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Is it still appropriate to talk of a problem of the Picts?Pictish Religion
Thirty years ago Frederick Wainwright (1955) wrote that at the heart "of the problem of the Picts" was the question of "who were the Picts and where did they come from?" He said one should not speak of Picts before A.D. 297, when we first have evidence of the name.
In the evidence available to scholars, the first time the term Picti was used was in an anachronistic sense, in 297, by a Roman panegyrist Eumenius comparing the struggle between Constantius and Allectus with the struggle between Julius Caesar and the Britons who were used to enemies like the Picti and Hiberni . Smyth writes of of the complicated concepts introduced by linguists and archaeologists emphasising distinctions between proto-Picts, Picts and Priteni. He says that it is inappropriate to call the Caledonian chieftain Argentocoxos a proto-Pict, as the very people whom he ruled are described as Picts a century later during which time it was not possible for any new non-Celtic invaders to have reached the Pictish region . He states that the word Pictis essentially an historical term, introduced by Classical writers and taken up by early medieval monastic scribes to describe an historical people from the period 300 to 900. The word picti, meaning "painted people" was probably originally coined by Roman soldiers... who applied this military slang to their barbarian enemies living north of the Forth and Clyde in Caledonia. ..almost certainly because they dyed or tattooed their skin...and it stuck perhaps because of its vague resemblance to Priteni , a name which the Picts were called by their Celtic neighbours. It is claimed by some scholars that the Celtic name, Fortrui, (Latin Verturiones) means the people of the symbols, reinforcing the hypothesis that their distinguishing feature was body decoration.
Issues contributing to the perceived problem of the Picts Leslie Alcock has the following to say about the limitations and validity of Pictish studies previous to Wainwright: Behind much research lies an ideology which is restricted, among the contemporary peoples of northern Britain, to the Picts. 1. That ideology has its roots in the Venerable Bedes Historica Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, written in A.D. 731. Bede propounded 1.1. That the Picts came from Scythia 1.2. That having no womenfolk with them they obtained brides from the Irish 1.3. That, as a condition of obtaining these brides, they practised a form of royal descent which has been interpreted as matrilineal 1.4. That they gave Iona to the monks. Another element in the early ideology, perpetuated in the Declaration of Arbroath, was 1.5. That the Picts had been totally wiped out. 2. Although Alcock describes Frederick Wainwrights (1955) survey, expounded in The Problem of the Picts, as liberating and inspiring, he claims that its title also expresses an ideology which determines how we think about the Picts and therefore how we see them. In brief, recent scholars have thought of the Picts as a people 2.1. Of obscure origin 2.2. With a non-Indo-European language 2.3. Who are historically identifiable in eastern Scotland, north of the Forth, from A.D. 297 to about 845 2.4. Who may only be identified archaeologically through their sculptured stones 2.5. Who are the least understood of the early historic nations of Scotland 2.6. Who were regarded by their neighbours as especially savage and bestial .
3. Sally M. Foster lists six issues responsible for the evolution and sustenance of the so-called problem: 3.1. Pictish symbols 3.2. Pictish language 3.3. Matrilineal succession 3.4. The Foul Hordes Paradigm(barbarism) 3.5. The lack of Pictish documentary sources 3.6. The Picts as a lost people
The validity of the issues contributing to the problem paradigm 1. Bede , a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Jarrow, writing about 731, used sources which are known to be unreliable, notably an account by Gildas, a sixth century monk of either Welsh or Strathclyde origin, entitled Concerning the ruin and conquest of the Britons which cast the Picts as foul hordes. 2.1, 2.3 and 2.4 Concerning the issue of obscure origin Smyth says the 297 Roman writer assumed that Picts had always existed in Britain back to the time of Caesar. Smyth claims that all artefacts and monuments north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus, including the islands, from the 7th century BC to A.D. 850 may be described as Pictish. On strictly archaeological grounds, the difference between brochs and vitrified forts is not at all great....both ultimately derive from a common Celtic ring-fort or hill-fort ancestry. Their use of different building materials was initially, at least, due to the availability of stone, timber and earth for the construction of defences. He traces this origin further back to the Hallstat and La Tene Celtic Iron Age, which supports evidence regarding the essentially Celtic nature of the Pictish aristocracy. ...The vitrified and timber-laced forts have a chronological range from the 8th century BC to the end of the Pictish period. ... Timber-lacing, a feature of pre-Roman Celtic forts in Gaul, has been identified at such forts as Craig Phadraig, Burghead and Portknockie on the Moray Firth, and at Dundurn in Strathearn. We can be certain that all of these forts were occupied by the historical Picts. 2.2 and 3.2 On Pictish language Professor Nicolaisen says that for the purposes of his exploration of Pictish place-names the option that Pictish was a non-Celtic, non-Indo-European language will not be considered. In discussing the place-name element Pit- , he says it is agreed among scholars to mean piece, portion or share of land and is from a form of p-Celtic. 2.5 and 3.5 That they are the least understood of the early historic nations of Scotland is debatable. Only one text can be claimed to be Pictish, the so-called king-lists, which give lengths of reigns. A list compiled in 724 may have been derived from notes kept in the margin of Easter tables. However they were transcribed in the 14th century and obviously contain scribal errors and/or reflect later political interests . Although there is a lack of documentation on the Picts, there is a wealth of archaeological monuments and artefacts now established as Pictish. 2.6 and 3.4 The Foul Hordes Paradigm can be dismissed. It was a convention of writers to describe their enemies as given to monstrous atrocities, ... the commonplace jibes of neighbours. 3.1 The Pictish symbols, and their interpretation, while a source of controversy, provide information about the geographical distribution of the Picts and are indicators of a society which had surplus resources and stability to support craftsmen. 3.3 The issue of matrilineal succession is controversial. That fathers but no mothers names are given in the Pictish king lists argues against matriliny. That the named fathers were not themselves kings argues against patriliny. It may be that the Picts practised another system of succession, tanistry, in which during the lifetime of a king his successor was elected from a close royal kindred . This system avoided the rule of a boy king in the case of the early death of the ruler. 3.6 The Picts were not a lost people , their identity was subsumed and they became Scots, but it was the Dal Riata kingship that disappeared, not the Pictish one. Their form of land organisation was adopted (evidenced by the use of the Pit- place-name element), and St. Andrews the head Church of Pictland was not eclipsed.
Conclusion - newcomers or innovators Alcock concludes his paper with the claim, there is nothing uniquely mysterious or problematic about the Picts: they are a typical northwest European barbaric society, with wide connections and parallels not merely throughout Britain and Ireland, but across northern Europe and into hither Africa, and into the Mediterranean as well. What became of the Tilley lamp users who dwelled in the rural north-east in the 1950s, who played cards and read books in their leisure time? Why were they superseded by a race of electricity users with televisions and computers by the 1990s? The answer, that they are the same people, or their descendants, may also be the answer to the problem of the Picts. In a pre-history essay in 1996, I drew the conclusion that in the state of present knowledge there is no evidence to dispute the claim that Recumbent Stone Circles were a local development. An initial reading of recent studies of the Picts leads me to a similar conclusion about them, namely that there is no evidence to dispute the claim that their uniquely Pictish culture was a local development . They were the same people who had been in the north-east from about 700 BC, who had evolved new ideas and/or adopted them from travellers or travel furth of Pictland and had retained their own variant of p-Celtic.
© Phyllis J. Goodall 1998
Bibliography Alcock, L, Pictish Studies: Present and Future. The Picts, a New Look at Old Problems (Ed. Alan Small) Dundee 1987. Anderson, M.O. (1987) Picts - the Name and the People . The Picts, A New Look at Old Problems. (Ed.) Alan Small, Dundee , 1987. Eumenius associates Picti, in the first documentary use of the name, with Irish raiders , Hiberni, as enemies of the Britanni Foster, S.M., Pict, Gaels and Scots (London 1996) Gildas tetri gregis/monstrous hordes Britain. 1st half of 6th century Nicolaisen W.F.H. the Picts and theirPlace-Names Inverness 1996 Smyth,. A.P. Warlords and Holy men, Scotland A.D. 80 -1000 (London 1984)
Evidence for pagan Pictish religionArchaeological data on burial customsDeliberate disposal of dead bodies is a necessary service in all societies that have moved beyond the stage where natural scavengers perform that function. However, when the disposal involves activities which are in excess of, or contradictory to, that required for the hygiene of the group or the comfort of the bereaved, then it could be assumed that they were performed in accordance with some religious belief. On this premise, some excavated burials provide evidence of pagan Pictish religion . Iron Age burials excavated in East Lothian dated by C14 are crouched or flexed inhumations. At Broxmouth, nine bodies were found in oval graves several of which were lined with stones. Six radio-carbon dates suggest the 3rd and 2nd century bc. For a group of ten similar graves at Dryburn Bridge C14 dates suggest between the 7th and 3rd centuries bc. In the early centuries AD the burial rite changed, and extended inhumation burial was introduced, whether under native or Roman influence. In Scotland some dozen or so graves can be attributed to the first two or three centuries AD by their goods. Near Dunbar in 1962 a slab-lined cist was found with the jumbled remains of at least twenty-one individuals and traces of a primary crouched inhumation. Grave goods dated it to the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. At Burnmouth a long grave lined with boulders held the flexed inhumation of an adult male, with pig bones and iron dagger, and decorated bronze spoons dated to the first half of the 1st century AD. A boulder-lined cist at Camelon in Stirlingshire held a crouched inhumation with an iron sword. The most common type of grave found in Dark Age Scotland is the long cist, generally oriented E-W with the head to the west, where the inhumed body, without grave goods, is extended in a narrow full-length grave, lined, roofed and often floored with flat stone slabs. They may be found in cemeteries of up to several hundred graves and are generally assumed to be Christian. Audrey Henshall has suggested a likely date within the 6th to 9th centuries AD.
1. Class I stones
The symbols Sally M. Foster writes of a unique range of at least fifty Class I symbols. Twenty of them are representations of animals, including a bull, cow, horse, boar, stag, wolf, bear, lion, serpent, salmon, eagle and goose. "Only three of the designs have a widespread distribution or occur more than twenty times: the so-called crescent; the double disc; and the Pictish beast/ swimming elephant. A V-rod and the double disc often overlie the crescent by a Z-rod, (which sometimes overlies other symbols), but never the other way round. Siting There is a number factors in the siting of symbol stones: a south-east, or failing that, north-east facing slope, a relatively low altitude and proximity to water. But more significant between the Dee and the Spey "was proximity to or coincidence with a site" which had ritual associations before the erection of a symbol stone." Inglis gives as one example Broomend of Crichie just below the confluence of the Don and the Urie where there "is evidence of ritual activities taking place, at least intermittently, from around four thousand years ago until well into the historic period. A V-rod and crescent over a Pictish beast symbol was incised on one of the monoliths".
If the Class I symbol stones were incised after the Christianisation of the Picts, the hypothesis that pagan interpretations can be attached to the symbols is invalidated. Inglis quotes three competing chronologies for the start of the carving of the symbols. The first favours the 5th 6th century AD (Laing & Laing 1985), the second advocates the 7th century (Henderson 1967), and a third favours the 7th 8th century (Stevenson 1955; 1959; 1971). The latter two depend on relating the symbols (speculatively) to manuscript art and on the concept that the earlier executed symbols show an ideal form from which the later fall away. The 5th 6th century date is arrived at by comparisons between the symbols and artefacts dated mainly by archaeological techniques to the 4th 5th centuries. This earlier chronology places start of the symbols within pagan times.
2. Documentary references to Pictish activities with possible pagan religious motives. "The scattered material (on Celtic mythology and religion) that does exist is often complicated by the influence of other cultures, thus forcing the researcher to analyse impure information ". As I lack the scholarship to analyse such information, I have used only the course notes.
Annals of Tigernach 739 Talorcan, Drostans son, king of Atholl, was drowned by Oengus. Adamnan, Life of Columba. At another time, when the blessed man abode for some days in the kingdom of the Picts, he heard a rumour spread among the heathen people concerning another fountain, which the stupid folk reverenced as a god The nature of pagan Pictish religion
1. The Picts were Celtic
Frederick Wainwright (1955) wrote of the question of "who were the Picts and where did they come from?" Since then studies in several disciplines have led to the consensus that they were Celtic. Smyth says of brochs and vitrified forts that both ultimately derive from a common Celtic ring-fort or hill-fort ancestry. He traces this origin further back to the Hallstat and La Tene Celtic Iron Age, which supports evidence regarding the essentially Celtic nature of the Pictish aristocracy. Professor Nicolaisen says that for the purposes of his exploration of Pictish place-names the option that Pictish was a non-Celtic, non-Indo-European language will not be considered. Alcock claims about the Picts: they are a typical north-west European barbaric society, with wide connections and parallels not merely throughout Britain and Ireland, but across northern Europe and into hither Africa, and into the Mediterranean as well.
The crouched position of the Iron Age inhumations may be a mimicking of the foetal position in accordance with the Celtic belief in a rebirth into the next life, in contrast to the later extended inhumation, i.e. in a sleeping posture, which would accord with the Christian belief in an awakening at the Resurrection. Pagan religion required the attributes of certain status objects or animals to accompany the deceased to the Otherworld, hence the weapons and the pigs bones. Christianity requires only the faith of the deceased, hence the lack of grave goods.
Class I stones Sally M. Foster writes, "Many of the designs are animals which the Celts are known to have revered. Each animal traditionally possessed specific attributes and associations, which their artists may have trying to evoke. About seventeen of the designs have been tentatively identified as abstract representations of high status objects in North Britain between the first and third centuries: sword, harness-ring, cauldron, anvil, tongs, mirror, comb, brooch, armlet have been placed in Scottish Iron Age votive offerings or northern British burials. The Z-rod and V-rod have been interpreted as representations of broken and bent spears and arrows, perhaps referring to the north-west European practice of breaking weapons before deposition in order to release their strength to another world." The siting of symbol stones near to or coinciding with an ancient site may relate the Picts belief in a supernatural otherworld and their feeling that certain places were numinous. They may have regarded such sites as gateways between the worlds at certain times in the annual or lunar cycle.
Documentary references The drowning of Talorc and Talorcan may have been ritualistic. Laing & Laing write, "Human sacrifice (either by drowning or beheading) is suggested by the finds in the cave at Covesea, Moray. ...Pictish sculptures show a man dropped headfirst into a cauldron. The latter might have represented either sacrifice or rebirth: cauldrons figure prominently in Celtic legend." Columbas incident with the fountain evidences the Picts belief in the sacredness of water, particularly of wells.
Conclusion It would appear from their Iron Age burial rites and from the Class I symbols that the pagan religion practised by the Picts was like that of the other Celts. They "believed in a pantheon of gods and a supernatural otherworld; trees, hills, water, the sun and animals (wild, domesticated and fabulous) were all sacred to them." Bibliography Alcock, L, Pictish Studies: Present and Future. The Picts, a New Look at Old Problems (Ed. Alan Small) Dundee 1987. Anderson, M.O. (1987) Picts - the Name and the People . The Picts, A New Look at Old Problems. (Ed.) Alan Small, Dundee , 1987. Close-Brooks, J. (1984) Pictish and other Burials, British Archaeological Review (Eds. Friell & Watson) 125, 184. Foster, S.M. Picts, Gaels and Scots (London) 1996. Inglis, J.,Patterns in Stone, Patterns in population: Symbol Stones seen from beyond the Mounth , The Picts, A New Look at Old Problems. (Ed.) Alan Small, Dundee , 1987. Laing & Laing, The Picts and the Scots Stroud 1993. Nicolaisen W.F.H. the Picts and their Place-Names Inverness 1996 Smyth, A.P. Warlords and Holy men, Scotland A.D. 80 -1000 (London 1984) Turner, V.The Mail stone: an incised Pictich figure from Mail, Cunningsburgh, Shetland, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 124 (1994),
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