Trifunctional model

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The Coat of arms of Bad Aibling clearly shows Trifunctional model.

The Trifunctional model states that Indo-European society was divided into three subgroups: warriors, priests, and farmers. The first description of Indo-European trifunctionalism was by made by Arthur de Gobineau and was later developed in much greater detail by French mythographer Georges Dumézil. The heart of the Trifunctional model is that both the society and the mythology are so divided. Each social group has its own god or family of gods to represent it, and that the function of both the group in its society and the function of the god or gods in the pantheon match.

Society

The Land of Cockaigne

The Indo-European idea of sovereignty into two distinct and complementary parts. One part was formal, juridical, and priestly, but rooted in this world. The other powerful, unpredictable, and also priestly, but rooted in the other, the supernatural and spiritual world. Finally, there was a third group, who were ruled by the other two, whose role was productivity: herding, farming, and crafts.

Dumézil believed that this tripartite division resulted in the arrangement of Brahmin, Kshatriya and commoner castes in India; and Priests, Kings and peasants in Europe. Medieval feudal society, an historic example not noted by Dumézil was divided into: Oratores (those who pray), Bellatores (those who fight), and Laboratores (workers). This can be seen in The Land of Cockaigne by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

Trifunctionalism in Indo-european religion

The Skog Church Tapestry

The 12th century Swedish Skog Church Tapestry shows the one-eyed Woden, the hammer-wielding Thor and Frey holding up an ear of corn. This triad corresponds closely to the trifunctional division: Woden is the patron of priests and magicians, Thor of warriors, and Frey of fertility and farming.

Coat of arms

See also

• Georges Dumézil

Further reading

• Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols. The Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. Chicago 2006
• Lincoln, Bruce. Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. University of Chicago Press 2000.
• Littleton, C. S. The New Comparative Mythology 1966. 3rd ed. Berkeley 1982.
• Puhvel, Jaan. Comparative Mythology. Baltimore 1987.
• J. Gonda, Dumezil's Tripartite Ideology: Some Critical Observations, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Nov., 1974), pp. 139-149.

External links

• General characteristics of Indo-european religion http://es.geocities.com/sucellus24/2093.htm
• From Pagan to Christian: The Story in the 12th-Century Tapestry of the Skog Church http://faculty.washington.edu/leiren/vikings2.html

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