New Views over Megalithia

[macausland]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qZo0_YaBhc

A very interesting video with Francis Pryor covering ancient agriculture, droving, copper mining and shipping.


Britain BC Episode 1 on youtube if you have to get there and find it.

[spiral]

I recently have been reading up on the Guga Men. Historical records of Guga hunting date back over 500 years.The Hunt takes place on Sula Sgeir 40 miles due north of Isle of Lewis. The voyage itself is extremely dangerous as is the 2 week harvesting of the young gannets from the treacherous wet cliffs.
The hunt is allowed by EU law and still takes place, despite the protests of animal activists.

Who knows how old the hunt is?

Was this an example of a megalithic voyage?

http://www.virtualheb.co.uk/guga-hunter ... isles.html

[Mick Harper]

The thing about the Guga men is that they put all this effort into such a relatively paltry reward. This is my objection to the whole concept of hunter/gatherers since hunting is always a ridiculously arduous way of getting meat as compared to, say, simple snaring. Or indeed gathering.

I don't understand the sporting allure of 'the hunt' but I do understand that (real) men have always enjoyed that kind of thing. They often, I notice, obscure their primary blood lust (or whatever it is) by claiming they do it to get food. Or, as in the case of the Guga men no doubt, to keep ancient customs alive.

Nevertheless, according to TME, sea birds are at the heart of Megalithic island communities. It's just hunting them doesn't seem 'quite right'.

[Mick Harper]

How right you are about Francis Pryor, Macausland. I have just (re)watched the first episode. I didn't notice first time round (how long ago was it?) but I have come to agree with him wholseale in the interval since.

[hvered]

Thoroughly enjoyed the Britain BC episode, thank you Mac. Pryor is extremely affable so his insistence on ritual purposes can be forgiven, my objection is he hasn't come up with a single original angle as far as I can see.

[macausland]

The second episode gets a bit dodgy though. (Francis Pryor). There is a lot of interesting and stimulating stuff but they go off into theories about how the ancients felt and thought. It was all to do with religion and their view of reality and the afterlife. Which may be true, but they didn't seem to back it up with facts. Once an idea has been put forward they then accept that as fact and use it as the basis for further conjecture which they assume is also factual.

As for the 'guga men'. The other island where this was popular was St Kilda. There is a wonderful film, now on dvd, made in the thirties about St Kilda but set on one of the Orkney islands. I think it's called 'The Edge of the World' or something like that. A Powell and Pressburger film. Among the 'extras' is actual footage of the islanders made by a group of early tourists. The St Kildan men look like they wouldn't look out of place among the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The thing about the St Kildans is that it was a 'prison' island owned by the MacLeods of the Western Isles. The inhabitants had little else to eat. They used every part of the birds of course. Nothing wasted. Oil for lamps and waterproofing, feathers for whatever feathers were used for etc. I think they didn't swim or use boats. Of course the famous St Kilda 'mailboat' was used to send messages to whoever found them. Rather like using a bottle with a message in it.

As for the people of Ness. Their guga hunting is the subject of much mirth elsewhere, especially in Harris. But then they are crofter fishermen with little else to do for money apart from whatever part time work they can get. Many go to sea or work on the mainland for years before returning home.

[hvered]

I read somewhere that the din emanating from bird colonies helps sailors steer clear of cliffs. Also, a rock taken over by gulls and gannets becomes gleaming white, thanks to the guano as well as the birds, which presumably makes it highly visible. Several rocks off England's south coast have names like Gull Rock, Chough Rock, Shag Rock that suggest they were roosting places.

[hvered]

I recently have been reading up on the Guga Men. Historical records of Guga hunting date back over 500 years.The Hunt takes place on Sula Sgeir 40 miles due north of Isle of Lewis. The voyage itself is extremely dangerous as is the 2 week harvesting of the young gannets from the treacherous wet cliffs.
The hunt is allowed by EU law and still takes place, despite the protests of animal activists.

Who knows how old the hunt is?

Was this an example of a megalithic voyage?

http://www.virtualheb.co.uk/guga-hunter ... isles.html

An annual hunt might be organised to provision ships especially somewhere on such a busy sea-route. Some settlements en route, such as Skara Brae, have been dated to the Neolithic.

Sula Sgeir is eleven miles west of the tiny island of North Rona,which in turn is about the same distance from a great circle route.

Wiki mentions a legend that points to a connection between these two islands

St Ronan's sister, Brenhilda, is supposed to have stayed here for some time, leaving him on Rona, only to be found dead in a bothy with a shag’s nest in her ribcage.

Shags can be found from Iceland to Morocco which is handy for sailors.

St Ronan is the patron saint, along with St Corentin, of Quimper, the capital of La Cornouaille in the Finistère department, Brittany. Ronan is supposed to be an Irish hermit as usual though having a sister is quite unusual.
(Is this a version of Brunhilda, a Visigothic princess with links to Gregory of Tours?)

[macausland]

The gaelic 'ron' means seal.

There is an old poem about Sule Skerry in which a 'silkie' a seal which takes human shape has a child with a human woman and takes the child back out to the sea with him.

[hvered]

Ronseal now has another meaning. June Tabor was on TV singing some of the Silkie song, very mournfully, it might have been a programme about highland culture.

It sounds like mermaids come from the same stable as seals and selkies. Fat but alluring. Seal in French is phoque and foca in Spanish and Portuguese, which is rather telling. Can't think why I never noticed before.