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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2008-05 > 1211387677


From: "Janet Crawford" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] S21/S28 Split+m223 stuff
Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 17:34:37 +0100
References: <710158.66080.qm@web86609.mail.ird.yahoo.com>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan R" <>
To: "Beth Long" <>
Cc: <>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:00 AM
Subject: Re: [DNA] S21/S28 Split+m223 stuff
Long distance migration of
> ordinary people unprotected by elites was likely very very rare.
> Re-settlement usually had a military function and usually involved
> intermarriage at elite level to facilitate merecenaries etc. Its well
> known in later Celtic law that only the sacred classes of poets, druids
> and some classes of craftsmen were given legal protection that crossed
> tribal boundaries. In terms of scale these tribes might be as small as a
> few thousand people in a very small area beyond which one had no rights.
> Everyone else was dead man walking if they entered a territory without
> protection or invite. ....... Very few moved into those areas except by
> the sword or invite to settle (usually for military purposes). There is
> simply no comparison with modern times. It was not until the Roman empire
> expanded into those areas or at best a century before this that the sort
> of society where market driven mobility of labour etc became a common
> factor.
>
> Alan


Hi Alan, Generally I agree with you. However, I think the movement of
elites, in general, was much more free than the Brehon law texts would seem
to indicate. One of the "myths" has a prince of Munster suddenly appearing
in Ulster to get himself a wife, and his sudden and unannounced arrival did
not cause a stir at all. There is another bit of text that indicates a
marriageable princess would have "elite" suitors coming from all over
Ireland. We also have to consider that if, say, an Ulster woman married a
Munster man, their children would have rights to land in Munster from the
father, but also rights to land in Ulster "by right of the mother". I would
assume from that right, they would have a right to passage into the other
territory. (Everyone seems to ignore the desire of doting grandparents to
see their grandchildren - a normal human emotion) I suspect the elites had
much more freedom to roam around the territories, but the ordinary folk were
the ones quite constrained. At some early point in time the elites would all
have been related to each other to some degree.

I hadn't thought about traders before, but I would assume they also were
allowed to travel between territories in some fashion, but who knows with
what degree of freedom. They would have arrived at the ports, but may have
had to make deals with the main tribal contact located well inland. I can
see the trader going to the chief, but the chief not going to the port; of
course, the chief may have had his agent at the port and the agent may have
been able to set deals on his own, since it was most likely a relative.
There is so little written about trading, and with its importance, there
should have been more.

Janet


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