Celtic Gallaecia: Encyclopedia II - Celtic Gallaecia - Introduction

Celtic Gallaecia - Introduction

It is known that in Galicia there were human settlers since prehistoric times, dating back to 3.000 years BC. The Greeks (so told by Strabo, b. 63 BC-d. 24 BC) knew the settlers resided on the north of the river Douro by the name of Kallaikoi, later the name Kallaikoi was translated into Latin as Gallaeci, Callaeci or Gallaicoi.

For the people who do not know it, we will remember that, following these old legends, the Gaels came from Scythia (more or less identified with the south of Ukraine, center of Romania or Polish Galitzia, nowadays). From there, they went to Egypt. Once their mission was fulfilled in Egypt, and after a brief return to Scythia, they went to Spain, which they conquered by force of arms, the conquest would be accomplished beginning by Galicia, which was followed by Asturias and Biscay. As we will see later, the amazing exactitude of this description even makes us suspect that; in fact, the upper Gael classes had always known the facts that occupy us, with all their details included. And finally, from the tower of Breogan (it is called Torre de Hércules, now) they descried Ireland, which they took after a cruel fight against the Tuatha De Danann.

It is necessary to show, on the other hand, that prior to the Roman conquest of Gallaecia, the main name the tribe received was the one of Gallaicoi, formed as local name (gentilice) respect to the root gall, that means Celt or Gaul, in general, and that was applied to all the associated tribes of this ethnic group, beginning by the classical transalpine Gauls. The Polish Galitzia or the reference from Herodotus to the region called Gallaica, next to the Black Sea, indicates us that the name was of an absolute majority for all the Eastern populations of Celts; surely the well-known Galatians did not have, in this sense, another name that one more variant of Gall.

The Gallaicoi name was rejected energetically by Gaedels mainly from the Roman conquest: it was evident that the name sounded as too much as celtic when it had become a shameful condition in the surroundings associated to the pacts that the gaethels had established in the Iberian Peninsula. It is necessary to suitably value the difficult wars that the Romans had against the Gauls (who were another class of galls, but galls, anyway) and how much effort and suffering the final victory cost them. So, the name gall was, therefore, object of a peculiar process of negation, common with other cases of acculturation or submission with known parallels, up to the point to finally get to mean foreigner in modern Gaelic, exactly the opposite of what it had been originally.

In the Iberian Peninsula this manoeuvre did not obtain results because the rest of the folks, neighbours of the Galicians, were too conscious of what the authentic original name was at issue. Nevertheless, it is out of all doubt that the “galegos” did not please that name; in the north of Portugal it was abandoned: nowadays it is used by the rest of the Portuguese exclusively, and it is considered almost like an insult It disappeared in Galicia and was only later restored, but under the Castilian version of “gallego”, which is nowadays popularly used.

Celtic Gaellecia

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Introduction", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki