This part of the 12th-century SwedishSkog tapestry has, possibly erroneously, been interpreted to show, from left to right, the one-eyedOdin, the hammer-wieldingThor andFreyr holding up wheat. Terje Leiren believes this grouping corresponds closely to the trifunctional division.
In theProto-Indo-European mythology, eachsocial group had its owngod or family of gods to represent it and the function of the god or gods matched the function of the group. Many such divisions occur in the history of Indo-European societies:
Early Baltic society:Norbertas Vėlius, in his bookSenovės baltų pasaulėžiūra (The Ancient Baltic Worldview), identified three regions with three classes. The priestly class was centered inPrussia, the warrior class was prominent in the outer highlands, and the farming class predominanted in the intermediate flatlands.
Early Germanic society: Dumézil identified a division between theking, warrioraristocracy and regular freemen.[5]
Norse mythology:Odin (sovereignty),Týr (law and justice), theVanir (fertility).[6][7][note 1] Odin has been interpreted as a death-god[9] and connected to cremations,[10] and has also been associated with ecstatic practices.[11][10]
Classical Greece: the three divisions of the ideal society as described bySocrates inPlato'sThe Republic. Bernard Sergent examined the trifunctional hypothesis in Greekepic,lyric anddramatic poetry.[12]
India: the three Hindu castes, theBrahmins or priests; theKshatriya, the warriors and military; and theVaishya, the agriculturalists, cattle rearers and traders. TheShudra, a fourth Indian caste, is a peasant or serf.
On the other hand,Nicholas Allen concludes that the tripartite division may be an artefact and aselection effect, rather than an organising principle that was used in the societies themselves.[15]Benjamin W. Fortson reports a sense that Dumézil blurred the lines between the three functions and the examples that he gave often had contradictory characteristics,[16] which had caused his detractors to reject his categories as nonexistent.[17] John Brough surmises that societal divisions are common outside Indo-European societies as well and so the hypothesis has only limited utility in illuminating prehistoric Indo-European society.[18] Cristiano Grottanelli states that while Dumézilian trifunctionalism may be seen in modern and medieval contexts, its projection onto earlier cultures is mistaken.[19] Belier is strongly critical.[20]
^Terje Leiren discerns another grouping of three Norse gods that may correspond to the trifunctional division:Odin as the patron of priests and magicians,Thor of warriors, andFreyr of fertility and farming.[8]
^According to Jean Boissel, the first description of Indo-European trifunctionalism was by Gobineau, not by Dumézil. (Lincoln, 1999, p. 268, cited below).
^abDumézil, G. (1929).Flamen-Brahman. There has been scholarship in applying Dumézilian trifunctionalism to Pre-Columbian Yucatán Mayan societies in: Lincoln, Charles E., (1990)Ethnicity and Social Organization at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. (PhD. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University) Advisors Mathews, Peter, and Gordon R. Willey; Lincoln, Charles E. (1986.) "The Chronology of Chichen Itza: A Review of the Literature." Pages 141–156 inLate Lowland Maya Civilization: Classic to Postclassic, edited by Jeremy A. Sabloff and E. Wyllys Andrews V. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
^abDumézil, G. (1940).Mitra-Varuna, Presses universitaires de France.
^Bernard Sergent,Les Indo-Européens. Histoire, langues, mythes. Payot, Paris 1995.ISBN2-228-88956-3.
^Dumézil, Georges (1958). "The Rígsþula and Indo-European Social Structure." In:Gods of the Ancient Northmen. Ed. Einar Haugen, trans. John Lindow. University of California Press, Berkeley 1973.ISBN0-520-03507-0.
de Vries, Jan (1970),Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, volume 2. 2nd ed. repr. as 3rd ed (in German), Walter de Gruyter,OCLC466619179
Polomé, Edgar Charles (1970), "The Indo-European Component in Germanic Religion", in Puhvel, Jaan (ed.),Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans: Studies in Indo-European Comparative Mythology, University of California,ISBN9780520015876
