The knowledge which we possess of the habits and government of the ancient Ger mans is principally derived from the commentaries of Cmsar, and the " Germania" of Tacitus; and imperfect as these sources of information are, they are infinitely less con tradictory than the subsequent records of the earliest Christian times. According to the Roman historians,' the Germans were a people of high stature, fair complexion, and red or yellow hair, endowed with great bodily strength, and distinguished for an indomit able love of liberty. The men delighted in active exercises and the perils of war, and the women, whose chastity was without reproach, were held in high esteem. Each master of a family had absolute power over those of his household. Their habitations Were generally separate, and surrounded by their several stalls and garners; for although there were villages whosd inhabitants made common use of the fields and woods sur rounding them, the Germans seem to have preferred isolated and detatched dwellings to aggregate settleinents. Towns and cities they long regarded with aversion, as inimical to personal In regard to their political organization, it would appear that several villages formed a " hundred," several hundreds one " gau," and several gaus one tribe. In each tribe the people were divided into four classes—nobles, freemen, freedmen or vassals, and slaves. The king or chief was elected from among the nobles; but his power was very limited, and the government of the several tribes seems to haVe been democratic rather than monarchical.
The religion of the Germans, which is shrouded in great obscurity, points, like their language, to their eastern origin, arid was based upon Asiatic myths of the creation of the world, and the existence of gods having the forms and attributes of a perfect humanity. Their conceptions of these mythical beings were modified by the local coloring which they received from association with new scenes, and through the lapse of time; and hence the different tribes had all their special gods or demigods, who were often their own leaders or chiefs, to whom the attributes of the god to whose worship they were most partial were ascribed. It is generally said that the Germans had neither
temples nor statues. Both Cresar and Tacitus expressly affirm this, but it cannot be regarded as literally true, for Tacitus himself mentions a temple of among the Marsians; and at a later period, we find Christian missionaries the Germans to change their pagan temples into Christian churches, while we also read of the destruction of pagan idols. Nevertheless, the religion of the Germans was mainly carried on in the open air—in groves and forests, and on 'heaths and mountains. Although a priestly order also existed among the Germans, yet each master of a house hold performed religious services for himself and his family within his own homestead. A knowledge of .the will of the gods and the events of the future was sought by diving tiou, from observations of the flight of birds, the rushing of waters, and other similar signs, in the interpretation of which women were thought to be especially skilled. Belief in a future life, and in an abode after death for those who had deserved well in this life, was cherished among the Germanic races, who had a strong. faith in retribu tive justice, whose sway they believed would be extended over the gods by involving them in a universal annihilating conflict as the punishment of their evil deeds, after which a new world was to arise, guarded by a pure and perfect race of gods. In addi tion, to the higher deities, the Germans peopled every portion of space with a class of subordinate beings who pervaded the earth, air, and water, in the shape of elves, nixes, kobolds, dwarfs, and giants; while Nornes and Valkuries stood apart from either grade of spiritual existence as the representatives of destiny like the Moir and Prime of the Greeks and Kuhn, Zur, altesten Gesch. d. indogerman. Volker (Berlin, 1850); Wackernagel; Fandlienlchen d. GerManen (Freibr., 1816); Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologic (1844); Miller. Altdeutsche Belt= pion; the _Deutsche Mythologic of Simreek (1855) and of Holtzmann (1874). • . • — „ . _