Gaulois(1)

from : Le Nouvel Observateur, hors série Juillet/Août 2011.

Jean-Louis Brunaux, La Gaule Indépendante.

Le Nouvel Observateur. You have dedicated an entire book to denounce commonplace ideas concerning ‘Nos ancêtres les Gaulois’(Seuil 2008). Thus there are many. First of all, are the Gauls truly our ancestors?

Jean-Louis Brunaux. They are, without doubt, but no more or less than the Neolithic populations and then those of the Bronze Age which preceeded them on this territory - prehistoric populations which left dolmen and menhirs that have strictly nothing gaulish about them. Overall, it is important to understand that the Gauls, who are themselves descendants of these constructors of megaliths, do not represent a homogeneous and stabe ethnic group from which we, Frenchemn, would descend directly. The world of the Gauls is an extremely varied one. Differences in culture and physique are thus considerable between Aquitaine, in the south-west, and Belgium, in the north. And very soon, no doubt as soon as the 4th century B.C., these autonomous peoples received population increases from external sources, waves of immigration limited in number but quite diverse. In Gaule settled the Iberians, from the other side of the Pyrenees, the Ligurians, a mountain people fro the Alps, or again others from central Europe. These peoples mixed in with the Gauls, who lived by law based on landholding and not blood. As soon as a population managed to settle down and prosper in Gaul, it was considered Gaulois. Gaulish identity was tied to territorial, political criteria and not ethnic ones. And if one finally takes into consideration the numerous waves of immigrants who populated French territories in the following centuries, heterogeneous populations, one sees how vain it is to consider the Gauls our direct ancestors.

In spite of this great diversity, is it possible to define a gaulois physical type?

I would say that the Gaulois were without doubt rather tall for the period. During the digswhich I undertook in Ribemont-sur-Ancre, in the Somme, I discovered the skeletons of warriors who measured for the most part 1,80 meters, sometimes, 1,90 meters. These are heights similar if not superior to those of current Frenchmen. Certainly, warriors were selected on the basis of physical characteristics and the rest of the population would have been less athletic. Yet it has been attested, through Roman witings, themselves being rather short, what is striking about the Gauls, what one finds is surpirse at their great height. Moreover, the majority of the population had clear skin and tended to be blond. We know that certain among them cultivated their blondness by washing their hair with chalk, even ammonia. A practice no doubt linked to the cult of Apollo, a solar divinity venerated by the Celts as much as by the Greeks and Romans.

You are telling us the Gauls were hospitable to foreign populations, that they took care of their hair...This is far removed from their traditional image as Barbarians.

This is an unfair legend about a people who were rather refined. Beyond hair, the Celts took great care of their bodies. To understand why this is so, one must know that in Celtic civilization, the Druids, in order to secure their monopoly on religious and political questions, forbade not only writing, but all representations of gods and humans, making these tabou. In reaction, the Gauls always considered their bodies as a work of art, being very attentive to their physical appearance. Men worked on their muscle-tone and, like women, were attentive to hygiene and clothing. Greek and roman authors of antiquity point out that, regardless of their social condition, the Gaulois never wore tatters.

Is that infamous Gaulois moustache also a sign of refinement?

There again, the moustache was much less widespead than in Asterix comic-books. The majority of the population would have worn a total beard, bacause only the aristocracy had access to rasors. The latter could keep a moustache out of vanity, but many aristocrats were clean-shaven, and wore rather short hair. Female aristocrats, for their part, had elaborate hair-does, close to those of Greek antiquity.

Must we also give up the notion that his people, which did not write, was relatively obtuse, if not downright know-nothing?

Without even mentionning the Druids and certain aristocrats, who were very knowledgeable, the Gauls were, yet again, far from being retrograde Barbarians. The Greek philosopher Poseidonios of Apamée, who travelled in Gaul some fifty years befor Caesar’s conquest, presents the Gauls as a people a bit short-tempered, but at the same time very concerned with justice. He also describes them as without guile, rather peace-loving, and especially curious and inventive. In effect, when a stanger arrived in a Gaulois village, he received certain marks of deference, was offered a meal and lodgings. And then he would be assailed with questions about his country of origin, about his beliefs... If this stanger had unknown objects in his possession, Gaulois artisans would be quick to analyse them in order to reproduce them. The Gaulois of their time were the kings of the illegal copy! When Phoceen colonists settled in Marseille around 600 B.C., they were well received, and contributed to tranforming the populations in the south of Gaul by initiating them to Greek modernity. Celtitude was open to otherness. In this manner, the Gaulois were closer to mediterranean civilizations than to the Germans on the other side of the Rhine, who inhabited regions which the Romans significantly called the Barbaricum.

The Gaulois reputation would seem unjustified. This misunderstanding would not perhaps be due to the fact that we know them from the less than friendly perspective of Greek and Roman authors?

The Greeks were less severe than the Romans in their appreciations of the Gaulois. Certainly they refer to them as «barbarians». But, for the Greeks, all foreigners are barbarians. They in fact considered them to be rather friendly and Greek-loving. Poseidonios, to mention him again, points out that one can travel in Gaul within fear of being massacred, one might even be invited to a banquet... If there is an unflattering caricature of the Gauls during Antiquity, it is that of the Romans. In opposition to the Greeks, they showed little interest in strangers, whom they considered as inferior proples. With respect to the Gaulois in particular, they never forgave the episode of the taking of rome in 390 B.C. by a Gaulois army that had ventured in Italy. It was the only time in its history that the Urbs, the city to end all cities, was vanquished and humiliated. This profound traumatisme within Roman imagination, which has not totally been dealt with at the time of the creation of the Empire, explains why the Gauls were always considerd savage and primitive warriors. This unflattering image is even the basis of their latin name : compared to roosters for their pride, the Romans gave them the derisive name, gallus. This is how they became Galli, theGaulois.