobility, and weapons like the Hun bow.
Attila's Huns, like the eastern Xiongnu, incorporated groups of unrelated tributary peoples. In the European case Alans, Gepids, Scrir, Rugians, Sarmatians, Slavs and especially Gothic tribes all united under the Hun family military elite. Attila's Huns eventually settled Pannonia.
The memory of the Hunnish invasion was transmitted orally among the Germanic tribes and is an important component in the Old Norse Völsunga saga and Hervarar saga, and the Old German Nibelungenlied, all portraying events in the Migrations period, almost one millennium before their recordings. In the Hervarar saga, the Goths make first contact with the bow-wielding Huns and meet them in an epic battle on the plains of the Danube. In the Völsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied, king Attila (Atli in Norse and Etzel in German) defeat the Frankish king Sigebert I (Sigurðr or Siegfried) and the Burgundian king Guntram I (Gunnar or Gunther), but is subsequently assassinated by Queen Fredegund (Gudrun or Kriemhild), the sister of the latter and wife of the former.
Magyars
Magyars are an ethnic group primarily associated with Hungary. In English they are sometimes called Hungarians.
The Magyar leader Árpád is believed to have led the Hungarians into the Carpathian Basin in 896. Magyar expansion was checked at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. Hungarian settlement in the area became approved by the Pope by the crowning of Stephen I the Saint (Szent István) in 1001 when the leaders accepted Christianity. The century between the Magyars' arrival from the eastern European plains and the consolidation of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1001 were dominated by pillaging campaigns across Europe, from Dania (Denmark) to the Iberian peninsula (Spain).
At the Hungarian conquest, the Hungarian nation numbered between 250,000 and 450,000 people. The Slavic population of the region (and remnants of the Avars in the southwest) was also assimilated by the Magyars, except those living approximately in present-day Slovakia (the ancestors of the Slovak people) and those living in present-day Croatia. Croatia joined the Kingdom in 1102.
Hun names like Attila and Réka are still popular among Hungarians, and forms derived from Latin Hungaria are used like in the racetrack Hungaroring (mostly due to the strong English language pressure in tourism and international matters).
Magyar is today simply the Hungarian word for Hungarian. In English and many other languages, however, Magyar is used instead of Hungarian in certain (mainly historical) contexts, usually to distinguish ethnic Hungarians (i.e. the Magyars) from the other nationalities living in the Hungarian kingdom.
The origin of the Hungarians (more correctly Magyars) is partly disputed. The most widely accepted Finno-Ugric theory from the late 18th century is based primarily on linguistic and ethnographical arguments, while it is criticised by some as relying too much on linguistics. There are also other theories stating that the Magyars are descendants of Scythians, Huns, Turks, Avars, and/or Sumerians. These are primarily based on medieval legends – whose authenticity and scientific reliability is strongly questionable – and non-systematic linguistic similarities. Most scholars therefore dismiss these claims as mere speculation.
According to this theory, in the 4th millennium B.C.E., some of the earliest settlements of the Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples were situated east of the Ural Mountains, where they hunted and fished. From there, the Ugrians, i.e., the ancestors of the Magyars, were settled in the wood-steppe parts of western Siberia (i.e. to the east of the Urals) – from c. 2000 B.C.E. onwards at least. Their settlements were identical with the north-western part of the Andronovo Culture. Some more advanced tribes coming from the southern steppes taught them how to do agriculture, breed cattle and produce bronze objects. Around 1500 B.C.E., they started to breed horses and horse riding became one of their typical activities.
Due to climatic changes in the early 1st millennium B.C.E., the Ugrian subgroup known as the Ob-Ugrians – until then living more in the north - moved to the lower Ob River, while the Ugrian subgroup being the ancestor of the proto-Magyars remained in the south and became nomadic herdsmen. From the definitive departure of the Ob-Ugrians (around 500 B.C.E.), the ancestors of present-day Magyars can be considered a separate ethnic group – the proto-Magyars. During the following centuries, the proto-Magyars still lived in the wood-steppes and steppes southeast of the Ural Mountains, and they were immediate neighbours of and were strongly influenced by the ancient Sarmatians.
Bashkiria and the Khazar khaganate (4th century – c. 830 C.E.) In the 4th and 5th centuries AD, the Proto-Magyars moved to the west of the Ural Mountains to the area between the southern Ural Mountains and the Volga River (Bashkiria, or Bashkortostan).
In the early 8th century, a part of the proto-Magyars moved to the Don River (to a territory between the Volga, the Don and the Donets), a territory later called Levedia. The descendants of those proto-Magyars who stayed in Bashkiria were seen in Bashkiria as late as in 1241. Indeed, many historical references related both the Magyars (Hungarians) and the Bashkirs as two branches of the same nation. However, modern Bashkirs are quite different from their original stock, largely decimated during the Mongol invasion (13th century), and assimilated into Turkic peoples.
The proto-Magyars around the Don River were subordinates of the Khazar khaganate. Their neighbours were the archaeological Saltov Culture, i.e. Bulgars (Proto-Bulgarians, descendants of the Onogurs) and the Alans, from whom they learned gardening, elements of cattle breeding and of agriculture. The Bulgars and Magyars shared a long-lasting relationship in Khazaria, either by alliance or rivalry. The system of 2 rulers (later known as kende and gyula) is also thought to be a major inheritance from the Khazars. Tradition holds that the Magyars were organized in a confederacy of seven tribes called Jenő, Kér, Keszi, Kürt-Gyarmat, Megyer (Magyar), Nyék, and Tarján.
Etelköz (c. 830 – c. 895) Around 830, a civil war broke out in the Khazar khaganate. As a result, three Kabar tribes out of the Khazars joined the Proto-Magyars and they moved to what the Magyars call the Etelköz, i.e. the territory between the Carpathians and the Dnieper River (today's Ukraine). Around 854, the Proto-Magyars had to face a first attack by the Pechenegs. (According to other sources, the reason for the departure of the Proto-Magyars to Etelköz was the attack of the Pechenegs.) Both the Kabars and earlier the Bulgars may have taught the Magyars their Turkic languages; according to the Finno-Ugric theory, this is used to account for at least 300 Turkic words and names still in modern Hungarian. The new neighbours of the Proto-Magyars were the Vikings and the eastern Slavs. Archaeological findings suggest that the Proto-Magyars entered into intense interaction with both groups. From 862 onwards, the proto-Magyars (already referred to as the Ungri) along with their allies, the Kabars, started a series of looting raids from the Etelköz to the Carpathian Basin — mostly against the Eastern Frankish Empire (Germany) and Great Moravia, but also against the Balaton principality and Bulgaria.
Entering the Carpathian Basin (after 895)
In 895/896, probably under the leadership of Árpád, a part of them crossed the Carpathians to enter the Carpathian basin. The tribe called Magyars (Megyer) was the leading tribe of the Magyar alliance that conquered the center of the basin. At the same time (c. 895), the proto-Magyars in Etelköz were attacked by Bulgaria (due to the involvement of the proto-Magyars in the Bulgaro-Byzantine war of 894-896), and then by their old enemies, the Pechenegs. It is uncertain whether or not those conflicts were the cause of the Magyar departure from Etelköz.
In the Carpathian Basin, the Magyars initially occupied the Great Moravian territory at the upper/middle Tisza river – a scarcely populated territory, where, according to Arabian sources, Great Moravia used to send its criminals, and where the Roman Empire had settled the Iazyges centuries earlier. From there, they intensified their looting raids all over continental Europe. In 900, they moved from the upper Tisza river to Transdanubia (Pannonia), which later became the core of the arising Hungarian state. Their allies, the Kabars, probably led by Kursan, probably settled in the region around Bihar. Upon entering the Carpathian basin, the Magyars found a largely Slavic population there, such as the Bulgarians, Slovaks, Slovenians, Croats etc., and minor remnants of the Avars (in the southwest). Influenced by the Slavic population of this territory, the Magyars gradually changed their pastoral way of life to an agricultural one, and borrowed hundreds of Slavic words. See History of Hungary for a continuation, and Hungary before the Magyars for the background.
Many of the "proto-Magyars", however, remained to the north of the Carpathians after 895/896, as archaeological findings e.g. in Polish Przemysl suggest. They seem to have joined the other Magyars in 900. There is also a consistent Hungarian population in Transylvania that is historically not related to the Magyars led by Árpád: the Székelys, the main ethnic component of the Hungarian minority in Romania. They are fully acknowledged as Magyars. The Székely people's origin, and in particular the time of their settlement in Transylvania, is a matter of historical controversy (see Székely for details).
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Picts
The term Picts refers to a group of pre-Celtic tribes that Mediterranean classical-era writers said lived in Caledonia, which is now part of Scotland. This area was found north of the River Forth in northern Britain.
Pict first appears in a panegyric written by Eumenius in 297 C.E. Although Picti is usually taken to mean painted or tattooed in Latin, the term may have a Celtic origin. The Goidelic Celts called the Picts cruithne (e.g. Old Irish cru(i)then-túath, based on the Old Irish root cruth) and the Brythonic Celts knew them as prydyn (e.g. Early Welsh *kwriteno-teutā, or the more modern pryd).
Legends about the Picts also include mention of possible Scythian origins — linking them with another remote pre-literate people. Again, lack of information about the Pictish language makes it difficult to evaluate these legends. It should also be noted that Roman and Medieval scholars tended to ascribe a Scythian origin to any barbarian people (including the Scots and Goths) in order to emphasise their barbarity and 'otherness'.
Popular etymology has long interpreted the name Pict as if it derived from the Latin the word Picti meaning "painted folk" or possibly "tattooed ones"; and this may relate to the Welsh word Pryd meaning "to mark" or "to draw". Julius Caesar, who never went near Pictland, mentions the British Celtic custom of body painting in Book V of his Gallic Wars, stating Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod caeruleum efficit colorem, atque hoc horridiores sunt in pugna aspectu; which means: "In fact all Britanni stain themselves with vitrum, which produces a dark blue colour, and by this means they are more terrifying to face in battle;"
Linguists generally translate the Latin word vitro as "with woad". The Latin phrase “vitro inficiunt” could very well have meant “dye themselves with glazes” or “infect themselves with glass”. This could have described a scarification ritual which left dark blue scars, or formed a direct reference to tattooing. Subsequent commentators may have displaced the 1st-century B.C.E. southern practices (of the Brittani, a tribe south of the Thames) to the northern peoples in an attempt to explain the name Picti, which came into use only in the 3rd century AD. Julius Caesar himself, commenting in his Gallic Wars on the tribes from the areas where Picts (later) lived, states that they have “designs carved into their faces by iron”. If they used woad, then it probably penetrated under the skin as a tattoo. More likely, the Celts used copper for blue tattoos (they had plenty of it) and soot-ash carbon for black. Further study of bog bodies may provide more information on the specific tattooing techniques (if any) used by the Picts.
Vandals
The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century and created a state in North Africa, centered on the city of Carthage. The Vandals may have given their name to the province of Andalusia (originally, Vandalusia, then Al-Andalus), in modern Spain, where they temporarily settled before pushing on to Africa.
The Goth Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths and regent of the Visigoths, was allied by marriage with the Vandals, as well as with the Burgundians and the Franks under Clovis I.
Similarity of names have suggested homelands for the Vandals in Norway (Hallingdal) Sweden (Vendel) or Denmark (Vendsyssel). The Vandals are assumed to have crossed the Baltic into what is today Poland somewhere in the 2nd century B.C.E., and have settled in Silesia from around 120 B.C.E. Tacitus recorded their presence between the Oder and Vistula rivers in Germania (AD 98) corroborated by later historians. According to Jordanes, they and the Rugians were displaced by the arrival of the Goths. This tradition supports the identification of the Vandals with the Przeworsk culture, since the Gothic Wielbark culture seems to have replaced a branch of that culture.
The two subdivisions of the Vandals were the Silingi and the Hasdingi. The Silingi lived in an area recorded for centuries as Magna Germania, now Silesia. In the 2nd century, the Hasdingi, led by the kings Raus and Rapt (or Rhaus and Raptus) moved south, and first attacked the Romans in the lower Danube area, then made peace and settled in western Dacia (Romania) and Roman Hungary.
The Vandals travelled west along the Danube without much difficulty, but when they reached the Rhine, they met resistance from the Franks, who populated and controlled the Roman possessions in northern Gaul. 20,000 Vandals, including Godigisel himself, died in the resulting battle, but then with the help of the Alans they managed to defeat the Franks, and on December 31, 406 the Vandals crossed the Rhine to invade Gaul. Under Godigisel's son Gunderic, the Vandals plundered their way westward and southward through Aquitaine.
In October 409 they crossed the Pyrenees mountain range into the Iberian peninsula. There they received land from the Romans, as foederati, in Gallaecia (Northwest) and Hispania Baetica (South), while the Alans got lands in Lusitania (West) and the region around Carthago Nova. Still, the Suebi, who also controlled part of Gallaecia, and the Visigoths, who invaded Iberia before receiving lands in Septimania (Southern France), and crushed the Alans, whose surviving remnant hailed Gunderic as their king.
Gunderic's half brother Geiseric started building a Vandal fleet. In 429, after becoming king, Geiseric crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and moved east toward Carthage. In 435 the Romans granted them some territory in Northern Africa, yet in 439 Carthage fell to the Vandals. Geiseric then built the Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans into a powerful state (the capital was Saldae), and conquered Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic Islands.
In 455, the Vandals took Rome and plundered the city for two weeks starting June 2. They departed with countless valuables, spoils of the Temple in Jerusalem brought to Rome by Titus, and the Empress Licinia Eudoxia and her daughters Eudocia and Placidia.
- Somewhat unfairly, the term "Vandals" became proverbial for barbaric plunder and destruction oweing to the speed with which their king Genseric's army captured Rome in 455C.E. In truth they didn't damage the city any more than did other invaders, including Christian armies. This notion lives on in the abstract noun vandalism (since the 1790s only) for senseless destruction
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Positive contributions by barbarians
It should be noted, though, that many scholars believe that it was not barbarians or their culture (or lack of culture) that destroyed the Roman Empire. Rather, Roman culture was already in decline. Immorality, social indulgency, and greed destroyed the empire. Barbarians simply hastened the collapse. (For further reading see Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Also, the sacking of Rome by barbarians in 410 C.E. stimulated Augustine to write the City of God. In this work he established God's heavenly city as the true and permanent home to be sought by Christians, compared to the "City of Man," such as Rome, which was clearly vulnerable to attack and without a secure future.
Moreover, there are several aspects of barbarian culture that have contributed to modern culture and civilization. Many modern holidays are based on barbarian traditions and pagan rituals. Santa Claus and the Christmas tree, the Easter bunny and Easter eggs all have their roots in different barbarian festivals. Teutonic, Celtic, and other tribes introduced goldworking techniques, making beautiful jewelry and other ornamentations in styles very different from the classic tradition. Teutonic tribes brought strong iron plows that succeeding in farming the forested lowlands of northern and western Europe. There is also a claim that Celtic and Teutonic tribes developed a 12-based mathematical system (as opposed to the 10-based decimal system), which continues to be the basis of certain units of measurement in the United States to this day (see Francis Owen, The Germanic people: Their origin, expansion, and culture, New York: Bookman Associates, 1960). Barbarian stories such as Beowulf, Kalevala, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the tales of King Arthur provided great contributions to classic literature. Many famous fairy tales (e.g. tales of the Brothers Grimm) are also based on barbarian legends and myths.
Biblical perspective
In the New Testament the term "barbarian" is used in its Hellenic sense–to describe non-Greeks or those who merely speak a different language. For example, in Acts 28:2 and Acts 28:4 the author, probably from the Greek-Roman standpoint, refers to the inhabitants of Malta (formerly a Carthaginian colony) as “barbarians.” Similarly, in Colossians 3:11 the word is used for those nations of the Roman Empire that did not speak Greek. The writer of Romans 1:14 suggests that Greeks together with non-Greeks (i.e. “barbarians”) compose the whole human race. The term here, therefore, merely indicates a separation of Greek-speaking cultures from the non-Greek-speaking ones, the term itself not bearing any deprecatory value. However, elsewhere in the Bible this is not the case. In 1 Corinthians 14:11 Paul uses the term in its derogatory sense–to describe someone who speaks an unintelligible language. "If then I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that spoke a barbarian, and he that spoke will be a barbarian unto me." Paul here denounces the speaking in tongues, comparing it with the barbarian (i.e. foreign) language, which is useless if it cannot be understood, therefore not being able to convey the message from God. Philo and Josephus, together other Roman writers, used this term to separate Greco-Roman culture from other cultures, implying the supremacy of the former.
Cross-cultural perspective
From the cross-cultural perspective, the term “barbarian” is used in the context of the encounter of two different cultures. Many peoples have regarded alien or rival cultures as "barbarian," because they were unrecognizably strange. Thus, from this perspective the term has a rather pejorative meaning. For example, the Greeks admired Scythian and Eastern Gauls as heroic individuals, but considered their culture to be barbaric. Similarly, Romans saw various Germanic, Gaul, and Hun tribes as essentially barbaric. The Chinese (Han Chinese) regarded the Xiongnu, Tatars, Turks, Mongols, Jurchen, Manchu, and even Europeans as barbaric. The Chinese used different terms for barbarians from different directions of the compass. Those in the east were called Dongyi (东夷), those in the west were called Xirong (西戎), those in the south were called Nanman (南蛮), and those in the north were called Beidi (北狄).
This way of describing foreigners was adopted by the Japanese when Europeans first came to Japan. They were called nanbanjin (南蛮人), literally "Barbarians from the South," because the Portuguese ships appeared to sail from the South. Today, Japanese use gaikokujin (外国人 literally translated as "outside country person") to refer politely to foreigners. The term gaijin (外人 literally translated as "outside person") is also used today to refer to foreigners, with somewhat mixed connotations since this term was originally used to refer to someone as an "outsider" or "enemy." However, the term gaijin does not include any reference to whether the person is a "barbarian," in the sense of being uncivlized.
Sociological perspective
From the sociological viewpoint, the concept of “barbarian” is connected with, and depends upon, a carefully defined use of the term civilization. Civilization denotes a settled (city/urban) way of life that is organized on principles broader than the extended family or tribe. Surpluses of necessities can be stored and redistributed and division of labor produces some luxury goods (even if only for the elite, priesthood, or kings). The barbarian is not an integrated part of the civilization, but depends on settlements as a source of slaves, surpluses and portable luxuries: booty, loot and plunder.
A distinction, however, needs to be made between the concepts of “culture” and “civilization.” Rich, deep, authentic human culture exists even without civilization, as the German writers of the early Romantic generation first defined the opposing terms, though they used them as polarities in a way that a modern writer might not. "Culture" should not simply connote "civilization". In this sense, barbarians are those of a different culture, who depend on the civilization dominant in the geographical area where they live.
Barbarian culture should not be confused with that of the nomad. Nomadic societies subsist on what they can hunt and gather, or on the products of their livestock. They follow food supplies for themselves and/or their animals. The nomad may barter for necessities, like metalwork, but does not depend on civilization for plunder, as the barbarian does.
Psychological perspective
From the psychological perspective, the term “barbarian” can be associated with a stereotypical image of someone who is not a member of one's own group. As Bouris, Turner, and Gagnon (1997) put it, “Stereotypes function to represent inter-group realities–creating images of the out-group (and the in-group) that explain, rationalize, and justify the inter-group relationship” (p. 273). Accordingly, group-thinking creates a specific context for inter- and intra-group relationships, which use stereotypes as a means of group interaction. For social psychologists, inter-group relationships (cooperation-competition, in-group status) are closely associated with intra-group relationships. Sentiments and behavior of the in-group members, usually seen in a positive and morally correct light, are created in opposition to members of other groups. Positive and moral self-image is attributed to all members of the in-group, while on the other hand, out-group membership is regarded as less valued. Stereotypes and negative images of the out-group are thus constructed to serve the function of degrading the out-group and keeping the balance between in- and out-group membership.
The barbarian image serves to demean the members of the other group, creating a morally justified reason for separation from that group. Out-group barbarians are usually depicted as extremely strong but irrational, evil without moral judgment, destructive and violent, whose leaders rely more on emotion than intelligence. This is contrasted with in-group members, who are gentle, moral, and of superior intelligence. Thus, in- and out-group members cannot/should not be mixed together. In this way the intra-group balance is established. (For further reading see Cottam (1986) and Herrmann (1985)).
Current use
In modern times, fantasy novels and role-playing video games often feature barbarians (such as Conan the Barbarian and Asterix), who are depicted as brave uncivilized warriors, often able to attack with a crazed fury.
See also
- Michael Wall's 1989 play Amongst Barbarians
- Wikipedia:List of words meaning outsider, foreigner or "not one of us"
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Bouris, R. Y., Turner, J. C. & Gagnon, A. (1997). Interdependence, Social Identity, and Discrimination. In R. Spears, P. Oakes, N. Ellemers, & S. A. Haslam (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Stereotyping and Group Life (pp. 273–295). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
- Boulding, K. (1959). National Images and International Systems. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3, 120-131.
- Cottam, M. (1986). Foreign Policy Decision Making: The Influence of Cognition. Boulder : Westview Press
- Gibbon, E. (1983). Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (R.E. Williams, Ed.). Smithmark Publishers; Abrdg&Illu edition
- Hall, E. (1989). Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy. Oxford/New york
- Heider, F. (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York: Wiley.
- Herrmann, R. K. (1985). Perceptions and Behavior in Soviet Foreign Policy. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
- Owen, Francis, (1960). The Germanic people: Their Origin, Expansion, and Culture, New York: Bookman Associates.
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