Post by Arthur on Dec 24, 2010 16:32:57 GMT -6
XIOMARA
A feminine noun meaning "famous warrior."
A feminine noun meaning "famous warrior."
The Woad are an ancient, elusive people, who occupied the central stage of the British Isles for about 800 years, between 700 BC and their almost complete assimilation into the Roman Empire around 500 AD. The Woad built no cities, founded no empires, and never developed a written language, but, their culture influenced a good part of the land. Their name derives from the Roman word “Wotus”, depicting the blue coloring from the flower of the land… The name means 'hidden people' -a reference to their lack of a written language and all tales were memorized and passed down through the generations by the Druids or 'wiseman' who studied long years to commit all their knowledge to memory. Although these learned men, who functioned as lawgivers as well as priests, could read and write Greek and Latin, they chose to pass on the chronicle of their people's existence orally in the form of verse.
The Woad had no religious dogma, though accompanying everything they did was a strong sense of holiness and sacredness of all existence. To them animals and trees had souls and immortality and reincarnation were facts of life, and different levels of reality were taken for granted. The old role of the animals was to link man, through the collective myth of dreams, to be mediators between him and his gods, and they were considered sacred.
Many of the gods and spirits of the Woad world were represented with bird and animal parts, and birds of every kind wing their way through the divine world of the Celts. Indeed, birds were generally thought to be bearers of divine information, and their calls and flight patterns were commonly interpreted by the druids for insights into the future.
To the Woad, the land itself was a living sacred entity. There was no intellectual separation between religion and living, all life, all acts, all relationships were essentially religious; not in any formal senses but as a matter of simple fact.
The gods and goddesses of the ancient Woad were living forces in their imagination and worship, and their savage war-goddesses; their barbaric sea-gods and the mysteries of the Otherworld, quaint, and often incomprehensible, these myths reveal the beautiful and often profound beliefs of a passionate, resourceful and creative people. For the Woad, the essence of the universe and all its creativity was female and they left permanent traces of a culture in which women were the spiritual and moral pivot. The mother goddess and all her personifications of fertility, excellence, love, and healing, was an essential basis of their very role in the world. Women feature prominently in Woad myth and their goddesses occupied positions that represented women of practical, everyday Woad life. They were free to bear arms, become Druids and engage in politics unlike their Greek sisters, who were highly idealized in myth but not representative of the reality governing the lives of Greek women.
Woad women evokes all kinds of images - fearsome warriors, romantic heroines, and tragic, wronged queens - goddesses by the score, from old hags to screaming harpies, to beautiful wise women and learned Druidesses. The women of the Woad myths are a reflection of the historical women of early Woad society with all their problems, loves, heartaches and triumphs. They display a range of characters and positions in society being powerful weak, serious, capricious, vengeful and ambitious - there are no empty-headed beauties. In the Woad myths, the women are honored as much for their minds as for their bodies.
Woad women then achieved high positions in society and a standing which their sisters in the majority of other contemporary European societies did not have. They were able to govern; they played an active part in political; social and religious life. They could own property and remain the owner even when married. They had sexual freedom, were free to choose their partners and divorce, and could claim damages if molested. Woad women could, and often did, lead their men into battle. The women of the Woad are nearly as tall as the men and they rival them also in courage. It has been reported that… "A whole troop of foreigners would not be able to withstand a single Woad, if he called his wife to his assistance"! So women went to war in the ancient Woad world and took command of men. The, training of a warrior was a long task, frequently undertaken by warrior women who were responsible for teaching boys the arts of combat and of love.
The Romans had been horrified by the social status of Woad women as they enjoyed privileges that would have made Roman women, green with envy. This was subversive to the patriarchal paradigms of Greece and Rome and had to be destroyed. The destructive influence of the Roman Empire, then of Christianity, when women were no longer allowed sexual freedom, certainly tried to force the Woad into fundamental change. They clung to the old ways but finally found harmony between the roles of men and women. The harmony that was not dependent on the superiority of one over the other, but on an equality in which each could feel comfortable and furthered the feminist concept of a descent into civilization.
Four hundred years before, around 60 AD., war sparked between the Roman and Woad by Queen Boudica. Boudica was ruler of a collective tribe of aborigines of the British Isle, which suffered brutal injustices at the hands of the abusive Romans; her land was forcefully annexed, she was flogged in public, and then forced to watch as Romans gang-raped her daughters in front of her. Insanely furious and far from broken, she led a rebellion that stormed down from the north of Britain all the way to the south, killing literally tens of thousands of Roman citizens along the way. Among the slain was the near entire body of the then Roman 9th legion.
Cultural diversity posed serious challenges for the Roman Empire. Woad raided the northern borders, Roman administrators had married into local families of questionable loyalty, and the occupying army itself consisted of units drawn from some of the Empire's farthest reaches. Into this volatile situation, the Empire sent 8,000 fierce and independent Sarmatian horse soldiers. It fell upon a family of Roman warlords, the Artorii, to navigate through this treacherous political territory and bring his troops to safety in their new lives as Roman soldiers in a strange land. The Sarmatian Knights became a part of the Numerii[/i][/color], a Roman irregular cavalry unit.
Though the Numerii are generally referred to as irregular units, they are not thought of as having women among their ranks. However, the unit came from the area where a nomadic culture wherein men and women alike are said to have followed the path of the warrior; to possess skill with the bow and ride horses into battle. Could the Numerii be even more irregular than anyone has ever dreamed?
It's an interesting consideration, whether the women of the Roman Sarmatian auxillia in Britain would have fought in any way here. Certainly, the entire tribal unit… women, children and all possessions that came over with the initial 5,000 Sarmatians from the upper Danube steppes, that the women had a role in warfare In Britannia, but that was based on long periods of male absence in the communities. Despite the wars in Britain, the Sarmatian culture thrived, just as their nomad sisters did back in Sarmatia.
This is another Untold Story about those women… The Xiomara[/i][/color]… a feminine noun of Greek origin, meaning "famous warrior."
After centuries of men being absent, fighting or hunting, the island-based Sarmatian nomadic women would have to be able to defend themselves, their animals and pasture-grounds competently. The Sarmatian women, now called the Xiomara[/i][/color], continued to pursue their nomadic lifestyle and ride and hunt on horseback. They still spoke a “corrupt form” of Sarmatian and participated in war and dressed in masculine clothing. They abided by their “marriage law which forbids a girl to marry until she has killed an enemy in battle. The religious practices were consistent; the gods were personified. Those gods of nature were the sky, the earth, and fire. Gods pertaining to social concepts were the domestic hearth and war. Women were burnt on pyres upon which were placed their horses and military equipment.
When the men would have been taken away by the Romans on campaigns for long periods, the women would not only have had to defend themselves, but to reproduce and this could well be the origin of the idea that Xiomars mated once a year with their neighbors.
It was the centuries of interracial mating that bound the Xiomara to the Woad… and to the Britons…
For the first time, the Sarmatian Knights follow Arthur not because they are compelled by force of obligation, but because they choose to do so of their own free will. They follow a more compelling force than the force of authority. They are compelled by an ideal and an inspiring example that captures their minds, engages their hearts and releases their energies for heroic deeds. But Arthur had not only the Sarmatian Knights, he was joined by the Woad people, led by their Shaman, Merlin.
Arthur uses the ideals of the Round Table and unites the peoples of Britain and fends off any invading Saxons.
His command is known for its heroic deeds and chivalric romances. In fact, the name of their castle, Camelot, will come to signify a golden age.
But the greed for power, of his enemies, threatens the peace Arthur so much yearns for. Guinevere, sees what is developing, and secretly re-establishes the Xiomara… now transformed into a group of female warriors… all dedicated to the preservation of Arthur’s ideals, and their new way of life.
The Xiomara
Lady Mara… Queen of the Xiomara
Shaman of the Xiomara
Clan Leaders
Deianeira
Cynuise
Euryleia
Tatae
Toxis
Valasca
Melanippe
Phoebe
Aello
Asteria
Lady Mara… Queen of the Xiomara
Shaman of the Xiomara
Clan Leaders
Deianeira
Cynuise
Euryleia
Tatae
Toxis
Valasca
Melanippe
Phoebe
Aello
Asteria