Kabeiroi: Encyclopedia - Kabeiroi

Kabeiroi

The Kabeiroi (Cabiri) in Greek myth were a race of gods or god-like beings, closely connected with Hephaistos and with the Mother Goddess. They were associated with metallurgy, magic, and fertility rites, and with other spheres, yet because of the secretiveness of their cult, their exact nature and place within ancient Greek and Thracian religion remains mysterious. The Kabeiroi myth and cult itself probably traces back to the pre-Greek Tyrsenoi of Lemnos, where the Kabeiroi sanctuary maintained an unbroken continuity even after the Tyrsenoi were conquered by the Athenians .

Kabeiroi - Name

The etymology of the name Kabeiroi is unknown, and is probably a loan from the Lemnian language. Semitic kabir ('great') has been compared at least since Scaliger, but nothing else seems to point to a Semitic origin (Burkert, p. 457). A.H. Sayce in 1925 suggested a connection to Hittite habiri, 'looters, outlaws', but subsequent discoveries have made this implausible on phonological grounds. G. Dossin (1953) compares Kabeiroi to the Sumerian word kabar, 'copper', but this is only a guess.

Their name recalls Mount Kabeiros, a mountain in the region of Berekyntia in Asia Minor, closely associated with the Phrygian Mother Goddess. The name of Kadmilus (or Kasmilos), one of the Kabeiroi who was usually depicted as a young boy, was even in antiquity linked to camillus, an old Latin word for a boy-attendant in cult, which is probably a loan from Etruscan.

Kabeiroi - Myth

The Kabeiroi in myth bear many similarities to other fabulous races: the Telchines of Rhodes, the Cyclopes, Idaian Dactyls, Korybantes, Kuretes. There was often a confounding or identification of these different groups with one another since many of them, like the Cyclopes and Telchines, were also associated with metallurgy.

Diodorus Siculus said of the Kabeiroi that they were Idaioi dactyloi, "Idaian dactyls". The Idaian Dactyls were a race of divine beings associated with the Mother Goddess and with Mount Ida, a mountain in Phrygia sacred to the goddess.

Hesychius of Alexandria wrote that the Kabeiroi were karkinoi, 'crabs' (plural of karkinos, 'crab'). The Kabeiroi as Karkinoi were apparently thought of as amphibious beings (again recalling the Telchines). They had pincers instead of hands, which they used as tongs (Greek: karkina) in metalworking.

According to some accounts, there were originally two Kabeiroi. Later, there were four: two male (Axiocersus and Cadmilus) and two female (Axiocersa and Axierus). In other accounts, one may infer that there was a multitude of them (e.g., in Pausanias, were they are described as a race or tribe, not merely four beings).

There was a suggestion that the Orphic mysteries had their origins among the Kabeiroi.

Kabeiroi - Cult

The Kabeiroi cult is attested in ancient Greece (particularly, at Thebes) and also in Thrace (at Seuthopolis, etc.) and Asia Minor, with the islands of Samothrace and Lemnos seeming to be the focus.

On Lemnos, the sanctuary dedicated to the Kabeiroi is identifiable by traces of inscriptions and seems to have survived the Greek conquest by Miltiades in the 6th century, and the program of Hellenization that ensued. The geographer Strabo reported that in Lemnos, the mother (there was no father) of the Kabeiroi was Kabeiro herself, a daughter of Proteus, one of the "old men of the sea," a goddess whom the Greeks might have called Rhea. Aeschylus wrote a play called the Kabeiroi and the fragments that survive have them as a chorus greeting the Argonauts at Lemnos. There seems to be a raucous burlesque character to the mysteries of the Kabeiroi: wine-vessels are the only characteristic finds, and an inscription at Lemnos indicates parapaizonti, the one who "jests along the way" (Burkert 1985).

At Greek Thebes there are more varied finds, which include many little bronze votive bulls and which carry on into Roman times, when the traveller Pausanias, always alert to the history of cult, learned that it was Demeter Kabeiriia who instigated the initiation cult there in the name of Prometheus and his son Aitnaios. Walter Burkert (1985) says, "This points to guilds of smiths analogous to the Lemnian Hephaistos." The votive dedications at Thebes are to a Kabiros in the singular, and childish toys like votive spinning tops for Pais suggest a manhood initiation. Copious wine was drunk, out of characteristic cups that were ritually smashed. Fat, primitive dwarves like the followers of Silenus, with prominent genitalia were painted on the cups.

In Classical Greek culture the mysteries of the Kabeiroi at Samothrace remained popular, though little was entrusted to writing beyond a few names and bare genealogical connections. Seamen among the Greeks might invoke the Kabeiroi as "great gods" in times of danger and stress. The archaic sanctuary of Samothrace was rebuilt in Greek fashion; by classical times the Samothrace mysteries of the Kabeiroi were known at Athens. Herodotus had been initiated. But at the entry to the sanctuary, which has been thoroughly excavated, the Roman antiquary Varro learned, there had been twin pillars of brass, phallic like herms, and in the sanctuary it was understood that the child of the Goddess, Kadmilos, was in some mystic sense also her consort.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Kabeiroi", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki