7th April 2010, 11:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 7th April 2010, 11:03 PM by trainedchimp.)
In case that seems a bit flippant...
It's all very well being sincere in your belief that you live in an eternal present with your ancestors,or that your beliefs are in accord with those practised by said ancestors, but the issue is that the bones are our culturalproperty, that which we all spend every working day seeking to protect,record and generally get a bit protective over. In this case, a neo-pagan group (never clear how large it was, nor how representative it was either, though from the *debate* last time, not very) made very specific and completely spurious claims to a) direct ancestral lineage, b) continuity of belief and c) ownership of a heritage that actually belongs to a much wider group (or set of groups) based on their recently constructed system of belief. Which is basically the same level of skewing the evidence (if not truth) as practiced by other people about 'indigenous British populations', if to different religio-political ends.
Not pretty. If you're going to appropriate the past for your own sense of self-worth, you need to be prepared to defend it from the likes of those what actually attempt to understand it so that we can all appreciate our shared heritage for what it is...
It's all very well being sincere in your belief that you live in an eternal present with your ancestors,or that your beliefs are in accord with those practised by said ancestors, but the issue is that the bones are our culturalproperty, that which we all spend every working day seeking to protect,record and generally get a bit protective over. In this case, a neo-pagan group (never clear how large it was, nor how representative it was either, though from the *debate* last time, not very) made very specific and completely spurious claims to a) direct ancestral lineage, b) continuity of belief and c) ownership of a heritage that actually belongs to a much wider group (or set of groups) based on their recently constructed system of belief. Which is basically the same level of skewing the evidence (if not truth) as practiced by other people about 'indigenous British populations', if to different religio-political ends.
Not pretty. If you're going to appropriate the past for your own sense of self-worth, you need to be prepared to defend it from the likes of those what actually attempt to understand it so that we can all appreciate our shared heritage for what it is...