The Religion of the Ancient Celts | Page 6

now hold the field:
(1) The Celts are identified with the progenitors of the short,
brachycephalic "Alpine race" of Central Europe, existing there in
Neolithic times, after their migrations from Africa and Asia. The type
is found among the Slavs, in parts of Germany and Scandinavia, and in
modern France in the region of Cæsar's "Celtæ," among the Auvergnats,
the Bretons, and in Lozère and Jura. Representatives of the type have
been found in Belgian and French Neolithic graves.[6] Professor Sergi
calls this the "Eurasiatic race," and, contrary to general opinion,
identifies it with the Aryans, a savage people, inferior to the
dolichocephalic Mediterranean race, whose language they Aryanised.[7]
Professor Keane thinks that they were themselves an Aryanised folk
before reaching Europe, who in turn gave their acquired Celtic and
Slavic speech to the preceding masses. Later came the Belgæ, Aryans,
who acquired the Celtic speech of the people they conquered.[8]
Broca assumed that the dark, brachycephalic people whom he

identified with Cæsar's "Celtæ," differed from the Belgæ, were
conquered by them, and acquired the language of their conquerors,
hence wrongly called Celtic by philologists. The Belgæ were tall and
fair, and overran Gaul, except Aquitaine, mixing generally with the
Celtæ, who in Cæsar's time had thus an infusion of Belgic blood.[9]
But before this conquest, the Celtæ had already mingled with the
aboriginal dolichocephalic folk of Gaul, Iberians, or Mediterraneans of
Professor Sergi. The latter had apparently remained comparatively pure
from admixture in Aquitaine, and are probably the Aquitani of
Cæsar.[10]
But were the short, brachycephalic folk Celts? Cæsar says the people
who call themselves "Celtæ" were called Gauls by the Romans, and
Gauls, according to classical writers, were tall and fair.[11] Hence the
Celtæ were not a short, dark race, and Cæsar himself says that Gauls
(including Celtæ) looked with contempt on the short Romans.[12]
Strabo also says that Celtæ and Belgæ had the same Gaulish
appearance, i.e. tall and fair. Cæsar's statement that Aquitani, Galli, and
Belgæ differ in language, institutions, and laws is vague and
unsupported by evidence, and may mean as to language no more than a
difference in dialects. This is also suggested by Strabo's words, Celtæ
and Belgæ "differ a little" in language.[13] No classical writer
describes the Celts as short and dark, but the reverse. Short, dark people
would have been called Iberians, without respect to skulls. Classical
observers were not craniologists. The short, brachycephalic type is now
prominent in France, because it has always been so, eliminating the tall,
fair Celtic type. Conquering Celts, fewer in number than the broad and
narrow-headed aborigines, intermarried or made less lasting alliances
with them. In course of time the type of the more numerous race was
bound to prevail. Even in Cæsar's day the latter probably outnumbered
the tall and fair Celts, who had, however, Celticised them. But classical
writers, who knew the true Celt as tall and fair, saw that type only, just
as every one, on first visiting France or Germany, sees his generalised
type of Frenchman or German everywhere. Later, he modifies his
opinion, but this the classical observers did not do. Cæsar's campaigns
must have drained Gaul of many tall and fair Celts. This, with the
tendency of dark types to out-number fair types in South and Central

Europe, may help to explain the growing prominence of the dark type,
though the tall, fair type is far from uncommon.[14]
(2) The second theory, already anticipated, sees in Gauls and Belgæ a
tall, fair Celtic folk, speaking a Celtic language, and belonging to the
race which stretched from Ireland to Asia Minor, from North Germany
to the Po, and were masters of Teutonic tribes till they were driven by
them from the region between Elbe and Rhine.[15] Some Belgic tribes
claimed a Germanic ancestry,[16] but "German" was a word seldom
used with precision, and in this case may not mean Teutonic. The fair
hair of this people has made many suppose that they were akin to the
Teutons. But fairness is relative, and the dark Romans may have called
brown hair fair, while they occasionally distinguished between the
"fair" Gauls and fairer Germans. Their institutions and their religions
(pace Professor Rh[^y]s) differed, and though they were so long in
contact the names of their gods and priests are unlike.[17] Their
languages, again, though of "Aryan" stock, differ more from each other
than does Celtic from Italic, pointing to a long period of Italo-Celtic
unity, before Italiotes and Celts separated, and Celts came in contact
with Teutons.[18] The typical German differs in mental and moral
qualities from the typical Celt. Contrast an east country Scot,
descendant of Teutonic stock, with a West Highlander, and the
difference leaps to the eyes. Celts and Germans of history differ, then,
in relative fairness, character, religion, and language.