It has become a trend in Heathenry to call one’s fellowship their “Tribe”. This is done in a sincere attempt to create strong bonds of fraternity within a tight knit religious community and is quite commendable in its aims. Yet, in order to move forward in authentically reconstructing the worldview and kinship-based social network of Heathenry, the tribe must be restored to its proper place and meaning.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Anthropology tells us that a tribe is a “regional security organization. It ties together a number of local primary face-to-face groups”. These face-to-face groups are tied together by a connection to a literal or symbolic primordial ancestor (Salzman, 2020). This can be seen in the elder Heathen ruling elite claiming descent from one of the Goðin such as the Inglingas of Sweden being descended from Ingvi-Freyr. Tribesmen claiming descent from a common forebear are also seen in the Heathen Anglo-Saxon Tribal Hidage, a compiled list of 35 tribal groupings in Heathen-era Anglo-Saxon England. An example of this is a name such as the “Snotingas” meaning “The People of Snot” or “The People of Snod”. The Snottigas took their name from a chieftain called Snot or Snod (University of Nottingham, n.d.)
Salzman continues by explaining that tribe members are “charged with security and are defined as having “collective responsibility; that is, the moral norm is that each member is responsible for what other members do…”(Salzman, 2020). Tribe members being responsible for the actions of each other ensures that the tribe is highly self-regulating. As one tribesmen’s actions affect the honor of the entire group, each tribe member is charged with ensuring that all other tribesmen act in the socially dictated way.
This idea of collective responsibility, also known as collectivism, lies in direct contrast with the Liberal Individualism of the Modern West. The modern ideal of “what’s best for me” or “living MY best life” was entirely alien to the ancient Germanic communities. What was best for your family, clan, or tribe was foremost in the mind of our ancient Germanic forebears. A person was viewed as an individual portion of the spiritual collective of their clan. Every action made by a person, good or bad, affects the entire spiritual web, or hamingja, connecting the group.
As in all things, this collectivism can exist on a spectrum depending on the needs of the community. The requirements of responsibility for the modern Heathen tribesmen would likely be far less than the ancient Heathen tribesmen. Our modern economic infrastructure enables this. Most contemporary Heathens live in a modern consumer capitalist economy where people can get all of their needs met with relative ease.
This is very different from the subsistence farming economy that nearly all of the ancient Heathens lived in. Because of this, modern Heathens will not be as dependent on each other’s labor as our Heathen forebears. This dependency on the family, clan or tribe’s labor was a very unifying force for the individuals of ancient Heathen society. A high-trust society in which everyone depended on, and enforced, the pursuit of the collective well-being of the community was of paramount importance. If one person slacked on their responsibilities, everyone suffered for it.
The collectivism of tribalism is going to be one of the bigger challenges of Heathens in the Liberal West to move towards because hyper individualism has become so ingrained in Western culture. This aspect of our modern Western culture must be acknowledged and inwardly altered as it is an essential part of the Heathen worldview. We must switch from being only concerned with the well-being of oneself and the immediate family to being concerned with the well-being of the larger tribal community.
While this will be a shift from the modern way of doing things, it doesn’t have to be done in one fell swoop. Heathen families, kindreds and clans can start making the shift through collective efforts such as planned farming and trading the produce. As a group it can be decided who will grow what and decide how and when the produce can be traded. Another example of how this can be eased into is that different people learn different crafts. Examples of this include someone learning to be a leathersmith, blacksmiths, carpenters, or textile makers.
The Heathen community is already shot through with people that know traditional crafts. A concerted effort to learn a craft and employ each other for daily needs would be a crucial step in the formation of folk economy and Heathen Tribalism. Insular communities such as the Amish and Russian Old Believers thrive on this model. Within the traditional Heathen worldview, our tribe, culture, religion and morality are all inseparable aspects. Folk economy is downstream of culture and collectivism is at the heart of the ancient Heathen morality.
In any tribal morality, serving the best interests of the community is the foundational tenet of any tribal society. A tribesman has the moral imperative to help his fellow tribesman in times of trouble. The closer the kin connection, the more the responsibility. In the Heathen worldview, this mutual responsibility of kinsman is expressed in Frith. Frith being the protection and well-being of the individual afforded by the clan/tribal collective. In its full scope, frith ensures the well-being of the community, and by extension, the well being of the individual. Everyone must pull their weight in the community, both in terms of gaining resources and in the protection of the community, for this to be ensured.
Living within a Germanic Heathen tribal community requires what the ancient Heathens called “trúnaðr”, which roughly translates as “trust, allegiance or good faith”. Folcweard Lárġyfa tells us in his seminal book Trúnaðarbók: The Loyalty Writings that “Maintaining trúnaðr, or roughly translated as (with its implied meaning), loyalty, is a foundational principle by which we base our lives upon to form the basis that hold our life together”. Loyalty to one’s kin group, clan and tribe is the key stone of any thriving tribal community. The rock solid trust that your tribal members will have your back and you will have theirs prevents each member’s life from “unraveling into the empty, chaotic and lonely life of one who exists but never truly lives” (Lárġyfa, 2022).
The responsibility of the Germanic Heathen to the protection of his/her clan’s safety and honor is paramount. This is because, as Germanic Heathens, we have to keep the scales of rétt equal. Rétt is roughly translated as the Old Norse word for “Justice”. Justice demands a form of atonement to make a wrong right. This atonement for the wrong must be made through action or repayment. Therefore, a person must make an action prescribed by custom or the Þing for atonement. Another avenue of righting a wrong is in the form of a payment such as a weregild. This slight against an individual not only affects that individual, it also affects their entire clan. The entirety of the clan is connected as one entity by the spiritual force of the clan hamingja. Therefore, an injury to one is an injury to all.
The Æfinlǫgr tells us that “The concept of rétt grew from the principle that free persons was holy, “friðheilag” or “peace-holy”, much like a sacred site that has been ritually blessed”. Ergo, the body of a free person was therefore viewed as a sacred entity, no different than a holy site (Puryear, 2025). When an individual attacks another individual, it is not too far off from attacking a holy Vé. This fact makes complete sense as we were created by the Regin and imbued with aspects of their own divine selves. Therefore, we are temples of divine aspects. Thus, when a person wrongs another person, they are infringing on a holy vessel and, by extension, the holy embodiment of the clan. The entire clan has the responsibility to seek rétt or “justice”.
The other side of that coin is that when the perpetrator wrongs the other person, the perpetrator’s entire clan is responsible for righting the wrong and bringing the scales of rétt back into balance. This is where the concept of the blood feud plays into it. Bringing an injury to anyone in the clan is the equivalent of bringing an injury to the original wrongdoer of that clan. In the ancient mindset, getting revenge on the original wrongdoer is best but getting revenge on someone from their clan would also suffice. This is because the web of hamingja that connects the entire family, clan, and tribe makes them one unit.
This fact is in no way endorsing Heathens going outside the law to seek vigilante justice as modern Heathens have modern court systems to exact justice. The point is that if the Sedish Heathen adheres to the truths established by our Heathen ancestors, the Goðin being the source of these truths, then we must always protect the clan’s hamingja from the infringement of the scales of rétt. To keep the clan’s rétt intact, the clan members need to be close and tight-knit. If Heathens are completely out of contact with their relatives, how will they ever know if an injustice has befallen them? On the other side of it, how would the Heathen clans know that one of their members is doing injustice to another? All these situations affecting the whole clan is yet another reason for Heathens to re-tribalize.
The traditional Heathen system of law and governance is done through the legal assembly of the Thing or Þing. The Æfinlǫgr attests that there were three different levels or types of Þing. The smallest and most direct form of the Þing was the Húsþing which was held at the level of one’s household. “The Húsþing was a small council or assembly held by the king, jarl or family head (hofðingi) with his household or guard” (Puryear, 2025). This is where the day-to-day skirmishes and offenses, such as small time honor offenses, should be taken care of.
According to the Æfinlǫgr, the next level in the Þing structure would be the Ættersþing or “Þing of the Clans”. This level of the Þing was also traditionally known as the Fylkisþing or “District-Þing” (Puryear, 2025). Tacitus tells us about the proceedings of the Ættersþing in his Germania that “Upon minor matters the chiefs deliberate; upon greater matters the general assembly, with the reservation that, in the latter case, where the popular vote settles the question, these matters, too, must be thoroughly debated at a meeting of the chiefs” (Tacitus,1882). The Ættersþing is the legal assembly where the legal matters that affect all the households of the clan would be settled. Disputes between different clans, such as land or water rights, would be settled at this level of the Þing structure. If we are to retain the power of the clans in our daily affairs, all matters affecting the whole clan should be settled here. Only in extreme cases, should we resort to using civic governmental courts.
The highest, and final, level of the Þing structure is that of the National Þing. A form of the Þing still exists in the modern day parliaments of Scandinavian countries. These include the Danish Folketing (Folk-Thing), the Norwegian Storting (Great Thing) and the most well-known of the three, the Icelandic Alþing (All-Thing). This top most level of the Þing structure would be the level of cases that weren’t settled in the Húsþing or Ættersþing. A reasonable comparison could be made of the National Þing to the American Supreme Court as both are the top courts that handle cases that could be handled at the lower levels. As the culture-bringer, Heimdall-Rígr brought us our sacred law, the Æfinlǫgr (The Laws of Earthly Life), when he brought Jarl the Æfinrúnar (The Runes of Earthly Life) while visiting Midgard to bestow his blessings on the Germanic folk. To honor Heimdall-Rigr for his benevolence, we call the National Þing “Rígsþing” or “The Þing of Rígr” (Puryear, 2025).
With justice being upheld by the Þing structure in tribal communities, freedom and personal autonomy are easier to maintain than in our modern, atomized nation-state. Sebastian Junger states in his book Tribe “…Males that try to take control of the group – or of the food supply – are often countered by coalitions of males. This is clearly an ancient and adaptive behavior that tends to keep groups together and equitably cared for” (Junger, 2016). As descendants of loving gods, the Germanic Peoples were instilled with a great love of freedom and personal autonomy. This love of freedom is best facilitated within a natural human tribal structure.
All human beings require intergroup unity and cohesiveness for a group to thrive. The Germanic Heathen folk are no different. The need for group unity and cohesiveness in the fight for survival over the millennia caused humans to develop an ingrained tribal point of view. Jay Van Bavel’s Studies of the Neuroscience of Tribalism have found that identifying someone as one of your in-group members “activates the brain’s reward systems, fostering loyalty and preference”. This is in addition to Tania Singer’s work that seeing others as part of our tribe triggers “the brain’s empathy circuit, promoting compassion and cooperation”. (Sussex, 2023)
The gods created the Children of Aesc and Embla to seek each other out and create unbreakable bonds of community with each other. Being in tight knit communities with their kith and kin is the natural state of existence as the Regin have intended. Working with each other, laughing with each other, mourning with each other and sharing many other life events together is one of the great purposes that the Regin gave us when they formed us. We were made in the image of the Goðin tribes and like them, we are meant to be together in good times and in bad.
Modern consumer driven society seeks to keep people divided and alone as humans are much easier to manipulate into leading shallow consumer-driven and greed-centered lives. Grown children are no longer near their extended kin group or even their immediate family of mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. In the modern West, many of the Germanic folk haven’t seen or spoken with their family in years. So many of us are so unhappy and mental illness is at an all time high. This, in large part, is because we have broken away from the design the Goðin molded us into. We are meant to be close to our kith and kin. Modern society promotes hyper individuality which causes the destruction of the traditional family structure and the misery of our people. All the peoples of the world need to return to the kin-based, tribal structure that humanity was meant to live in.
A folk community’s tribalism is further enhanced by in-group/out-group bias, meaning that community members have a neurological drive to be loyal to their in-group. While in-group/out-group can be taken too far and result in intergroup conflict from low-level hostility to all-out warfare, it fosters the tribe’s unity (Molenberghs, P., & Louis, W. R. (2018)). This may be in direct contrast to the modern world trade model of “One World, One People”, but Tribalism is more in line with neuroscience’s findings that people function better with tight, family-communities. The world’s communities can still live in peace with each other while still retaining their differences and uniqueness.
Humanity’s instinctual drive for close-knit, family-based tribal communities in no way means that different ethnic groupings of polyethnic nation-states have to be at odds with each other. Distinct tribal groupings can interact with each other in a friendly, peaceful, co-existent environment. In the West, this can be seen in modern political units such as the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the United States and Canada. This can also be seen in the various tribal groups of the American Indians and the tribes of Tanzania. A people can retain their distinctness and still interact with others based on their common humanity.
Humanity as a whole is being fractured and denigrated by the McDonald’s style world trade model of worldwide homogeneity. This ideal is epitomized by a McDonald’s and Starbucks on every corner of every street everywhere in the world. Humanity’s return to tribalism is a defense against the destructive homogenizing effects of Globalization. As global markets increase and the insatiable human desire for more continues to maraud across the earth, the numbers of the beautiful kaleidoscope of unique human cultures will decline. Many of the world’s cultures are fighting back against this onslaught and Germanic Heathens should be no different. Reconnecting to our roots and returning to tribal, kinship-based communities can help keep out the leviathan of Globalism as well as fulfilling our human need for community.
Globalist consumer culture will only tolerate universalist religions such as Christianity or Buddhism because if everyone believes the same, human communities are easier to control. There is no room for the Yorubans of West Africa, the Shamans of the Alaskan Yupʼik, or Germanic Heathens of the Anglosphere. A world full of independent, self-regarding ethnic religious communities would be the death knell of any attempt to control the world’s populations. If Globalization has its way, humanity will become a dull grey mass that sees the world and everything in it as a gargantuan shopping cart full of despiritualized items to merely consume. Self-sustaining, kinship-based systems of extended families is the exact opposite of the globalist consumer culture ideal world.
The drive for complete worldwide religious homogeneity is what French political philosopher Alain de Benoist calls “The Ideology of Sameness”. The Ideology of Sameness is the repressive, authoritarian pursuit of the one universal “unique” human being. De Benoist defines the “Unique” as “anything that can not bear otherness and that aims at reducing everything to a state of unity: one God, one civilization, and one line of thought”. (De Benoist, P. 9). This drive towards “one God, one civilization, and one line of thought” is one of the primary, diversity-destroying goals of the homogenizing forces of Modernity.
The longer that Heathenry has been revived and given new life, the more different folk communities will establish their particular thews, religious traditions, and folkways. Any attempt at one group trying to establish the “One, true tradition” is spiritual imperialism. This is the oppressive, authoritarian path of the Universalist Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam that seeks to make all people the same. This authoritarian, imperialistic tenet of the religion of Rome is what sought to, and nearly did, destroy our native Germanic folkway of Heathenry. As in the times of the ancient Heathens, the most historically correct and prudent way forward is Tribalist Heathenry.
~ Beræcer Lárġyfa, Ærra Líða, Holy Month 28, 2025
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Bibliography
De Benoist, A., & Adwan, R. (2022). The Ideology of Sameness. Arktos Media.
Lárġyfa, F. (2022). Trúnaðarbók: The Loyalty Writings. The Frithstead.
Puryear, M. (2025). Æfinlǫgr: The Book of Sedian Law. The Norrœna Society .
Sebastian Junger. (2016a). Tribe: On homecoming and belonging. Twelve.
Salzman, P. C. (2020, September 28). Tribes. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. https://oxfordre.com/anthropology/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.001.0001/acrefore-9780190854584-e-185?rskey=YQDFaA&result=1
Sussex Publishers. (n.d.). The Neuroscience of Tribalism. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/brain-reboot/202307/the-neuroscience-of-tribalism
Tacitus, Cornelius. The Germania and Agricola, and Also Selections from the Annals of Tacitus; with English Notes, Critical and Explanatory. New York :Harper & Brothers, 1882.
Tin. Periodic Table of Nottingham – University of Nottingham. (n.d.). https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/periodicnottingham/tin
(Van Bavel et al., Science; Singer et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).Molenberghs, P., & Louis, W. R. (2018). Insights from fmri studies into ingroup bias. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01868