L 03-UP-004 Spain Io02(A)
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WHEN I BOARDED THE BUS IN FERROL, GALICIA, I ASKED THE CELTIC SPAIN? driver in Spanish, “Is this the bus to Cedeira?” He never looked In Galicia, a regional movement has been afoot since about at me but responded to my question in Gallego, the language 1981. It fashions itself around an assortment of ancestral of this northwest region of Spain. Gallego is related to both people believed to have once populated this northwestern Spanish and Portuguese, though it is much closer to Portuguese. region of Iberia: Celts, matriarchs, healer witches (meigas), When I asked for clarification in Spanish, he began a long naturalists, and pilgrims. Galicians place a lot of nationalistic diatribe in Gallego as people on emphasis on their traditional the bus nodded their agreement. instrument, the gaeta, a form of One woman finally smiled at me bagpipe they popularly claim to compassionately and grabbed my be of Celtic origin. Galicians sleeve, inviting me to take a seat. also highlight their focus on the All she said was, “Si, Cedeira.” natural world, both ecological It took me a few more days in and metaphysical. They stress the 1 2 3 Galicia to learn that I was experi- rain and green of their prov- ince — comparing it to Ireland, OPPOSITE PAGE, 1 and 2: An engrav- Scotland, and Wales — rather ing of a meiga, a healing witch, pro- than the perpetual sun of the rest tects the threshold to a gourmet food and wine shop in Santiago de of Spain. They emphasize their Compostela; 3: “Bar Celta” in Atlantic-based culture in contrast Santiago de Compostela, one of to the Mediterranean. All in all, the modern many northern bars, cafes, and tav- many Galicians stress that which erns that have taken up the Celtic distinguishes their region from spirit; 4 and 5: Galician claims to matriarchy often point to the promi- the rest of Spain. celts of nence of women in public. A case In recent years, there has also in point is this covered market in been an exponential growth in Santiago de Compostela where the Web sites on Celtic Galicia, with a majority of merchants are women; northern few linking Galician nationalism 6: The street and store front of Druida in Santiago de Compostela; 7 and to the Celtic past. One site, that 8: This Celtic female figure, a Galician of the leftist political party, spain Celtic-style of blue and white ceramic Partido Galeguista (http://www work, represents a common style of .png-pg.org/), draws on Celtic beer tap in bars and restaurants themes in defining the party’s STORY ARTWORK throughout Galicia. & platform and uses Celtic motifs 4 BY BEEBE BAHRAMI 5 encing not just a nationalist senti- in its Web design. The design ment expressed through language, group that developed Partido but a more ancestral feeling, one Galeguista’s site maintains its where Galicians speak a distinct own site dedicated to elaborating language from the rest of Spain on Galicia’s Celtic origins and both to assert autonomy and to traditions (http://www.novafan reconnect with their regional past, tasia.com/mamoa/english.html, one many will tell you is more click on “Celtic Galicia”). Celtic, matriarchal, and Atlantic An area of Spain defining itself than Castilian, patriarchal, and as Celtic may be surprising, but Mediterranean. This is a recent reconnection, permitted only in a time of globalization and rapid local changes worldwide, with the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. it is common to find people looking for something that Franco’s regime had prohibited many regional festivals, and it is distinguishes who they are and where they come from. only in the past two decades that Spanish regions, with great fan- The Celtic past is not as neat or as continuous as popular fare and enthusiasm, have been reintroducing old festivals and modern accounts would indicate. The ancient Celts never sometimes inventing new ones. went by that name, one given to some of the related tribes 6 7 8 WWW.MUSEUM.UPENN.EDU/PUBLICATIONS 33 Galician image of the Celts as accessible ances- tors whose influences continue into contem- porary Galician culture. The earliest known reference to the Celts in modern Galician history was in the mid-19th century by a group of Galician nationalists. Galicia has long been viewed as remote from the rest of Spain and overlooked by the country. It is the country’s poorest province, even in Spain’s current climate of economic development. (Most recently, it was the region hardest hit by the Prestige oil spill, a situation that is now severely challenging one of Galicia’s main industries, fishing.) In elections shortly before Franco seized power in 1936, the majority of Galicians voted for regional autonomy. Franco’s rise to power quickly ended nationalist movements in Galicia, but when public nationalist discussions surfaced again after his death, so did the Celts. This reconnection with the Celts has especially been prominent since the early 1990s, coinciding with Galicia’s desire to increase its profile in the rest of Spain and Europe. The most visible efforts were tourist campaigns to popularize the Christian pilgrimage (the Camino) to the Galician city of Santiago de Compostela. Certain Galicians, primarily from the middle class, wanted to connect Galicia’s distant past with the inter- The Castro de Baroña, a castro settlement over 2,000 years old, on Galicia’s western Atlantic coast. Many such castro remains are sprin- national present, which was brought into bold kled across Galicia. focus with multiple events in 1992: the Olympics in Barcelona, the World’s Fair in Seville, and (keltoi) observed by Classical writers in the sixth century paradox lies in chronology: the modern Celts are not the Madrid’s designation as Europe’s cultural capital. B.C. These tribes developed diverse cultures across Europe. present representatives of a people who have existed The typical attire of a male festival participant that is seen at many of the festi- In light of all these events, these Galicians ex- While there are certain similarities in cosmology, artistic continously for millennia but constitute a true case of vals in Galicia, such as the Festa Castrexa and the Festa Celta do Lugnasad. panded the focus of their cultural revival from pil- styles, and social organization, each tribal group developed ‘ethnogenesis’— the birth of an ethnic identity.” grims to another internationally recognized group very different social and cultural forms in the regions Some Galicians — and some of their neighbors to the waves, not so much of invasion and conquest, but of culture that they felt added to Galicia’s image as unique: the Celts. where they settled. east, the Asturians and the Cantabrians — are creating contact and tessorae, hospitality agreements, which were The effort of a Celtic revival — or any revival — is not histories and associated Celtic festivals that bring villagers often recorded on contracts carved in portable stone pieces. A CELTIC DRUID IN GALICIA directed toward understanding the past, however, but and townspeople together toward creating coherent These Celtic-related people and the indigenous Iberians During a visit in 1997 to Santiago de Compostela, I discov- toward creating a people of the present and a place of well-woven communities in the face of the fragmenting influenced each other’s cultures, mixed, and created a unique ered, on one of the many narrow medieval stone streets, a belonging in a rapidly changing world. As Simon James consequences of globalization. Globalization encourages Celtiberian culture. The Celtiberians were especially concen- storefront sign that read Druida. A standard collection of concludes in The Atlantic Celts — Ancient People or Modern this ethnogenesis. trated around the mountainous territories in the northeast, New Age paraphernalia dressed the window: fragrant healing Invention? the idea of modern Celts is not artificial because today’s Navarre and Aragon. Celtic-influenced tribes also candles, oils, and incense; Galician sculptures of meigas; “discrediting the insular Ancient Celts does not make the THE ANCIENT CELTS OF SPAIN spread to Portugal and northward into today’s Galicia, Celtic scroll designs on paper and carved in stone. Inside was modern Celts fraudulent. For more sophisticated under- During their expansion from somewhere in the east, a Celt- Asturias, and Cantabria. In such northern reaches, these a bulletin board with several announcements about esoteric standings of the nature of ethnic identities now available to related people arrived in Spain some 2,500 years ago. How people founded small settlements, called castros, in isolated classes in white magic, Galician traditional medicine and us, which reveal the Ancient Celts to be a modern construct, and why these people arrived in Spain is still open to debate. mountain and coastal environments, often on high places healing, Galician and Celtic legends, and ads for private tarot, equally suggest that the modern Celts constitute a perfectly The most likely scenario is one of a mobile people crossing for defense. Castro remains, numbering in the thousands runic, and psychic readings. I noticed one man’s name was real and legitimate ‘ethnic group.’ The resolution of this the Pyrenees and fanning out into the peninsula in several and concentrated mostly in Galicia, fuel the modern associated with all these advertisements. When I told the shop 34 VOLUME 45, NUMBER 1 EXPEDITION WWW.MUSEUM.UPENN.EDU/PUBLICATIONS 35 manager I was interested in meeting him, she directed me to the Popular “Celtic” motifs reproduced in tourist shops and revivals. lost through modernization and Accompanied by a local dog, office on the second floor. There I met a gregarious, energetic, Most are taken from archaeological artifacts and stone carvings globalization.