Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain. Annette M. B. Meakin

inhabitants of Spain.

      So far no comparative study has been made of the barrows and tumuli of Spain, but it has at least been ascertained that there are none in the east and only a few in the centre, while in the north, west, and south they are frequently to be met with—a fact that has been supposed by some to indicate the isolation in which their constructors lived. There are two distinct kinds of dolmen: some are square in form, notably those in Cataluña and Andalusia; others are circular, with walls arranged in a conical form—the latter being the type most frequent in Galicia and in Portugal.

      In Galicia, barrows, locally known as castros, are very numerous. On one occasion four were pointed out to me during an hour’s drive. As Señor Villa Amil has remarked, they are too well fortified to be temples, and too numerous and too near together to be war camps. During the Middle Ages the Gallegans used them as forts; and earlier still, when defending themselves against the Romans, they made them their chief strongholds. These castros are frequently mentioned in the Historia Compostelana, and always as fortresses. Señor Villa Amil concludes that they must have originally been, at one and the same time, both fortresses and towns. Strabo’s statement that the Celts lived in little villages close to one another supports this view. Some authors, taking the accessary for the principal, have called these castros, mamoas, or modorras; but mamoas are, in fact, what archæologists have agreed to call tumuli. In the old Latin documents of Galicia these last are called mamulas and mamonas. The most important articles found in these mamoas are the so-called torcs, or torques, of massive gold, with coarse workmanship and very little ornamentation. Señor Villa Amil explains the paucity of iron instruments by the climatic conditions of the country, which he thinks lead to the total decomposition of iron weapons. Handmills of two pieces of granite have been found, very similar to those discovered in French caves. Though he has found many fragments of pottery, Señor Villa Amil has never come across a whole vase, and he takes this as a proof that the people who formed these tumuli could not have used funeral urns; the fragments are in almost every case of a material which gives them an undoubtedly historic character—they are of clay mixed with sand and scattered over with mica. Some iron instruments and some bronze jewellery, more finely worked than the gold torques, were found with these. Our friend concludes that the tumuli must be prehistoric citadels which continued to be used as fastnesses right down to the end of the Middle Ages. Melida states that on all the mamoas of Galicia there have been found indications of the cremation of the dead. Señor Macineira has prepared a map of the castros in the neighbourhood of Ortigueira (Galicia), showing which of them he considers to be of ante-Roman and which of Roman origin,[13] those of Roman origin being similar to our “Cæsar’s camps.” Many of them served as defences of the coast. They are oblong or circular in shape with double parapets, often showing that much thought must have been expended upon their construction. It is supposed that the ante-Roman ones were used as the residences of tribal chiefs as well as for sepulchres, while Druidical stones resembling those of Stonehenge are to be seen in several wild and mountainous spots, and huge heaps of stones like the cairns of Scotland and Ireland also testify to Celtic customs. Galicia certainly rivals the British Isles in her megalithic remains; she can also boast of “rocking” boulders[14] such as those that were formerly used as tests of female virtue in Brittany. That Celts inhabited Galicia at a very early period in the history of the human race is certain, but they were not her earliest inhabitants. Barros Sivelo was convinced, after years of study, that the earliest inhabitants of Galicia were neither Celts nor Iberians. To discover who were the forerunners of these two races will be the business of archæology, and in archæology the words “prehistoric” and “historic” cease to have any value, for every object that comes down to us from the earliest times is itself a historical document, which, if properly interpreted, will help to throw light upon the past.

      Jubainville,[15] who has devoted years of patient study to the ancient history of the Celtic race, tells us in his latest work that the Britons reached Great Britain from the continent in the eleventh century B.C., and that their language is represented to-day by two of their living daughters, the Welsh-speaking people in Britain and the Breton-speaking people of Brittany in France. He also believes that the Celts penetrated into Spain from France before Druidism had reached Gaul from its birthplace, Britain. When the Celts and the Iberians had, in certain parts of Spain, amalgamated into one race, they began to be called Celtiberians; but in the corner of Spain with which we have now to do a small group of Celtic tribes kept themselves quite distinct from the Iberians. The Celts of Galicia were still Celts pure and simple when the Romans, under Decimus Brutus, conquered that province in B.C. 136, and it is from them that the present inhabitants of Galicia have inherited their Celtic place-names, their Celtic bagpipe, their Celtic dances, their Celtic temperament, and many other things Celtic which they share with their neighbours of Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany to-day.

      Celtic Spain is thought to have embraced part of Lusitania (now the north of Portugal), the whole of the territory now called Galicia, Asturias, and all the other northern kingdoms of the Peninsula. Paul Orosius, a local writer of the fourth century, is one of our authorities here, but Manuel de la Huerta y Vega was somewhat doubtful on this point.

      With regard to the derivation of the word “Galicia” there are still many contested opinions. Florez[16] tells us that the ancients spelt it both with a C and a G. Martial speaks of “Oceano Callaico,” and Brutus was called “Callaicus” when he returned to Rome for his “triumph.” St. Isidore of Seville derived the word “Galicia” from γαλα, the Greek word for milk, thinking that the inhabitants had received the name on account of their milky-white complexions. Julius Cæsar begins his Commentaries by saying that they called themselves Celts in their own language[17] and that the Roman equivalent was “Galli,” but Florez argues that as the Celts had relations with the Greeks long before they had any with Rome, we must take the name Galatos to be much more ancient than that of Galli, the former having been used by the Greeks, and the latter by the Romans. St. Isidore says that the Gallegos were also called Galos, and that both these names originated in the fairness of their complexions; but again Florez demurs, assuring us that he has never seen in any document the name of Gallos applied to the Gallegans. “We know,” he adds, “that the Celts entered Galicia, but the territory they occupied was called ‘celtico,’ not ‘galico’ nor ‘galiciense.’ ” Mela and others thought, on the other hand, that the term Calaicos was derived from the name of a town called Cale. Florez says that it is certain, from the writings of Sallust, that there once existed a town of the name of Cale to the north of the Duero, and that at the mouth of that river there was a Portus Cale, from which the name of Portugal is derived; but he concludes his chapter on this subject by declaring that it is impossible to say what is the true derivation of the word “Galicia.”

      The question as to how and whence the Celts entered Galicia has become of late years a thorny subject to Spanish students of Gallegan history, and a foreigner who has followed their discussions can hardly approach it without feeling that he is treading upon dangerous ground. I shall avoid taking it upon myself to decide which of the many theories put before the Spanish public is nearest to the truth. There are some who think that Galicia, Ireland, and America were once connected by land, and there are many who maintain that in prehistoric times there must have been a close maritime intercourse between Ireland and Galicia.

      Both the Scotch and the Irish have traditions to the effect that the native races of Scotland and Ireland are descended from Spaniards. Curiously enough, I came across a proof of the freshness of such traditions in the minds of the Irish of my own day just as I was starting for Galicia in 1907. An Irish maid who was assisting me to prepare for my departure, on hearing that Spain was the destination of my journey, remarked, “That is the country my people came from. All the Irish came from Spain a long time ago.” “Are you quite sure?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied, “quite sure. Everybody in Ireland knows that; even the poor people know it.”

      Some Spanish writers believe that the Celts, passing from Galicia to Ireland, crossed thence to England. “But if it is true,” says Aguiar, “that the English Celts came to France from England, how comes it that Julius Cæsar tells us that the Galli went to England to be instructed in the sciences?” Others are of the opinion that the earliest inhabitants of Galicia entered