" The Picts were they Celts ?" Topic

Hello everyone,

The Picts were they Celts ?

Paskal

According to Wikipedia yes.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picts

Probably not, very different origins they were probably the last of the native peoples of the continent. The Pictish culture was very different to Celto germanic tribes. little gold no metals, still using flint arrow heads, poisoned. Evolved very quickly and disappeared / absorbed by the Celtic Scotti.

I'll have to re-read THE AGE OF ARTHUR by John Morris

or The Celts were they Picts ?

Bear in mind that:
a) people are no longer so sure about the old East-West Celtic migration theory. There are theories now that Celtic culture spread out of Ireland and moved East.

b) Celtic isn't really a description of a people/ethnic group but rather a cultural type. The Celts described by the Romans and Greeks are noted as being blond. The Irish are typically mousy haired, with a comparatively high proportion of red-heads, as have the Scots but not modern Scandinavians, suggesting that red hair does not come from the Viking contact.

So whether the culture we think of as Celtic moved East to West or West to East, the people themselves weren't necessarily migrating in huge numbers. If the Picts are different to the rest of the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, it's because they didn't adopt Celtic cultural and technological norms, not because they weren't "ethnically" Celtic, since it seems there isn't really such a useful category. Not sure if that's very useful.

Cheers,
John

Moreover, the Insular Bretons (whom an abusive and anachronistic Anglicism would like to designate under the name of Britons, an English term stemming from the Latin Brito and which means similarly) who, before the sixth century, lived in the island of Britain and who are the direct ancestors of the Bretons of Brittany without forgetting their northern neighbors the Caledonians painted also their bodies in blue as the Picts did, but the Picts did it until when?

From south to north of the actual uk, Insular Bretons, Caledonians, Picts all had the same custom of painting their bodies in blue, would not they be Picts, Celts? (Some Gallic also Celts also had the same custom to paint their body in blue, but not so late as it seems …).

Woad is a native species from the steppes and deserts of Central/Western Asia,the Caucasus and Siberia.That's a fair bit of Scythia BTW

The Scythians tattooed themselves and to Greek minds they were the perfect example of the "Others". It's not a huge stretch that Romans,influenced by Greek thinking/culture, would award similar traits to their descriptions of the "Others".

To the Greeks Scythia was a huge no-mans land and included everywhere they didn't have a name for. Some of the very early semi-historians,like Bede, claim this or that people originated in Scythia. They don't actually mean Central Europe or The Steppes,they mean "Out There" in the great unknown.

Indeed, Bede, monk and angled angle and all Anglo-Saxons considered the picts and insular Bretons as foreigners …

Indeed the word welsh,the name welsh frequent throughout Britain, corresponds to the Germanic root walah (= foreign), found in Wales (= Wales) and Welsh (= Welsh). He designated all those who did not belong to the Germanic peoples.

The Celts were called strangers at home by the last arrivals..?

Paskal

"The Celts were called strangers at home by the last arrivals..?"

Sadly nothing unusual about that. Even today I wonder just how welcome the Indian Nations feel in their homeland.

Anyway as you have a bee in your bonnet regarding all things Celtic, and how they tie in with your Breton heritage, let me recommend the books by Peter Beresford Ellis.

kodiakblair

Yes, except that in Brittany, when you say that you are a native Breton (and that people save it)and not a Gallo-Roman descendant of the Gauls of Armorique or I do not know what else, all those who are not are crushed.

If I were an Indian in the U.S. for example a pure Lakota or Cheyenne or even another Indian nation who fought the whites, I would be …(I do not prefer to say it!).