View Full Version : Greatest warrior kult of all times.
This is a poll about the greatest warrior kult of all times. When you choose you should consider what they achieved considering to their age and resorsces.
I would choose the Vikings, but I know that I'm not objecktive... My reson for this is that although the Vikings had scarcely a couple of 100 000 inhabitants in all of Scandinavia it was able to perform deeds such as finding America. The Vikings held ransom of great cities and kingdomes such as Paris, Konstantinopel and England. Much becouse of the superiority of Viking boats craft. The Vikings was a signifikant cause for the feudal system in the begining.
(Excuse me for any misspelings)
Hammargy vinner allsvenskan i år! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
Well, the cause of the feudal system was the lack of central power.. are you saying they helped knock out central power? You may be right, I was just commenting..
Will come up with my favorite warrior people later :-)
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Khan7
The Aztecs spring to one's mind. Heck, even in their sports there were deaths (winners and losers, altough winners were sacrificed to their gods...not much better )
One aspect that fascinates me is their devotion to divinatory "sciences" (they forewarn Moctezuma of the arrivals of golden men). You knew from the dates of your birth what is suppose to happen to you. When will you marry, who, how many kids, when you die. Even the number of prisoners you brought was known ("no Qliloc, that's 385 too many...orf with their heads" http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif ).
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"Je vous repondrai par la bouche de mes cannons"
-Frontenac
(I will answer you with the blast of my cannons)
-Trad. libre
Feudalism would have occoured with or without the vikings... They just helpeded in the sundering of the central systems.
How about the NINJA?
They surely must be in the running for a warrior cult?
Ninja are not a warrior cult or a warrior class, or warriors period, in the eyes of Japanese. In the eyes of Japanese, they are dishonorable assassin cunts, plain and simple, and they are hoped to all choke to death on the hilts of their own nefarious instruments while puking profusely from a cocktail of their own poisons.
I'm not kidding, either :-P
Matt
Koga No Goshi
09-05-2001, 07:11
Khan,
For the umpteenth time watch your language.
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Koga no Goshi
"Hokusai"
Now as a spirit
I shall roam
the summer fields.
Devil_Hanzo
09-05-2001, 08:22
Well, as a descendant of the so-called Vikings (Vikings were actually only those who went on Viking; plunder/trade, not the entire population, so the term as it is normally used is a bit misleading) myself, I'd like to point out that they have a worse reputation than they deserve. Sure, they did a lot of rape, pillage and plunder, but who didn't every now and then? It wasn't called the Dark Ages for nothing... Also, as I pointed out, all inhabitants of Scandinavia weren't Vikings. The vast majority of the population were farmers, and even many of those who went on Viking were often farmers who only did it for a couple of months.
What's more important, however, is that the Vikings had a relatively advanced and for those times quite fair and democratic society. They were skilled traders and seafarers who traveled along the rivers of Russia (even the name Russia comes from the Russian name for the Vikings, Rus), as far west as America and as far south as the Eastern Mediterranean. They colonized Iceland, several British isles and the Faroes, as well as Greenland and "Vinland" for shorter periods, founded kingdoms in Russia (the most noteworthy in Belarus, if my memory serves me right) and even conquered/settled large parts of Britain. In addition, it's worth mentioning that the Normans were descendants of Norsemen and the name Quebec, for example, is derived from a Norse word, Kvibekk.
However, they were also fierce warriors, and I'm sure there are lots of Scandinavians who simply can't help but feel a little pride when they hear about various sieges, plunders and pillages all over Europe or that British monks had their own prayer meant to protect them from the terrible norsemen. I'm sure many of them were also very skilled warriors. And I'm sure they were considered to be among the best warriors in Europe at the time. And the Berserks probably earned their reputation, but in reality there wasn't much of a warrior cult to talk about, IMO. Like I said, most "Vikings" were farmers, and a lot of them were more traders than warriors, perhaps a combination of both.
Since we're talking about warrior cults here, I have to agree with Grim that the Aztecs are strong candidate. There you have an entire society built around war, bloodshed and where warriors were probably the most important members of society. You certainly don't have anything near that among the Vikings...
Hmmm, By the way wasn't it the danes who settled in normandy? Or are you reffering to norsemen as Vikings?
Well the vikings was a more warrior inrikted civilisation then many others. The warriors were held in great esteem among the vikings.
But i guess that the only true warror kult is the aztek then...
Devil_Hanzo
09-06-2001, 00:44
Norsemen is basically another term for Vikings when you don't want to refer to the entire population of Scandinavia in the "Viking era" as plunderers/pillagers/traders. Regarding Normandy, it was mainly Danes who settled there, AFAIK, but there were also some Norwegians. The Swedes, as you probably know, concentrated more on Russia.
I didn't try to convince anyone that great warriors weren't held in high esteem among the Vikings, just that there wasn't really a warrior cult. IMO what really earned them their reputation was the fact that they were actually better warriors than most people elsewhere in Europe and that they usually focused more on plunder than conquest. If you look at history those who rape, pillage, plunder and then conquer are considered great men, heroes, empire builders. Those who just rape, pillage and plunder, but leave out the conquest part, are seen as barbarians. The Vikings were in fact just good capitalists, who'd realized that conquest doesn't really pay off, financially.
They had a good justice system for the time, a limited democracy (so was the ancient Greek democracy, but for some reason people often disregard that fact), women had a much stronger position than they had after Christianity was introduced, they were great traders, great seafarers and explorers, but the only thing people associate with Vikings is... you guessed it; rape, pillage and plunder... Oh, and that guy Thor they've heard about in some TV show...
Speaking of the gods, just about the only Norse god non-Scandinavians have usually heard about is Thor who was a big, strong warrior who killed people with his hammer. What no one cares about, is the fact that Odin, the "king" of the gods was more interested in wisdom and knowledge than war, and sacrificed an eye to achieve almost infinite wisdom, unlike the leader of the Greek gods, who basically just toyed with mortals and threw lightning bolts around... And they say the Greeks were the civilized ones. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
[This message has been edited by Devil_Hanzo (edited 09-05-2001).]
"IMO what really earned them their reputation was the fact that they were actually better warriors than most people elsewhere in Europe and that they usually focused more on plunder than conquest. If you look at history those who rape, pillage, plunder and then conquer are considered great men, heroes, empire builders. Those who just rape, pillage and plunder, but leave out the conquest part, are seen as barbarians. The Vikings were in fact just good capitalists, who'd realized that conquest doesn't really pay off, financially.
They had a good justice system for the time, a limited democracy (so was the ancient Greek democracy, but for some reason people often disregard that fact), women had a much stronger position than they had after Christianity was introduced, they were great traders, great seafarers and explorers, but the only thing people associate with Vikings is... you guessed it; rape, pillage and plunder... Oh, and that guy Thor they've heard about in some TV show...
Speaking of the gods, just about the only Norse god non-Scandinavians have usually heard about is Thor who was a big, strong warrior who killed people with his hammer. What no one cares about, is the fact that Odin, the "king" of the gods was more interested in wisdom and knowledge than war, and sacrificed an eye to achieve almost infinite wisdom, unlike the leader of the Greek gods, who basically just toyed with mortals and threw lightning bolts around... And they say the Greeks were the civilized ones."
I completely agree. If you (all of you, not "just you") want to get a glimpse on how the Nortmen were more complex then you might think, buy "Eater of the dead" by Michael Crichton. He wrote a book based on the travel of Amhed Ibn Fahdlan to the land of the "Northmen" (yes "the 13th warrior" movie but the book is 100 times better).
BTW: that's two vote for the Aztec, if I win please do not scrifice me please http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
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"Je vous repondrai par la bouche de mes cannons"
-Frontenac
(I will answer you with the blast of my cannons)
-Trad. libre
Sorry, The post I am referring to is by Devil_Hanzo.
-Giving credit where credit is due
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"Je vous repondrai par la bouche de mes cannons"
-Frontenac
(I will answer you with the blast of my cannons)
-Trad. libre
Hmm. I think what made the vikings better at making war was not the fact that they were better warriors. I think it was their naval superiority that was most important. The fact that their boats were much sturdier, mobile and faster enabled them to strike at unprotected areas. Just think about how the danes took a tribute of paris 7 years in a row. The vikings sorronded the island in the seine (dont know what its called...) that paris was situated in at that time. And by that they cut off the supply off the city. The warriors in and around paris wore many times the number off the danes, but the danes was smart enough never to attck the city, they just starved it out... And because off their naval superiority the parismen could never attack the viking fleet itsealf.. So they had no other choice then to pay upp. And this happaned 7 times in a row until the king of France did a very clever thing.... He gave the area around the mouth of the seine (normandy) to be setteled by the vikings. And those vikings of course was not very willing to let the other vikings pass into the seine....
(hehe I'm a bit of subjeckt maybe....)
Red Peasant
09-07-2001, 06:17
We English already knew about Thor, Woden (Odin, Wotan), Freya and Tiu, that's why we've still got days of the week named after them. The English and Scandinavians were thus closely related peoples but the former had become christianised and their country was quite affluent for that period (9thC onwards). There is plenty of evidence, especially in Eastern England, of trading links with Scandinavia prior to the first Viking attacks and they would have been aware of the military weakness of many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms following centuries of almost constant warfare and squabbling amongst themselves. The assaults didn't just happen by chance. It took the Viking threat to finally unite the English peoples (and the Danes and Norwegians who settled over here), the ultimate victor being William the Bastard, a Nor[se]man.
Also, there were undoubtedly many peaceful farmers in Scandinavia, but it ain't farmers who build sea worthy raiding ships of advanced designs in antique cultures. The first bands of warriors especially, who came over, were probably not meek farmers looking for a plot of land to grow their veggies on, they were, undoubtedly, hard-bitten killers to a man. Though the English could hardly complain cos that's just what they had done a couple of centuries earlier!
Anyway, what about the Spartans, warriors to a man. Professional, state killers, the first of their kind.....born to kill.
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"In a consumer society there are, inevitably, two kinds of slave: the prisoner of addiction and the prisoner of envy."
Despite the fact that NINJA are seen to be dishonourable, I still think they qualify as a "Warrior Cult".
I grant that they weren't the most "stand up and fight man-to-man" type warriors, opting for more clandestine and sneaky tactics.
If this disqualifies them from the running then fair enough.....
BUT Any type of "warrior" has to kill (at some point), which is a nasty business whichever way you look at it.
Compared to the blood-lust rampages, rape, torture and pillage that some of the warrior cults of yesteryear and today got/get up to I think the NINJA were quite.......
Honourable in their Dishonourability, in that they were contracted for a specific target or activity and carried it out.
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