Gutes

The Gutes or the Gotlanders (in Swedish gutar) are the population of the island of Gotland. The ethnonym is related to that of the Goths (Gutans), and both names were originally Proto-Germanic *Gutaniz. Their language is called Gutnish (gutniska).

The oldest history of the Gutes is retold in the Gutasaga. According to legend they descended from a man named Þjelvar who was the first to discover Gotland. Þjelvar had a son named Hafþi who wedded a fair maiden named Hvitastjerna. These two were the first to settle on Gotland. Hafþi and Hvitastjerna later had three children, Guti, Graipr and Gunfjaun. After the death of their parents, the brothers divided Gotland into three parts and each took one, but Guti remained the highest chieftain and gave his name to the land and its people.

In Modern Swedish language, there are two words for the inhabitants on Gotland: gotlänning (Gotlander) and gute. All inhabitants of Gotland, regardless of their ethnicity, are gotlänning (pl. gotlänningar -Gotlandians) but one is called gute (pl. gutar - Gutes) if one is of native descent.

A DNA study conducted on the 5000-year-old skeletal remains of three Middle Neolithic seal hunters from Gotland showed that they were related to modern-day Finns, while a female farmer known as "Gök4" from a megalithic tomb in Gökhem parish in Västergötland on the mainland was found to be more closely related to modern-day Mediterraneans, specifically inhabitants of Cyprus and Sardinia. This is consistent with the spread of agricultural peoples from the Middle East at about that time.

It is also related that because of overpopulation one third of the Gutes had to emigrate and settle in southern Europe. Some scholars, as for instance Wessén, Wenskus, Hoffman etc., have argued that this tale might be a reminiscence of the migration of the Goths.

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Wikipedia