"Brit-Am Now"-815
Contents:
1. DNA Differences between Ancient Europeans and Present Ones
2. Jews in Nigeria and Mormons in Africa
Interesting Parallelism
3. The Great Irish War Pipe traced to Middle East
1. DNA Differences between Ancient Europeans and Present Ones
"We Are Not Our Ancestors: Evidence for Discontinuity between Prehistoric and Modern Europeans"
Ellen Levy-Coffman
http://www.jogg.info/22/Coffman.htm
Quotation:
<<Thus, not only did the study suggest that Paleolithic Europeans displayed a closer genetic link with modern-day Middle Easterners than they did with contemporary Europeans>>
Brit-Am Comment: The study shows that Ancient Europeans were closer
to Modern Middle Easterners than they were to Modern Europeans.
Is the difference to be explained by incursions into Europe from
outside? [Nobody seems to know exactly where].
Or did Present-day European DNA change due to environmental influence?
2. Jews in Nigeria and Mormons in Africa
Interesting Parallelism
Apparently a group of Nigerians claimed to be Jewish
and have adopted some Jewish customs.
There was a discussion of this on a Jewish blog site.
A Christian participant pointed out that parallel phenomena had been
encountered by the Mormons.
I thought this would be of interest to our own group
and so took the liberty of pasting the excerpt below:
http://www.revava.org/forum/index.php/topic,2848.msg22628.html#msg22628
Here I go, stepping into the mine field again:
Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("the Mormons") found in darkest Africa whole villages of people who had not ever had any known contact with the Church but who had some literature and were doing their level best to be Mormons.
They were not getting it exactly right. They had a mixture of other elements.
They were not trying to get a free ticket into the United States, either.
I suppose what they saw made sense to them and they went ahead with what they knew of it.
With help from Church headquarters, some of them got it right and some did not.
- - - - - - - -
The Jews of Nigeria may be in the same sort of situation.
I have no idea what is the Jewish policy toward such orphaned groups.
Christian Glenn
3. The Great Irish War Pipe traced to Middle East
Forwarded by Dr Richard Griffiths
http://www.doyle.com.au/great_irish_warpipe.htm
THE GREAT IRISH WARPIPE
Forgotten instrument of Ireland.
Irish Piper Playing a Three-Droned "Brian Boru" Pipe
BY Garaidh Br ain
http://www.doyle.com.au/great_irish_warpipe.htm
This is an interesting article
Extract:
The skirl of the pipes: Either you love them or hate them, and few there be who are between. One needn't be of Celtic blood to enjoy the bagpipe (however, those who are Celtic do seem to have some genetic encoding that instills a love for the instrument); for the instrument has existed in every culture in one form or another throughout history.
Today the bagpipe is synonymous with Scotland, but the pipes really came from Ireland, where they are the forgotten instrument of the Emerald Isle.
In 1911, William Grattan Flood, a professor of music at National University of Ireland, researched and printed The Story of the Bagpipe. Professor Flood explored the instrument's early origin in the cradle of civilization, the Middle East, where he states the earliest date for the pipes is 4000 B.C., where a bagpipe is found in Chaldean sculptures. This evidence shows it is ancient, certainly as old as the harp and nearly as old as the drum. Greeks, Egyptians and Romans all marched to the skirl of the pipes to battle.
This antiquity includes the ancient Hebrews as well. Flood writes that the Bible passage of Genesis 4:21 has become mis-translated through various revisions over the centuries. The original German Bible of the 1500s used by the Lutheran Church at that time states that Jubal "was the father of fiddlers and pipers." The currant translation in the King James Bible reads, "such as handle the harp and organ." The Hebrew word that is mistranslated is "Ugab." The word refers to a wind instrument such as a "pipe" or "bagpipe," of which the German translation is "pfeife," Flood gives another example of mis-translation in Daniel 3:5, 10 & 15. The reference deals with Nebuchadnezzar's band, where the word "sumphonia" was translated to mean "dulcimer" instead of "bagpipe." Flood states that the word symphony actually referred to pipe music in the Middle Ages. The Hebrew word for dulcimer is "psandherin".
As for Ireland, a seventh-century account at the palace of Da Derg in Bohernabreena, County Dublin, lists people who came to pay homage to King Conaire the Great in 35 B.C., tells of nine pipers who came from the fairy hills of Bregia (County Meath), "the best pipe-players in the whole world," who are listed by name as Bind, Robind, Riarbind, Sihe, Dibe, Deicrind, Umal, Cumal & Ciallglind.
The bagpipe was even given place in the Brehan Laws of the 400s. Here it is called the cuisle, meaning "the pulse," being a reference to the blood pulsing through one's veins. It's also in reference to the hum that comes from the drones.
At the great Feis' (parliament or festival) held at Tara, the pipers occupied a prominent position. The pipes (called a cuisleannoch) were one of the favored instruments down to the last Feis that was presided over by King Dermot MacFergus in 560 A.D., there after Tara's Halls were silent.
After Christianity was embraced by the Irish, the bagpipe was used in church service to sustain the sacred chant or as a solo instrument. Depicted in one of the panels on the High Cross of Clonmacnois (dated about 910 a.d.) is a sculpture of a man playing a bagpipe standing on two cats.
It is clear that the bagpipe existed in Ireland long before Scotland. The bagpipe is believed to have made its way to Scotland with the Dalradians upon their exodus from County Antrim across the Irish Sea at about 470 A.D., when Prince Fergus MacErc lead his clan in the invasion of the lands of the Picts at present Argyle. The difference in the Scottish and Irish bagpipe is their name and the number of drones. The Scottish refer to their bagpipe as "the Great Highland Bagpipe," which today (an ancient bagpipe preserved from the battlefield of Culloden, 1746, has but a bass and a tenor drone) has three drones: one bass and two tenor. The Irish call theirs "the Great Irish Warpipe," which has two drones: one bass and one tenor. In Gaelic the bagpipe is called "Piob Mor."
An observation of the Irish pipers was made by the musician Vincenzo Galilei in a published work titled Dialogue on Ancient and Modern Music in 1581 in Florence. Galilei wrote, "The bagpipe is much used by the Irish. To its sound this unconquered, fierce, and warlike people, march their armies and encourage one another to feats of valour. With it also, they accompany their dead to the grave, making such a mournful sounds as to invite - nay, almost force - the bystander to weep!"
This use of the bagpipe at funerals is mentioned at the funeral of Donncladh, King of Ossory (father of Sadhbh or Isolde, Queen of Ireland in 975) in an ancient poem where nine keeners sung lamentations with an accompaniment of "cymbals and pipes harmoniously."
There were settlements made by many Irish bands in Wales who introduced the instrument. The Welsh readily accepted the strange insturment.
By the eleventh century the bagpipe slowly lost favor with the upper and middle class in favor of the harp. Yet in two deeds, one dated 1206 and the other in 1256, both near Dublin, mentioned Geoffrey the Piper and William the Piper.
Even though the upper class shunned the skirl of the pipes, its music could still be heard among the working class, especially the military who employed its emotional effects upon the battlefield. Unique to the Irish kerne (soldiers) was that the pipers actually lead their commrades into battle playing the warpipes, which Flood illustrates well in his use of the account by Standish O'Grady, who wrote about the Battle of the Curlews in County Sligo. This battle was fought on August 15, 1599, in which many English officers fell. O'Grady wrote, "Brave men, these pipers. The modern military band retires as its regiment goes into action. But the piper went on before his men, and piped them into the thick of battle. He advanced, sounding his battle-pibroch (song), and stood in the ranks of war while men fell around him.... So here upon the brown bog Red Hugh's pipers stood out beyond their men sounding wild and high the battle-pibrochs of the North with hearts and hands brave as any in the wild work.... At last the whole of the Queen's host was reduced to chaos, streaming madly away, and the battle of the Curlew Mountains was fought and lost and won." Thus, many State papers concerning various battles read: "`Slew Art O'Connor and his piper.'" The entry shows that the loss of a piper was most tragic, second to that of an important officer.
After the occupation of the Normans in 1169 of Ireland, the Irish were forced to enlist its men into regiments to assist the English Kings in their wars. To France marched the Irish regiment in 1243 for King Henry III, and into battle they advanced to the sounds of their warpipes; as they did at Gascony in 1286-1289 under King Edward I, and into Flanders in 1297. In the following year, the Irish army was assigned to the English army at the Battle of Falkirk in Scotland against Sir William Wallace, where on July 22, the Irish marched into battle line to the skirl of the warpipes as their cousins, the Scots, watched in amazment on the other side of the battlefield. It was at Falkirk that the Scotsmen saw the martial effect of the bagpipes upon the Irish soldiers and thereafter began bringing bagpipes into battle and into the annals of history.1 The first mention of the Scots using their bagpipes in battle was at their victory at Bannockburn in 1314. The Irish army continued in Scotland, fighting their cousins from 1297-1334 under the command of the English.
Again as at Falkirk, Irish pipers marched 6,000 commrades into the Battle of Crecy in France, which was fought on August 26, 1346. This Irish army contributed heavily to the English victory over the French.
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