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Information & History
Information
Long before recorded history,
humans lived (out of necessity) much closer to
the natural cycles. It is out of this affinity
with nature that humans first began to personify
the inherent energies of the land as individual
Gods and Goddesses. In this manner, the ancients
attempted to make sense of what must often have
been a very illogical universe. The earliest
peoples would have practiced a lifestyle very
closely tied to the cycles of hunting and
gathering (for obvious reasons, anthropologists
refer to them as "hunter-gatherers").
Some research supports the theory that the most
ancient formalized religion was one of ancestor
worship. During those periods just after the
beginnings of recorded history, we see evidence,
which points towards this conclusion. The
earliest evidence of pre-Christian Roman culture
indicates that the Romans practiced some forms
of ancestor worship. Early Roman culture
borrowed extensively from the Etruscans; in fact
many scholars accept that the Etruscan culture
had an enormous impact on the civilizations of
their time. Etruscan pottery has been found in
excavations throughout the "Roman Empire", even
as distant as Britain.
In addition to the reverence placed on the
ancestors of a tribe or clan, the role of women
appears to have remained significant. Long
before the advent of patriarchal societies, an
individual's family ties were determined by the
line of descent from the mother's side. Some
cultures still determine descent in this manner,
however they are now greatly in the minority.
The patriarchal lineage appears to have its
strongest foothold in warrior societies or their
offshoots. As the Celts had strong warrior
women, it is decidedly unclear if patriarchy is
the cause or result of such societies.
Eventually, the hunter-gatherer societies
changed. Their pastoral culture slowly
transformed either by natural evolution of by
force, into an agrarian one. This culture was
delineated less by the cycles of the hunat, and
more by the ability to sow and reap the corps of
the field. Several clans may have settled in a
single area, and by developing more specialized
functions became a small village. Gods and
Goddesses of the forest and the wild places
slowly began to be passed by and occasionally
forgotten: their places userped by those of
field or cattle and flocks. As these areas grew
from village to towns and larger urban areas, so
the Gods and Goddesses changed. "New" deities
appear on the scene and new aspects of the Older
Gods emerge: smithcraft, milling, and the like
needed patrons to oversee them. In the East, and
in other lands, many bands still clung to
nomadic ways. Others still, spent some or all of
their energies on the process of war. The divine
spirits of these warrior bands appear to be
almost exclusively male. Within those societies,
it became the physiological strength of the
male, which is of prime importance. As these
bands grew and conquered others, so their
patriarchal views of the order of things began
to spread.
History is written by the conquerors, and
re-written by the next one. So too, is religion.
As the patriarchal bands, and later, patriarchal
cultures, conquered and expanded their
territories, so they re-wrote the histories and
practices of the peoples they conquered. Several
fine examples of this have much later dates in
history:
- The subjugation of the
Native American civilizations by the
invading European cultures.
- The oppression of culture
and religious beliefs in India and Pakistan
under the British Raj
- The oppression of the
Tibetan Budhists by the Chinese.
- The totalitarian regimes
of many different eras and countries
- The ongoing "troubles" in
Northern Ireland.
Sometimes, a culture or people
will resist. This resistance may be covert or
overt in nature. Many traditional Celtic ways
were once forbidden, such as bagpipes and the
Celtic languages themselves. In more modern
times, these pieces of culture are appreciated
and treasured. Truly, one small battle won.
Historically, the Celts themselves were
conquerors of the lands we now see as "Celtic">
In truth, there is not a surviving culture that
wasn't at least partly warlike in its history.
The Celts that we are so familiar with, those of
the islands of Britain, are said by some to be
descended from a cultural entity known as the
Indo-Europeans. These people may have originated
in the areas of the Northern Indian
sub-continent. Their migrations north and
westward contributed to the cultures we are now
familiar with in India, the Iberian Peninsula,
and the British Isles. It is probable that the
contributions to these cultures were actually
userptions by way of conquering other tribes
along the way, however there is little hard
evidence to prove any single theory. What we do
have are many cultural similarities ranging from
the Brahmin of India to the Druids of Northern
Europe; from the intricate Knotwork patterns of
the insular Celts to the key designs of the
Greeks and the Minoans. |
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