| A Turkish Orientalist Zeki Validi Togan, an authority on Ibn Fadlin and his times, discusses the magical abilities of some tribes or peoples, and the punishments or murder of these people by the tribe: “There is nothing mysterious about the cruel treatment meted out by the Bulgars to people who were overly clever. It was based on the simple, sobering reasoning of the average citizens who wanted only to lead what they considered to be a normal life, and to avoid any risk or adventure into which the “genius” might lead them.” He relates a Tartar proverb: “If you know too much, they will hang you, and if you are too modest, they will trample on you.” The victim, “should not be regarded simple as a learned person, but as an unruly genius, one who is too clever by half.” (33) This may contribute to the reason the Muslim religion is the least advanced of all three main religions in terms of social progress. Ibn Fadlin was a 10th century Arab Muslim traveler, who chronicled much of his travels and encounters during this era and these are used as a valuable resource for this time period and geography. He was a member of an embassy of the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad to the king of the Volga Bulgars. His journeys included attempts to get Turks to convert to Islam which were met with laughter and scorn and reflect a tribal distain for authority that was prevalent throughout the non-Empires. (33) The sexual mores of the Ghuzz were described as mixed liberalism and savagery. Both Bulgars and Ghuzz were described as having little body shame. Another Turkish tribe the Bashkir would shave their beards and eat their lice, remarking how “delicious” they were, while never bathing or taking off their clothes closest to their body until they disintegrate. (34) We also must keep in mind the extreme prejudice and contempt with which the traveler Fadlin had for the “barbarous” tribes. Were these truthful images he was relaying or not? It’s difficult to know. Let’s review a little more then move on. One thing we must keep in mind is that it’s not beyond any imperialist, self-righteous conquering country or power to say dastardly things about the common folk. We should not forget the witch trials or cannabis prohibition of the 1930’s or the psychedelic backlash of the 1960’s. Demonization went from boiling children in cauldrons to black jazz musicians seducing white women to people jumping out of buildings, all in the matter of two or three centuries. Also, we must take into account the collection of stories Wasson put together regarding these same people who others claimed lived a “filthy lifestyle.” Here is where it gets interesting. The Baskshir had a “phallus cult” supposedly of which Ibn asks his interpreter the reason for worshipping a wooden “penis” and notes down his reply: “Because I issued from something similar and know of no other creator who made me.” Ibd then adds that “some of them [the Bakshirs] believe in twelve deities, a god for winter, another for summer, one for rain, one for the wind, one for the trees, one for men, one for the horse, one for water, one for the night, one for the day, one for the earth, one for death and the one who dwells in the sky is the greatest among them all, but takes council with the others and thus everyone is content with each other’s doings. … We have seen groups among them which worships snakes, and a group which worships fish and one which worships cranes.” (35) |
From this last quote we can gather a few things, as this was around the 10th century AD, and not all that long back in history. The knowledge of the calendar workings with all the signs, the knowledge of the serpent and bird goddess or deities and the fish, and their use of “phallic” imagery imply they were not all that much of “barbarians.” They were likely very much like many groups of tribal people using the mushroom and the authorities, these new religions, were the ones trying to stomp them out and make them look “barbaric,” “primitive,” and even “dangerous.” It’s very likely we have a mistranslation of the phallus and it was really a wooden mushroom, so when the person was being questioned, he was saying that its’ “the mushroom that he came from,” not the phallus. Like I have stated, I have seen zero evidence of phallic worshipping “cults” anywhere in the world, where the phallus is dominant over the mushroom worship. The phallus always implies the mushroom, and never the other way around. We only start to see prevalent phallic images around the Hellenic Greek era and beyond. Next, we get to human sacrifice. Was it real or not? And if so, to what degree? Returning to Koester’s Thirteenth Tribe, Koestler is quoting Zeki Validi Togan, an undisputed authority on Ibn Fadlin: “Ibn Fadlin describes not just the simple murder of too-clever people, but one of their pagan customs; ‘…Human sacrifice, by which the most excellent men were offered as sacrifice to God. This ceremony was probably not carried out by common Bulgars, but by their Tabibs, or medicine men, i.e., shamans, whose equivalents among the Bulgars and the Rus also wielded power of life and death over the people, in the name of their cult. According to Ibn Rusta, the medicine men of the Rus could put a rope around the neck of anybody and hang him on a tree to invoke the mercy of God. When this was done, they said: ‘This is an offering to God’.” (36) (33) ibid; Zeki Validi, Exk. 36a (34) ibid, p. 38-39 (35) Thirteenth Tribe; Zeki Validi, Exk. 36a (36) ibid, p. 41 |