The Structure of Celtic Societies

[Blackbird]

Originally posted by Bran yr Onnen - moved by me to form a new discussion:

Traditional Celtic society was composed of three primary occupational classes, to ensure the proper exercise of what Indo-Europeanist scholars have come to call the “three functions” necessary to the survival of a community.

1)The First Function deals with the basic values of a society, with what is right and wrong, true and false, permitted and forbidden:it thus includes clergy (who administer the community’s dealings with the gods and the Otherworld), poets (in so far as their art is seen as sacred), legal experts (who discover what is “right”, and have the final word on it), and loremasters (who are their community’s memory, knowing all the precedents that have established current laws and customs).

2)The Second Function has to do with defending the community, and is thus the duty of the warrior class, who need to cultivate a particular kind of ethos to be successful in their calling.

3)The Third Function assures the material survival and well-being of the community, and so is the province of farmers, merchants, healers, etc., and deals with everything that promotes wealth, physical health and fertility: because all these activities are so dependent on the environment, the Third Function is very much preoccupied with relating to the unpredictable, mysterious nature of the Land. Each of these classes in early Celtic society had a body of mythological lore that was aimed directly at its specific concerns.

Under the Section:Celtic Mythology at:
www.celticleague.org/
« Last Edit: Today at 09:57am by Bran yr Onnen »<br>

[goldenhand]

So we're back to Dumezil again, are we? ;D

We keep going on about Dumezil being outdated. But does anyone know what the current theories about Celtic societies are? Has anyone come up with anything better than the tripartate theory?

Blessings,

Angharad

[Blackbird]

Good question... to which I have no answer.

I suspect that 'something better' has not been found in the sense that nobody has since tried to apply such a simplistic system to a large number of societies.

Generally, people of all branches of research and philosophies seem now to be moving away from theories that propose a unified whole to anything. We see this politically too, with devolution in the British Isles and statements of individuality among the various members of the European Union.

I have a problem with people claiming that all Celtic societies were the same - so it's no surprise that I have a really big problem with a theory that claims that all Indo-European societies had this similar structure.

Yes, you can make Dumezil work - but it's a bit like doing a jigsaw and having to squash pieces into the wrong places with a hammer It's just too general and far too simplistic.

So I doubt that anyone will ever come up with another 'one size fits all' theory like Dumezil's. Instead, people are looking for more localised evidence, without making the same pan-Celtic assumptions that make the likes of Dumezil so simple and attractive.