should the modern descendents of pre-anglo saxon peoples of the isles and in the isles take the mantle of indigenous in today's world to align politically & culturally with the movements on indigenous sovereign rights? is this something they have a right to claim?
The Anglo-Saxon invasions has little to no bearing on our understanding of settler colonialism, which is a product of profoundly modern social structures (nations, states, and capital), so no, the pre-Anglo-Saxon inhabitants (Presumably the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Gaels in Scotland, Ireland and Man) have no claim to indiginaity on the basis of being there before the Anglo-Saxons. There were other peoples in Britain before the Celtic-speaking peoples arrived too.
Though I have been fairly vocal, both on here and in the debates in the Gaelic world currently going on, that I do believe that settler colonialism and therefore indiginaity is a useful way of reading the recent history of the Gaels, and I believe that Gaels are the indigenous inhabitants of the Gàidhealtachd (the Highlands and the western isles), this has nothing to do with ancient history or the Anglo-Saxon invasion, and everything to do with the expansion of state power, capitalist accumulation and great violence to remove one people and replace it with another in the form of the Plantations and following them of the Clearances in the Highlands.
I think that interpretations of indigineity as being ancient is sort of wrong-headed and rooted in a romantic nationalist understanding , rather than just looking at the actual situation that certain groups of people find themselves in in relation to settler colonialism as a system, as native and settler. The Sámi aren't indigenous because they're 'the original inhabitants of Scandinavia' as some people seem to believe, they're indigenous because the Scandinavian states decided to forcibly disposses then of land rights and use to hand it over to a settler population, primarily from the 19th century onward though with roots in the 16th.
you’re attacking that neopagan kind of birthstone post about druid plants, but could you please elaborate or at least clarify the explicit trope that is being used that has been historically weaponized?
I used to spend about a good third of my time on this godforsaken website attacking that idea, but sure, I'll do it again. This will be a bit of an effortpost, so I'll stick it under the readmore
There is a notion of 'celts' or Gaels as being magicial and somehow deeply in touch with nature and connected to pre-Christian worldviews that the people who decided to make up the "Celtic tree astrology" used. This is also why Buffy used Irish Gaelic as the language of the demons, why Warhammer uses Gaelic as Elvish, why garbled Scottish Gaelic is used by Wiccans as the basis for their new religious construct, why people call themselves Druids to go an say chants in bad Welsh in Stonehenge, or Tursachan Chalanais, or wherever, etc etc. This stuff is everywhere in popular culture today, by far the dominant view of Celtic language speaking peoples. Made up neopagan nonsense is the only thing you find if you go looking for Gaelic folklore, unless you know where to look, and so on and so on. I could multiply examples Endless, and in fact have throughout the lifespan of this blog, and probably will continue to.
To make a long history extremely brief (you can ask me for sources on specifics, or ask me to expand if you're interested), this is directly rooted in a mediaeval legalistic discussion in Catholic justifications for the expansionist policies of the Normans, especially in Ireland, who against the vigourous protestation of the Church in Ireland claimed that the Gaelic Irish were practically Pagan in practice and that conquest against fellow Christians was justified to bring them in like with the Church. That this was nonsense I hope I don't need to state. Similar discourses about the Gaels in Scotland exist at the same time, as is clear from the earliest sources we have postdating the Gaelic kingdom of Alba becoming Scotland discussing the 'coastal Scots' - who speak Ynglis (early Scots) and are civilised - and the 'forest Scots' (who speak 'Scottis' (Middle Gaelic) and have all the hallmarks of barbarity. This discourse of Gaelic savagery remains in place fairly unchanged as the Scottish and then British crowns try various methods for integrating Gaeldom under the developing early state, provoking constant conflict and unrest, support certain clans and chiefs against others and generally massively upset and destabilise life among the Gaels both in Scotland and Ireland. This campaign, which is material in root but has a superstructure of Gaelic savagery and threat justifying it develops through attempts at assimilation, more or less failed colonial schemes in Leòdhas and Ìle, the splitting of the Gaelic Irish from the Gaelic Scots through legal means and the genocide of the Irish Gaels in Ulster, eventually culminates in the total ban on Gaelic culture, ethnic cleansing and permanent military occupation of large swathes of Northern Scotland, and the destruction of the clan system and therefore of Gaelic independence from the Scottish and British state, following the last rising in 1745-6.
What's relevant here is that the attitude of Gaelic barbarity, standing lower on the civilisational ladder than the Anglo Saxons of the Lowlands and of England, was continuously present as a justification for all these things. This package included associations with the natural world, with paganisms, with emotion, and etc. This set of things then become picked up on by the developing antiquarian movement and early national romantics of the 18th century, when the Gaels stop being a serious military threat to the comfortable lives of the Anglo nobility and developing bourgeoise who ran the state following the ethnic cleansing after Culloden and permanent occupation of the Highlands (again, ongoing to this day). They could then, as happened with other colonised peoples, be picked up on and romanticised instead, made into a noble savage, these perceived traits which before had made them undesirable now making them a sad but romantic relic of an inexorably disappearing past. It is no surprise that Sir Walter Scott (a curse upon him and all his kin) could make Gaels the romantic leads of his pseudohistorical epics at the exact same time that Gaels were being driven from their traditional lands in their millions and lost all traditional land rights. These moves are related. This tradition is what's picked up on by Gardner when he decides to use mangled versions of Gaelic Catholic practice (primarily) as collected by the Gaelic folklorist Alasdair MacIlleMhìcheil as the coating for Wicca, the most influential neo-pagan "religion" to claim a 'Celtic' root and the base of a lot of oncoming nonsense like that Celtic Tree Astrology horseshit that started this whole thing, and give it a pagan coat of paint while also adding some half-understood Dharmic concepts (three-fold law anyone?) and a spice of deeply racist Western Esotericism to the mix. That's why shit like that is directly harmful, not just historically but in the present total blotting out of actually existing culture of Celtic language speakers and their extremely precarious communities today.
If you want to read more, I especially recommend Dr. Silke Stroh's work Gaelic Scotland in the Colonial Imaginary, Dr. Aonghas MacCoinnich's book Plantation and Civility in the North-Atlantic World, the edited collection Mio-rún Mór nan Gall on Lowland-Highland divide, the Gaelic writer known in English as Ian Crichton Smith's essay A real people in a real place on these impacts on Gaelic speaking communities in the 20th century, Dr. Donnchadh Sneddons essay on Gaelic racial ideas present in Howard and Lovecrafts writings, and Dr. James Hunter's The Making of the Crofting Community for a focus on the clearings of Gaels after the land thefts of the late 18th and early 19th century.
@grimdr an do chaill mi dad cudromach, an canadh tu?
The hunt to Sùlasgeir is supposed to go on this year for the first time in five years, due to first COVID and then bird flu. If it doesn't go ahead this year it would be very difficult to make it go ahead at any point, as people go too old and skills transmission doesn't occur do to the hunt happening so rarely. The guga caught is an important part of the traditional diet of the Gaels of Lewis; the hunters make use of various traditional equipment and skills along the way; the sheiling that the hunters stay in is one of extremely few sheilings that are still in use across the Highlands since Clearance, and shows evidence of continuous use and inhabitation for several hundred years. The preparation process involves the entire community back on the Lewis mainland.
We've known that the hunters at Sùlasgeir have hunted there almost every year for at least hundreds of years. Archeological evidence is scarce - no real survey of the skerry has happened - but historical evidence goes back to at least Martin Martin, who's Journey to the Hebrides describes the hunt and says that it has then happened for as long as anyone can recall.
If the guga hunt for household use of a small community were a threat to the survival of gannetts, they would not come to Sùlasgeir every year for hundreds of years. The environmental groups and individual keyboard freaks who are currently harassing a small community of very poor people who have endured centuries of discrimination, two ethnic cleansings and one attempted genocide and all the trauma that entails can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned.
Mholainn gu làidir an leabhar seo do dhuine sam bith le ùidh ann am beul-aithris nan Gàidheal is seann-sgeulachdan às na meadhan-aoisean. Chan eil mi eòlach air cruinneachadh eile den t-seòrsa seo a tha ann an clò agus reusanta ruigsinneach do leughadair Gàidhlig an là an-diugh - tha cuid den t-seanchas eachdraidheil an seo nach biodh ach iomchaidh ann an sàga Lochlannach no an leithid - gu h-àraid an dà chunntas fada air Blàr Tràigh Ghruinneart, tha iad gun choimeas mar sgeulachdan. Cha do thachair mi air beul-aithris eile aig an robh faireachdainn cho meadhan-aoiseil ris. Faigh e is leugh e ma tha an cothrom agad.
D. -Ach ciamar chaidh dhaibh nuair ràinig am feachd Pholiceman iad
A. -'S e 'th' air sin naidheachd. Chaidh na mnathan gu treuntas anabarach.
D. -Càite air an t-saoghal an robh na fir nuair 's e na mnathan a thionndaidh a-mach?
A. -Bha iad aig an taigh a' toirt an àire air na pàistean 's a bhruich [sic] bhuntata 's sgadain.
D. -Dè dhèanadh na mnathan feadh na bha siud de Pholiceman?
A. -Nach gòrach thu a Dhòmhnaill! Nuair chaidh na mhathan an tarraing, chan fhaicheadh tu cùlaibh spailpein caola Ghlaschu le stùr a' fàgail a' ghlinne.
(Litreachadh an là an-diugh)
Tìm an Òbain, 17mh den Mhàirt 1883- tha an Còmhradh seo a' dèanamh iomradh air Blàr a' Chumhaing anns an Eilean Sgìtheanach, nuair a chuir muinntir a' Bhràighe - is gu seachd àraid na boireannaich - an ruaig air feachd phoileis a bha air tighinn suas bho Ghlaschu gus daoine fhuadachadh.
The committment and pride of Gaels to being miserable bastards never fails to make me laugh. The Gaelic congregation was debating something after the service (in Gaelic) and one of the old islanders paused for a while, thinking and then said (translated) "...What's the Gaelic for Optimist?", to which an old lady from Lewis replied, quick as a whip, "There's no word for it. We've never needed it."
I love this people so much.
The Highlands is the kind of ecological desert you get after genociding an indigenous people and replacing their multifaceted economic activity with a fucking monoproduce headed exclusively by the interests of capital. Stop romanticising it, it's not supposed to be the way it is.
Is e an-diugh an 140mh ceann-là de Bhlàr a' Chumhaing, no Battle of the Braes sa chànain eile, ann an sgìre a' Bhràighe san Eilean Sgitheanach. B' ann eadar poilis Ghlaschu agus croitearan is cotairean an eilein a bha am blàr seo, is na Gàidheil a' strì son còirichean talmhainn a chaidh a ghoid orra leis na h-uachdarain mhòra - gu sònraichte cead-ionaltraidh Bheinn Lì a bh' aca air chleachdadh cho fada is a bha Gàidheil san eilean - fhaighinn air ais. Bha an gall mòr seo air an robh 'Sherriff Ivory' ann an Port Rìgh os cionn poileas Gallta a bha feuchainn ri croitearan a dhliùilt aontachadh air cìsean gun chead-ionaltraidh fhaighinn an greim sa Bhaile Mheadhanach, ach chruinnich muinntir na sgìre aig a' Chumhang - 'dorast' na sgìre mar gum biodh - gus blàr is amhreit a chumail riutha, le badain is maide is clachan. Fhuair na croitearan saorsa, is phiobraich am blàr soirbheachail seo Gàidheil eile, air Gàidhealtachd is air fhògradh, gus ceartas a sheasamh ann an 'cogadh nan Croitearan'. Is iad as adhbhar a fhuair sinn Achd na Croitearachd, a chuir crìoch air linn nam fuadaichean, agus is iad as adhbhar a mhair a' Ghàidhlig idir beò dar linn fhèin. Cuireamaid clach air an càrn, is sìos leis a' phoileas, cho fìor an-diugh is a bha e nan là-san.
[Dealbh: an càrn-cuimhne faisg air Camas Dìonabhaig san Eilean Sgìtheanach, air an urrainnear na leanas a leughadh: Faisg air a' Chàrn seo, air an 9mh là deug den Ghiblean 1882, chrìochnaich an cath a chuir muinntir a' Bhràighe air sgàth tuath na Gàidhealtachd]
