Historical or Fictional Example

[dren]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to come up with a historical example of barbarians living on the sea to use as the basis for a new culture in my campaign.

The only thing that jumps to mind are vikings, but, they are more beserkers than actual barbarians. The vikings had their eddas and sagas, so they were far from illiterate and uncivilized. Not that I want to create an uncivilized culture, just a nomadic one based on fishing, hunting and raiding.

I picture barbarians as native american tribes, living peacefully on the land, hunting the buffalo, and then going on the...ahem, warpath, if anything ever threatened them. But I want this water-based barbarian tribe to be a little different, and am having a hard time trying to describe what their culture would be like.

Anyone have any ideas from either historical or fictional examples????

THANKS!
dren

 

[pigi314159]

Inuits could serve as a decent example...although the polynesians would work as well.

 

[Michael Tree]

Take a look at polynesian islanders, such as the natives of Hawaii. From what I've learned about them, "living peacefully on the land, then going on the warpath" is a fairly good description of them.

 

[dren]

Thanks. And thanks to wikipedia

 

[Krieg]

FWIW You might want to take a look at Maori culture specifically. There is certainly a lot of interesting nuggets both culturally and mythologically there worth mining.

 

[lp]

A lot of the Western Canadian Native cultures had a lot to do with water. Think of the big canoes and fishing, etc. Just tossing that in as a thought before I run off. Check out the Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands or another similar group.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There were African tribes, both costal and landlocked who did the same thing the Vikings did- trade with your neigbor, then raid him if you don't get a good deal!

You would also find some semi-nomadic raiders in the Mediterranean before the rise of the Hellenic culture.

Basically, anywhere you would find an archipelago, you could find cultures fitting your vision.

 

[Greylock]

You might do some research on the Sea People of the Mediterranean. They even had the Phoenecians scared, back in the day. And to this day no one really knows who they were.

 

[Tonguez]

FWIW You might want to take a look at Maori culture specifically. There is certainly a lot of interesting nuggets both culturally and mythologically there worth mining.

Tena koutou what do you want to know?

I'm ethnically 'Maori' (though I personally don't use the term) who are a Polynesian people. I was also trained as a Anthropologist with a focus of Polynesian Legend and Society ...

 

[billd91]

"Barbarian" and "uncivilized" are really loaded terms. From the point of view of early Irish monks and other post-Roman civilizations, the Vikings were most certainly barbarians. As were the Saxons and Jutes and Visigoths and a whole lot of other cultures.
Just because a civilization has art, that doesn't mean they don't fit the barbarian D&D mode. Much of the art in pre-literate cultures takes the form of memorized sagas and epics anyway like with the Greeks in Homer's time or the Celts for most of their history.... or the Vikings.