Since
fana is Latin for "temple", it has been suggested that the name Tamfana was derived from a temple dedicated to a god
Tan. The 16th-century scholar
Justus Lipsius thought it concerned a Celtic word
tan, meaning "fire". Other scholars thought the word was derived from German
Tanne "pine tree", or that it might mean "collective." The 19th-century antiquarian Thomas Smith believed it was a
Wotanfana, a temple dedicated to
Wodan. Amateur etymologies were rejected by Grimm, among others; he called the name "certainly German," the
-ana ending being also found in
Hludana,
Bertana,
Rapana, and
Madana. The passage is one of few to contradict Tacitus' own statement in
Germania that the Germanic tribes did not have
temples. The historian Wilhelm Engelbert Giefers proposed 1883 that
Tanfana derived from
tanfo, cognate with Latin
truncus, and referred to a grove on the site of the
Eresburg, related to the
Irminsul. Many suggestions have been made since then about the goddess' name and nature. Grimm was unable to interpret it, but suggested variously that it was connected to
Stempe, a name of
Berchte, that she was named for an association with a sieve, and, based on the now discredited lullaby, that her name meant "bountiful, merciful." Based on folklore and
toponymy, Friedrich Woeste proposed that the name was cognate with German
zimmern and meant "builder" or "nourisher"; based on the season at which the festival and the Roman attack took place,
Karl Müllenhoff proposed she was a goddess of harvest plenty, properly *
Tabana, cognate with Greek words for "expenditure" and (hypothetically) "unthrifty"; others added Icelandic and Norwegian words for "fullness, swelling," "to stuff," and "large meal." These ideas are considered outdated by modern folklore scholarship. In the Dutch city of
Oldenzaal the 19th-century antiquarian and school principal Jan Weeling developed the idea that the temple was located in the district of
Twente, where the
Tubanti as allies of the Marsi had been situated. Based on contemporary legends he located the Tamfana-temple on the slope of the 85 m Tankenberg, a moraine hill east of Enschede, where he took the initiative to place a memorial stone in the 1840s. He also claimed that a heavy boulder with ceremonial functions in the centre of town ("de Groote Steen") originally stemmed from the supposed temple, but was moved into the city around 1710. A local spring might also date from prehistoric times. These ideas were endorsed in 1929 by the archivist A.G. de Bruyn, who studied
Oldenzaal folklore. De Bruyn returned to the original idea of splitting the name into
Tan and
fana. on toponymic grounds. He found extra proof in the
seal of the neighbouring baily of
Ommen from 1336, depicting the
patron saint Brigid of Kildare holding a
palm branch, and accompanied by a lion, an eagle, and an eight-pointed star, apparently representing the sun. According to De Bruyn, the woman depicted on the seal was holding a
fir tree, and he speculated that she depicted a moon or a mother deity, possibly related to the
Carthaginian goddess
Tanit. De Bruyn's speculations were not endorsed by professional historians. They gained renewed popularity by a recent book by Rudi Klijnstra, who connected local folklore with
New age-ideas about
Mother goddesses.
Rudolf Simek notes that an autumnal festival aligns with Old Norse attestations of the
dísablót, a celebration of the
dísir, female beings with parallels to the West Germanic cult of the
Matres and Matronae. Simek says that Tamfana is perhaps best considered in the context of the widespread veneration of the Germanic Matres and Matronae. ==See also==