Until contact with the other tribes it was not necessary for the tribes to generally refer to themselves by a name, usually considering themselves the tribe and having various other names for those they encountered, but it was the coming together of the First Elders that then led to their wider identification as a singular unit.
The current tribal names have been derived from the name of the First Elders, and this name has been adopted by every Elder who has assumed the role since, as they are considered to be one and the same person. While the Minmatar tribes have followed their own spiritual philosophies since the formation of their first collective culture, one commonality has always been this shared pantheon of seven spirits. After a long period in hiding, they returned to prominence in YC110 during the The Elder War, having spent decades gathering resources for a large-scale invasion of Amarr space. The Elders are the seven representatives of the tribes that governed the tribal Matari people for thousands of years before the Amarr invasion.
