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Concept
Chamavi
Summary
The Chamavi, Chamãves or Chamaboe (Χαμαβοί) were a Germanic tribe of Roman imperial times whose name survived into the Early Middle Ages. They first appear under that name in the 1st century AD Germania of Tacitus as a Germanic tribe that lived to the north of the Lower Rhine. Their name probably survives in the region today called Hamaland, which is in the Gelderland province of the Netherlands, between the IJssel and Ems rivers.
The Germanic name of the Chamavi has been reconstructed as *Hamawiz, whereby the ham- element is generally taken to refer to alluvial land near an estuary; in this case those of the rivers IJssel and Rhine. In this interpretation the tribal name could be translated as "those who dwell near the river mouth". Less commonly accepted etymologies connect the Chamavi to hamo- an early West Germanic loan of Latin hamus, meaning fishhook; ie. "the Fishermen"; or to Proto-Germanic *hamiþja (related to Old Norse hamr and Gothic hamon) which described a piece of clothing or covering; the Dutch word lichaam (body, literally a "shape/likeness covering") is related to the same root.
According to Velleius Paterculus, in 4 BC, Tiberius crossed the Rhine and attacked, in sequence, the Chamavi, Chattuari, and Bructeri implying that the Chamavi lived west of the other two named tribes. The Bructeri lived between the Ems and Lippe, so the Chamavi also probably lived west of the Ems.
Tacitus reports in his Annals that in the time of Nero (apparently 58 AD), the Angrivarii, having been ejected from their homes further to the north, pleaded with Rome to allow them to live in a military buffer zone on the northern bank of the Rhine, saying that "these fields belonged to the Chamavi; then to the Tubantes; after them to the Usipii". These fields, being on the Rhine between IJssel and Lippe, were to the south of modern Hamaland, and to the west of the Bructeri. In this passage he does not explain where the Chamavi had moved to.
Official source
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