The Myth of History
We have all been taught many "facts" about the history of our world, and most of them are being proved wrong. Modern nationalist thinking has blinded us to the true nature of ancient cultures, whose denizens would scarcely recognize themselves in the distorted mirror in which we represent them. What we are about to share here is still considered academic heresy by old-guard university professors; but it is gaining credibility, nonetheless. The idea of localized, insular societies is slowly giving way to an image of vigorous global interaction through constant trade and migrations. Inevitably, greater understanding of oral traditions and acceptance of this historical revisioning have meant a decline in the concept of "myth as fiction".
The resistance to parting with this outdated idea of myth arises from fears that in accepting "new" truths we might confer validation on cultures very different from our own, endangering the status quo. It may be so, but Truth is an immortal and inherent part of all that is. It endures even as fiction fades; it cannot be concealed forever. Long has our Truth lain quiet, waiting to be unearthed. Now, as scholarly brushes and spades clear the debris of two thousand years of misinformation, we find that the Old World is not the seat of all "real" culture (nor even the permanent home of any one culture). Equally as important, the New World emerges as a fitting rival of Europe's cultural heritage, possessed of an impressively rich, diverse, sacred, and venerable history. This history forms the other half of an historical dialogue between hemispheres that stretches back into antiquity.
With this realization, world folklore and the old oral traditions are earning a new (if grudging) respect in the Halls of Learning. What is being revealed is no surprise to the Wise of Avalon; we know it from our lore. But to the world at large these revelations will seem strange, even far-fetched. How could it be that so much could be hidden by so few for so long? Why were glaring inconsistencies in conventional wisdoms never questioned until now? And what does it all mean to the practice of Druidry today? ... We invite you to join us as we explore these questions.
A Word on Sources
It is not our way to spend time "proving" the verity of our oral tradition to others. We must each find our own answers in this world, and none of us will do so completely objectively. Even the best arguments are biased, if only by their omissions. What we share here is a response to "new scholarly thinking" that verifies certain of our teachings that have been ridiculed by Druid and academic alike. That tide is now turning. Science and academia now find themselves forced to confront a volume of evidence that, until quite recently, they had "omitted to mention". In doing so, they provide us opportunity to celebrate the wisdom of our ancestors and the teachings of our spiritual lineage.
We ask visitors to these pages to accept our comments on modern academic research for what they are: an oral tradition's stated observations about academic research at a point where the two coincide. We do not ask that you adopt our views; only that you afford us the same respect and courtesy you would show representatives of any spirituality about which you have only second hand knowledge. It is our hope not to convert you to our way of thinking, but to inspire you to question certain basic, commonly-held assumptions about the nature of Truth and those entrusted to defend and uphold it.
Our contemplations range from the conventional to the controversial, and perhaps beyond. Of the various sources examined, we are particularly indebted to the work of Nicholas R. Mann in his book The Sacred Geometry of Washington, DC, which has proved an invaluable resource on modern American symbolism and iconography; to an essay by Prof. E.F. Legner (U. of California, Riverside, Dept. of Archaeology) which provides a convenient and fair summary of both sides of the modern academic debate; and to Barry Fell, whose book America BC started the academic firestorm. Those who are filled with doubt and outrage at the lack of proofs are referred to professor Legner's web pages for an appropriately long list of impressively credentialed authorities in support of the views here presented. Enjoy them with our compliments.
For the first time in recorded history, academic theory, science, and traditional wisdom have converged at a point of reluctant agreement ...
New Truth for a "New World"
" ... The evidence points to the certainty that European colonists and traders have been visiting or settling in the Americas for thousands of years, have introduced their scripts, artifacts, and skills, and have exported abroad American products such as copper and furs."
From "European Bronze Age Visitors in America",
by Prof. E.F. Legner, University of California, Riverside, Dept. of Archaeology
As people from mainly modern industrialized nations, we've all grown up with the idea that there is an "Old World" and a "New World". The Old World is the source of all learning, culture, and wisdom. The New World is the dwelling-place of savages whose Stone Age ancestors arrived from the Far East via the Berring Straits, and later from Europe. Europe's superior civilization allowed the white man to wrest the New World from its native inhabitants, claiming it for his own ... Later historians recast the New Worlders in the mold of "noble savages" whose culture was, regrettably, a casualty of the relentless march of 'progress'.
Likewise as Druids we've all "grown up" believing that the Celts came from central Europe and spread in all directions bringing Druidism with them, and establishing Celtic Britain as its highest Seat. This reasoning appears sound, given the right context. But is it true? That Celtic culture was not the source of Druidism seems plain enough since the Celts themselves attest to meeting "native Druids" upon arriving in the Isles, and to sharing kings' counsels with them. Surely the Celts, a people who venerated the subtleties of language and believed in its power to manifest reality, would not have bandied about a title as culturally-loaded as "Druid" as if it were a generic term for all mysterious people -- nor does their literature suggest this. If we are to take Celtic Druidism seriously, we must accept the Celts' word that "native Druids" preceded them in the Isles, and that these native practitioners included both men and women. So who were these native Druids and where did they come from? ...
There are currently two academic theories. The first is that they were always in the Isles; the second is that they returned to the Isles and Europe from North America bringing megalithic culture with them. The second theory posits a very ancient migration of early Europeans to the New World following some environmental catastrophe. Although generally considered the less plausible, it is supported by native American lore describing waves of settlers or invaders -- including three incursions of European-type peoples (tall, pale skinned, fair and red-headed people, and a smaller, darker "stranger race"). This native lore has also been discounted as fantasy or fiction ... until now.
As with all momentous discoveries, this one is attended by its own particular signs and symbols, cut into the living rock and the bones of the dead on both sides of the Atlantic; signs that have been systematically ignored or discredited by American and British authorities. However, recently recognized European scholars had opportunity to partner with young American academics to evaluate the evidence firsthand. The American scholars published their findings first and were quickly dismissed as "kooks" promoting a pseudo-history; but it is proving more difficult to dismiss their European colleagues, among whom are a growing number of prestigious scientists, philosophers, linguists, and academics. It is the opinion of this growing scholarly body that the past can speak for itself; that it has, in fact, been shouting its truth into deaf ears for the past two millennia.
Voice of the Past
The Mother Tongue
"The primary physical evidence comprises a series of inscriptions cut in the Tifinag and Ogam consaine alphabets, using an early form of the Norse tongue, scattered around the outer margins of the petroglyph site at Peterborough [Ontario, Canada]."
Barry Fell, 1982
If he had been a Druid, Barry Fell would be the New World's Iolo Morganwg. Notorious for his unconventional research methods, Fell's books purport to prove that ancient cultures traded and settled the New World, leaving their marks on its landscape in the form of sites, artifacts, and mysterious messages carved in stone. What he calls megalithic monuments, others call boulders, walls, and root cellars. What he calls Ogham, others called plow-marks. He was not a professional archaeologist or linguist, but a retired Harvard professor of oceanography whose university detractors still queue up to denounce his findings. Was Fell a genius or a deluded kook? Did he rediscover America's true history or was he the creator of a flattering, but fictional past that steals Old World fire to mask American cultural inadequacy? ... The firestorm that Fell's work initially sparked has largely faded before blaring criticism; but recent research redeems many of Fell's conclusions (if not his methods). Apparently, most of what we were taught about world history was wrong -- and the notorious Barry Fell was right.
Letters Home
"... We are faced, therefore, with what amounts to conclusive evidence that the artifacts (including written inscriptions) of European peoples of the Bronze Age are found at American archaeological sites, [with] skeletons [that] conform to Europoid criteria ... Thus, whether or not we can comprehend the sailing techniques of Bronze Age peoples, the fact seems inescapable that Bronze Age Europeans reached North America."
From "European Bronze Age Visitors in America",
by Prof. E.F. Legner, University of California, Riverside, Dept. of Archaeology
We see no reason to presume that the ancient Celts, alone amongst ancient European traders and settlers, did not come to the New World. If we accept their presence (at least from the Bronze Age), how will this change *our* world? Well let's be honest. It would change nearly everything, for everyone. The modern concept of Druidism as the exclusive and rightful property of insular Celts would be insupportable. (In fact, we would have to radically modify our ideas about who is "Celtic".) "New Worlders" would need to broaden considerably our concepts of "ancestral lands" and "first peoples". The "powers that be" would be forced to explain the agenda behind sweeping so much evidence under the carpet for so long. Terms of land treaties and concepts of ownership would need to be revisited and revised, raising new questions and undoing some past resolutions ... Wouldn't it be better to go on as we have been, rather than upset the applecart?
Certainly this is what some governments must think as they bulldoze sites and warehouse their contents; but is this what a Druid should think? Should the most progressive minds in the world simply accept what others tell them because the alternative breaks with conventional thinking? What of the Celtic motto, "Truth Against the World"? And what of the ancestors we claim to venerate? How can we honour them if we venerate our own expectations over reality? Surely Druids should be doing everything possible to discover the truth, however improbable it might seem. And who better to guide our inquiries than the ancestors themselves? ...
The Houses of the Dead
"... [Analogous] features suggesting early European penetration into North America include the low circular burial mounds ... [radio-carbon dated] from about 5000 BC (amino-acid date 7200 Before Present), until about 500 BC. ... When the evidence of inscriptions is taken into account, ... the relationship of the American examples to those of northern Europe becomes undeniable."
From "European Bronze Age Visitors in America",
by Prof. E.F. Legner, University of California, Riverside, Dept. of Archaeology
Any Druid who has lived in and seriously explored the northeastern United States has encountered them; and those with significant experience of their sister-sites in the Isles will instantly recognize them. Unlike their overseas cousins, they have not been "tidied up" by helpful archaeologists. Druids do not vie for the right to hold ritual around them, nor are they the pampered recipients of the care of a National Trust. In many cases their very anonymity is all that has saved them from those who believe that anything pre-Christian or non-Christian must be "Satanic". All in all, they are perfect examples of the way the world treats the idea of an American history. And yet ... on the hilltops of Maine and Massachusetts, along the Spirit Way, at the earthworks in Ohio, and in the quiet valleys of West Virginia, clusters of dolmens, ring stones, cairns, and passage graves still dot the landscape.
They do not resemble the Amerindian sites with which they are usually conflated. Who could possibly mistake flat-topped, terraced pyramids for barrow mounds? Or confuse a row of standing stones with a drystone wall? Who would be so unobservant as to mistake "European" ring stones for the spoked medicine wheels of the plains? ... Yet we are asked to believe that both Druids and credentialed experts have done so -- not once, but on every occasion where "European" megaliths have been identified at American sites. Curious, that there are so many sloppy experts at liberty in the world!
"[Funkhouser and Webb] proposed that several distinct races are represented ... in Kentucky area burials ... C-13 corrected radio-carbon dating by Geochron Laboratories, Cambridge ... yielded an age of 2,160 years plus or minus 135 years [i.e. 3rd century BC]."
From "European Bronze Age Visitors in America",
by Prof. E.F. Legner, University of California, Riverside, Dept. of Archaeology
The argument has been made that these American sites could not have been made by the same people or culture that made their sister-sites in Europe because Amerindian remains have also been found in many of them. This is rather like saying that Anglo-Saxon burials couldn't have been made by Anglo-Saxons because mainland Celts were also found in them. When such burials have been found in the Isles and Europe a completely different interpretive criteria has been employed than is applied to American sites. Why? ...
Because the Truth does not serve what most people prefer to believe.
The Truth is not simple. It does not provide pat answers. It is not comfortable. Mostly it is embarrassing, because it requires us all to acknowledge either that we've misled others or that we've allowed ourselves to be misled when *mounds* of evidence lay before us. As Druids, this is most troubling, for it requires us to look into Shadow's dark mirror: why has the Old World preferred to see us as backward children, and why have we ignored the evidence in order to accept the role?
