73. Battle Axe or Cult Axe?

Author(s): Marija Gimbutas

Source: Man, Vol. 53 (Apr., 1953), pp. 51-54
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2794736
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 APRIL, I953 Man Nos. 72, 73
(Hamitic) and the second as negroid.6 Such a mixture of possible, therefore, that this early negroid element in the
types as this can be seen among the Bur Hakaba Rahan- Horn is today represented, albeit much diluted, by the Bon
wein, including the Eile, and, in fact, just such a mixture (Waboni), Ribi, Eile and some of the Elai; the purest of
can be seen in Plate Dd and fig. i. these today being probably the Bon.
In early historic times there is record of a negroid ele- On the other hand it is not impossible, and the physical
ment in the southern part of the Horn which was either characteristics are tiot entirely incompatible with the sug-
destroyed, driven out or partly absorbed (Rahanwein) by gestion, that we have in these people, as in the Rahanwein,
the Hamitic (Somali) immigration from the north. Tradi- the survival of an early Hamitic strain, which might even be
tion associates this negroid group with the WaNyika, and a link with late prehistoric times: further research on these
Puccioni states that this is confirmed by Arab records of the groups would no doubt produce valuablq results.
time of the Omani colonization of the coast.7 Before and at The relationship of these groups to the more essentially
the time of the arrival of the Digil and Rahanwein Con- negroid peoples of the Webi Shebeli and Juba valleys-the
federacies in southern Somalia before the end of the four- Schaveli, Shidle, Makanne and Gosha-is obscure. It is
teenth century, the bur country was inhabited by a group of possible that basically they were the same but the river
people known as the 'Loo Medo'-who were most prob- valley negroids have assimilated not a little fresh Negro
ably negroid-and would appear to have shared the countryblood from the numbers of freed and escaped slaves that
with the Ma'adanle, a group of Hamitic Ajuran, and Galla have settled among them.
elements-the Galla Wardai. Eile tradition says that at one It is presumably the negroid ancestry of the Eile and
time they themselves inhabited the whole of the country in associated elements that accounts for the presence of the
the region of the three burs, Bur Hakaba, Bur Degis and Bur dancing masks amongst these people.
Eibe, but that they were driven out of the first two areas by Notes
the Elai and Helleda. The story is told by both Elai and Eile IE. Bono, 'La Residenza di Bur Hacaba,' Extract from Parts
of how the chief of the latter, one Geda Babo, hiding in an 4-6 of La Somalia Italiana, Mogadishu (Government Printer), I930.
inaccessible cave on Bur Hakaba, whence he slew his 2N. Puccioni, Antropologia e Etnografia delle Genti della Somalia,
Vol. III, Etnografia e paletnologia, Bologna, I936, p. 97.
enemies with his incomparable bow, kept all at bay until by
3 F. S. Caroselli, Catalogo Museu della Garesa, Mogadishu, I934,
a trick they approached and killed him. Legend also credits
pP. 77, ii8f.
Geda Babo with having lived at Bur Eibe where the rock 4 G. Stefanini, In Somalia, Florence, I922, pp. 3 I3f. and plates i i i
shelter known as the Gure Warbei (or Warbaio)-which and II2.
means 'the cave of the arrow poison'-is pointed out as 5 N. Puccioni, Le Popolazioni indigene della Somalia Italiana,
Bologna, I937, p. 66.
having been his home. It was here, so it is said, that the Eile
6 N. Puccioni, Antropologia e Etnografia delle Genti della Somalia,
brought him their arrows for poisoning as none was so Vol. I, Antropometria, Bologna, I93I, p. 202.
expert as he in applying the poison to the tang. It is 7 N. Puccioni, Le Popolazioni . . . (see note 5), p. 64.

BATTLE AXE OR CULT AXE?*

by

MARIJA GIMBUTAS, PH.D.

Peabody Museum, Harvard University

73 The term 'battle axe' is applied Distribution of Neolithic Polygonal Axes and Axes with
in archxological
literature to the neolithic axe with a drooping Drooping Blade
blade (fig. i). Since the appearance of these axes coincides Symmetrical, polygonal, plain or decorated axes are fre-
with the cultural change, which is assumed to have been quent in the Early and Middle Neolithic in the First
caused by the migrations of peoples, they have been inter- Northern culture, in the Vucedal, Mondsee and Altheim
preted as the weapons of a warlike people, or of the 'Indo- cultures in central Europe, in the Glina culture of Tran-
Europeans.' Because of the frequent finds of 'battle axes' in sylvania and the Rinaldone of central Italy. Such an axe is
male interments, the terminal neolithic cultures of northern also found portrayed by Danubian farmers on late spiral-
and eastern Europe have been designated 'Battle-axe cul- meander pottery sherds. The double-edged axes on the late
tures'; the same term is used by the majority of European spiral-meander pottery in Bohemia were doubtless imita-
archceologists in many languages. tions of iEgean metal axes of ?2,800-+2,400 B.C.
Were the neolithic axes, and the axes of later prehistoric (Neustupny, IPEK, 1936-193 7, pp. I6-3 1). In the neolithic
periods as well, weapons or rather tools and religious sym- and later Mediterranean world the double axe was one of
bols? Are we right in using the term 'battle axe' for the the most frequent religious symbols, where it was based on
Late Neolithic axes, distinguishing them from the other
the stone pillar or bull's head, decorating the palace, or
axes of the preceding and succeeding periods? depicted on tombstones and pottery. Axes with drooping
* With five text figures blade reach as far back as the fourth millennium in
SI

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 No. 73 Man APRI, I953
Mesopotamia, are common in culture,
Central Russian Balanovo Anatolia
were of miniaturein size th
nium, and later also in the Caucasus. During the Late (fig. 2).
Neolithic they spread over the whole of eastern and Axes decorated with symbols appear in central and north
northern Europe. Europe in the Middle and Late Neolithic (First Northern,
Both shapes of axe are extraordinarily frequent amongGlobular Amphorae, Salzmiinde, East Baltic-Central
the archaeological remains of central and northern Europe.Russian culture) (figs. 3, 4). In the Bronze Age metal axes

::.: . . . .. ........:.
:. : . .... . . ....... .. . _ 'i -

*.. ........ . -. . .. ... . : : :: : . .: ..

(a) (b) (c)

FIG. I. THE LATE NEOLITHIC BATTLE AXES

(a) The axe with drooping blade of 'Fatianovo' type, found in Velikoe Selo near Iaroslavi, Central Russia; scale 2/5; after Spitsyn, 1903 (b) The
miniature 'Fatianovo' axe, from Fatianovo cemetery near Iaroslavl, Central Russia; scale 2/5; after Ayrdpdd, I933. (c) The 'boat axe' of black
stonefrom Finland; scale c. 2/7; by permission of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University

Most probably the polygonal or double-edged axes came were especially richly decorated with circles, wheels, suns,
gradually to northem Europe through the medium of the spirals, snakes, and heads or figures of elks, bulls, horses or
first agriculturalists, the Danubians, in the Early Neolithic.
water birds (cf the central and north European Middle and
The axes with drooping blade came to eastem and northem Late Bronze Age axes, called by German archaologists
Europe from the south-east in the Late Neolithic. The Prunkdxte). Miniature and decorated axes in silver, bronze,
distinctive shape of these axes seems to be confined to theiron and precious stone were distributed over a wide area of
particular time and cradle of their dispersion. But there is no
evidence that the polygonal stone axes, preceding in
northem Europe the axes with drooping blade, played a
different part in daily use and in religion.
The stone axes seem to have had the same significance as
the flint axes. Both the flint and the stone axes were dis-
covered in hoards, in bogs and in graves as the equipment
of male interments. They have frequently been found in FIG. 2. POLYGONAL AND DOUBLE-EDGED AXES OF STONE
particular positions, for instance, standing with the edge
Globular Amphora Culture of the Middle Neolithic, Templin d
upwards or surrounded with stones (cf. Schwantes, I939, East Germany; scale c. 2/9; after Sprockhoff, 1938
pp. 27If). In eastem central Europe the Globular Am-
phore people of the Middle Neolithic equipped their male
Europe; they are seen in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age
dead with axes of banded flint and with double-edged stone
of the Caucasus, and in the Villanovan and Hallstatt cul-
axes or miniature amber axelets.
tures in southern and central Europe; they occur also in the
Roman period and in the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic
Evidence for the Significance of the Axes in Religion and Finno-Ugrian lands of the later Iron Age phase, where
The axe is a tool of particular importance throughout they are continuous throughout the historic times attested
by written records.
prehistoric and historic times. From the neolithic period on-
wards axes are distinctive for their perfection of form and The rock engravings characteristic ofthe Pontic and ofthe
rather frequent ornamentation which is not found on otherScandinavian Bronze .Age are of great importance for an
tools of daily use. A certain number of axes-both double- understanding of the part which the prehistoric axe played
edged ones and those with drooping blade-were made in in religion. In them axes have been depicted as held by
amber, clay or precious stone such as nephrite and jadeite.male figures with upraised arms, usually ithyphallic, some-
Certainily these could not have been used as tools or times with a he-goat's or bull's head, or depicted separately
weapons. Both the amber axelets, of the type from the with helves (fig. 5) (cf. the studies by Almgren, I934, 1939;
Baltic area belonging to the Globular Amphorae and Late Adama van Scheltema, I936; Schwantes, 1939). The axes
Passage Grave cultures, and the axes made in clay, from the were engraved in a similar fashion on neolithic graves, on
52

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 APRIL, I953 Man No. 73
megalithic graves in Britain, on
fields, blade side up, orstone graves
was thrown toward the sky, toinpro- th
ment of Mamne, France, painted
tect the crops from hail. onAnd in the terminal
ancient Greece, according N
stone cist at Memburg in Saxony, and frequently on to Pallatius (I, 35, I), axes stained with blood were held in
Bronze Age graves, as at Kivik in Schonen, Sweden, whereupraised hands. Even in the nineteenth century Lithuanian
they were associated with a stone pillar as in Crete of thepeasants equipped their dead with an axe for the purpose of
Late Minoan period. protection against evil powers, and the axe was generally
believed to be one of the best weapons for defence against
'4 devils. Hundreds of examples in folk beliefs demonstrate
the important role of the axe in the religious creeds of the
peasants. The gable of the farmer's house was sometimes
ornamented in northern Europe (in the Baltic area, espe-
cially in Lithuania) with two wooden axes. Two axes asso-
(a) (b) ciated with a wheel have been used as decorative motifs in
old churches up to the present day (e.g. to my knowledge
FIG. 3. AMBER AXELETS OF THE MIDDLE NEOLITHIC
in the church of Amelungsborn near Bremen, Germany).
(a) Globular Amphora, Culture, Sandomierz, South Poland; scale 2/5;
after Antoniewicz, 1936. (b) Late Passage Grave Culture, (First The axe in religion is attributed to the male deity of the
Northern), Schleswig-Holstein, North Germany; scale I/2; after sky: the Baltic Perkunas, Slavic Perun, Finnish Pirgele,
Schwantes, I939 Germanic Thor, Roman Jupiter Dolichenus, Hittite
Teshub, etc., who holds the power of procreation, stimu-
lating human, animal and natural life, and having the pro-
(O~ ~ _ _ tective power against all evil.' The anthropomorphic figure
of the sky god usually holds an axe or a bolt of lightning in
the hand. When the thunder is heard, the Lithuanian
farmer says: 'Perkiinas, the sky god, is coming. Wheels are
FIG. 4. STONE AXE ORNAMENTED WITH DRILLED-IN CIRCLES
striking fire.' He comes in a two-wheeled chariot, drawn by
a he-goat, holding an axe in his upraised hand. We meet
Middle Neolithic Salzniiinde Culture, Central Germany; after P.
Grimm, I938 with a very similar conception of the sky god in the ancient
Near East, in the Mediterranean area and among the
European peoples of the historic era. The Syrian-Anatolian
With the help of historical data as well as the customs and
art of present-day peasants, we may gain a more exact in-sky-god statuettes of bronze from the period between the
sight into the meaning of the axe used as a symbol on pre- middle of the second millennium B.C. and c. 700 B.C. were
historic monuments. exported to northern Europe. This is shown by a statuette
The axe is laid under the bed of the woman in labour, on found in Lithuania (Sernai, Klaipeda district, near the
the threshold of a door over which the newly wed coupleBaltic Sea coast).

L*
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
FIG. 5. SCANDINAV
(a, d, f) Bohusldn, Swed

has to step, and on the stable threshold which the cows have The axe depicted alone visibly expresses the forceful and
to cross, as protection against their failing to calve or to give vital energy of the sky deity. Among other symbols of the
milk. When a storm comes, the farmers of northern Europegeometric 'circle' family, such as the wheel, the concentric
drive the axe into the door post of the house and leave it circle, the sun, the moon, etc., the axe, like the male
there till the storm is over (this practice is attested in Ger-animals, reptiles and water birds, the bull, the he-goat,
manic, Baltic and Slavic folklore). According to Bohemian the ram, the horse, the snake, the toad, the swan, and the
records of the sixteenth century, the axe was set up in thehorns, most evidently symbolizes the transmission of the

53

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 Nos. 73, 74 Man APRIL, I953

virile power of but the by the impactsky of several groups of agriculturalists and
deity. The
between the figures cattle-raisers seekingof new lands.male
This change was also syn-
anim
and the axe; this connexion is attested by repeated depic- chronous with the opening of transcontinental trade in
tions in peasant art of the same symbolic figures in the same Europe in the period +I800-I700 B.C., caused by very
places throughout prehistoric and historic times. The axe, mobile western Bell Beaker Folk and the South-Eastern
while it was not the only life-stimulating symbol, was one Catacomb Grave People who traded in metal, amber, glass
of the most frequently used; it was depicted on rocks and and other materials travelling across Middle Europe.
tombstones, and was made variously of horn, stone, copper, Itinerant traders of south-eastern origin, trained in Cau-
bronze, iron and wood. casian metallurgy, distributed bronze axes in the area north
The symbolic tokens of the Neolithic and later periods of the Black Sea, which evidently were imitated in stone
continuously through historic times, supplemented by by local cultures. The stone axe with a perforation and
authoritative sources of folk customs and folklore, make itwith a more or less drooping blade gradually superseded
clear that in the primitive peasant religion man constantly the double-edged axes and simple trapezoid flint axes.
fought for life, which was threatened by destructive forces: The name 'battle axe,' as it is used in the literature, does
death, disease, winter, sterility or childlessness, the failure ofnot characterize the function of the Late Neolithic axe.
regularity in nature, the evil eye, parasites. If the year was'Cult axe' would be a more defensible name. Only in the
plentiful and the crops abundant, if the youths married sense of 'religious battle,' of the struggle for existence,
sooner and if no one died by unnatural death, then the could these cult axes be regarded as battle axes. The primi-
farmer was happy. Wellbeing requires effort and the primi- tive tiller of the soil was deeply religious, and his religious
tive farmer sought for it in his religion of existence. We expression ruled his life to such a degree that almost all
may presume that the symbols incised on prehistoric forms of art were subordinated to it. In the life of a primi-
pottery and other objects, the neolithic 'battle axes' and tive farmer the axe is a tool, not a weapon. In prehistoric
the well shaped axes, chronologically earlier and later, of times it was likewise a tool, so far as we can judge from the
stone, bronze, iron, silver, amber, clay or precious stone, working traces. But being a tool, it played a special part in
all served the wellbeing of the farmer. religion.
The term 'battle-axe cultures' is not a precise one. It may
Conclusion remain, as a matter of convenience, but its meaning must be
There is no evidence that our neolithic ancestors were revised.
constantly battling with axes. There is no trace of an axe as Note
I Africanists will think also of Shango, the Yoruba god of
weapon in historic sources, in folk customs, in art or in folk-
thunder and procreation, whose symbol is the double axe and whose
lore. The cultural change in the terminal Neolithic was cult has been connected by Frobenius and others with the ancient
caused not by the nomadic warriors carrying 'battle axes,' Mediterranean cultures.-ED.

SHORTER NOTES
Rektor Qvigstad's Hundredth Birthday. A note
volumes by
(I927-I929) that Ian
provide'R.
Whitaker, School of Scottish- Studies,
7 4 versity
The recent development of Lapp studies in Great
Britainf makes it all the more appropriate that the hundredth birth- Lappish reindeer-breeding, and it is safe to say that this study has
day of the revered doyen of these studies should be celebrated in
the columns of MAN.
Rektor Just Knud Qvigstad was born in North Norway at
Lyngseidet on 4 April, I853. His earlier studies were primarily
linguistic, and he graduated as cand. philol. in I874. He then
started teaching, at first in schools in Oslo, but from i875 in
Troms0, where his chief pedagogic work was to be carried out.
Here he became especially interested in the Lappish Language, and
in I878 began the first of several journeys to study the various
dialects of this language, in this instance to Kautokeino. He later
widened his interests to include theology, in which he graduated
in i 88i, and from I883 he was headmaster of the Troms0 school
for teachers, which post he held until I920 with the exception of
the period i9io-19i2 when he was Minister for Church and Edu-
cation in the cabinet of Wollert Konow. In addition to these posts, has not been one of idleness or senility. His work in Lappish studies
he has held a number of voluntary civic appointments in his own
town and province.
As a scientist Qvigstad's first work was published in I883: a
comparative linguistic study of Lappish and Finnish. In I887 he
published the first of a long line of works on Lappish mythology
and folklore which was to culminate in the four magnificent
the principal-corpus of North-
Edinburgh
ern Lappish folklore. In I893Uni-
an important paper on Nordic loanl-
words in Lappish was to stimulate the Swedish Professor K. B.
Wiklund to develop his theories about the Scandinavian origin of
never been superseded. At a crucial time he collected valuable
data on Lappish superstitions and folk medicine. Among his less
bulky but no less valuable work are lists of Lappish names for
plants, birds, animals, fishes and stars, and a very complete series
of monographs on the place names of all of the Norwegian North-
Lappish area. In I909 he collaborated with Professor Wiklund to
produce a collection of bistorical documents concerning the Lapps
in connexion with the Norwegian-Swedish Reindeer Pasture
dispute (I909). Earlier in I895 he had materially assisted in the
retranslation of the Bible into North Lappish.
After his retirement from teaching in I920 he devoted him-
self wholeheartedly to the publication of his accumulated material
and this was to continue for over 25 years. His last major work,
published when he was over go, testifies to the fact that his old age
is perhaps greater than that of any other scholar, and the benefits
are reaped not only by scientists but by the Lapps themselves whose
traditions have been thus so splendidly recorded.
Select Bibliography
1883 'Beitrage zur Vergleichung des verwandten Wortvorrathes
54

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