Talk:Celtic Gallaecia
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[edit] Mithology!
Where do you get the legends that Celts are from Scythia? Only because all of northern and central Europe came through that way 1000s of years ago? Rakovsky
- According to the traditions of the Lebor Gabála Érenn (Book of the Taking of Ireland), the Irish originated in Scythia and were descendants of a King Feinius Farsaid, a King of Scythia. This Feinius Farsaid and his son, Nel, went into Asia to work on the Tower of Nimrod (Tower of Babel in biblical history) and were present at the subsequent dispersal of the races after the destruction of the tower. Feinius and his son, both learned in the new languages which resulted from the dispersal, returned to Scythia where Feinius opened a great school of languages on the Scythian plain. Jfreyre
- This article is one on legend. That's fine. But a page on legend should perhaps be seperate from one on historical and archaeological knowledge on Celtic-era Gallaecia. This article needs a good once-over clean-up, IMO. And perhaps it should be made more explicit that what is detailed is myth. D.E. Cottrell 17:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Article is a mess!
This article is a mess! Is confuses Gallaecians with modern Galicians, doesn't cite sources, its full with POV and speculations, and has original research of dubious quality! And much more! Something should be done. The Ogre 16:05, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
No. in matter of facts the article doesn't have original research... and perhaps you can review the external sources or the mythical foundation of Ireland. Jfreyre
- It is interresting though.--Pedro 19:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- Jfreyre, it maybe not just a myth. have you seen the news latelly. Over a human genetics study by Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford? --Pedro 16:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
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- No I didn't but I'll be glad if you can tell me more about that Research. Jfreyre
- Bryan Sykes says that the Irish and the British are not related with the Celtic tribes of Central Europe but rather with the Celtic tribes of the Iberian Peninsula. A fisher migration from the coasts of Iberia may had ocurred in 4000 B.C. or 5000 B.C. He will (or has recently) publish a book known as "Blood of the Isles" in the UK.--Pedro 22:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
- No I didn't but I'll be glad if you can tell me more about that Research. Jfreyre
[edit] Gallaecian language
Guys... a new article about Gallaecian language should be started by someone who knows something about it! The Ogre 14:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Celtomania
This smells of Celtomania. --Error 00:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, I dont understand what's so special about the Celts (apart from being ancient, which fascinates people, me at least), I'm fond on Ancient Romans, Ancient Greeks and Ancient Egyptians... those were civilized, great history and built stunning monuments. I guess it has to due with the British Isles; Celticity is national identity issue over there and in Galicia there's also a lot Celtic Galicia t-shirts :P BTW, in the Castro city over here (there's a pic of it in the article Cividade de Terroso) there are some symbols in the ground, which nobody understands what's for; archaeologists say it maybe has to do with magic/religion. Maybe that's it, unknown magic/religion. But a lot of info in the article maybe important to cross information. There's a new theory, based on studies, which states that most British Celts were originilly from Iberia. there is always something real behind these old myths. --Pedro 01:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
A man is free to hold his own opinions, Pedro. Hopefully, they are the best compared to his ancestors. Are you sure "Celtomania" is not something less than scholarly? For too many years, the Celtic People or Peoples were forbidden to use their own languages, wear their own garb, sing and play their own music, dance their own steps, teach their own ideas and ethos, research their own heritages especially if it would probably reveal entitlement to nice lands stolen by English and Castellanos, French,and other so called civilized peoples). Who can blame the people for a bit of enthusiasm. In many areas, the corrupted church, especially the Auto Da Fe (Congregation of the Faithful) killed us if we did! We have already seen hordes of false prophets, and will be seeing more in days to come, they always become motes in the dust while we live on and sing!
I agree it can get a bit silly, if modern Celtic people claim the ancestors invented the automobile, TV,space ships, the A-Bomb (o, what was that mighty spear the Gae Bolga and the Sword of Light?). But, after a bit of playful investigation and pretense, they always come around to the truth as best we can know it. Let them have their hope and take some pride, man!
What is impressive regarding the Celtic People or Peoples? Material and technical innovation (the type of loom they used to weave woolen cloth, the dyes, the roller bearing cushioned wheel and the axis for that iron shod lightweight wheel, the invention of high chromium content carbon steel implements and weapons, forging and converting steel from bars rather than tiny strips, the windmill, the compound stirrup, the articulated three part atl atl (dart launcher that carried a compund steel tipped multipronged spring actuated dart) the thresher machine for grain, the submarine (Chas. Holland), the machine gun, polyphonic music of a unique type, ancient oral and written literature, a certain philosphy, cosmology, holictic metahpysics and mysticism, muras (ancient walls of duns and bregas all over Europe),mouth blown and knock down molded soda (bottle green and other colors) glass,millefiori glass technique, gypsum and shell plaster (gesso),wheel thrown stone ware pottery, the use of over 2,000 agronomic, culinary, and medicial plants --many still in common use, mead and courmi, distilled alcohol drinks from grain, honey, fruits including indigenous white grapes (godello,e.g.), as the Romans called it, "Scotic wine," ancient lake forts built upon artifical islands (crannogs) all over Europe, and on and on and on? Other people have their impressive material contributions to human culture...Rome gave us engineering marvels: concrete,hydraulic cement, and a new type of arch taking an idea from ancient Etruria, Syria, and Persia and using it to literally build an empire and hydrate it, ancient Egypt gave us special types fo grains, irrigation techniques, ideas in math, medicine, the Greeks, Babylon, Sumer, Akkadia, Israel, China, India (the zero, e.g.)
The material achievements of any culture are helpful, useful,to those who benefit from them, dangerous to those who suffer because of them, and interesting to the extent they help us best know the spirit and character of those ancient persons who made them, the persons responsible.
How about enduring Faith in some greater and sometimes revealed Power that is the only force for moral good in our universe, and that actually loves us, as it loves all of its' cratures insome proper and mysterious way? And, that just by loving it and by doing our the best at being ourselves we can somehow live foreverin the Isles of the Blessed (Hy-breasil)? That death is merely process of change to another side of existence, and need not be feared? That unlike the pagan Roman (Latinae's) belief that in death, humans shall sleep the long sleep, we Celtic Persons in our faith KNOW that we shall dance, sing, and celebrate the best life beyond with that Power eternally? If you pray this pagan Roman way, man, you have something to ponder...darkside influences? Christ taught that a man who loves Him and has Faith in His Father's love and the Spirit shall enjoy eternal live in the Kingodm of His Father, NOT Eternal Sleep!
When we bury one of our People, Pedro, we do not pray "Eternal Rest Grant unto him (or her) O Lord...." We pray,"Eternal LIFE Grant unto Him (or Her) or Lord, and Let Your Perpetual Light Shine Upon Him (if it pleases you)......" A major and I submit very interesting difference! Who are the "PAGANS?" And WHOM the belieivers in the Kingdom of the Father? My Galician cousins in Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico pray this way, too. Hmmmmm. We Celts, at least the best and bravest of us, have helped carry the light through history, that people may be free of malign influences, self serving lies of sociopaths, and from self-limiting superstition.
Our ancient religion was FULL of humor. That of P-Celts, I am not sure,there were different influences and trends and innovations. Perhaps that of the Carnutes, too.
I am a Milesian Person, our language was called "Gaedhalic" by other tribes. As a matter of humor, we jokingly called ourselves the "Daoine Gaedhaleac," in the sense of being 'shining persons,' which can have connotations of being impressively excellent or loco in the moonlight! Ha ha ha!
One of the most interesting things about us is that we have moved far and wide on this world,for more than seven thousand years, and still, we are ourselves. Material traces of our kin are found from the far west of what is now China to North America and the Pacific Rim.
During our travels and our sojourns in certain areas, we've assimilated people from other tribes, soem Celtic, some not. Many of us probably are at least partly of Belgic or Helvetic, Carnutes, Ligurii, Lusitanii, or Boii descent, Etruscan, Phoenecian, Basque. Many tribes, many other cultures. More recently, some would also have ancestry from some so called Germanic tribes, Greek, Egyptian, Latin, Slavic. For us, this is no problem-- it enriches the blood and the heritage! Faces tend to run in families more than anything else, voices, and mental faculties (e.g. prodigious memory, intellect, perfect vocal pitch, etc..)
Are you familiar with the genetic study that has shown our genitic heritage is significantly different, in human terms, from all others, and that the Irish and Galeg people are most closely related of all? The trains themselves, are they uniquely beneficial or deleterious? This is unknown, but they may also be simply essential,vital, rather than something that adds or takes away.
Among ourselves, we still have our stories (some go back to the ice ages, they are "meta-myths,but most Europeans never get to hear those, only the tales for fools twice told such as "Leabhar Gabhala na-H-eirinn." We our old language, our song and lyrics---some are extremely old, pre-Roman, at least, some even older. We have our metaphysics, our spiritual culture survives--- Christianity in most areas simply became grafted onto it as a perfection through Grace, becoming a new vine with fresh grapes that bear new wine!
Another interesting thing, in most Celtic lands, the people accepted Christianity and made it their own identity with no war, no martyrs, no struggle. The story of St Patrick, thoug interesting and a nice tale, Patrick versus the Druids is largely fiction, based on the histories of at least two or three men, at least one from Galiza!!! So there could be some truth to the St James legend, that his proteges carried the Word to the Northern "Gaels."
The most interesting thing in the Patrick tale for me is the use of the seamhroig, the Shamrock, as a metaphor for the Trinity. That absolutely smacks of truth--- as proselytizing Christian people did then, we do today!!! We have another name for the triple spiral symbol that predates the shamrock, FYI, it is not a triskele, but tri-sceal is also a nice pun for it! Three stories, and a trid-sceal, a "through-story," tale of tribulations and endurance!
Has anyone been ambitious enough yet to travel to the more desolate and lonely areas of Galiza, Asturias, Cantabria, Braganca Portugal to collect oral histories, tales, songs, conxuros, etc.? I mean, to families in the Galeg Diaspora--Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Uruguay, etc.? Surely, the Tale of Breogain is one worth investigating, collecting all of the variants, as well as other tales and snips of this and that...and old manusripts in the universities, have they all been read? I know the scholars who travelled with my ancestors and the others in their flotilla left literature and material artifacts in Lisboa, Madrid, Santiago de Campostela, Valladolid, Salamanca....also in the Hague, Melk Austria, etc.. I have some myself, and my family will be giving these to a museum as part of the Human Heritage Project...we are not sure just now if that will be in Ireland, galiza, or both...perhaps they should share!
The name Santiago de Campostela itself alludes to an ancient Celtic tale of navigating to the end of the road during the Great Spring by the lights of the Plough of the Starry Field (the so-called Big Dipper star constellation), which was the symbol chosen for the first flag of the Irish Republic, the Starry Plough, in 1916. I don't intend to have anybody believe that the Irish gave this to Galiza, or vice versa. Something in the way people think, the traditional archetypes, images, the logic bred into peole makes them independantly come up with these things....and what about La Jota and the Jig, which we used to call leamhas (leaps)?
Travelling through southern Gaul,Liguria,Navarre and then through Iberia from probably the port of Marseilles beginning in more or less 1000 BC to as recently as more or less 200BC, the tribes used the Starry Plough to set their course to the north and the west. Some found places they liked, wanted along the way, others made the full journey. The pattern was consistent: they settled hills, green valleys along rivers, and coastal areas.
My family actually returned to Galiza during the seventeenth century, and the oral family history says that in some very rural areas of Ourense, and the far north near Rianxeira, there were still families speaking a non-Latin tongue my "Gaelic" speaking ancestors oould understand with a little mutual patience and kindness.Also in the Picos of Europa, and some other areas of Asturias.
The Caelleach Mhor was something like a female avatar of our De, the sky deity. To reveal to us his/her/its' personage,compassion, wisdom, and power and majesty better and more easily, an De go bhear mhait, the Dagda or Most Good God has given given people historically relevant personages and images to think about, imagine, and talk about. Rarely, was any image ever made visual in metal, stone, paint, wood. Perhaps this is another twist on the humor, we are Granny's Kids, na leanabhai d'mhamo an-mhor, who today is understood to be the Virgin Mary, the Sky Wonman in Blue of our Bardic Poets (Is Ar Eirinn Ni Neosfainn Ce Hi).
We called our language "tineoillteach," or "the warmth of the home (or an indirect way of saying the hearth, a hint, if you will, to the answer of an old riddle." Knock knock, we are the might Romans come to civilize you. Who are you people? We are the people of this home and hearth, who are YOU to US, visitor? Ha ha ha!"
Our Celtic language is laden with these living, metaphorical and expressive sayings. Though the most archaic surviving tongue, at least in most aspects,as my linguist chums assure me, spoken by any of the survivng Celtic people, there surely are languages on our mudball of a globe that were relatively unchanged (until recent years)for many tens of thousands of years, e.g. in Papua New Guinea.
Another interesting thing about us-- Celtic Language (Welsh, Breton, "Gaelic,of all three main dialects," Swiss Romaunce, Galeg, Babel, is still evolving and living in thought spirit, sound, vocabulary--- but where, O where is the tongue of mighty Rome? Time has overthrown, and winds blown it away. It has become but dust in the mortar that holds bricks in a wall.
Much of this author's account is consistent with the gist of our oral tradition as recorded in writing by Christian friars during the time when the Milesaians of Eriu had the opportunity to save Classical Latin and Greek philosphy, science, and literature for posterity.
Many of the famous Greek and Latin pedagogues and thinkers admittedly learned their tricks from crusty Celts: Druides or Bhates who had the duty of being gotuateres,(another innovation, the word that we know as 'tutor.' along the Abhain Dana, the Danube, in what the Greeks and Romans no doubt would have called "Thrace." These were Our people. Greater ""Thrace" more or less was what my ancestors called "Scythia," since they accepted the Persian notion of that area, not the Greek, and the Scatha were semi-nomadic IndoEuropean culture people speaking a dialect related to archaic Persian and Medean, they were not proto-slavs or Asiatic people. We think our eponymous female ancestor Scota came from them, or perhaps was the daughter of one of our merchants or traders who lived among them on the great plains of what we called "the sea of grasses." Modern people cal this the steppes. FYI The Scatha broke up in different travelling groups at more or less the time Rome was taken from the Etruscans by a Pontic tribe called the Latinae...who were distant cousins of the Keltoi (Gallaecae) and of the Lithuanians...one group of the Scata wandered into the Punjab, another into Scandinavia.....
From the Alps to the Harz Mountains and southern to northeastern Poland, the Island of Apples, to the Puzstas of Hungary, to the Dacian Sierras, the mighty Danube, and to the Volga and Dnieper and Black Sea, this was our original European Homeland...with outposts still back along the so called silk road to present Xingiang, and my family's ancestors left all of that, we believe, to participate an ancient custom of roaming, "the Great Spring." Perhaps the salt was running out in their mines, there was scant harvests, or just favorable signs in wind,smoke, tree buds, and sand?
Stein and other archeologists and scholars have delved into Chinese stories about the "Moonlight People." The first thoroughly controlling dynasty in their lands was supposedly started by hillfort dwelling people who had horses, chariots, ingenious shields, superior edged weapons that could cut through their bronze edged weapons. The Han Chinese character and word for horse is an archaic totally non-Asian import...as are all of the others....and traces of that tongue and variants in ganharvan script survived as what Stein and others generally called "Tocharian."
Their images are shown as mercenaries on memorial arches and cenotaphs in Egypt,their exploits written down by Persians, Sumerians, Akkadians, Urartu people, Carthaginaians...they wandered to and fro, and came to rest in Green areas of Iberia.
Yes, wars were fought, battles won, some lost. The real victory was one of culture,procreation, and diplomacy. If no, then how do so many Euskerri speaking persons have fair hair, skin, and eyes in modern Spain? How is it that their physiognmy looks like some of my cousins in Ireland, Scotland, adn the US? Why are so many place names in their land indisputably Celtic? And their dancing? Is their culture altogether the same as other people here and there descended from this one particular branch of the beaker peoples? And the music? And the so called Dark Irish, Cornish, and Cymry?
It is the people who are impressive, Pedro, not the material things, these are not enduring, but we are enduring like a twinkling fixed star, friend.
Never forget it was a Gaedhal who told Alexander the Great--while visitng his enemy's military camp in a condition of mortal danger to respond to Alexander's threats and demands for tribute-- that he was afraid only to see the sky fall, the earth rupture, the seas rise up and drown his people!!! Alexander did try to attack, but for some "reason' (wink wink) decided to head in another direction and hire them as mercenaries!!! Kind of like Rome and the Gaeleacci...can't beat them , hire them!
