|
| . |
Early Irish Taboos as Traditional Communication: A Cognitive ApproachTom Sjöblom(1) In the BeginningLife, as we experience it, is a narrative. This has nothing to do with how things actually are or how they should be. Modern psychology has simply demonstrated beyond doubt that we humans, as a species, cognise our environment and life in terms of narrative processes (See e.g. Bruner 1990, 33-36; Turner 1996). According to Merlin Donald, narrative skill is the basic driving force behind language use, and language, again, as pointed out by many scholars from Heidegger and Gadamer onwards, is the means by which the human species experience their being-in-the-world in one way or another (See Donald 1991, 257; Pyysiäinen 1993, 36-38; Blackmore 1999, 93-107). In this sense, Jerome Bruner is undoubtedly right in arguing that the narratives of reality are dominated by human cognition and, therefore, cognitive processes can not be overlooked whenever our experiences of our environment are discussed (Bruner 1986, 14). Merlin Donald goes even further and points out that language is also our basic tool for communication, from which it follows that narrative is almost always public. In its turn, the publicity of narrative experience leads to a collective and shared narrative of reality existing in the minds of a group of humans communicating with each other (Donald 1991, 257). It is this shared collective version of reality that scholars studying human cultures call "tradition." The funny thing is that while the traditions of different peoples and ages is one of the focal areas of research, very little consideration has been given to the actual mechanisms of how individual narratives of reality become collective, and how they are transmitted, not only from an individual to an individual, but also from one generation to the next. One common way to talk about tradition among modern scholars is through the library metaphor. Thus, Lauri Honko, a Finnish historian of religions, describes tradition as "the stuff out of which cultures are made and which we have deposited in our folklore archives." He goes on to propose that tradition looks "like a store, only some parts of which are in use at any given time. The other parts are simply waiting to be activated, stored in museums, archives, and libraries or, in the case of oral tradition, in the library of the human mind" (Honko 1995, 133). As pointed out by Alan Baddeley, this metaphor can be very useful, but it has its limitations. Comparing tradition to a library appropriately suggests that we are dealing with a system of memory. However, it also tends to promote the idea that the transmission process involved is something simple and unproblematic. Nevertheless, one of the fundamental features for a working library is that the information stored there is easily retrievable and properly organised. This applies to the human mind, as well (Baddeley 1999, 191). And yet, not everything we see, feel, and hear will survive in our memory. The cognitive processes of the human mind have very real effects on how we relate to the information we receive. As tradition fundamentally consists of acts of transmission from one individual to another, cognitive processes have very real effects on what goes on in the acts of transmission that we conceive as traditional. In what follows, I will approach this problem through a discussion of the ritual injunctions or taboos present in the early Irish narratives, especially the Togail Bruidne Da Derga (henceforth TBDD). (2) "Not an extension of my life": The Taboos of Conaire MórThere is little doubt among modern scholars that taboos or ritual injunctions (geis sg. , gessi pl.) existed in pre-Christian and early medieval Irish society. Despite the scholarly agreement on this, the evidence for taboos has survived only in early Irish narratives.[1] One of the basic sources, if not the most important of all, is the tale "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel," relating the biography and taboos of Conaire Mór. Taboos play a prominent part as initiators of action in this tale, but here I will focus on the actual tabooing event and its implications. The event takes place following the death of king Eterscél, the king of Tara, and the election of a new ruler in a meeting held by the men of Ireland. In a prophetic ritual called the "bull feast" (tairbfeis) one of the participants eats his fill of bull-meat and drinks the broth made from the meat. Afterwards, when he lies down to sleep, an "incantation of truth" (ór fírindi) is placed on him, and in his sleep the identity of the future king is revealed to him (TBDD §11). In his dream he has a vision of a naked young man approaching Tara. As it happens, Conaire is at that moment approaching Tara. On the way, he sees unusual birds and starts to pursue them, but the birds always stay a spear's-cast away. Finally, the birds shed their birdskins and turn out to be síd people related to him. One of them, Nemglan, points out that it is taboo for Conaire to kill birds, because they are his relatives. Conaire replies that he has not been aware of this taboo. Nemglan then tells Conaire how to become king of Tara: he must approach the place naked at the end of the night, with his sling and a stone in his hands. This is what Conaire does, but the crowd gathered in Tara cannot believe that Conaire could be their new ruler: "It seems to us that our bull-feast and the incantation of truth are spoiled, since a young and beardless boy has been displayed to us." However, Conaire reminds them that he is the son of Eterscél, and he is subsequently accepted (TBDD §§12—15). It is at this point that the reader is provided with a list of Conaire's taboos. It is not completely clear when Conaire actually received them, but since it is related that they were provided by a man of the wave (fer ocon tuind), the implication is that Nemglan spelled out the taboos for Conaire while they were talking (TBDD §16). The reason for introducing the taboos at this point might be that the author saw them as analogous with tecosca. Maybe the sacred nature of the royal office placed the ruler in a situation which made it necessary for him to make contracts both with the human society (tecosca) and with powers controlling the natural environment (gessi) in order to be able to function at all.[2] However, it is also possible that in addition to regal instructions, the new king was actually provided with fresh taboos as well. This claim should remain hypothetical, as there is very little direct evidence for such a reading. In any case, the taboos of Conaire in TBDD are as follows:
After this, the events leading to the death of Conaire are described. We are first told how the three sons of Dond Désa return to their previous occupation as brigands and start plundering the countryside. In the end, the foster brothers and their followers are arrested and brought to Conaire for trial. At this point, Conaire makes the fundamental mistake of acting against fír flatha. He orders the fathers of the plunderers to kill their sons, but decides that his own foster brothers should be spared. Rather than being killed, they are simply exiled. According to the text we have, Conaire appears to be well aware of what he has done: "This judgement I have given is no extension of my life," he states afterwards. The foster brothers put to sea and meet the son of the king of Britain, Ingcél Cáech. They make an alliance and decide to go raiding together, first to Britain and then to Ireland (TBDD §§18-23). The second instance where Conaire failed to perform according to the principles of his sovereignty was his reaction on hearing that two of his other foster brothers, the two Carbres from Túathmaugain, had quarrelled. The taboo of Conaire forbidding intervention in this kind of quarrel is now modified by adding that Conaire could not intervene until the quarrelling parties had come to him. Even so, Conaire went and made peace between these foster brothers without waiting for them to ask for his assistance. At the same instant he once again violates one of his taboos by spending ten nights outside Tara (TBDD §§18-24). We are not told why Conaire acts this way. While functioning as a judge in cases of disagreement and securing the peace in his realm as well as making legal decisions affecting his clients were certainly among the duties of an early Irish ruler, it is nowhere mentioned that he must intervene in a quarrel among his followers at any cost (see Kelly 1988, 24-25). Furthermore, nothing in TBDD itself suggests that the quarrel would have been so devastating for the country as a whole that Conaire would have had no choice but to intervene, even when he knew that one of his taboos would be violated. The theories promoting the idea of taboos as a cultural mechanism for dealing with the operations of fate could probably suggest that Conaire had no choice here since he had already violated one of his taboos; he now acted more like a zombie. Perhaps the first violation had an effect on the structures of his mind, so that he implicitly, without even realising himself, acted in ways promoting the violation of the rest of his taboos. Perhaps so, but we should keep in mind that we are not dealing here with actual historical events, but with a narrative, and this kind of logic works well in a narrative environment where a sense of doom is created by different kinds of omens and clues about the tragic events following. The more rational choice would be to argue that after Conaire had unwittingly violated his first taboos it really did not matter how he acted any longer because early Irish tradition would have seen the first violation as like a breach in a floodgate. Death would be the inexorable outcome (see Sjöblom 1996, 238-241). However, there is at least one more possibility; Conaire may not have been convinced of the power of taboos. There was no clear-cut theory or ideology available in early Irish society for identifying working taboos with absolute certainty. The only way to be sure was actually to violate a taboo and to see what would come of it. In real life this alternative would be a gamble, which would probably not be chosen by many. However, in a narrative context the situation is different, because here it can be used as an instructive example of what happens when taboos are violated. Thus, when Conaire is mentioned as one of the prototypical rulers of early Irish tradition, this does not mean that he was a perfect ruler. It does not even mean that all subsequent rulers should take Conaire's actions and choices as guidelines for their own reigns. After all, Conaire's reign turned into a catastrophe, and all of his judgements made as a king—at least all of the ones we hear about—turned out to be mistaken. Keeping this in mind, his prototypical role consists not so much in what he does, but in what he fails to preserve after he has gained it. Conaire almost gained perfection, but in the end he was simply too human to make this state last. (3) The Psychology of Causal Judgements Underlying Conaire's TaboosI have already argued that taboos as cultural representations are largely confined to narratives. In this sense, narratives containing descriptions of taboos provide an important means for the traditions connected with taboos to be transmitted. Indeed, much of the present understanding of early Irish taboos is based on the implied connection between taboos themselves and the general function and/or meaning of their contextual narrative environment. Indeed, as Philip O'Leary has pointed out, taboos are seen as an essential mechanism of early Irish storytelling, but seldom has there been discussion of how the narrative environment affects the mental representations of early Irish taboos (see O'Leary 1988, 85). I have no doubt about the virtues of this type of analysis. For example, to take Conaire's taboos in their narrative environment and argue that they clearly exemplify some fundamental ideological limitations and expectations placed on the institution of kingship seems correct. This can provide us with important insights concerning kingship in early Ireland. It even allows some insight into how we might explain early Irish taboos in the framework of social interaction and cultural communication. However, the difficulties start when we want to combine the evidence from different narratives and describe and explain early Irish taboos generally. Indeed, while narratives describing taboos are important general vehicles for their survival, the relationship between them is not so fixed that the representations of taboos would remain stable and unchanged. Indeed, it is even possible to reconstruct a narrative and leave out the taboos without any major implications for the basic ideological functions of the tale. Take, for example, the notion of ailgeis ("a request of dishonour"). An illuminating instance occurs in Talland Etair (henceforth TLE), a tale from the twelfth-century manuscript Lebor na hUidre (see Stokes 1887, 47). Atherne Ailgeasach, an Ulster poet, goes on a bardic circuit around Ireland. After visiting Connaught and Munster, he finally makes it to Leinster. This is how his actions in Leinster are described:
After Atherne had received the best jewel of the Leinstermen, he went on to Mesgegra, the king of Leinster, and demanded to sleep with the king's wife. When Mesgegra asks why he should do that, Atherne answers: "For your honour's sake." The answer is telling and reveals what we are dealing with here. Ailgeis is a traditional request operating on the notion of honour. Anyone not able to satisfy such requests was dishonoured in the eyes of others. Both a person's status and capacity to function in early Irish society were closely linked to the notion of honour (Kelly 1988, 9). This ascribes honour a fundamental role in the social code of early Irish society (see O'Leary 1988, 85-107). The loss of one's honour could apparently sometimes even lead to the loss of ones social status altogether. This certainly happens to Ailill Ólomm (or Aulomm) in the twelth-century text Cóir Anmann, in which Ailill must abdicate the kingship after violating one of his taboos (geis) (CA §§41-42). However, Ailill does not die, and in general it seems that in the case of ailgeis it was possible to legally buy oneself out of trouble. This is best described in Sanas Cromaic §62:
A legal ailgeis is a request that can be satisfied by the one against whom it has been made. Atherne's requests were certainly not in this category, but the Leinstermen still tried to satisfy his claims. If unfulfilled requests of honour were a serious matter, if indeed they could be considered (at least sometimes) to be responsible for some individuals losing their lives, then it is not too surprising that ailgeis and geis were equated semantically. Indeed, this appears to be so with Ailill Ólomm. As narrative themes and sources of motivation, the two notions had a very similar role. However, the notions of honour and aspects of the ideology of kingship could be passed on without necessarily passing on the features of taboos, like their power to cause automatic death to the violators. In this respect, while the narrative environment can suggest the social role and social meaning of taboos, it offers little on the psychological and cognitive processes. This can only be assessed by taking a closer look at the actual acts of tabooing in early Irish narratives. According to Pascal Boyer, a hypothesis concerning the cognitive processes present in traditional communication must focus on three elements: the situation, the procedure, and the diagnosis (Boyer 1990, 64). All descriptions of tabooing events seem to support the idea that they are connected with events involving transformation between cultural and/or social categories. In terms of causal judgements it can therefore be argued that it is these often-undefined transitional events of cultural importance which provide the working basis for taboos. Therefore, not all injunctions or demands qualify as taboos because they are not connected with category transitions in early Irish tradition. Thus, when Emer forbids her husband Cú Chulainn from fighting his own son, it does not qualify as a taboo, because no culturally important transitional category act is present. Cú Chulainn's heroic status is not at stake, even though by killing Conla he commits the grave crime of kin-slaying (Aided Aenfir Aífe §8; Findon 1997, 93-103). Alwyn and Brinley Rees were certainly right when they argued that early Irish tradition processed culturally undefined states of affairs using taboos (Rees & Rees 1961, 348). Indeed, all cognitive models used for categorising reality apparently lead to situations in which contradictions arise between the cognised environment and the actual perceived event (Rappaport 1979, 97-98). Indeed, taboos in early Irish tradition appear to function as a cultural mechanism which is used to provide a narrative or script for acting in a culturally productive manner in unconventional circumstances in the cognised environment (see also Anttonen 1999, 19). Nevertheless, transitional events in early Irish tradition are not processed only by taboos. Indeed, various types of ritualised behaviour, such as legal, political and social ceremonies abound and cover a wide range of transitional cultural events. Thus, in order to explain taboos, we must find some additional elements present. One of them has been dealt with in a previous section. While most of the other types of traditional bidding and requests are made by respecting the hierarchical structures of society, this rule appears to be broken in respect of taboos. For example, in a legal case the final ruling is made by a lawyer or a lord who, according to the early Irish social code, is placed relatively high in the social hierarchy. The authority provided by tradition is stable enough to prevent any serious doubts concerning the authority of the ruling. Tabooing is also performed in most cases by such experts as druids and poets, but even then the most salient feature is the apparent ambiguity in the hierarchical relationship between the agents and their targets. Thus, it seems that not only the situation at hand, but also the hierarchical relationships between those involved, is undergoing major transitional cognitive processing. While these kinds of additions and modifications bring some additional precision to the situational logic of tabooing events, causal judgements focusing on the situation alone cannot explain why taboos are considered special in early Irish tradition. After all, not all speech acts expressed during culturally defined transitional events and/or in acts of communication between two individuals with an apparently ambiguous hierarchical relationship are understood to be taboos. For example, Atherne, the Ulster poet described above, made injunctions and requests to the men of Ireland. Indeed, the latter took Atherne's requests so seriously that they went to almost any lengths to satisfy them, even when they were clearly quite unreasonable. Atherne made his requests while on a bardic circuit, so they were certainly made in a ritualised transitional state (see TLE, 48). Still, something appears to be missing. Atherne's requests were not considered to be taboos. Why not? I would argue that what was lacking were certain causal judgements which one would expect to be present in the act of requesting. It is important to realise that in tabooing events the procedures involved are always taken as what actually produces the statements. In other words, the tabooing individuals are not thought to act on the basis of their own intentions, but as mediums representing some external entity (see Boyer 1990, 64). In the case of Conaire, this is well illustrated through Nemglan the birdman. Nemglan is the personification of the supernatural powers behind Conaire's reign. One could argue that Atherne also based his requests on this same type of logic. After all, it was not Atherne personally who forced his targets to abide by the will of the poet—it was the customary heroic code of honour. Atherne certainly manipulated custom for his own needs, but this does not mean that the early Irish honour-code was the entity that made people act according to his requests. Indeed, it has already been pointed out that poets belonged to that category of people in early Irish society that could be expected to perform acts of tabooing. One way to solve this problem is to argue that, while we lack sufficient data at this particular point, the difference between tabooing events and other kinds of customised speech might lie in the modes of speaking. Atherne's requests appear to be free of any kind of formalised or ritualised language. In most known cultures, ritualised speech is used to show that what is said is supposed to convey some customary and cultural truth (see Boyer 1990, 79-81). Atherne's requests apparently lack this ritual dimension and so gain a level of "aboutness" or intentionality not present in true ritualised speech (see Staal 1989, 191-346).[5] In other words, Atherne's requests are in the end directed at promoting his own needs and requirements (and possibly those of his own people i.e. the Ulaid). There is a problem, however. First, formulaic speech acts are not always associated with tabooing events. Indeed, it seems that speech formulas are more popular in later material. Ritual speech or any other mode of speaking can thus not be taken as evidence of the intentional stance of the speech acts in the early Irish tradition. However, this does not alter the fact that in general the intentionality of tabooing is different from that of other types of customary speech. Acts of tabooing are directed at promoting the well-being and life of the one subjected to the taboos, while legal rulings, customary codes of behaviour, even spells, are usually intended to promote the well-being of the one who makes the speech act (Boyer 1990, 68). Following Pascal Boyer, I would argue that this "intentional model," whilst in need of some adjustment, provides the working basis for understanding customary forms of speech-acts such as tabooing and divination (Boyer 1990, 66). Above, I pointed out that the performer of the tabooing is viewed not as an actor with intentions but as a mediator. Putting the actual human speaker in brackets tends to promote the view that there must be some implied hidden speaker behind the whole event. In the case of Atherne's requests, the hidden speaker was the heroic code of early Ireland, while in Nemglan's taboos, the hidden speaker was the composite of supernatural entities controlling the early Irish universe. Indeed, the implied presence of some form of hidden speaker is made both by early Irish and modern writers, but here is where the error appears to lie. Pascal Boyer points out that bracketing human speakers need not imply the existence of a hidden speaker of any kind (Boyer 1990, 67). While some of the medieval authors certainly imply or even explicitly state the presence of hidden speakers in tabooing events, in the majority of cases such entities are not mentioned at all, and there does not even seem to be interest in pursuing the idea. There are no refined cosmological or ideological ideas, no complex notions of mysterious forces involved here. There are no theories of how druids or other actors manage to influence reality by performing speech acts. There is only the experience of an inexplicable succession of events that according to the traditional cognitive scripts in circulation cannot be attributed to what are perceived to be natural causal judgements. The second difficulty involved concerns the reliability of taboos. Conaire's fate clearly points out that the knowledge of taboos does not prevent one from violating them, not necessarily even when one might have a choice. Conaire broke his taboo against restraining a quarrel between two of his servants, although he might have chosen otherwise (see Sjöblom 1996, 238-241). Additionally, keeping the taboos could likewise lead to trouble and death, as with Conla in Aided Áenfir Aífe, who was killed by his father Cú Chulainn because he kept his taboos, or in the case of Fergus Mac Roich in Longes mac n-Uislenn, who by keeping his taboo against refusing an ale-feast is not only instrumental in the death of the sons of Uisliu, but also in the ensuing battle between the Ulstermen, and the dispersal of Ulster heroes into two parties, the one living in exile with Ailill and Medb in Connacht (LMU §§14-16). Indeed, one could argue that the relationship between taboos and the events following is entirely arbitrary. What then makes taboos so persistent, popular and widespread? There are certainly many different ways in which listeners can on a cognitive level represent what makes a speech act true. The basic cognitive strategy is to present a diagnosis, an evidential account, of the spoken act (see Boyer 1994, 243). According to Pascal Boyer, the evidential account runs as follows. The speaker has intended to communicate some aspect of some state of affairs. For example, "three Reds shall not go before you into a Red's house". In ordinary cases, an utterance is taken as true, because it conveys a mental representation that happens to correspond to the way things really are. Applying this strategy to this particular utterance would mean that the event of three Reds riding into a Red's house somehow led the speaker to produce the taboo before the actual event had transpired. This makes it difficult for listeners to build a standard "causal-representational" model for the utterance in question. Boyer argues that it is especially difficult to build a coherent account of the representational part of the model (see Boyer 1994, 248, 250). It is well known that taboos in early Irish tradition consist of statements which are expressed in a manner that usually leaves room for interpretation. This simply means that it becomes more difficult for listeners to construe what mental representations are involved in the production of the utterance. The difficulty connected with the practice of bracketing the human speaker by arguing that what is uttered is outside his or her intentional control makes it likely that listeners will focus on the situational context in their search for the causal part of the utterance (Boyer 1994, 249). This takes us back to the question of intentionality. The evidential account of ordinary statements like the requests made by Atherne is indirectly causal. This kind of account specifies a causal connection from a state of affairs to representations, and another link from representations to utterances. In tabooing utterances, by contrast, the listeners assume that the connection between the state of affairs and the utterance is direct in the sense that it bypasses the speaker's mental representations (Boyer 1994, 250). If the speaker has no control over the statements that he makes, these statements must be true, or at least their veracity must be considered much higher than with ordinary speech acts. This model can even explain why some ambiguity remains concerning the status of individual utterances. Druids, poets and other categories of persons responsible for tabooing in early Irish society were also political and cultural authorities, and it was conceivable that their tabooing utterances were not produced honestly. Political goals and intentions could explicitly or implicitly affect the process and this kind of intentionality would render the act of tabooing invalid. (4) Conclusions: The Cognitive Aspects of Early Irish TabooingI do not believe that there are simple general models and answers that can account for all individual taboos. Instead, what we have are situationally defined events with their situationally constructed representations and perceptual cues provoking certain characteristic cognitive processes that give rise to the magical experience in question. This means that an essential element in explaining and/or interpreting early Irish taboos is to create a reliable picture of the nature and cultural meaning of the cognitive elements present in the narrative under scrutiny. Following Pascal Boyer, I argued that the best way to address the cognitive processes underlying early Irish tabooing events is to consider three distinct but related aspects: the situation, the procedure, and the diagnosis. In all of these elements the emphasis should be on the causal judgement in acts of tabooing, not only because these judgements become salient in a cognitive approach, but also because they appear to be the most fundamental type of cognitive judgement, creating what I have called the magical experience. Here is a summary of the causal judgements present in the three basic elements of tabooing:
My aim in this study has been to discuss and explain the fundamental cognitive processing behind early Irish taboos. While I do not suppose that nothing more can be said about the topic, or believe that all my suggestions will necessarily remain unchallenged by later scholars, I hope that my work has still provided some new insights into the topic. I particularly hope that it has become clear that there is nothing mysterious or miraculous about early Irish taboos. People living in early Irish society certainly had their own cultural representations, but all things being equal, their cognition did not differ from that of modern Europeans, or any other human beings. Most important, their beliefs were not in any way irrational or odd. Everything we know about early Irish taboos, and the representations and beliefs they represent, makes it completely clear that these can all be explained by well-known and well-established principles of cognition, as they are described in modern scholarship today.
Bibliography Anscombe, Elizabeth. 1965. "The Intentionality of Sensation: A Grammatical Feature." Analytical Philosophy (ed. R.J. Butler), 160. Oxford: Blackwell. Anttonen, Veikko. 1996. Ihmisen ja maan rajat. Helsinki: SKS. Anttonen, Veikko. 1999. ""Does the sacred make a difference? Category formation in Comparative Religion." Approaching Religion, part I (ed. T. Ahlbäck), 9-23. Turku: Åbo Akademi University Press. Baddeley, Alan. 1999. Human Memory. Hove: Psychology Press. Blackmore, Susan, 1999. The Meme Machine. Oxford: University Press. Boyer, Pascal. 1990. Tradition as Truth and Communication. Cambridge: University Press. Boyer, Pascal. 1994. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas. Cambridge: University Press. Bruner, Jerome. 1986. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Bruner, Jerome. 1990. Acts of Meaning. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press. Dennett, Daniel. 1987. The intentional stance. Cambridge: MIT Press. Dennett, Daniel 1991. Consciousness Explained. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. DIL. 1983. Dictionary of the Irish Language. Compact Edition. Dublin:RIA. Donald, Merlin. 1991. Origins of the Modern Mind. Cambridge(MA): Harvard University Press. Draak, Maartje. 1962. "Migration Over Sea." Numen IX, 81-98. Findon, Joanne. 1997. A woman's words. Toronto: University Press. Honko, Lauri. 1995. "Traditions in the Construction of Cultural Identity and Strategies of Ethnic Survival," European Review 3:2, 131-146. Kelly, Fergus. 1988. A Guide to Early Irish Law. Dublin: DIAS. Knott, Eleanor. 1936. Togail Bruidne Da Derga (ed.). Dublin:DIAS. Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We live By. Chicago: University Press. O Daly, Máirín. 1968. "Togail Bruidne Da Derga." Irish Sagas (ed. Myles Dillon), 105-118. Dublin: The Mercier Press. O'Leary, Philip. 1988. "Honour-Bound: The Social Context of Early Irish Heroic Geis," Celtica XX, 85- 107. Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. 1993. Beyond Language and Reason. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. 1997. Jumalan selitys. Helsinki.Otava. Rappaport, Roy. 1979. Ecology, meaning, and religion. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Rees, Alwyn and Brinley. 1961. Celtic Heritage. London: Thames & Hudson. Searle, John. 1983. Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: University Press. Sjöblom, Tom. 1996. "Advice from a Birdman: Ritual Injunctions and Royal Instructions in TBDD." Celtica Helsingiensia (eds. A. Ahlqvist et alii), 233-252. Helsinki: The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Staal, Frits. 1989. Rules without meaning. New York: Peter Lang. Stokes, Whitley. 1887. "The Siege of Howth." Revue Celtique VIII, 47-63. Stokes, Whitley. 1901. "The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel." Revue Celtique XXII, 9-16, 165-215, 282- 329, 390-437. Turner, Mark. 1996. The Literary Mind. Oxford: University Press.
Notes [1] This claim is actually a slight exaggeration, as some references to gessi can be found e.g. in legal commentaries and also in poetry. However, only narratives provide us with the necessary contextual information that makes an scholarly discussion of the topic possible. [2] Note that the taboos on this list are called airmitiu, which is the verbal noun of ar-muinethar ("honours"), implying regal obligations of honorary conduct (Knott 1936,75; DIL 29.229). Only later in the tale are they referred to as gessi. [3] It is not clear what kind of animal the claenmila were. As suggested by Whitley Stokes, the word appears to be a compound of cláen (crooked, unjust, wicked) and mil (animal), which would give us the translation "evil beasts," or more freely even "wild animals." However, this translation is doubtful. Moreover, Knott comments that in other contexts swans were hunted at Cerna (Stokes 1901, 16, 26, 411; Knott 1936, 75; O Daly 1968, 108). [4] The translation is by Paul Russell, with slight modifications by myself (Paul Russell, personal communication 1.1. 1997.). At this point I feel it necessary to thank Paul for his invaluable assistance concerning the linguistic features and problems of SC. Naturally, I solely am responsible for any mistakes in the translation. [5] Intentionality has been one of the major topics in modern philosophy. According to Elizabeth Anscombe, the term has its metaphorical basis in the Latin intendere arcum in, which means "to aim a bow and arrow at (something)." This aiming or directedness is fundamental to most philosophical discussions of intentionality (see Anscombe 1965, 160; Searle 1983; Dennett 1987; 1991, 333, 457-458) [6] Indeed, as pointed out by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, human cognition tends to create bodily constructed metaphorical representations when dealing with abstract or cognitively undefined entities (see Lakoff & Johnson 1980). An excellent introduction to how this cognitive strategy appears in religious thinking can be found in the work of Veikko Anttonen (1996, 1999, 9-23).
Copyright © Tom Sjöblom, 2003
The moral, intellectual, and other universally-recognised copy rights
|
