Above photo: Otto Höfler’s Characterisation of the Germanic Peoples: From Sacred Men’s Bands to Social Daemonism by Courtney Marie Burrell (published 2023 by De Gruyter) along with a couple of my journals used to take notes on various books & essays.
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During the early 20th century the term Männerbund ('alliance of men') gained foothold, most notably in Heinrich Schurtz’s “Altersklassen und Männerbünde”, published in 1902, where the concept was later developed by Austrian philologist Lily Weiser (1927) and popularized particularly by Otto Höfler (1934).
Researchers like Otto Höfler went so far as to state that the Perchten run and the Wild Hunt were vestiges of pre-Christian männerbund. He described pre-Christian männerbund as a group of male youth with initiation rites and rituals that were perhaps linked to the cult of Odin. Höfler claimed these male societies could have even been the basis for stories of the Einherjer, citing what 1st century CE Roman historian wrote about the Harii as an example: “with black shields and painted bodies, they choose dark nights to fight, and by means of terror and shadow of a ghostly army they cause panic, since no enemy can bear a sight so unexpected and hellish; in every battle the eyes are the first to be conquered.”
The book "The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-) Germanic Männerbünde" stated that during these initiation rituals the male youth would simulate death, it was a ritual death and rebirth, which was viewed as the only real death. As the book commented: "Once initiated, he belongs to the dead ancestors, who are the immortals. His physical death is meaningless". How they would become the dead would be by masks, but "mask" is not always something that covers the face, it could also be painting the body (as Tacitus described the Harii). The purpose is to show the wearer is daemonic or more than human, not himself but an ancestor.
While Höfler has been a controversial figure it certainly does not discount his research. For example professor and author Jens Peter Schjødt has referenced Höfler’s writings in his own work stating “it is without doubt right to take into consideration the notions of dead (warriors) in order to understand the religious role of living warriors” (from essay “The Warrior in Old Norse Religion” in book “Ideology and Power in the Viking and Middle Ages”). Kris Kershaw (author of the “One Eyed God”) has additionally stated many other scholars have come to the same conclusions as Höfler through comparative religion and analysis.
