On the topic of 'the celtic nations'

[annwfyn]

I just read a rant on LJ, in which someone said (and I quote) "I am not Native American, but I am of Great Celtic descent* and and the rising Christian Europeans** did the same thing to those people as they did to the Native Americans***. That is why it angers me"

Now, obviously there are a number of problematic things about this statement. However, the one thing in this which really irritates me is the following.

THE IRISH AND CHUNKS OF THE SCOTS WERE CHRISTIAN BEFORE THE FRICKING ANGLO-SAXONS WERE! THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH WAS PARTIALLY FORMED BY MISSIONARIES FROM IONA IN SCOTLAND. THERE WAS AN IRISH DELEGATION AT THE SYNOD OF WHITBY.

(yes, those capital letters do mean I'm shouting)

For some reason there is this demented faith amongst a certain type of American than the collective peoples of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittony (actually, I think they mostly forget about the Cornish and the Bretons. Probably because the Bretons are French) were the Native Americans of Europe. Really, they weren't!

Scotland was a sovereign nation until the 17th century when it's king became king of England as well. It always had its own aristocracy. Ireland had its own episcopal church structure when England was run by large men called 'Wulfgar' who were busy worshippping Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. There was a lovely wealthy Christian church in Ireland until the pagan Vikings decided to come and pillage with gay abandon, thus destroying almost all the written records of that period (the vikings basically created the concept of the 'dark ages' by destroying all the records of this period, meaning we know next to nothing beyond a few single documents and a few bits and pieces from the oral tradition). Do any Americans rant about how the Evil Pagans destroying their lovely Celtic culture?

No? Instead they whitter inanely about some nebulous 'European culture' which allegedly came and colonized them.

Why?

Why do people feel the need to go there.

Gah!




*I don't think anyone has told him that 'Great Celtic' is not an ethnicity.

**I also think someone needs to explain that 'European' is also not a homogenous cultural grouping.

***I think he means 'make them Christian and then kill them. I must say, as a White Anglo-Saxon Christian I'm shocked to hear this. How could we have let our standards fall since the 5th century? Why are the Welsh not safely locked away on a reservation right now?

Comments

[skinny-cartman.livejournal.com]

I didn't think native Britons were actually Celts anyway, seeing as Celts are a mid European people first mentioned by the Greeks as being north of them near the Danube in southern Germany.
and being genetically dissimilar to Britons who have a greater genetic similarity with the Atlantic peoples of say Iberia.

The use of Celts to describe Britons was a 17th century thing I think.
That isn't to say however that ancient britons didn't adapt themselves to a celtic type culture as seen through certain archaeology along the La Tene type style.

Whilst there have been numerous genetic studies on the backgrounds of people in the isles what it tends to show is that throughout the British Isles the ancient Briton genetics is still very strong, more so in Ireland and parts of mainland scotland (where one can also find genetic evidence of the Scotti moving in from Ireland in the west), wales etc. That in England but it always predominates the genetics even here.
Orkney and Shetland have large Norse genetic doses (but still under 50%) and the western Isles and Hebrides show even older genotypes than found in the rest of the country - suggesting they have remained pretty untouched even by "Celts" there and perhaps were the initial inhabitants that they displaced.

In so called Saxon areas like England the greatest input of foreign genetics is above the line of the Dane Law but again less than 50% (though it gets very near to this in places like East Anglia and the far north east).
Oddly there is very little trace of roman genetic heritage which suggests that this was more a cultural adaptation or that most actual romans left the country etc. The fact that romans tended to use none roman folks from across their empire might also be a factor of course.

Otherwise yeah totally agree with you the Irish culture was Christianized well before the saxon one and helped Christianize the saxons.

And the idea that Native americans were noble savages also amuses me.. seeing as America is an ecological catastrophe only outmatched by Australia compared to its pre-human state due in the main to Native practices..