In the present state of archæological inquiry, it would be presumptuous to assign dogmatically the precise races to which the arts of each period pertain. Still the indications both of archæological and direct historical evidence manifestly point to the Celtæ as comparatively late intruders, and leave us to seek, with little hesitation, in their Allophylian precursors for the metallurgists of the Archaic Period. In the Kumbe-kephalic Allophyliæ, we may expect to trace the rude primeval workers in stone, with undefined sepulchral rites, and no distinct evidences of a faith or hope beyond the grave. Upon this meanly gifted race the Brachy-kephalic Allophyliæ intruded, bringing with them, in all probability, the knowledge of metallurgic arts, yet effecting their aggressions by such slow degrees that, as we have seen, their arts appear to have reached our northern regions long before the rude aborigines were called upon to employ them in repelling their originators. From these as well as other arguments we infer, that when the earliest Celtic nomades first reached our coasts, they found the older natives already in possession of weapons of bronze, and familiar with the most essential processes of the metallurgist. Whether the Celtæ had acquired any knowledge of iron at the period of their arrival in Europe must have depended to a great extent on the nature of their previous intercourse with the civilized nations of Central Asia; but the smelting of the iron ore and the working of the metal to any great extent, are manifestly altogether incompatible with the condition of a nomade people, migrating across a continent the partial clearings of which were already occupied by hostile races. Some reference has been made in a former chapter to evidence which an investigation of the languages of the Indo-European nations furnishes as to the degree of progress to which they had attained at the period of their dispersion. It would lead us to infer that they were either entirely ignorant of the use of the metals, or had lost this useful knowledge amid the exigencies and privations of their nomade life. In so far, therefore, this important source of ethnological evidence involves nothing essentially inconsistent with the idea of the metallurgic arts being introduced in Britain for the first time among a Celtic population already established on the soil. The earliest knowledge, however, which we acquire of the continental Celtæ exhibits them as skilled workers in metals, and even the Romans appear to have acquired their principal supplies of iron and the art of converting it into steel, from the Norici, a Celtic race who occupied a considerable tract of country south of the Danube. Whatever was the precise state to which this race had sunk at the period of its earliest pioneers intruding on the Allophylian nations of Europe, the supremacy acquired by them is sufficient evidence of their innate superiority. Possessed originally of good mental capacity, so soon as the successive wandering hordes of the Indo-European stock formed permanent locations, it is to be presumed that evidences of their powers would be manifested; but even in their nomade state they bore with them some of the elements by which the Arian tribes are held to be distinguishable from the older Allophylian nations.
"They had bards or scalds, vates, ἀοιδοι, who were supposed under a divine influence to celebrate the history of ancient times, and connect them with revelations of the future, and with a refined and metaphysical system of dogmas, which were handed down from age to age, and from one tribe to another, as the primeval creed and possession of the enlightened race. Among them, in the West as well as in the East, the doctrine of metempsychosis held a conspicuous place, implying belief in an after state of rewards and punishments, and a moral government of the world. With it was connected the notion that the material universe had undergone and was destined to undergo a repetition of catastrophes by fire and water; and after each destruction to be renewed in fresh beauty, when a golden age was again to commence, destined in a fated time to corruption and decay. The emanation of all beings from the soul of the universe, and their refusion in it, which were tenets closely connected with this system of dogmas, border on a species of Pantheism, and are liable to all the difficulties attendant upon that doctrine.
"Among most of the Indo-European nations the conservation of religious dogmas, patriarchal tradition, and national poetry, was confided not to accidental reminiscences and popular recitations, but to a distinct order of persons, who were venerated as mediators between the invisible powers and their fellow-mortals, as the depositaries of sacred lore, and interpreters of the will of the gods expressed of old to the first man, and handed down orally in divine poems, or preserved in a sacred literature known only to the initiated. In most instances they were an hereditary caste, Druids, Brahmans, or Magi. Among the Allophylian nations, on the other hand, a rude and sensual superstition prevailed, which ascribed life and mysterious powers to the inanimate objects."[401]
The contrasting religion of fetisses and spells, ascribed to the Allophylian nations, has already been referred to. It still exists among the Finns and Lappes of the north of Europe, and the Vogules, Ostiakes, and Esquimaux, occupying the northern regions of Asia and America, whither we may naturally conclude they have been driven by the intrusion of the superior races. To these, perhaps, we must look for the living type of the primeval Briton, and to their rude superstitions for some shadowy tradition of the creed by which his untutored mind took hold of the unseen. How much of the refined system of metaphysical dogmas ascribed by Dr. Prichard as a general characteristic of the Arian nations, pertained to those of them that colonized Britain, we can only partially surmise. We know, however, that at the period when the annals of our island are first embraced within the limits of authentic written history, a native priesthood existed, combining not only the sacerdotal and judicial characters, so frequently found united in the priesthood of even comparatively civilized races, but also such influence as leaders and chiefs that the Romans found in them their most implacable and unrelenting foes. Hence their religious rites were early proscribed by the imperial lieutenants; and the Druid priest, who held fast by his mysterious faith and passionate love of national independence, fell back before the advancing legions of Rome, till he found partial and temporary repose within the ancient groves of the Caledonian Celt, beyond the Tyne and Solway. The traces of this, however, are extremely indistinct and uncertain; and so little evidence does Celtic tradition preserve of the distinction between the refined pantheistic creed of the Arian races, and the spells and superstitions of Allophylian aborigines, that the name of Druid, or Druidheadh, is used only by the modern Gael as significant of a magician or wizard. Before, however, the hereditary British priesthood had been driven into the northern fastnesses of the island, if not, indeed, before his race had effected a landing on its shores, the proofs which we possess seem clearly to manifest that the Archaic Period of native art had come to an end, and the last great change within the Pagan era, resulting from the introduction of the more abundant and more useful metal, iron, had begun to operate. Within that closing primitive era we arrive at the first glimpses of authentic records. Thus much has, meanwhile, proved to be recoverable, in the form of suggestive inferences, if not of ascertained truths, from amid the dim shadows that have for ages covered, as with the pall of oblivion, the history of our national infancy, and of its first youth.
FOOTNOTES:
[398] Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. i. pp. 193, 194, 244-271, &c.
[399] After making vain inquiries about this very remarkable relic, I have been fortunate enough, since the previous notice (ante, p. 114) was printed, to recover a drawing of it from a cast taken from the original, and now in the possession of J. Anderson, Esq., W.S., of Inverness. The shorter pieces appear to have formed the two extremities.
[400] The views here advanced were submitted to the Ethnological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at its meeting at Edinburgh, in 1850, along with those on the crania of the tumuli, in a communication entitled "An Inquiry into the Evidence of the Existence of Primitive Races in Scotland prior to the Celtæ."
[401] Prichard's Natural History of Man, p. 187.