The Orkneys in early Celtic times : two lectures / by James M. MacBeath.

  • MacBeath, James M.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Orkneys in early Celtic times : two lectures / by James M. MacBeath. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Turanian race was driven out of the islands by the early Celtic inhabitants of the mainland of Scotland, who were a section of the widely separated branches of the Aryan race. It is further presumed that the controversy regarding their ethnographical position is settled—that they were, in fact, a geographical division of the early Celtic Britons. There are many reasons which lead up to the conclusion that the islands were colonized before the beginning of the Christian era ; and it may be that they were so long prior to that date. It is now generally conceded that at the period of Agricola’s invasion, a.d. 81, the condition of the Caledonian tribes bore a close resemblance to that of their kindred in the south of Britain in the time of Julius Caesar—being little, if at all, removed in the scale of social life from rude savages, leading a pastoral life, and living on the milk of their flocks, or on the produce of the chase. We also read that in the time of Severus, a.d. 210, the various tribes who inhabited the northern portion of Britain “ were very bloody and warlike, and in warfare used a little shield or target, and a spear, and their sword hung on their naked bodies, which they tattooed with the figures of animals, and they used no clothing that these might be seen. They wore iron collars and girdles, deeming these ornamental, and an evidence of wealth, as other barbarians esteem gold f and thus had they passed beyond the Stone Age proper in many respects. The redoubtable resistance which these two Roman generals met with from the native tribes, from the time Agricola first invaded the Caledonian territory, to the time Severus pene- trated as far north as the promontory separating the Cromarty and the Moray Firths (some early writers say that he marched northward to the very extremity of the island), sufficiently attests the formidable character of our rude ancestors. These native tribes must have been both numerous and powerful, and doubtless were the occupants of the country for centuries prior to these invasions. The distance between these firths and the north and north-eastern shores of Caithness, does not much exceed sixty geographical miles, if it be so
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