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Celts
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Subject: Celts, what does it mean? From: Kara Date: 23 Sep 00 - 03:28 AM The word Celt is very popular around here in central Brittany, and seems to extend to all the world except the English, or so my friend Bred would have us believe. Bred is I think the only ever, Kilt wearing, deaf, Celtic sound engineer from Normandy. What are your thought on the Celt, who were they and who have they became? How much hard fact is there that there ever was a people called Celts and how much of it is a romantic notion that Yates and his buddies reintroduced in their day? Is Celtic art the curly knotwork that is ascribed to them or the rough stone cravings of Sheana na gig ( spelling tricky) that you can see out side some ancient churches? Why do many English new age travellers have Celtic knotwork painted on there vehicals? |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Fiolar Date: 23 Sep 00 - 05:05 AM Suggest you read some books by Peter Berresford Ellis. M |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: JTT Date: 23 Sep 00 - 05:55 AM I think the idea of the Celts originally came from the Keltoi the Greeks talked about, and the Celts that Romans like Caesar talked about: big bruisers of six- and seven-foot warriors (and that's just the women) painted with patterns, wearing kilts, stiffening their hair and dying it blond/e with urine so it looked like a horse's tail, worshipping horse gods in a totemic shamanism, and run by druids who practised human sacrifice, burning prisoners to death in wicker cages. Later this was taken to mean the group of peoples in Ireland, Cornwall, Wales, the Isle of Man, Brittany and the Basque Country, whose languages (except for Euskadi, the Basque language) are all closely related. Until the Human Genome boys get their stuff together and are able to work out where we all came from in the first place, tracking genes across the world (if that ever happens) through our DNA, it's all a little theoretical, IMO. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca Date: 23 Sep 00 - 06:16 AM I remember reading an excellent article in an old (circa 1967 or 1972) National Geographic magazine. Some of the same information is found on these sites: |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Kara Date: 23 Sep 00 - 11:20 AM Don't you think that due to generations of interbreading in the British isles, that a celtic gene may be difficult to pin down? Kara |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 23 Sep 00 - 12:13 PM A search of the Forum for celts will provide enough reading material for the weekend; both reasoned discussion and sheer fantasy. There's a lot of the latter in many people's ideas on the subject. Malcolm |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: paddymac Date: 23 Sep 00 - 03:10 PM As Malcolm suggests, there is perhaps more mythology than fact floating around about the Celts, a great deal of it spawned by the antiquarian "celto-mania" which swept the brit aristocracy in the mid-to-later 19th century. Modern scholars seem uncertain whether the thing called "celt" was a distinct people who spread over most of Europe, or simply a culture that spread, being adopted by different tribal groupings. Any reputable book store can present you with enough material to keep you occupied for a long time. There are even "Celtic Studies" programs in universities. Authors you might look should incude are Barry Cunliffe, Anne Ross and Miranda Greene. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Kara Date: 24 Sep 00 - 05:51 AM Thank's for all the reading referances, I have already read a lot of stuff by a lot of people and have found very little fact a lot of good stories, realy I was hoping for some livley discussion and personal opinion from you cats. Kara
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Kara Date: 24 Sep 00 - 03:01 PM There are loads of eltic Circles , one in every town, What is the place of the celt in theb 21st century? |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: GUEST,Fretless Date: 25 Sep 00 - 11:10 AM The ancient Greeks called them Keltoi and Galatai (Galatians; yes, as in the New Testament). Romans added Galli to the list. And probably added a bunch of unprintable epithets as well, since the Greeks/Romans and the Celts often fought. As noted above, it is difficult to tell whether we're dealing with a unified ethnic group or with diverse peoples who adopted the same equipment and economies. Julius Caesar wrote some interesting things about the Celts, some of which can be supported by the archaeological evidence. Good things to read about the early Celts include books by Vincent and Ruth Megaw, Barry Cunliffe, T.G.E. Powell, Stuart Piggott, Peter Wells and a host of others. Also the Asterix comics. Lots of loony stuff published about and attributed to them as well. And since we're on the 'Cat, here's a musical question about the Celts: Once, when I was giving a lecture about the Celts in central Turkey (where three tribes migrated during the 3rd century BC), someone in the audience asked about bagpipes in Turkey, based on their conviction that the pipes were a traditional/standard Celtic instrument and that if the Celts were in the area around Ankara, then bagpipes should be there too. I didn't and still don't know of any archaeological evidence for bagpipes in the Celtic parts of Turkey, but do any M'catters know of any evidence for the pipes, either ancient or modern, in that area? |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Dave the Gnome Date: 25 Sep 00 - 11:45 AM Not seen Turkish 'pipes but reeded instruments are popular there and I have seen examples of pipes from the balkans (Bulgaria possibly???) Guess the transition from mouth blown reeds to bag blown ones (or vice-versca?) is pretty common so I would guess that as both versions are in evidence in a similar geographic location there is some circumstantial evidence of Turkish bagpipes. Listen to the general meter or feel of some middle-eastern music and compare it to Irish or Scottish celtic music as well - I reckon there are similarities which cannot be discounted and if the music stems from the same roots chances are it would have been, is, or will be played on similar instruments as well. But then again I have never been known for logical conclusions. That's why I work with computers....:-) Cheers D the G |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: GUEST,Fretless Date: 25 Sep 00 - 12:50 PM Dave, Good suggestion about the reeds. Thanks. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Ringer Date: 25 Sep 00 - 01:00 PM Any tribes migrating to Turkey in C3BC could only have taken bag-pipes along if they (bag-pipes) were already known then at the point of emigration. Is there any evidence that Celts had bag-pipes in C3BC? |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Jed at Work Date: 25 Sep 00 - 02:01 PM Researching the Celts? You could start with Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Jed at Work Date: 25 Sep 00 - 02:03 PM Ooops! Sorry, I forgot my blue clicky thing! |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Bert Date: 25 Sep 00 - 02:10 PM Hi Kara, whereabouts in Brittany are you? I used to have a cottage in Berrien, on the road between Morlaix and Huelgoat. I just love the place but haven't been able to get over there for many years. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Robby Date: 25 Sep 00 - 02:31 PM I too had learned that the word Celts came from the Greek Keltoi. I wish I could remember the books I read on this. Any way, at one time the Celtic domain covered much of Western Europe north of the Alps. The Galatians were indeed a Celtic people, a fact first documented by St. Jerome who noticed the similarity of their language with the Gauls of what we now know as France. Incidently, Lyons in France is built on the site of a major city of the ancient Celts, Lugdunum. I believe that Ankara in Turkey is built on the site of a major city of the Galatians. After their defeat by Julius Ceasar, and with the advancing Teutonic tribes, the Celts crossed the Pyrenees into Spain. Roman expansion eventually led many of them to migrate across the Atlantic to Ireland. I have no knowledge of bagpipers in Galatia. However, National Geographic Magazine reported in a recent article on Spain, that there is an area in the northwestern part of that country where bagpipes are played. If I can locate my old issues I'll be more specific about the location of the Spanish bagpipers. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Robby Date: 25 Sep 00 - 02:36 PM I was remiss in failing to note that after their migration from Spain to Ireland, the Celts then crossed the Irish Sea and established settlements in Scotland and Wales. Until today, I don't know if I had known of their settling on the Isle of Man. So for me, that's something learned today. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Penny S. Date: 25 Sep 00 - 06:17 PM Isn't northern Spain Galicia? I think we've had some other threads on the subject in the past. DNA research might well be difficult, as there's unlikely to be a population that isn't very mixed to compare with. There is some, I believe, which suggests that Icelanders have more similarity with the Irish population than with Scandinavia. There is also bloodgroup evidence of an increase in likelihood of O group in populations further west in the islands, but this may be related to survival of mesolithic peoples. There is definite evidence for this in DNA comparison of a skeleton of a man found in a Cheddar cave and modern inhabitants. The closest match came from someone further north. Penny (Not O) |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Kara Date: 25 Sep 00 - 09:14 PM Hi Bert I live near Ploermel. Here in Brittany there are both bagpipes and reeded pipes, the bag pipes are more like the Spanish Galicien ones then the full on Scotish war pipes, and are blown rather than pumped as are the Irish ulieen Pipes. How much evidence of the bags of bag pipes would be left to be dug up be archiologist? Kara |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: paddymac Date: 25 Sep 00 - 11:12 PM Here's what the Oxford Companion to Irish History says about "Celts". "Keltoi was used by the ancient Greeks to refer to barbarian people to their north. The identification of this people with speakers of 'common celtic,' the ancestor of what are now classified as the Celtic languages, is conjectural, though widely accepted. The Celts first appeared c.1200BC and came to dominate much of central and western Europe until Roman and germanic expansion in the 1st century BC pushed them to the western fringes of the continent. ... descriptions of the people of Ireland, along with those of Wales and Scotland, as 'Celtic' is primarily a cultural rather than a racial classification." |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: GeorgeH Date: 26 Sep 00 - 11:21 AM Galicia is one of the Northern Spanish states. (The Basque country is another). And as far as I'm aware (so there's almost bound to be an exception!!) EVERY culture has bagpipes; any claim to their being in any way "celtic" is fantasy! G. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: paddymac Date: 26 Sep 00 - 03:00 PM Gee, George, I actually get to agree with you on this one. My understanding is that the pipes originally were of "Indo-European" origin. They are/were widely dispersed at various times in history throughout most of Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa, and Western Asia. I have not encountered anything suggesting that there was an indigenous piping tradition in any form in the Americas. Don't know about Australia. In his fine book, "Traditional Music in Ireland", Tomas O'Canainn notes that "Some form of pipe was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans: the historians Suetonius and Dion Chrysostom tell us Nero was able to play the pipes and we must assume that idf any music was heard from the nero jomestead while Rome was burning it was much more likely to have been the music of the pipes than of the fiddle." |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: GUEST Date: 26 Sep 00 - 03:43 PM |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: skarpi Date: 26 Sep 00 - 05:06 PM Hallo all, many folks say that the Icelanders have come from Irish slaves witch where taken to Iceland. And like Penny ssaid there was D.N.A tests witch say that is more likly than ever. So I might be one of the Celtics link? ha,ha,ha. If I am then I am proud to be one of many in this world. In East Iceland we an Island witch is called Papey or PapIsland , the story tells that one there came Irish munks on this ground after many weeks of sailing of their homeland. They where called Papar. All the best skarpi Iceland. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Peg Date: 26 Sep 00 - 05:28 PM I heard on a story on NPR that Swedish and Icelandic warriors kidnapped the most beautiful women they could find in Ireland and took them with them when they invaded. Which would explain the presence of Irish DNA in the Scandinavian strains (not to mention the beauty of Nordic and Icelandic women) |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Bert Date: 26 Sep 00 - 05:59 PM Of course celtic DNA is a knot, and not a spiral. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: mousethief Date: 26 Sep 00 - 06:00 PM Brightly woven, Bert!
Alex |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Mbo Date: 26 Sep 00 - 06:03 PM Hey Kara, them bombardes & biniou are awesome! Especially in a little Ton Bale. Have you ever heard of Patrick Molard and Youenn Le Bihan? |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Lepus Rex Date: 26 Sep 00 - 06:56 PM Back in the thread a ways, someone asked if there were Turkish bagpipes. There are, called 'tulum.' They have tulum-s in Azerbaijan, too, called tulum-zurna there. I've got a cd featuring the Azeri ones, 'Heyva Gülü' by the Dede Gorgud ensemble of Naxichevan, on Pan Records. A couple of links: Some pictures, sound, and info on a Turkish site. Info about the tulum on Sean Folsom's bagpipe cd site Sound and detailed pictures, too. ---Lepus Rex
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Lonesome EJ Date: 27 Sep 00 - 01:56 AM Linguist and historian Jean Markale,in his book The Celts uses common words in the remaining Celtic languages (Cornish,Welsh,Breton,Irish,Manx,and Scots Gaelic) to identify place-names throughout Europe,to gauge the extent of Celtic settlement which reached it's peak just prior to the expansion of the Roman Empire.He uses coins found in archaeological digs throughout the continent,whose characteristic Celtic design includes concentric circles,chevrons,and triskels, to further determine the presence of a Celtic Culture.That it was a tribal culture,disunified and with war commonplace among the separate segments,does not negate the fact that there existed a commonality of culture,language,and likely of racial characteristics among the people we now call the Celts.Markale believes that these people migrated out of the area south of Jutland,over thousands of years supplanting the aboriginal inhabitants of Europe. Markale believes that these aboriginal people,the Tuatha Danaan of Irish legend as an example,were the monument builders who erected Stonehenge and the hundreds of standing stones and stone circles still found throughout Europe.These people were driven to the fringes of Europe,its wildernesses and Western Islands,and became the gods and heroes of the Celtic myths. After the collapse of the Roman Empire,the Celts in turn were driven to their island,peninsula, and mountain sanctuaries by the westward migration of the Germanic tribes.In Britain,for example,the western and northern extremes of Ireland,Wales,Cornwall and Scotland were the last vestiges of the British Isles held by the Celts as the waves of Saxons and Angles swept in from the east. There is additional evidence that this westward mass migration also influenced a Celtic exodus to Armorica,or Brittany. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Kara Date: 27 Sep 00 - 04:12 PM Hi Mbo, have heard of neither of those pipers, but I'm the sort of person who only listens to people I can see most of the time. We did have a very interesting conversation one night with a police man about a piper ( biniou player) we were having a three day party (well you only get married once don't you?) of which we had informed the local police and invited all the nieghbours who were all there dancing out the front door round the house and back in the front door as any good "celt" should on such an occation. all I say except the preverbial bad fairy, who had been invited but would not come due to an ancient chicken problem. So Jean Pierre, our local piper was giving it what for on the Pipe when the phone rang "Hello this is the police" "what I can't hear you" "this is the polce from Vannes and we have had complaints about noise"(Vannes is 50 miles away "sorry there is a lot of noise you will have to speak up, we are having a party" " we have had a complaint about the noise, and if it does not stop we will have to come and demobilize your equipment." at this I fell about laughing and got Jean Pierre to take the call,at first he thought it was a joke, but then discovered that the police were under the impession that we were having a rave party with a full on 10k rig givin it the big booms. Shame they never turned up really, I'd have loved to see um tuen up in their riot vans to demobilize one biniou. Kara |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Kara Date: 30 Sep 00 - 01:44 AM kilts Kara
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Subject: RE: Celts From: paddymac Date: 30 Sep 00 - 01:58 AM LEJ - I've got Markale's opus, but haven't yet gotten around to reading. Based on your comments, I'll have to move it way up on the priority list. Thanks. |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Kara Date: 30 Sep 00 - 10:00 AM |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: wildlone Date: 30 Sep 00 - 04:36 PM Celtic sites . |
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Subject: RE: Celts From: Roger in Sheffield Date: 01 Oct 00 - 12:51 PM Kara - you shameless self publicist!! been sat waiting for your picture to download for ages, do you get paid by the second that I am logged on to your site? Roger |
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