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

Comments

[madwitch]

Yeah, but he also thinks that the Celts were peace loving, fluffy bunny noble savages (which is how he sees the NAs), who communed with the Earth and loved each other.

He's amazingly funny, and I am contemplating joing communities just to wind him up every time he calls himself a 'Great Celt', because I know more than he does. :-D

[riksowden]

"The Celts were peaceful, noble primitives"

"What, you mean a different bunch to the group who killed and enslaved each other, and anyone else who got close enough - and were just unlucky not to be as big, aggressive and well armed as the Scandinavians (or Romans), nor close-knit enough to really be much of a threat in terms of Empire?"

"Err"

"Tit"

[madwitch]

He really thinks that, there's been a small group of people of Celtic descent showing quite clearly that they are, indeed, of Celtic descent in response to that. Except without actual stabbings, as it is the Internet.

He quite obviously has no idea what he's talking about. His rant was originally about the evil that is Thanksgiving, and how he wants to live on a Reservation with that noble, peaceable savage, the Native American, oh how evil are the Europeans, etc. When asked to SHUT THE HELL UP by some NAs, he said no. Which says everything you need to know about this guy.

[riksowden]

Fun!

Thanksgiving is, in some ways, a fairly weirdly not good holiday - celebrating the natives helping early settlers to survive, to give them the opportunity to later destroy culture and life, and drive folks off their lands... But does seem to have a good focus - food and family/friends!

[riksowden]

I told you about Sean Prather getting irate at me when we were at Stonehenge, no?

He was going "oh yeah, i can feel my celtic roots" (he thinks he's Irish, despite being from Seattle for at least 3 generations).

When i pointed out it wasn't a Celtic site he wasn't amused!

But yes, the above is 'special'.

[annwfyn]

*giggles*

What? Did he think the Irish had snuck over to Wiltshire to build it?

[riksowden]

What, the idea of Irish builders heading overseas to get some work too crazy?

(they probably had some extra tarmac from a job down the way if you want your drive doing too)

[lawrencegillies]

Well, the stones did come from Wales.

I think there's a Bill Bailey routine/sketch about the Welsh stone cutter getting conned into helping deliver the stones...

[riksowden]

Also, i went to the Museum of the Native American in Washington DC...it was the most hippy place i've ever seen! There was a lot of good stuff in there, and a lot of stuff that actually made me quite glad to be British (rather than, you know, Spanish or American - at least we were only a bit mean, and actually abided by the treaties we made...mostly).

Interesting stuff - but a very definate bias (though almost all museums have one that you can sense - things like the British Museum's "here is cool stuff we plundered from across the world!" seem a lot more honest than others mind!).

[riksowden]

I like to think of it as the "National Museum of Plunder" - it really should have been built in the shape of an big cross, for when folks are flying over it ;)

[annwfyn]

I remember the first time I went to it, being absolutely amazed that not only had we not taken everything that was nailed down, we'd taken the stuff that was. I mean, what the hell kind of gunboat runs off with the walls and doors to other cultures' great monuments?!?!

[lawrencegillies]

Additionally, the Anglo-Saxon "invasion" of Romano-British (Celtic may be a stretch for what was later to be England) was a lot more peaceful than previously thought. The Saxons were invited in as a mercenary people, and were then used by Britons against other Britons, and there was much more peaceful assimilation that popularly believed, with a great deal of intermarriage

[annwfyn]

You know, there's a whole world of debate about the Anglo-Saxon 'invasion'. You're walking into THREE MILLION YEARS of stroppy archaeologists debating, with GREAT HORDES OF SAXONS on one side and three men in a longboat, all called 'Sven' on the other.

I personally keep getting confused. I was quite keen on the three men in a longboat, all called 'Sven' theory for ages, and cited things like 'unchanged boundary lines of settlements' and 'farms having the same freaking fields right through the transition period', until some damn geneticist did a study which indicated that the population of southern England had WAY more in common, genetically, with the population of Friesland in Germany than they do with the population of North Wales, which kinda suggested a definite influx of people.

Then I was befuddled, for I like my archaeology through DNA testing, and am still pondering.

[riksowden]

And most of Yorkshire is Norweigan by DNA ;)

[lawrencegillies]

If I'm not of viking heritage, then I'm a Dutchman.
Probably literally.

[lawrencegillies]

I do quite like the idea of a reservation for the Welsh though

[riksowden]

Isn't that called "Wales"? You can go there and watch them in their native muck ;)

[lawrencegillies]

But they keep getting out...