Savages and howling barbarians​…

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Littlestone L
Littlestone Jan 12, 2011 18:07:01

In her 1849 poem, Suggested by the opening made in Silbury Hill Emmeline Fisher describes the builders of Silbury as, “our wild forefathers” and that, “When in his toil the jealous Savage paused, Drew deep his chest, pushed back his yellow hair...” we should now ask forgiveness (for digging into Silbury). Well, Emmeline was only 24 when she wrote that (and it was over 160 years ago) so we might forgive her for the use of expressions such as ‘our wild forefathers’ and ‘jealous savages’. Nearly forty years later, however, we still get Alfred Pass, addressing the Clifton Antiquarian Club on his excavations at Silbury, thus -

“…I have ascertained that Silbury Hill was originally surrounded by a deep trench or moat. Also, that it was erected by a people, probably a rude race of hunters, so little advanced in civilisation that they were using flint implements a long time after the hill was built." (more here - http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/silbury-made-by-a-rude-race-of-hunters/ )

A ‘rude race of hunters so little advanced in civilization’? Well, those words too were uttered some 125 years ago, and at a time when it was normal for the good and god-faring men and women of America and Europe to go out to the four corners of the world, ‘tame the savage’ and show him and her the way to Christian salvation.

But what to make of more recent proclamations on the ‘savages and the howling barbarians’ who built Silbury? During the Atkinson/BBC-sponsored 1960s ‘dig’ at Silbury, Richard Atkinson is recorded as saying that the monument was built by people who were ‘practically savages’ and ‘howling barbarians’ (see - http://www.eternalidol.com/?p=315 ) words which still sadly resonate with the ‘rude and savage’ mantra of earlier years. It really is hard to understand why an otherwise educated man would say that sort of thing. Is Atkinson simply a product of a ‘scholarly’ tradition rooted in the ‘classics’? A tradition so deeply rooted there that anything outside it is simply seen as ‘uncivilised’ and not really worth the effort to fully understand, conserve let alone respect?

How sad. Silbury stands (just about) as testimony to a civilization a couple of thousand years older than those of Greece and Rome in their heyday. A civilization without a written record but, none the less, one worthy of our respect, our awe (see photo above) and one which perhaps we can rightly and proudly claim as ours and, along with its megalithic cousins in this country and abroad, strive to make better known and understood.

Howling barbaric rant over... I’ll get me coat...

C cerrig
cerrig Jan 12, 2011 18:45:25
Replying to Littlestone

Well said, that man.

S Sanctuary
Sanctuary Jan 13, 2011 09:41:49
Replying to Littlestone

Littlestone wrote:
In her 1849 poem, Suggested by the opening made in Silbury Hill Emmeline Fisher describes the builders of Silbury as, “our wild forefathers” and that, “When in his toil the jealous Savage paused, Drew deep his chest, pushed back his yellow hair...” we should now ask forgiveness (for digging into Silbury). Well, Emmeline was only 24 when she wrote that (and it was over 160 years ago) so we might forgive her for the use of expressions such as ‘our wild forefathers’ and ‘jealous savages’. Nearly forty years later, however, we still get Alfred Pass, addressing the Clifton Antiquarian Club on his excavations at Silbury, thus -

“…I have ascertained that Silbury Hill was originally surrounded by a deep trench or moat. Also, that it was erected by a people, probably a rude race of hunters, so little advanced in civilisation that they were using flint implements a long time after the hill was built." (more here - http://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/silbury-made-by-a-rude-race-of-hunters/ )

A ‘rude race of hunters so little advanced in civilization’? Well, those words too were uttered some 125 years ago, and at a time when it was normal for the good and god-faring men and women of America and Europe to go out to the four corners of the world, ‘tame the savage’ and show him and her the way to Christian salvation.

But what to make of more recent proclamations on the ‘savages and the howling barbarians’ who built Silbury? During the Atkinson/BBC-sponsored 1960s ‘dig’ at Silbury, Richard Atkinson is recorded as saying that the monument was built by people who were ‘practically savages’ and ‘howling barbarians’ (see - http://www.eternalidol.com/?p=315 ) words which still sadly resonate with the ‘rude and savage’ mantra of earlier years. It really is hard to understand why an otherwise educated man would say that sort of thing. Is Atkinson simply a product of a ‘scholarly’ tradition rooted in the ‘classics’? A tradition so deeply rooted there that anything outside it is simply seen as ‘uncivilised’ and not really worth the effort to fully understand, conserve let alone respect?

How sad. Silbury stands (just about) as testimony to a civilization a couple of thousand years older than those of Greece and Rome in their heyday. A civilization without a written record but, none the less, one worthy of our respect, our awe (see photo above) and one which perhaps we can rightly and proudly claim as ours and, along with its megalithic cousins in this country and abroad, strive to make better known and understood.

Howling barbaric rant over... I’ll get me coat...

When I was a member of the Southampton based group WATSUP (Wessex Association for The Study of Unexplained Phenomena) I had the great honour as a young man of meeting and speaking to Professor Atkinson on a field trip we made to Avebury and he presented me with a drawing he scrawled out on a piece of paper of the construction of Silbury Hill as he saw it during his excavation.

To speak to he was most humerous and witty. I also remember him saying the builders of Silbury would have 'stank' as there was no deoderant in those days.
This is his obituary
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/obituary-professor-richard-atkinson-1443428.html

For what it is worth I think he was a great man of his time.

S StoneGloves
StoneGloves Jan 13, 2011 11:44:44
Replying to Littlestone

One bit of this is true. And that's about flint - or stone - tools. They were still being used long after the rich people had started with metal ones.

Something that has struck me about various monuments that I've found after them being abandoned all those millennia ago, is how crude the people were that built them. I know this is blasphemous but, by looking at the way the stones have been worked and moved, I've concluded that it was a very dark and brutal period. Look at copper mining - a child goes down a tunnel with a bunch of sticks, sets light to them, at the end, stokes the fire up, then quenches it with water. The tunnel's maybe four feet high. Then the ore is chipped away and dragged out in baskets. What kind of a life's that? What would one need to do to a person to persuade them to do it? What would the children's home life be like?

So it's probably quite wrong to subscribe to the myth of the noble savage.

T The Sea Cat
The Sea Cat Jan 13, 2011 12:53:02
Replying to Littlestone

Excellent piece!

I remember my school books as a child, depicting our 'barabarian' ancestors before the good old midget mediterranean miltary goons hit town and 'civilised' us, according to and in support of the Victorian/Edwardian Empirical interests.
The fact that Celts had existing road systems to be co-opted, let alone stunning artistic capabilities that were admired across the then known world, the mathematical and astronomical genius of the megalthic builders, both here and in other cultures, etc & etc ad infinitum....

Bravo.


(edited)

V VBB
VBB Jan 13, 2011 13:30:23
Replying to Littlestone

Littlestone wrote:
In her 1849 poem, Suggested by the opening made in Silbury Hill Emmeline Fisher describes the builders of Silbury as, “our wild forefathers” and that, “When in his toil the jealous Savage paused, Drew deep his chest, pushed back his yellow hair...” we should now ask forgiveness (for digging into Silbury). Well, Emmeline was only 24 when she wrote that (and it was over 160 years ago) so we might forgive her for the use of expressions such as ‘our wild forefathers’ and ‘jealous savages’.
I don't think it alters your point but versions of Emmie's poem circulating via the web are misleading, she wrote 'zealous savage' not jealous' [also 'warrior' not warriors, and being a student of such things you may want to note she did not terminate line 6 with a comma]. Hope that helps.