Celtic Paganism

Celtic

• primarily a linguistic term
• adapted to refer to a cultural entity
• idea of celticity around in the world today
  • Celtic music, nationalism
  • terms used (too) freely

Paganism

• another loaded word as well

Focus of course

• Celtic religion, Celtic mythology

Who are the Celts?

• Ethnic entity
• well-known in antiquity
• central, west-central Europe
• 5 BCE -->2-3 BCE
  • spread across Europe
  • Gaul, Iberian Peninsula
• By 300 BCE
  • the dominant people
  • also in the British Isles, Ireland

5th century, BCE

• where we have to start

Prehistoric

• Celts of Gaul left no written records of themselves
  • there are some inscriptions
  • more discovered recently
• Gaulish scholars
  • 2, 3, 4-line inscriptions
    • different descriptions of their meaning
  • longest one -- 12 - 15 lines
• no literature really
• no record of Celts of Gaul produced by their own hands
• others' reports
• *archeological evidence
• *ethnographic evidence
  • writings of Greek and Roman ethnographers
    • social organization
    • customs
    • religious practices
    • divinities
    • Pocidonious, 2nd century -- fairly full record
  • All Celticists make use of these materials, but basically the work of other disciplines
    • depend on the expertise of others
    • trust their judgments
  • This is regarding the Celts of Gaul.

British Isle

• archeological and ethnological evidence
• literary tradition
  • also have a written tradition of the people themselves
  • early literature of Ireland and Wales
    • corresponds in neat ways to other reports
  • have to come at it from different angles to piece together a picture of the Celts.
• the written records comes a millennium after the ethnographic reports and archeological evidence.
  • this causes problems
    • although it was written by Celtic peoples, it was written by monks/scribes who have Christian ethics
    • we get to see pre-Christian peoples through Christian eyes
• large record, large body of material
  • 597 AD ->12 - 14 century
  • voluminous
  • mythological texts
    • sagas, poetry, charms, prayers
    • any genre you can think of
    • it is the earliest vernacular literature that survives in Europe
      • Welsh
        • have the names of 5 poets from the late 6th century
        • early Welsh is not as voluminous, but we still have a considerable body

Course begins

• surveying archeological evidence
  • sanctuaries
  • sacred places of other varieties
• Sourcebook #1 and #2, Bruneaux book, The Celtic Gauls
  • out of print
• evidence from ancient Greek and Roman writers
• iconography, depictions of gods/goddesses, symbology, pictography, inscriptions
  • MacCana
• overlap of sources
• writings of the Celtic peoples themselves
  • Irish / Welsh
    • traditional narratives derived from an oral tradition (?)
      • Gantz -- Early Irish Myths and Sagas
      • Welsh text - Mabinogi

Pagans and paganism

• 'other' -- biblical barbarians
• pre-Christian when Christianity was introduced
• non-coherent religious practices
• nature and female favorable
• poly- and pantheistics
• Catholic no-no
• rural
• local god, not general god
  • tied to land
• ritual practices
• pejorative
• no single higher deity
• primitive (-)

pagus

• Roman definition for an area inhabited by a tribe
• paganus
  • someone who lives in a pagus
    • cf. pisano - peasant
  • people who lived in the country and adhered to the native religion in the period after Rome accepted Christianity

paganism

• association with the practices of someone of that group
• practiced something not Christian in the eyes of Christian Rome
• Celtic paganism was nature-related
  • female elements
• pejorative use came later
• cf. Barbarian
  • bar bar: bar- doesn't speak Greek

primitive

• prime, original, uncontaminated in the eyes of people
• gets the pejorative sense of other

heathen

• someone who lives on the heath
• collections for 'pagan' babies
  • pagan as non-Christian not having heard the word of Christianity -- after hearing and rejecting, then a heathen

aborigine

• from the beginning

Who are the Celts?

• they were an ethnic entity
  • Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Baltic
• 1st and foremost, Celtic is a linguistic term
  • designates a member of the Indo-European family.

Indo-European

• Celtic
  • Goidelic -- /k/ Celtic
    • Manx Gaelic
    • Scottish Gaelic
    • Irish Gaelic
  • Gaulo-Britatonic -- /p/ Celtic
    • Welsh
    • Cornish
    • Breton
• Baltic
• Italic
  • Latin
    • French
    • Italian
    • Spanish
    • Romanian
• Germanic
  • German
  • English

linguistic comparisons

• milk
  • lactem (Latin -- acc.)
  • latte (Italian)
  • leche (Spanish)
  • lait (French)
• 8
  • octem (Latin -- obl.)
  • otto (Italian)
  • ocho (Spanish)
  • huit (French)
• night
  • noctem
  • notte
  • noche
  • nuit
• These regular changes allows the establishment of linguistic relationships between languages.
  • son
    • mac (Irish)
    • map (Welsh)
  • who
    • cia (Irish)
    • pwy (Welsh)
• It can then be argued by comparatists that, just as language is the conveyer of culture, if language changes on a regular basis, the attending culture changes as well. Thus the parent culture can be reconstructed by the comparison of its offspring.
  • law, religion, cultural institutions
    • can posit what the parent institutions looked like

Geographical distinctions (also a time designation)

• Continental Celts -- Celts of Gaul -- earlier period
• Insular Celts -- British Isles / Ireland -- later period

The concept of Celtic music irritates many scholars

• the term Celtic takes us back in time.
• modern means Irish, Welsh, etc.
• the larger reconstructed view of something we'd call Celtic

The Celts

• Keltoi /oi/ (Greek)
• Celtae /î/ (Latin)
• a distinct culture by the 5th century BCE
• Greeks
  • called them one of 4 great barbarian peoples of the world
    • Celts
    • Sythians
    • Persians
    • Libyans
• dominant people by 3rd century BCE
• generally recognized as the 1st Europeans
• pioneered the use of iron
• aggressive traders in tin and amber
• highly-paid warriors
  • 390 BCE -- sacked Rome
  • 280 -- raided the Oracle of Delphi