Tuisco

(Redirected from Tuisto)

Tuisto or Tuisco was according to Tacitus (Germania, ch. 2) the ancestor of all Germanic tribes. He was the father of the first man, Mannus. He was worshipped with human sacrifice. According to Jakob Grimm, his name and variant forms (Thuisco, Thuiskon, Tuisco) come from the adjective tivisco derived from the name of the god Tiu; the name Tiu, Proto-Germanic *Tîwaz, derives from Proto-Indo-European *Dyeus, the god of the daylit sky, and the adjective derived from it could mean either "celestial" or "son of Tiu". This etymology however presupopses that Tuisco is the original name, and Tuisto a scribal error. More accepted is the explanation of Tuisto as from tvi- "two", describing a hermaphrodite (two-sexed) being. If so Tuisto could be the same being as the primeval giant Ymir who was a hermaphrodite that procreated the first race.

The idea that the first man (and, one would assume, the first woman) are the result of the split of an original hermaphrodite is reminiscent of Plato's Symposion.de:Tuisto nl:Tuïsto