Within the depth-psychology corpus, ‘band’ operates across two registers that prove surprisingly consonant: the archaic-anthropological and the neuroacoustic. In the work of R. B. Onians, the band — as wrapping, fillet, crown, or binding cord — emerges as one of the most primordial images of fate, office, and transformed identity in Greek and Indo-European thought. For Onians, the band fastened about a person’s head or body is not ornamental but ontological: it embodies the *telos*, the new state received at initiation, marriage, victory, or death. The binding of limbs by gods, the symbols of judgment fastened around the shades of the dead, the crown of the priest — all instantiate the same archaic logic: fate is a band that envelops and constitutes the self. This tradition intersects obliquely with neurophysiological usage, where Panksepp employs ‘alpha band’ to denote frequency ranges within which distinct emotional states leave measurable neural signatures, and Porges identifies a species-specific ‘frequency band of perceptual advantage’ that governs social engagement in mammals. The two registers share a structural intuition: that consciousness and identity are shaped by circumscribing constraints — whether ritual fillets or neural oscillatory windows — that determine what can be received, felt, and transmitted.
It was, we might thus infer, a new state, a new fate received, embodied in a band or wrapping fastened around or covering the recipient.
Onians argues that the band or wrapping worn by the initiate or newly married person is the material embodiment of a new fate, making ‘band’ the somatic vehicle of transformed identity in Greek ritual thought.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
The usages already quoted suggest that TEAOS originally meant something like ‘band’. TeAocucbv, ‘band’ or ‘bandage’, is usually related to TA&CO, ‘I endure’ or ‘dare’, which however scarcely fits ‘bandage’.
Onians proposes an etymological thesis that *telos* — the key Greek concept of completion, fate, and mystery — derives from a root meaning ‘band,’ grounding Greek teleological thought in the archaic image of binding.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
The narrow band is more fitted to inescapable outward fortune or to hampering of body or mind, the wide band or cloak, wrapping, to more pervasive states of body or mind.
Onians distinguishes the narrow band (binding particular limbs or faculties to inescapable fate) from the wide band or cloak (enveloping more total psycho-physical states), elaborating a phenomenology of constraint as cosmological structure.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
His holiness, his new role, new fate, appears likewise to have been embodied in the band or crown about his head. That is the one thing usual. Indeed priests are often called just ‘crown-wearers’.
Onians demonstrates that priestly office in Greek and Roman religion was constituted and transferred through the band or crown, making the physical band the carrier of sacred identity and institutional power.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
If it thus meant ‘circle’, TEAOS when used of a phase of fortune, while conceived thus visually as a circle or band about a man, yet represented a portion of time and was experienced
Onians shows that *telos* understood as ‘band’ simultaneously signifies a spatial encirclement of the person and a temporal phase of fortune, uniting spatial and temporal registers of fate.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
others again ‘after putting inextinguishable fame about their dear fatherland’ (i. e. that band — 6ta(3crrov KAEOS ol8e <p{Arj rapl TrarpiSi 6EVTES).
Onians traces the metaphor of putting a ‘band’ of fame, freedom, or kingship around a person or place, showing how abstract political and existential values were conceived as encircling bands bestowed on recipients.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
Each emotion produced marked and complex changes in ERDs within the alpha band in many brain areas, indicating that alpha power decreases in distinct regions and in distinct temporal patterns for each emotion.
Panksepp demonstrates that discrete emotional states leave distinguishable signatures in the neural alpha band, positioning frequency-band oscillatory patterns as the neurophysiological substrate of felt emotion.
, Affective Neuroscience The Foundations of Human and Animal, 1998supporting
Detached middle ear bones delineate the frequency band that enables mammals to hear species-specific vocalizations associated with social communication and provide a ‘safe’ frequency band in which they could communicate without detection by larger predatory reptiles.
Porges argues that the specific frequency band of mammalian hearing constitutes a biological boundary enabling social engagement, making the ‘band’ a phylogenetically determined perceptual threshold for safety and connection.
, Polyvagal Theory: A Science of Safety, 2022supporting
THE FREQUENCY BAND OF PERCEPTUAL ADVANTAGE In very small mammals, the middle ear and inner ear structures can convey acoustic information in a range well above the audible sounds that humans can reliably detect.
Porges introduces the concept of a species-specific ‘frequency band of perceptual advantage’ as determining which acoustic signals carry social meaning, relevant to polyvagal theory’s account of neuroception.
, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, 2011aside
The conceiving of the darkness or cloud about one’s head at death as a substantial covering or wrapping will explain the enveloping head-covering, the peculiar attribute of the Greek death-god.
Onians extends the logic of the band to death itself, where the death-god’s cap functions as a wrapping that covers the *psyche* with a new fatal state, linking the band-as-fate to eschatological transformation.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988aside
name of a band-like fish (Epich., Arist.; Stromberg 1943: 37f.)… TaLVLO-1tWAle; ‘band-seller’ (Eup., D.), imO-TaLVLOe; ‘forming a spit or sandbank’.
Beekes traces the Greek word *tainia* (band, ribbon, tapeworm, sandbank) through its derivatives, providing etymological evidence for the wide semantic range of the ‘band’ concept in ancient Greek.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010aside