I am Swabian

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

Are you - Nobody - too?

Then there's a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they'd banish us - you know!

How dreary - to be - Somebody!

How public - like a Frog -

To tell your name - the livelong June -

To an admiring Bog!

I’ve always been fond of the Emily Dickinson poem that humorously presents the concept of identity, or the need to be somebody (important) as a rather useless goal. However, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with wanting to know who we are. We just need to have the right perspective. I’m attempting to tell a story in which a character's true self or identity is revealed and it’s my identity. Nothing in the story is really about me; it’s about how time and place and memory open the boxes of our identity, how they leave marks on pages that are meant to be read and pondered.

All I want to do is put the pieces of the puzzle together, to understand how I ended up in this time and place thinking I’m Galician when my birth certificate assigns a city in western New York as my origin. Before going any further, please know this is not a love story. Nobody I’ve met in the years since that beginning in New York is responsible for who I am and what that means going forward.

I am Swabian and that is the simple explanation. I’ve been searching for a good term to define how to define that, but it’s probably a simple fact that there is an area in the southwestern part of what is now Germany called Swabia. There are some who suggest a vague extension of the Duchy, but everyone agrees it exists and has a distinctive culture. There is also - oddly enough - documentation assigning the migration of the Swabians westward, and the crossing of the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula. That was Hydatius, who considered it an important event, perhaps occurring on December 31, 409, or thereabouts. Hydatius was born near Xinzo de Limia and was bishop of Chaves, so he witness the threat to Christianity in Gallaecis firsthand. He kept close watch over the newcomers.

The reason I bring this up is I was there, traveling with the tribe, moving to the Atlantic coast, to Gallaecia. I knew we were moving to the westernmost shore, and I was pleased with our destination. Once we arrived, we kind of occupied the Celtic lands and fought a lot. We were gone, or so people thought, by around 585. However, we left our language and culture deep in northwestern Iberia and I can explain. Hydatius needn’t have feared for the Church.

So since everything began in Alemanna near the Neckar and Kocher rivers, I too began there and went along for the ride to Gallaecia. Should I call myself Swagal? Not sure about that yet. So far this isn’t much of a story this finding of my roots, although if I continue, explaining how I grew deep into the northwestern Iberia earth, you might understand how that earth claimed me. All I had to do was listen.

The Swabian nets were everywhere demanding I claim them, hear them. They gave me proof in toponyms, in first and surnames, things like that. They demanded I acknowledge them, acknowledge us. Lover of stones that I am, I agreed. Acknowledging them meant allowing them to speak. There are studies in historical linguistics and others of an archaeological sort. I saw and heard the Swabian language spoken long before I knew that’s what it was. In another story, I’ll explain better. Just know the syllables attached themselves to me, like burdock but in a kinder manner.

Like many others, I am captivated by the Galician entroido, which is not unlike Fastnacht in Swabia. The link between the two regions is undeniable, and the way masks and cross-dressing allow the commoners to assert different identities, even if just for a week, is a serious indication of a culture that knows what it is doing. Bakhtin has studied the celebration quite well, as have others, but I do want to underline the role of masks, because my whole life I have been drawn to them. I have worn them, made them, used them metaphorically, always aware that masks both reveal and inhibit all our identities. I’m nobody, who are you? Will this mask provide an answer? Will a mask from Fastnacht or entroido successfully cover up the face of a western New Yorker? I suspect it already has.

There is much more to compare and I also wish I had time to describe how, when I’m in the right place at the right time, morphemes and phonemes, traces and veins of a silenced language, bubble up to the surface, where they cling to the soles of my shoes. They do resemble burdocks in that they are impossible to remove. They crunch a bit as I walk, and they create spots in villages and fields which I hold conversations with the brief presence of a Germanic culture that was driven to move far from its roots and set down new ones that only a few see. I had no choice in the matter: the voices and the bodies are still in Galicia. They are not ghosts. They are real. We share a language neither they nor I can speak.

I am working to show what this all means and am gradually developing plans. My vision is to to create a Swabian space and to locate it in Compostela. It could be like a taberna but not exactly. I mean, maybe there would be wine, but it would be Trollinger, Lemberger, Schwarzriesling, along with the best albariños. Food would be empanadas and Flammekeuche. Potatoes would be served in endless variations. The decor would have to be accurate. Wall art would include the route followed from east to west and depict the apparel as well as the numbers of Swabians responsible for a brief but intense presence in northwestern Iberia. is the exact date in December 409 accurate? Why the precision on the part of Hydatius? How did the newcomers know where to go?

What did the Swabians in Gallaecia actually do? What did they build or destroy? How many children were born in the new land? When their time was up, did they leave or merely sink deep into the earth, serving to fertilize it for the Visigoths? At this point I am still gathering information, both from books and from those who are informing me from deep below the surface. Thy follow my every step, and this comforts me.

The place I plan to construct is still a work in progress. There will be ways to learn about Swabian Galicia, with signs to point out the names along with designated routes for those wishing to follow the footsteps of the people from Alemanna. Anyway, I’ve got lots of ideas with much greater detail, so I hope you’ll come back for the second part. Now that I know for sure I’m Swabian, I’m kind of obligated to spread the word, don’t you think?