<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Looking into the history of Ireland, the earliest inhabitants of the land were the Tuatha-De-Dannan (children of Goddess Danu).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.mythicalireland.com/mythology...index.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Tuatha Dé Danann were the mysterious god-like people of ancient Ireland, and were the race most closely connected with the ancient megalithic sites of Ireland such as Brú na Bóinne.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Others have now turned this long-believed-to-have been superhuman population into humans and think because 'Tuatha' (said to mean tribe) is now often thought to be the cognate or otherwise related to the word 'Teuton', it refers to a <i>human</i> tribal affiliation. Some then trace the Danaan back to somewhere in mainland Europe (via Spain or France, France has Celtic presence).
I don't know that I can put complete faith in such proposals as they are recent and are barely based on the Irish traditions themselves from which the hypothesised human population group has been constructed from.
You can see the human-ising process even as early as 1897 - a time when scholars sought to read every superhuman/godly beings mentioned in any tradition as being merely human populations. See here:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0015-587X...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A
Note that this is backward projection. And, whether any Irish today believe that the Danaan are human does not constitute proof of the claims made at this link. Recent Irish now take their account from this human-ising process that has been taking place for the last 100+ years. The early Irish never believed the Danaan were mere mortals.
The relevant excerpt:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0015-587X...TOR-enlargePage
<b>Presidential Address: The Fairy Mythology of English Literature: Its Origin and Nature </b>
Alfred Nutt
Folklore, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Mar., <b>1897</b>), pp. 29-53
This article consists of 25 page(s).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In that volume, which will appear shortly, I discuss the Celtic doctrine of re-birth. I was compelled to form a theory, which would fit the facts, of primitive conceptions of life and sacrifice; compelled also to <b>determine the real nature of the Tuatha de Danann</b>, the ancestors of the fairies believed in to this day by the Irish peasantry. In <b>postulating</b> an agricultural basis for the Tuatha de Danann mythology and ritual I do but find myself in accord with all <b>recent</b> students of mythology in this country. I need but mention the most striking instance of <b>the way in which Mannhardt's teaching has borne fruit</b> in this country: Mr. Farnell's <i>Cults of the Greek Gods</i>. But when I insist upon the dominant nature of the agricultural element in the fairy creed, I by no means deny or overlook the numerous other elements which have entered into it. The latter, however, are, I believe, secondary, the former primary.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->19th century people 'mythologists' and 'scholars' could see only either myths or humans in place of god-like beings where the traditions of other people were concerned (the babble however was kept above it all). Where they could not turn Gods or other beings into humans (Danaan), they turned them into myths: the Gods of Olympus, Asen.
As I said, this is backward projection. Not only does it not agree with the traditions and experiences of the pre-influenced population whose beliefs or folklore are being studied, but even the knowledge these 'scholars' had about the traditions they were studying were very limited. Nevertheless, their ideas - however novel and quaint, like Freud's - got much acceptance and have now become rather mainstream. To the point that these ideas have come to determine modern understanding of old traditions of the Irish and other populations themselves.
The same goes for many cultures throughout the world, not least of all India. In the Iranian and Indian cases it had (still has?) even been argued that Devas and Asuras must refer to the original IE Iranians and IE Indo-Aryans. This is nowhere indicated in our or Iranian literature.
Similarly, it was argued in some quarters that the Vanaras of the Ramayanam must be South Indians or 'aboriginals', making war on the Lankans with Rakshasas reduced to humans as well.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From an Iranian source on the net also I read about this Sudanava thing and I found that these are indeed people. There was a northern group of Sudanavas around the Bactria region and southern group centred around North of Indus. So these are indeed human.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->How do we know that they are not named after those they worshipped? There are many tribes who have the same names as the Gods they worship. Even in India you have this with many groups of people. Some people name themselves after single Gods rather than a group, e.g. Bhoopathi. But then you have community names like Nagas. Iran too had communities named after a group of Gods or entities, based on who they worshipped/showed their allegiance to/claimed descent from.
But none of these match the descriptions in the Puranas or Vedas. Check Ramayanam and Mahabharatam for descriptions of various interesting celestial beings. Gandharvas - celestials said to be all male, married to Apsaras all female. Vasus - spirits/Gods of Fire. Nagas, Serpent Gods. Rakshasas - nemesis of humans, at night their magic powers are multiplied. Etcetera.
Yet western scholars from the 19th century at least want us to imagine that most if not all these Gods/beings were always intended to be human population groups, disregarding any descriptions to the contrary given in the Puranas and Vedas.
This is what they have done with many another culture. 'Who cares what the local traditions and writings say about any set of beings? Ignore. I know better' is the logic by which these scholars worked.
It is interesting to note however, that the christian 'scholars' of the time totally ignored tackling the Vampyre and other kreaturs they had in a similar manner. For instance, when the time for this fantasy was finally over, it was immediately relegated to myth, never turned into a population oppressed by any invaders or other such nonsense.
What I need from you (or anyone else) - and it is an unfair request, <i>I know</i>, because I have sought it before myself - is proof positive that people who bear names of Gods or groups of Gods/entities (Danavas, Danaan, ...) did not obtain those names from consciously being named after said Gods/entities. That is, that those names originally only ever referred to human groups and were not adopted from the Gods/entities they worshipped or showed allegiance to.
There is this female American writer (not Indian) who works under the pseudonym 'Acharya S' - she wrote some books summarising others' works on mythology. In one of her pages available online, she argued that Krishna is another solar motif of God being reborn via his son, giving it as another example of a precursor to the jeebus tale.
I think it was she, who, in one of her 'proofs' for Krishna being a solar myth said that he was also called Vasudeva and was son of Vasudeva. Q.E.D she said.
Problem is, in India people regularly name themselves after Gods - Krishna's dad Vasudeva was not a God himself but was merely named after a God.
I don't know if you understand the point I just made, but I can't at this moment explain it any clearer.
People who are researching traditions of <i>other</i> peoples - and traditions are always massive amounts of narratives concerning history, variations of history as well as stories - often don't understand certain subtle basics of the traditions or people they are studying. They then make such blunders. This happens regularly with New Agey writers and happened more frequently with 'scholars of mythology' of the 19th century and even before.
<b>ADDED:</b>
It is odd that Druidic reconstructionists should wish to accept the theories initially concocted by scholars of the incompetent era of around the 19th century in reconstructing their Druid past, when none of their Irish ancestors from before conversion ever believed the Danaan were human. Scarier still that any European Religion reconstructionists should wish to reconstruct their religions based on the highly dubious results from IE. No ancient European knew of IE. However, I see the person(s) at that link you posted seems to rely heavily on it.
http://www.mythicalireland.com/mythology...index.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Tuatha Dé Danann were the mysterious god-like people of ancient Ireland, and were the race most closely connected with the ancient megalithic sites of Ireland such as Brú na Bóinne.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Others have now turned this long-believed-to-have been superhuman population into humans and think because 'Tuatha' (said to mean tribe) is now often thought to be the cognate or otherwise related to the word 'Teuton', it refers to a <i>human</i> tribal affiliation. Some then trace the Danaan back to somewhere in mainland Europe (via Spain or France, France has Celtic presence).
I don't know that I can put complete faith in such proposals as they are recent and are barely based on the Irish traditions themselves from which the hypothesised human population group has been constructed from.
You can see the human-ising process even as early as 1897 - a time when scholars sought to read every superhuman/godly beings mentioned in any tradition as being merely human populations. See here:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0015-587X...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A
Note that this is backward projection. And, whether any Irish today believe that the Danaan are human does not constitute proof of the claims made at this link. Recent Irish now take their account from this human-ising process that has been taking place for the last 100+ years. The early Irish never believed the Danaan were mere mortals.
The relevant excerpt:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0015-587X...TOR-enlargePage
<b>Presidential Address: The Fairy Mythology of English Literature: Its Origin and Nature </b>
Alfred Nutt
Folklore, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Mar., <b>1897</b>), pp. 29-53
This article consists of 25 page(s).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In that volume, which will appear shortly, I discuss the Celtic doctrine of re-birth. I was compelled to form a theory, which would fit the facts, of primitive conceptions of life and sacrifice; compelled also to <b>determine the real nature of the Tuatha de Danann</b>, the ancestors of the fairies believed in to this day by the Irish peasantry. In <b>postulating</b> an agricultural basis for the Tuatha de Danann mythology and ritual I do but find myself in accord with all <b>recent</b> students of mythology in this country. I need but mention the most striking instance of <b>the way in which Mannhardt's teaching has borne fruit</b> in this country: Mr. Farnell's <i>Cults of the Greek Gods</i>. But when I insist upon the dominant nature of the agricultural element in the fairy creed, I by no means deny or overlook the numerous other elements which have entered into it. The latter, however, are, I believe, secondary, the former primary.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->19th century people 'mythologists' and 'scholars' could see only either myths or humans in place of god-like beings where the traditions of other people were concerned (the babble however was kept above it all). Where they could not turn Gods or other beings into humans (Danaan), they turned them into myths: the Gods of Olympus, Asen.
As I said, this is backward projection. Not only does it not agree with the traditions and experiences of the pre-influenced population whose beliefs or folklore are being studied, but even the knowledge these 'scholars' had about the traditions they were studying were very limited. Nevertheless, their ideas - however novel and quaint, like Freud's - got much acceptance and have now become rather mainstream. To the point that these ideas have come to determine modern understanding of old traditions of the Irish and other populations themselves.
The same goes for many cultures throughout the world, not least of all India. In the Iranian and Indian cases it had (still has?) even been argued that Devas and Asuras must refer to the original IE Iranians and IE Indo-Aryans. This is nowhere indicated in our or Iranian literature.
Similarly, it was argued in some quarters that the Vanaras of the Ramayanam must be South Indians or 'aboriginals', making war on the Lankans with Rakshasas reduced to humans as well.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From an Iranian source on the net also I read about this Sudanava thing and I found that these are indeed people. There was a northern group of Sudanavas around the Bactria region and southern group centred around North of Indus. So these are indeed human.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->How do we know that they are not named after those they worshipped? There are many tribes who have the same names as the Gods they worship. Even in India you have this with many groups of people. Some people name themselves after single Gods rather than a group, e.g. Bhoopathi. But then you have community names like Nagas. Iran too had communities named after a group of Gods or entities, based on who they worshipped/showed their allegiance to/claimed descent from.
But none of these match the descriptions in the Puranas or Vedas. Check Ramayanam and Mahabharatam for descriptions of various interesting celestial beings. Gandharvas - celestials said to be all male, married to Apsaras all female. Vasus - spirits/Gods of Fire. Nagas, Serpent Gods. Rakshasas - nemesis of humans, at night their magic powers are multiplied. Etcetera.
Yet western scholars from the 19th century at least want us to imagine that most if not all these Gods/beings were always intended to be human population groups, disregarding any descriptions to the contrary given in the Puranas and Vedas.
This is what they have done with many another culture. 'Who cares what the local traditions and writings say about any set of beings? Ignore. I know better' is the logic by which these scholars worked.
It is interesting to note however, that the christian 'scholars' of the time totally ignored tackling the Vampyre and other kreaturs they had in a similar manner. For instance, when the time for this fantasy was finally over, it was immediately relegated to myth, never turned into a population oppressed by any invaders or other such nonsense.
What I need from you (or anyone else) - and it is an unfair request, <i>I know</i>, because I have sought it before myself - is proof positive that people who bear names of Gods or groups of Gods/entities (Danavas, Danaan, ...) did not obtain those names from consciously being named after said Gods/entities. That is, that those names originally only ever referred to human groups and were not adopted from the Gods/entities they worshipped or showed allegiance to.
There is this female American writer (not Indian) who works under the pseudonym 'Acharya S' - she wrote some books summarising others' works on mythology. In one of her pages available online, she argued that Krishna is another solar motif of God being reborn via his son, giving it as another example of a precursor to the jeebus tale.
I think it was she, who, in one of her 'proofs' for Krishna being a solar myth said that he was also called Vasudeva and was son of Vasudeva. Q.E.D she said.
Problem is, in India people regularly name themselves after Gods - Krishna's dad Vasudeva was not a God himself but was merely named after a God.
I don't know if you understand the point I just made, but I can't at this moment explain it any clearer.
People who are researching traditions of <i>other</i> peoples - and traditions are always massive amounts of narratives concerning history, variations of history as well as stories - often don't understand certain subtle basics of the traditions or people they are studying. They then make such blunders. This happens regularly with New Agey writers and happened more frequently with 'scholars of mythology' of the 19th century and even before.
<b>ADDED:</b>
It is odd that Druidic reconstructionists should wish to accept the theories initially concocted by scholars of the incompetent era of around the 19th century in reconstructing their Druid past, when none of their Irish ancestors from before conversion ever believed the Danaan were human. Scarier still that any European Religion reconstructionists should wish to reconstruct their religions based on the highly dubious results from IE. No ancient European knew of IE. However, I see the person(s) at that link you posted seems to rely heavily on it.