[Note: All Basque words are in Italics and Bold-faced Green]
THE TIMELESS SOCIETY *
(Contact)
Small figurines of well-endowed females have been found
in many places in Europe and much of Asia, and some could be dated to ca
28,000 bce. Exactly what these sculptures meant or what they were used for or
how is still not quite clear.
However, it is sure that the people using them believed in a supreme
spirit. At the beginning of the Neolithic, about 8,000 bce. we can assume
that this spirit had become a Goddess and that our ancestors believed
absolutely in such a supreme being. It was the time that the glaciers were
fast vacating most of Europe, which therefore became available for
settlement. At the same time the climate of the central Sahara started to
deteriorate, which caused the tribes in the affected area to migrate to the
north and west coasts (see Climate). Archaeological
evidence indicates that this was a time of enormous change in living, travel
and thinking. Before the Neolithic, people had been part of nature and
subject to its whims and dangers.
Nevertheless, a great deal of experimenting had already been going on
in various fields of study from animal husbandry and medicine, to sailing,
construction, navigation, fishing, tanning etc. The domestication of wild
animals such as goats, pigs and sheep and the first agricultural trials with
grains produced a revolution in the way the tribes lived and prospered. The social anthropologist, Dr. Anthony Jackson of Edinburgh University, studied the
society of the Picts in Scotland in detail. He came to the conclusion that an
instructive parallel could be drawn between the society of Neolithic Scotland
and that of the still existing Society of the Trobrianders, so
ably described by Dr. Bronislaw Malinowski in his book
"Argonauts of the Western Pacific", published in 1922. Edo
Nyland has made full use of both Jackson's and Malinowski's
writings in the following: The Irish and Scottish people lived in a matrilineal
society, which meant that the succession of rank, membership in all the
social groups, and the inheritance of rights and possessions descended in the
female line. Young people belonging to the same tribe were not allowed to
marry. Instead, the young man would
leave his own tribe and move to the tribe of his new wife, and their children
remained part of the mother's tribe and carried her name. The father had no
legal rights to his own children; instead the mother's brother was the real
guardian of them. The reason for this was that the father belonged to a
different tribe, possibly quite some distance away. Thus, the nearest man who was able to teach the young child the
trade secrets of his incarnation was the brother of its mother. The child’s
real kinship existed only with its mother's relations. However, the
biological father was expected to give his children gifts and help in time of
danger or need. If a child was sick or in trouble, it would always be the
father who would worry and undergo hardships or expose himself to danger, and
seldom the maternal uncle. The maternal uncle's position of close relation
was regarded as right by law and usage, whereas the father's interest and
affection for his children were due to sentiment, and to the intimate
personal relations existing between them (Malinowski p.72). This organization of responsibilities and the respected
position of the female in the tribes was especially irksome to the new
Judeo-Christian clergy. Therefore,
the first thing to be changed was the imposition of a patrilineal order, to
the detriment of the women. The new clergy had been used to dealing with
patrilineal tribes where the son inherited the title of his father the chief.
Once the chief had been converted to Christianity, the son and the tribe
would quickly follow. Not so with the Picts, because the son of a chief never
followed in his father's footsteps, and the result was that the missionaries
had to start religious conversion with the members of the tribe itself from
the bottom up, a much more time-consuming and frustrating job. A DIFFERENT
PHILOSOPHY OF TIME Many researchers have commented the conservatism of the
early civilization on. Archaeologists working in the Indus valley found that
the original layout of the cities of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa
had been meticulously maintained for millennia. The artwork of the
cathedral caves in the region of the Pyrenees was carried on for over 25,000
years. Hand-held images of the Goddess have been made for at least as
long. They were used from Japan to
India to the Sahara and arctic Europe. However, what did cause such
stability? The answer appears to lie
in the periodicity of nature and of the female body. The cyclical nature
of the moon in concert with the menstrual cycle of human females and the
tides, and the gradual shifting in intensity of the sun's radiation causing
the different seasons. It all
dictated that time was to be measured in cycles, in what is now called circular time. In a female directed or Holistic
civilization, time repeated itself year after year. People who
died were reincarnated, i.e. their bones were placed in the barrow tomb (the
womb of the Goddess), and therefore were still the same individuals as those
who had passed away. They inherited
all the achievements, skills and learning of their ancestors. The history of
the ancestors belonged to their individual reincarnations, in other words the
people were history themselves. Women knew no history because events repeated
with the seasons in perfect harmony with nature. This all changed when male
domination arrived, purposely inverting all the characteristics of the
gylanic society. The formerly Holistic society became a Dualistic society,
which brought along controversy. As the male body is not subject to
noticeable cycles, male time is measured linearly; time no longer repeated
itself and change became the order of the new civilization. Consequently,
reincarnation no longer took place. Under the new male regime, the ancestors suddenly
were disposed of, buried and quickly forgotten, except for a few exceptional
leading male figures who received monumental graves. A completely new
mentality took over the earth, which required the writing of history because
history was no longer cyclical and the property of each individual. In other
words, history, but not civilization, started with the coming of male
domination. In the old religion, the women's dances had all been circular,
such as the May Pole
Dance, while the men's dances were linear, such as the Morris (Maurrits) dances. Instability, change, and
upheaval became the order of the new society, a state of affairs which is
still with us today. FOOD FROM THE OCEAN WAS THE MAINSTAY OF
LIFE The extension of the Goddess religion into an
environment where the main food supply came from the ocean, instead of from
herding domestic animals, required some adaptation to the traditional
thinking, but this was easily done. In both the herding and fishing
environments the men had to be away from home for many months at a time and
the women were left in total charge of the home front. In the Sahara, the
society had compared itself with the elephant family structure in which an
older female led the tribe while the mature males, roaming the country side
as rogues, were only allowed back in the family at breeding time. The male
clergy of the priestess, The
Abade, long ago had adopted an Elephant tattoo which they brought
with them to Scotland and which still can be seen on many of the symbol
stones scattered around the countryside. After copying this symbol over many
centuries without ever seeing a real elephant, it had become a funny looking
beast which appears to be more at home in the water than on land, but it is a
recognizable elephant just the same. In Denmark, the Order of the
Elephant is still the highest order the king can bestow. The
Danes are unable to explain why the elephant was chosen for this honor. The development of reliable ocean navigation had opened
up the world around 10,000 bce. and gave our ancestors contact with other
peoples they never had heard of before. The many tribes had invented a
variety of ingenious means to produce their own reliable food supply. Some of these had the technology to
exploit the unlimited food resources of the ocean. In fact, our word ocean,
the Greek word okeano, comes from the Basque/Saharan words
oke-ano, okerrezin (infallible,
unfailing) ano (food supply):
"an unfailing food supply". Without this dependable
and abundant food supply from the ocean and its shores, increasing the
populations and permanent living in the Hebrides, in spite of the better
climate then, would not have been possible. FERTILITY OF THE SOIL The sacrament of the Sacred Marriage shows us that fertility in nature was not taken for
granted in the Goddess religion. The harvester offered the first of certain
products ritually to the priestess during the growing season, starting with
the first egg of an important wild bird.
This tradition is continued in Holland, when the Queen is presented
with the first-found lapwing egg of the spring,. It culminates in the Thanksgiving celebrations after the main
harvest was safely stored. Frymer-Kenski wrote: "... in performing these rituals, the
celebrants acknowledged their dependence on fertility and their desire to
participate in assuring the continuation of the natural cycle."
(p.92) In the Bible, this dependence on human interference was
taken away from the people. In Genesis 1: 10-13 we are told that on the third
day God created dry land and on the same day He put forth trees and plants
yielding seed and trees bearing fruit. Inherent in this statement is that
fertility was given to the earth by God and that "there is no need for humans to focus
concern on the creation or continuation of this fertility. Just as people do
not have to think about helping the sun to rise..." (Frymer-Kenski 1992 p.93). The writer of Deuteronomy 26: 1-10 re-focused the
traditional awe inspired by the ability of the priestess and Tammuz (human sacrifice) to bring back the
season's fertility, by thanking the Lord for his gift of the land of Israel: "When you come into the land which the
Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, and have taken possession of it,
you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you
harvest from your land that the Lord your God gives you, and you shall put it
in a basket, and you shall go to the .... priest who is in office at
that time and say to him: 'I declare this day to the Lord your God that I have
come into the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. Then the
priest shall take the basket and set it down before the altar of the Lord
your God. "There is no awe, reverence, or gratitude
for the fertility of the soil and its bountiful harvest. Indeed the ability
of the earth to grow harvest is assumed rather than celebrated"
(Frymer-Kenski p.94). A sincere celebration of the wonderful gift of fertility
of the earth was re-written into something that was a characteristic and
automatic state, such as the rising of the sun. THE PRODUCTIVE EARTH By 8,000 bce. many changes were taking place which
effectively created a very different, even vibrant society. Life had become
much more centrally directed, specialized trades had continued to evolve, and
people started to grow older than before. The one truly outstanding feature
in their religion was that the wonder of the human female had become the
revered center of their civilization. The realization that the peoples'
survival depended entirely on the productivity of the earth and the
life-creating, nurturing and food-gathering ability of the women meant that
the women had become highly regarded. The Goddess represented the abundance
of the living earth and she was portrayed in a large variety of
personalities, all doing different good works. These many personifications of
the one supreme Goddess were the cause of the oft repeated fallacy that there
were many Goddesses in the early religion, when in fact there was only one. The Great Goddess' original abode appears to have been
in the Ahoggar
Mountains of
southeastern Algiers, a location just west of the center of the Sahara, where
an incredible display of rock art may still be seen at the 2000+ m. level.
Reverence for life, expressed in the careful conservation of all living
things in all their forms, became enriched by mysteries, legends, taboos,
magic, sacred springs and groves, special festivity days etc. The basic
language, which had naturally developed up to then, was no longer adequate to
accommodate the needs of the developing sciences such as astronomy and
medicine or to describe the new thoughts, processes and inventions. Probably
around 5,500 - 6,000 bce. some scholars were assigned the task to organize
and develop the language to bring it up to date to allow the teaching and
memorizing of all knowledge, and to prepare it for future expansion with new
words. This then created a highly
organized and extremely logically arranged language, the first highly evolved
invented language on earth. The greatly enhanced language was finished and
introduced just before the great exodus from the Sahara began. Consequently, this language was carried
with the migrants to the Near East and Europe. The invention of a fully developed language came about
in a time of severe stress, caused by the failing of the rains in the central
Sahara. This was followed by an orderly
evacuation of the drought-affected areas. The religious center in the Ahoggar
mountains, located in the drought area, was no longer central to the needs of
the people and had to be moved. As the Sea Peoples on the coasts had taken
charge of the placing and transport of the displaced tribes, the most likely
site for a new religious center was in the Central Mediterranean, and the
islands of Malta and
Gozo were selected.
Astonishing megalithic temples were constructed, which may still be seen in
close to the original condition. Those tribes that had moved over land to regions like
Mesopotamia and who had no sea access to Malta, built their own imitations of
the Ahoggar mountain sanctuary and called them Ziggurats. These mountain-like
monuments were covered with bitumen, to protect the mud-dried bricks from
erosion. Soil was deposited on top of
the monuments in which the same trees and lesser vegetation was planted as
had been growing in the Ahoggar region. Even the basaltic columns of the
Ahoggar were imitated in the sides of the Ziggurat by constructing vertical
flutings. In the "Hanging
Garden" on top of the Ziggurat, a small temple was built
for the priestess, a place where the sacred marriage continued to take place
annually or periodically. EDUCATION WAS ENCOURAGED In order to spread and stabilize this newly developed
language and promote the language arts, it was decided to create different
types of schools. All knowledge had to be memorized which was taught by teachers
called Gogomaisu (memory
teacher). These would endlessly repeat the knowledge they had to offer, until
the students could quote it faultlessly. In addition, in Ireland and Scotland
there were several schools in places still called Tarbert, from tartar-bert, tartar (talkative) bertsolari (troubadour) where the teachers were
instructing in the art of creating poetry, set to song. This art was socially and intellectually
superior to the work of the Gogomaisu. A similar form of literary expression
is still thriving in the Basque country. For a beautiful description of this
ancient art, see Aulestia's book "Improvisational Poetry". After writing
arrived, another type of literary expression was produced by the Olerkari,
the poets, whose art only depended on writing not on song. Although some
symbols to express certain religious ideas and thoughts had long existed, the
clergy of that period did not allow the common people to use them. Strong and
very conservative oral traditions evolved that were responsible for the fact
that this invented language became the most stable on earth. It has been maintained in almost the
original form until this day in the Basque Language. It is still
spoken in the Basque country as Basque/Euskera, and in considerably modified
form in southern India as Dravidian. The Basque
name for their language, Euskera tells
us that the age of the Goddess is not forgotten: eu - us. - .ke - era The eminent system of oral education was rigorously
maintained for many millennia until the coming of Proto-Judaism, Judaism and
Christianity, which totally inverted the original faith, encouraged writing
and discouraged memory training. These new religions became a serious threat
to the stability of the civilization of the Goddess religion, its ancient
language, and its diversity of oral traditions. These traditions had stood in
the way of the acceptance of the new, very different patriarchal laws of the
new sky-gods, which had been created by turning many aspects of the Goddess
religion upside down. However, in the Basque country the shepherds and their
families in the mountains remained illiterate although orally proficient
until early the 20th Century. Now that literacy is being taught to
everybody, the oral traditions could become eroded so that the language and
its dialects will start to change. This has already begun with the creation
of Euskera Batua (Unified Basque). Here one language has been created out of
seven dialects and is being taught in schools. It is now up to the popular Bertsolari to
keep up the ancient traditions. THE GODDESS CAME ALONG TO IRELAND The sea farers from Morocco, today called Berbers,
explored and controlled the Atlantic coast and islands of Europe. Those people who left Morocco for lands to
the northwest had brought their Goddess along. (This northwestern extension
of the ancient religion is discussed by Joseph
Campbell in "Primitive Mythology" pages 427-434, but Edo
Nyland does not take his references to Irish mythology too seriously). The
many megalithic monuments that can still be seen in Ireland and Scotland are
proof that the Goddess traveled with these migrants from Morocco. The
religious monuments these people built in both Morocco and Ireland are so
startlingly alike, that they should be regarded as textbook cases of
diffusion or direct cultural contact. For instance, take the passage tomb of Newgrange
(Ireland) and the tumulus of M'Zora just south of
Tangiers, Morocco, of which Bob Quinn (1986) writes: Coming nearer, we could see the circle of
stones, some of them trespassing on gardens. It was true. It was the remains
of a tumulus. Most of the central part had been gouged out, probably for the
stones and gravel, just as similar tombs had been in Ireland. There were 167
stones in the circle according to our count. The pillar dominated the
landscape. Newgrange once boasted such a stone. It was last seen in 1770....
I managed to take two pictures of what was, to me, unmistakably a first
cousin of Gavrinis and Newgrange. I learned that the site had been
mentioned by a Roman historian, Sertorius. It was also described as being the
grave of a native god, Antee; this coincided with the tradition of Newgrange
being the grave of an Irish god, Aonghus. (Quinn p.72-73) The American James Mayor had written an article about
the M'Zora monument, but it attracted little attention. There are innumerable such similarities
with Ireland in northwest Africa. For instance, the many hundreds of stone
circles in Senegal are identical to those in Cornwall. The individual tribes
brought along the same Goddess and the same language and oral traditions.
Their religious structures, although certainly different from their
neighboring tribes in Africa, were being built exactly the same in their new
homeland. Any remarks suggesting a link between Ireland and Morocco have up
to now been put down by historians as 'unsubstantiated'. This is similar to
the words of the Moroccan Ibn Khaldoun, known in the
west as Averrous,
the Father of Sociology. "Historians have committed frequent errors
in the stories and events they reported. They accepted them in plain
transmitted form, without regard for its value. They did not probe them with
the yardstick of philosophy, with the help of the knowledge of the nature of
things, or with the help of speculation or historical insight. Therefore they
strayed from the truth and found themselves lost in the desert of baseless
assumptions". NO ONE DIED FOREVER The Neolithic view of female sexuality was death
denying and life affirming. In contrast, the Judeo-Christian view was and
still is life denying and death affirming. Consequently, the civilization and
religion of our Neolithic ancestors was very different from the society we
experience today. Death meant something very different to our ancestors
because it was always followed by reincarnation in a new-born babe. Death was not the end of a person's life,
but it was recognized as a serious setback and as such was mourned because a
productive and needed loved one was gone.
However, in time everybody knew that this would be followed by a
joyous return. People believed absolutely that they were the reincarnation of
someone who had passed on. They
accepted the same name of the deceased and all associated achievements. They learned all the special knowledge of
the predecessor. They were also
brought up to follow closely in his/her footsteps. This belief provided the
highest degree of stability for the society, but was also the foundation of a
form of caste system that at times created different social classes. When
such a presumed reincarnated person was interviewed by an anthropologist in
modern societies, he/she would sometimes tell of happenings in a life that
was known to have occurred centuries ago. The first anthropologists doing
such interviews among contemporary societies were incredulous and did not
know what to make of such sincere testimony.
It finally was realized that this was typical of the Neolithic faith.
These people had no history, they were history themselves; it was the
time-less society. GIVING NAMES A newborn child was never named until it was certain to
survive. In addition, it would not be known whose reincarnation this child
was to be, a weighty decision to be made by the Abade of the tribe. In the
meantime, the child was given a temporary descriptive name such as 'sickly' (Erik, from erikoi), 'forgetful'
(Hans, from hantzkor), 'having fun'
(Olga, from olgau), 'lovable'
(Meta, from maita), 'nervous' (Larry, from larri), 'lacking'
(Gabi, from gabe izan), 'capable' (Alison, from alizan), 'gossip'
(Merran, from erran merran), making excuses (Haiko/Heiko, from haiko maiko), breaking
things (Lorry, from lorrinaldi), go to sleep (Lotte, from lotaratu), etc. Most of
these names are still in use today and a long list can be drawn up, but this
will suffice. As times went by a nickname often replaced the original
descriptive name when there was reason to do so. Later in life, when the individual had done honorable
or special things in a particular field of endeavor, a new name was
agglutinated from a sentence or descriptive term and a special ceremony was
held to install the name, such as Odysseus, Homer etc. To have such a special
name was a great honor and brought with it enormous respect. The new
Judeo-Christian clergy was intolerant of this system, especially as related
to reincarnation. Instead they
insisted on giving newborn children their life-long names shortly after
birth. A SOCIETY OF WELL-BEING Life on the Hebridian Islands throughout
history was difficult and often dangerous. The population at first increased slowly
until the limits were reached which could be supported by the environment.
The stability shown by these people over so many millennia must be due to a
high level of sustained well being. Well-being of a population could be
measured by, or expressed in, such items as happiness, a full stomach for
everyone, a warm dry place to live, longer than usual life-expectancy, low
infant mortality and high (especially female) oral literacy or exchanged
knowledge. In spite of the high mortality among the sea-faring men, the Irish
and Scottish societies appear to have been happy and delightful. There was a great deal of comforting solidarity within
a tribe. This was partly based on the
vague feeling of communal affinity to the totem animal with which all were to
be tattooed. Much more so was the influence of the many social duties, such
as the performance of certain ceremonies, especially those related to the
ancestors, which banded the members of the tribe together. However, the
firmest solidarity was only found in the smaller tribes where everyone was
closely related and attached to the locality where the ancestors were revered
in their own stone-built tomb. Men and women in general had different roles to play in
the production and handling of goods. Men were prone to focus on knowledge of
how to efficiently input their skills into goods, that is to use the least
amount of effort to produce the
most goods. Women conventionally apply knowledge of how to efficiently
distribute goods, that is how to use the least amount of goods to create the
greatest well-being. It took a great deal of skill and cooperation on the
part of both men and women to live successfully in this harsh but healthy
land. MAGIC IN DAILY LIFE Magic is the art of achieving seemingly supernatural
control over nature. It is an attempt by humans to govern the forces of
nature directly, by means of special lore. Everything that vitally affected
the people was accompanied by magic, because it was involved in all communal and
industrial activities and especially those associated with danger, chance or
the ancestors. The rules of magic had to be followed exactly or the results
were likely to be disastrous. Malinowski
described it in this way: "Magic is not built up in narrative style;
it does not serve to communicate ideas from one person to another; it does
not purport to contain a consecutive, consistent meaning. It is an instrument
serving special purposes, intended for the exercise of man's specific powers,
and its meaning, giving this word in a wider sense, can be understood only in
correlation to this aim. They are expressions fitting into one another and
into the whole, according to what could be called a magical order of
thinking, or perhaps more correctly, a magical order of launching words
toward their aim" (p.432). Magic was indispensable in organizing and motivating
the workers involved in building megalithic structures or other stone
monuments such as barrow tombs or roads, and other large construction
projects like ocean-going ships, storehouses, piers and docks. Communal labor
was important in the local economy and each type had a different name. It is
important that the reader understands what magic meant to the people of the
tribe and the role it played in all their vital pursuits. First of all it must be realized that the people firmly
believed in the value of magic, and that this conviction, when put to the
test of their actions, was quite unwavering. We may speak of the sociological
weight of tradition that is of the degree to which the behaviour of the
community is affected by the traditional commands of tribal law and customs.
The general injunction of always building boats under the guidance of magic
was obeyed without the slightest deviation, for the tradition weighed very
heavily. Not one single boat was being constructed without magic, indeed
without full observance of all the rites and ceremonial. The forces that kept
the people to their traditional course of behaviour were, in the first place,
the specific social inertia that obtains in all human societies and was the
basis of all conservative tendencies. Second the strong conviction that if
the traditional course were not taken, evil results would follow. A boat
built without magic would not be seaworthy, heavy and slow in sailing,
unlucky in difficult circumstances.
Thus, no one building or using a boat would dream of omitting the
magic rites. So strong was the belief in magic that the right wording of the
incantation would even be able to make the boat fly if the necessary magic
had not fallen into oblivion. It is also important to understand rightly the
peoples' ideas about the relation between magical efficiency and the result of
craftsmanship. Both were considered indispensable, but both were understood
to act independently. The people understood that magic, however efficient,
would not make up for bad workmanship. Each of these two had its own
province: the builder by his skill and knowledge made the boat stable and
swift, and magic gave it an additional stability and swiftness. If a boat
were obviously badly built, the people would know why it sailed slowly and
was unwieldy. If two boats were equally well built but one sailed better, it
would be attributed to magic on the part of the boat or the crew. THE ECONOMICS OF MAGIC What is the economic function of magic in the process
of boat building? Is it simply an extraneous action, having nothing to do
with the real work or its organization? Is magic from the economic point of
view a mere waste of time? By no means. Magic puts order and sequence into
the various activities, and it and its associated ceremonial was instrumental
to securing the co-operation of the community, and the organization of
communal labour. It inspired the builders with great confidence in the
efficiency of their work, a mental state essential in any enterprise of
complicated and difficult character. The belief that the magician was a
person endowed with special powers made him/her a natural leader whose
command was always obeyed, who could fix dates, apportion work and keep the
worker up to the mark. When all craftsmanship and magic had been done
correctly and the boat was finished, the female magician, or the priestess
herself, conducting the benediction ceremony, would invite the Goddess on
board and she would become part of the boat. It was then that the eyes were
carved and painted on the bow so she could look out for danger. Thereby the
boat was instantly transformed into an object of miraculous achievement and
admiration, a living thing with its own personality. Around the world, many
fishing boats can still be seen with such eyes. Such may be found in the Mediterranean, India and Polynesia, including
the very large cedar dug-outs on the British Columbia coast of Canada. Magic, far from being a useless appendage, or even a
burden on the work, supplied the psychological influence, which kept people confident
about the success of their labours and provided them with a sort of natural
leader. [E. Legner suggests that this is akin to
modern day prayer] Thus the organization of labour in boat building rests on
the one hand on the division of functions, those of the owner, the expert and
the helpers, and on the other hand on the cooperation between labour and
magic" (Malinowski p.115-6) SOCIOLOGY OF OWNERSHIP Ownership, giving this word in its broadest sense, is
the often very complex relation between an object and the social community in
which it is found. In ethnology, it is extremely important not to use the
word "ownership" in any narrower sense than that just defined,
because the types of ownership found in various parts of the world differ
widely. It is especially a grave error to use the word ownership with the
very definite connotation given to it in our own society. For it is obvious
that this connotation presupposes the existence of very highly developed
economic and legal conditions, such as they are among ourselves, and
therefore the term "own" is meaningless when applied to a Neolithic
society. What is worse, such an application smuggles a number of pre-conceived
ideas into our description, and before we have begun to give an account of
the local conditions, we have distorted the reader's outlook. Each type of ownership has customs and traditions
attached with different sets of functions, rites and privileges. Moreover,
the social range of those who enjoy these privileges varies. Even with regard
to one object, a number of people may lay claim to ownership. People having
the full de facto right of using an object, might not be allowed to call
themselves the owner of the object. The use of this title is highly valued
because it is the social psychology of the people with their ambition, vanity
and desires, to be renowned and well spoken of. Sailing expeditions were
extremely important and the name of the boat was always associated with the
name of the owner, which in turn was identified by his magical powers and
assured good luck in sailing. It is a widespread fallacy that the primitive 'Golden
Age' was characterized by the absence of any distinction between thine and
mine. If we consider the numerous theories that see nothing but primitive
economics, or simple pursuits for the maintenance of existence, it must be
made clear that the tribal life is permeated by a constant give and take. Every ceremony, every legal and customary
act is done to the accompaniment of material gift and counter gift; that
wealth given and taken, is one of the main instruments of social
organization, of the power of the chief, of the bonds of kinship and of relationship
in law (Malinowski p.167) SORCERY OR BLACK MAGIC Sorcery is the bringing about of destructive or harmful
events in the near future with the help of evil spirits. Minor ailments can
be brought about by a variety of causes such as bad food, exhaustion,
exposure, colds. However, if a person
sickens for any length of time and the strength is draining away, then black
magic or sorcery is certainly the cause. Even accidents such as drowning are
not believed to happen without cause. To become a sorcerer does not take any
special initiation except knowledge of the spells. The special spells and
incantations can be obtained for a high price from a recognized sorcerer, or
can be taught by the mother's brother to her son. He will then continue the matrilineal tradition of powerful
sorcery spells and the use of special paraphernalia. When a sorcerer attacks
someone, his first step is to cast a light spell over the habitual haunts of
the victim which, for instance, will affect him with a slight illness, and
keep him in bed where he will try to cure himself by staying warm near a
fire. The sorcerer then can proceed in a great variety of ways, one of which
is that he will approach the house of the victim at night, accompanied by
night birds such as owls, which keep guard over him. He is surrounded by a halo of legendary
terrors that make all neighbors shudder with fear, just from the thought of
meeting him on such a nocturnal visit. The sorcerer will then impregnate a
bundle of secret herbs with deadly charms, place these at the end of a long
stick and thrust these through an opening into the fire near where the sick
person is lying. The fumes of the burning herbs will then be inhaled by the
victim, whose name has been uttered in the charm, and he/she will contract
one or the other deadly diseases, of which the people have a long list.
(P.75-6). Sorcerers are regarded with great fear and apprehension, and
avoided by non-family members. A large collection of sorcery lore has been
collected and is available in many books such as those by James Fraser and
Joseph Campbell. THE WORK ETHIC It has been traditional among early writers to depict
the 'heathens' as happy-go-lucky, lazy children of nature who shun as much as
possible all labour and effort, waiting until the bounty of nature falls in
his/her lap. No one who believes in this attitude will be able to understand
the aims, motives and enthusiasm involved in carrying out the often-enormous
enterprises. Some semi-popular economic literature will tell us that
primitive humans, the common savages, are prompted in all actions by a
rationalistic conception of self-interest, and achieving aims directly with a
minimum of effort. Instead, work and effort, rather than being merely an end,
is collectively a way an end. The truth is that the Neolithic population did
work extremely hard and systematically, with endurance, pride and purpose,
and did not wait until pressed into action by immediate needs. This is proven
by the impressive archaeological remains of barrow tombs, stone circles,
processional ways, menhirs, corpse-exposure monuments etc. The so-called 'Protestant Work
Ethic' is simply a continuation of good work habits from
pre-Christian days. Gain, such as is often the stimulus for work in modern
communities, never acts as an impulse to work under Neolithic conditions (Malinowski p.156). The real force that binds
all the people and ties them down in their tasks is obedience to custom, to
tradition. PROJECT LEADERSHIP In carrying out a project, whether boat or tomb
construction, there always was one person in charge. If it were a religious
project, the priestess would first come and dedicate the site with the
appropriate magical words. Detailed planning had preceded this
dedication. This included optimizing
road access, the most appropriate location with respect to the village, the
availability of stone quarries, need for decoration etc. The head person
overseeing the operation could be male or female, depending on the
involvement of the community council. In case of heavy stone construction,
the leader would usually be a man. This person would take responsibility for
the whole undertaking. The people doing the work were often full time
employed and needed to be paid, usually in the form of food, which was the
duty of the project leader. This meant that everyone in the community was
involved in providing the leader with large supplies of whatever was required,
from garden produce to fish, berries, dairy products, meat etc. Under the head person or chief worked the experts.
These were the real technical leaders, people who knew how to work the quarry,
how to transport the building materials, the master builder, those who were
to do the artistic work etc. All were experts in their own fields and had
been carefully chosen for their skill and experience. Depending on the
complexity and scope of the work there may have been several experts
involved. Thirdly, there were the workers, divided into different
groups. The smallest group of workers was formed by the core workers who
would be more or less steadily engaged in the different stages of the work,
often people directly related to the person in charge of that particular
specialty. The largest group was the entire community. It was called in occasionally to help with
those tasks that required all available hands, including the moving of huge
rocks. In case of construction of a processional way such as the 'smooth
road' which Odysseus saw at Killary Harbour in
Ireland, this required the help of all hands of several tribes for extended
periods, because such projects usually served several communities. The task
of finding, breaking, and transporting the millions of stones needed was a
good excuse for regular 'working bees' which must have been extremely tiring
tasks. However, they were also
followed by joyous affairs when each stage was completed. Even so, it must
have taken years and great persistence to complete such mammoth tasks. A good
example is the Grianan
of Aileach monument on
the top of the high hill near Letterkenny. In this case all the stones had to
be carried up the long processional road, which, except for the top portion,
is still in use today. Stages in construction were always blessed with magic.
Magic only worked properly with the best of craftsmanship, and it was up to
the workers to make sure that the best possible results were obtained. No
magician or priestess would proceed with the blessings if the work had been
below standard. Magic was interwoven into all the activities involved in the
project, from catching the fish in the sea, the seeding of the gardens, the
making of dairy products, the sacrificing of the animal offerings, the
splitting of the rocks, to the final dedication of the product. Even the Leprechauns were
part of the effort and had tasks to perform, for which they were rewarded
with dishes of milk and special places to live. It was generally accepted that animals were incapable
of feeling pain and consequently, the cruelty done to living animals often
was abhorring. The squeals of pain from a pig on the spit being roasted alive
were the cause of hilarious laughter. The priestess Kirke thought nothing of
cutting the throat of a piglet so the blood could flow over the hands of a
murderer, to expiate the foul deed. At a religious feast steaks might be cut
off a wretched living animal, as was reported by the early Scottish explorer
James Bruce in his book "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile"
published in 1790. He was studying the Falashas, the Proto-Jewish people
of Ethiopia, who had retained many of the habits of the original Goddess
religion. Even today in many countries the 'sport' of catching wild pigeons,
hunting foxes, coyotes, wolves and other animals is associated with much
unnecessary cruelty. Roosters have their spurs removed, and replaced with
vicious steel dagger-like spurs to cut up the opponent better in cockfights.
In our own times, the people of Societies for Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals deal daily with examples of criminal indifference to the
suffering of animals. The days of the Goddess are still with us . A SIMPLE BUT HAPPY LIFE Being part of such an energetic community meant a life
of hard work and long hours. There
were also happy feasts of plentiful food, with dances, instrumental music and
singing. In general, the peoples' life was secure, happy, innocent but not
safe for those at sea. The coming of Gnostic Christianity of St. Patrick enriched the life of the local people
with different forms of art and music, and discouraged the human sacrifice.
The Gnostic/Irish priests did not interfere with the Universal Language of the people
or their way of life, they just brought the messages of love spoken by
Christ, who had died a voluntary death on the cross very much like the sacrifice
of a young man in the Whirlpool of Corrivreckan. The
evangelists did not criticize the old ways but brought new religious ideas
from North Africa, called Gnostic Christianity. The combination of the two
religions created a vibrant and artistically creative society, far in advance
of anything the continent had ever seen. This was no foreign religion to the
local people, and the male clergy of the Priestess apparently embraced the
new ideas. The monk/missionaries who went to the continent to spread the
words of Christ were mostly converted Abade of the Goddess, and were
recognizable by their purple upper eyelids, the front half of their heads
shaven, and their long white cloaks. The symbol of Gnostic Christianity from
north Africa was the circle in the cross, as is still to be seen on many
churches in Ireland and elsewhere, as well as on the many Coptic churches in
Egypt. Edo Nyland maintains that the coming of Judeo-Christianity brought
about a total upheaval of the ancient values and religion. It brought much resentment and violence,
which still makes headlines in our daily newspapers. THE
SHEELA NA GIG
SCULPTURES A most unusual form of "artistry" in Ireland
is found associated with old Roman-Catholic buildings. The "sheela na gigs"
are an enormous embarrassment to prim and proper Ireland and Britain. Close
to 200 are known to exist, built into church and convent walls, in castles,
in stone walls separating fields, displayed on roofs, even found in streams
and used as corner stones under buildings. They are impossible to date. However, judging by the age of the
buildings, in which they are found, they were installed roughly from 900 to
1200 AD. They are carved out of stone and are found mostly in southern
Ireland, but a few are also found in England and on the European continent. A
famous one may be seen in its original location in the church of St. Mary and
St. David, Kilpeck, Herfordshire, England. They have been described as crude,
lewd, most obscene female exhibitionist figures, fertility figures with the
legs apart, drawing the attention to enormous genitalia held open with the
fingers of both hands. There is absolutely nothing of beauty in them and can
hardly be called art, they don't even look like women because most have no, or
only tiny flat, breasts. They certainly do not look anything like the healthy
round Goddess figurines of the Neolithic. With their large round, often
bulbous eyes they look defiantly at the world. Many more of these repulsive
things must have been destroyed as they became accessible, when puritans and
clergymen got their hands on them. Some of the best were stored in the cellar
of the National Museum in Dublin and neither pleading nor money could bring
them out. That was until Bob Quinn wrote
his little paperback "Atlantean, Ireland's North African and Maritime
Heritage". The last chapter of his book is devoted to these 9 to 12
inch high little creatures. The Museum was subsequently deluged with requests
to see them, so they relented and two of the less ugly ones were then
reluctantly displayed in the entrance to the Treasury of the Museum, where
the staff hoped that the sight of masses of gold objects would draw the
attention away from the loathsome objects. Only one bookstore in Dublin, very
near Trinity College, carried a supply of Quinn's book. At another, Edo
Nyland was told that the book was not recommended reading and therefore was
not available in that store. The fact that the Sheelas are mostly found on Roman
Catholic churches, monasteries and convents means that they were somehow
associated with religion and that they were intended to address a problem. On
the continent of Europe, many somewhat similar types of carvings were found.
Quinn writes that these continental exhibitionist "carvings were common on the pilgrim
routes to places like Sanitago de Compostella. The object of these carvings
was to warn the pious away from occasions of lust. They featured angels,
devils, men and women in the most imaginative possible range of acrobatic
positions. Indeed, what strikes one is the sheer 'dirty-mindedness' of the
medieval carvers. In the most splendid Gothic and Romanesque cathedrals you
have an impressive array of male and female anal exhibition, phallic display,
genital assault, beard pulling (a euphemism), androgyny, breast display - all
of the practices we associate with pornography. Is it possible that these
activities reflected the amusements of the ordinary people of the time,
including clerics, and which a mediaeval Church - inspired by St. Augustine -
wished to eradicate? (Quinn: p.
166-7) It has been suggested that the Irish carvers were
slavishly copying a continental example, but would they have confined
themselves almost exclusively to this grotesque female form? Quinn looked
into this question and said that Ireland rarely has an example of the
continental acrobatics, rarely a decent phallus. The daring range of imagery
on the continent does not find its expression in Ireland. The only conclusion
that can be drawn is that the Sheelas are a uniquely Irish embarrassment. WHAT DOES THE NAME SHEELA NA GIG MEAN? Quinn writes that the name itself is not understood. If
it is Gaelic it would be 'Sileadh na gCioch', meaning 'shedding (of liquid)
from the breasts'. However, as the figures have no breasts this cannot be the
meaning. The name may be misrepresented as 'Sileadh na Giog, meaning
'shedding liquid from the hunkers'. "To take this as meaning
urinating is a little prosaic. Could it possibly refer to the activity of
menstruation?" (Quinn p.170). But then, where does the word
'menstruation' come from? The VCV vowel interlocking formula gives us that
answer: .me - en. - .st - .ru - ati - on. Here we appear to have the answer to the puzzle of the
Sheela na Gigs. The use of menstrual
blood was common for religious purposes in the Goddess religion and this practice
was taken over by some of the Gnostic Christian sects like the Manichaeans, the Cathars,
the Mandeans and many other sects that the Roman
Catholic church denounced as heretics. One of these Gnostic groups moved from
northern Africa to the Atlantic coast of Europe. It became established in Ireland, and eventually it formed the Irish Christianity
of St. Patrick.
This combined with the diverse indigenous activities of the Goddess, created
a vibrant religious life. Itinerant Irish monks who later preached throughout
western Europe brought with them from north Africa and Ireland the most
beautiful book artistry the world has ever seen. The Christian church adopted
many of the practices of the Irish Gnostics and the Goddess religion and
adapted them to form the new western Christianity centered in Rome. These
practices included the sacrament of the symbolic drinking of the blood/wine
and the breaking and eating of the bread. But what does the name Sheela na Gig really mean? (sh is written as x in
Basque). It wasn't a Gallic expression, so it must have been formed out of the
pre-Christian tongue: shi - ila ' na ' .gi - ig. Here we have two translations, one calling the
collection of menstrual blood immoral, the other vulgar. Both words must have
been coined by priests or monks of the new religions. This is very similar to
the meaning of the name of Utnapishtim, the wise priest of
Shurrupak, mentioned in the Gilgamesh Epic (2000 bce.): ut. - na - pish - ti - im. Here again we find that word 'immoral', and
menstruation is called "urine". Quinn discussed the problem with
John Allegro, of "Dead Sea Scrolls" fame, who pointed out that the
male dominated church was, and still is, afraid of sex. He traced the rise of
the Gnostic belief through the Essenes - the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls
- right back to the Canaanites of Palestine. The name Essene
translates to: es. - .se - ene He did not dispute the relationship between the
Gnostics and the Sheelas, and brought to Quinn's attention the writing of a
fourth century bishop who had witnessed the rituals of a Gnostic group called
the Phibionites: "The shameless ones have sexual
intercourse and I am truly abashed to say what scandalous things they
practice ... following coitus in uninhibited lust, they proceed to blaspheme
Heaven itself. The man and woman take the ejaculated sperm in their hands,
step forward, raise their eyes aloft and with the defilement still on their
hands, offer up prayers ... They then proceed it in their infamous ritual,
saying: This is the Body of Christ, and this is the Pascha (Passover Meal)
through which our bodies suffer and are made to acknowledge the passion of
Christ. They behave similarly with a woman's menstrual blood: they collect
from her the monthly blood of impurity, take it, eat it in a common meal and
say: This is Christ's blood" (Quinn p.171). Quinn then goes on: Accounts like this were written by Orthodox
bishops who would naturally paint as lurid a description as possible of their
opponents activities. "But there were many such equally disturbing
accounts of "agape" or love feasts in which the male semen and the
female blood would be mixed into a kind of cake and eaten. As John Allegro
said 'It must have been revolting', but the aesthetic sense of true believers
is not often finely developed. (Quinn p.172) The word agape means: "An abundance of
impulsiveness" or "a free-for-all". Quinn then suggests that
the Sheela na Gigs must have represented a very deep-rooted belief for such a
bizarre idea to be adopted and incorporated into the Orthodox Church's own
buildings. They must have been installed in a time that sexual prudery and
chastity was not part of Irish morality. It is a rather bizarre thought that
such a time actually existed, even though no living person can remember it. The Sheela na Gig sculptures' raison d'être must have
been to ridicule and stamp out the use of menstrual blood in religious
observances, which had been practiced since time immemorial in the Goddess
religion, later maintained by some Gnostic sects including early Irish
Christianity. Joseph Campbell writes: "For, as Ruth Underhill has pointed out,
the mysteries of childbirth and menstruation are natural manifestations of
power. The rites of protective isolation, defending both the woman herself
and the group to which she belongs, are rooted in a sense and idea of
mysterious danger, whereas the boy's and men's rites are, rather, a social
affair". There is little
doubt that menstrual blood played an important role in the practices of the
Goddess faith and in the Gnostic-Christian sect of Ireland and Scotland. |
==========================================
For further detail, please
refer to:
Nyland, Edo. 2001. Linguistic Archaeology: AnIntroduction. Trafford Publ., Victoria, B.C., Canada.
ISBN 1-55212-668-4. 541 p. [ see
abstract & summary]
Nyland, Edo. 2002.
Odysseus and the Sea Peoples: A
Bronze Age History of Scotland Trafford Publ., Victoria,
B.C., Canada.
307 p. [see
abstract & summary].
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