"Polish tribes" is a term used sometimes to describe the

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

s of West Slavic

Lechites Lechites (, german: Lechiten), also known as the Lechitic tribes (, german: Lechitische Stämme), is a name given to certain West Slavic tribes who inhabited modern-day Poland and eastern Germany, and were speakers of the Lechitic languages. Dist ...

that lived from around the mid-6th century in the territories that became Polish with the creation of the

Polish state Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

by the Piast dynasty. The territory on which they lived became a part of the first Polish state created by duke Mieszko I and expanded at the end of the 10th century, enlarged further by conquests of

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

Bolesław I at the beginning of the 11th century. In about 850 AD a list of peoples was written down by the

Bavarian Geographer The epithet "Bavarian Geographer" ( la, Geographus Bavarus) is the conventional name for the anonymous author of a short Latin medieval text containing a list of the tribes in Central- Eastern Europe, headed (). The name "Bavarian Geographer" was ...

. Absent on the list are Lechitic-speaking Polans,

Pomerania Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...

ns and

Masovia Mazovia or Masovia ( pl, Mazowsze) is a historical region in mid-north-eastern Poland. It spans the North European Plain, roughly between Łódź and Białystok, with Warsaw being the unofficial capital and largest city. Throughout the centurie ...

ns, who became known later and were written about by

Nestor the Chronicler Saint Nestor the Chronicler ( orv, Несторъ Лѣтописецъ; 1056 – c. 1114, in Principality of Kiev, Kievan Rus') was the reputed author of '' Primary Chronicle'' (the earliest East Slavic letopis), ''Life of the Venerable The ...

in his '' Primary Chronicle'' (11th/12th century). The most important tribes who were conquered by Polans were the

Masovians Masovians, also spelled as Mazovians, and historically known as Masurians, is an ethnographic group of Polish people that originate from the region of Masovia, located mostly within borders of the Masovian Voivodeship, Poland. They speak the Ma ...

, Vistulans,

Silesians Silesians ( szl, Ślōnzŏki or Ślůnzoki; Silesian German: ''Schläsinger'' ''or'' ''Schläsier''; german: Schlesier; pl, Ślązacy; cz, Slezané) is a geographical term for the inhabitants of Silesia, a historical region in Central Euro ...

and Pomeranians. These five tribes "shared fundamentally common culture and language and were considerably more closely related to one another than were the Germanic tribes."

Ethnonym

The name "Poland" is derived from the most powerful of the tribes — the Polans. Their name, in turn, derives from the word ''pole'' — field. It was also used for the eastern Polans, a perhaps unrelated East Slavic tribe that lived in the region of the Dnieper River in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

Religion

The Polish tribes were

polytheistic Polytheism is the belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the ...

pagans and worshiped a pantheon of numerous deities, each representing a different but equally important aspect of life for the Early Slavs - such as

Perun In Slavic mythology, Perun (Cyrillic: Перýн) is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees. His other attributes were fire, mountains, wind, iris, eagle, f ...

, god of

lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous release of an avera ...

. Little is known about what their religion was really like, but the limited archaeological evidence as well as remnants of pagan beliefs that have survived in the folklore of Slavic countries show many similarities between the faith of Polish tribes and that of other

Early Medieval The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

Slavic societies leading historians to believe that a common Slavic mythology exists between all Slavic branches.

Organization

The tribes were organized on the basis of kinship groups. A tribe's territory was divided into '' opoles'', which constituted a group of neighboring settlements. Most members of a particular tribe were yeoman peasants, although a small group of aristocrats (''nobiles'' or ''potentiores'') was usually present.

Tribes

The following is the list of Polish tribes that inhabited the lands of Poland in the

early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

, at the beginning of the Polish state. They shared fundamentally common culture and language and together they formed what is now Polish ethnicity and the culture of Poland. This process is called ethnic consolidation in which several ethnic communities of kindred origin and cognate languages, merge into a single one.Regina E. Holloman, Serghei A. Arutiunov, Perspectives on Ethnicity, Walter de Gruyter 1978, p. 391, , 978311080770
Google Books
/ref> The following Slavic tribes are considered as Polish: * Polans * Pomeranians ** Pyrzyczanie ** Wolinianie * Goplans *

Lendians The Lendians ( pl, Lędzianie) were a Lechitic tribe who lived in the area of East Lesser Poland and Cherven Cities between the 7th and 11th centuries. Since they were documented primarily by foreign authors whose knowledge of Central and East Eu ...

* Vistulans *

** Bieżuńczanie ** Bobrzanie ** Dziadoszanie ** Golęszyce ** Lubuszanie ** Opolanie ** Ślężanie ** Trzebowianie

References

External links

West Slavic tribes between 800 and 950, Polish tribes marked in pink
{{Slavic ethnic groups (VII-XII century) West Slavic tribes Early medieval Poland