Wanderers, Nomads and Outcasts

~Alone in the greenwood must I roam, Hollin, green hollin, [Holly], A shade of green leaves in my home, Birk [Birch] and green hollin.~

~"Green Hollin, anon. Scots ballad~

Among the Celtic peoples, young warriors were temporarily outcast from their tribe as part of their rite of passage into adulthood, under the guardianship of elders and teachers. Some of our young people today purposely choose to enter a period of nomadism during which they can learn the freedoms and hardships, learn the self-sufficiency, practical wisdom, and unfettered vision of the

"uncivilized."

The choice of the wanderer to live a nomadic and unsettled life is often bewildering to those who are settled. Before civilization, many lived in encampments, while others followed the movements of animals. Settled fold have often denounced nomads as low class, uneducated, and suspect- easy scapegoats upon whom accusations of murder, theft, and black magic might be lodged.

In our own era, we see new patterns of nomadism emerging as civilization begins to swell and become unwieldy. Those who no longer "fit" either become exiled from settled existence as outcasts or choose to "drop out." The outcasts of civilization roam the streets in homeless vagrancy. Some have merely fallen

through the cracks, others have chosen to scavenge the society in which they cannot succeed, and still others are natural nomads or solitary hermits who need a concrete wasteland or a natural wilderness to encompass them.

We who are settled do well to consider the strengths of the nomad to honor the wisdom and freedom of having no roots, to respect another way of living that we may one day need to learn.

Monitor your own attitudes towards nomad and wanderers. What part of your own being and beliefs is nomadic in character?

by Caitlin Matthews