Lost Legacy

Lost Legacy

by Otter G'Zell

The idea of searching for our "roots" seems to have

been catalyzed in recent times by the book and TV series

by Alex Haley, in which a Black American seek to trace and

recover his African heritage. Much of the Neo-Pagan

resurgence derives from similar motives, as those of us of

varying ethnic descent, mostly European, feel a deepening

need to discover and reclaim our own ancestral heritage. It

has seemed that such a heritage is more accessible, or

perhaps more romantic, for non-white peoples, such as

Native Americans or Afro-Americans, and in the past few

decades much progress has been made in establishing

ethnic studies programs for "people of color."

Most of us who are "white" have been raised with the

idea that our religious heritage is Christianity. We have

been taught in Sunday school that our story begins in the

Garden of Eden, leading eventually to the epic saga of the

Exodus and the conquest of Canaan, up to the birth of

Jesus and the spreading of the Gospel throughout the

world. We have been taught to identify with the "Chosen

People" of the Bible. In the traditional presentation of the

history of Western civilization, the story follows a similar

thread: civilization begins in Egypt. Then the focus shifts,

with the Exodus, to Israel. We learn of the Greek heroic

legends and the Golden Age of Pericles; perhaps noting in

passing Alexander's expansion of the Macedonian Empire.

Then the point-of-view shifts inevitably to Rome. We read

Caesar's Commentaries on the Gaulic Wars, follow the

twisted destinies of the imperial successions, and hail

Constantine for establishing Christianity as the state

religion. Singing "Onward Christian Soldiers," we march

throughout the empire with the legions of Rome (and later,

the Crusaders) to convert the recalcitrant "heathen" to the

revealed word of God.

We all grew up with that perspective, taught to us by

who else? the official Ministry of Truth of Church and State.

However, some of us were blessed by the Goddess with

intellectual curiosity; we wanted to know more. And so we

continued our studies, far beyond what was being offered

in Sunday school or college. We have come to learn that

we are a conquered people, that those of us whose

ancestors were the Celtic tribes of Europe and also the

Saxons, Teutons, Norse, Normans, Angles, etc. were

conquered and enslaved by Julius Caesar and his imperial

successors. By his own count, Caesar murdered 1,192,000

of our men, women and children in his campaign of

"pacification" of Gaul. Our people were not the Romans,

and we owe no allegiance to Rome, nor to the culture

derived from that Empire. If we are to seek a cultural

identification, it can hardly be with our oppressors.

Nor can our religious identification be with Judeo-

Christianity. Thehistory given in the Old Testament is an

account of how the "Chosen People" i.e. the Hebrews/Jews

establish a covenant with the Sky-Father Storm God

Jahveh, forge a national unity based on volumes of

obsessive laws, and invade the farming country of Canaan,

slaughtering its peaceful indigenous inhabitants.

Throughout, the main thrust is to clearly distinguish the

"Chosen People" from everybody else. That "everybody

else" includes all of us who are not Jewish. We Pagans

are "the other people."

Christianity is conditional upon Judaism. The very

concept of a savior, a messiah which Jesus is purported to

be requires a belief in the Genesis story of The Fall, which

established the notion of "original sin," subsequently

inherited by all the descendants of Adam i.e., supposedly

the Semitic peoples. The symptom of this affliction is

specified in Genesis: shame of nakedness. Historical

accounts make it quite clear that non-Semitic peoples, such

as the Egyptians, Greeks, Africans, Polynesians or Celts

had no obsessive body modesty, and went cheerfully

naked whenever the occasion permitted. The idea of a

messiah is to redeem the victims of original sin. No sin, no

need of a redeemer. Thus Christianity in its central

premise is irrelevant to non-Semitic peoples.

So it is entirely appropriate that we abandon both the

Roman culture of Western civilization and the Christianity

inflicted upon us after the Roman conquest. Does this

mean that we must recreate the culture and religion of our

ancestors as it was over 2,000 years ago? I think not. We

need not take up where we left off. If we are bold, and have

imagination, we may rather take up where we might have

been today if we had not been subjected to 2,000 years of

oppression. We may forge a mythological continuity to

account for how we have gotten from there to here, but we

need not be overconcerned about its "factuality." So let's

see what patterns from the ancient past we may

extrapolate into our present lives...

One of our greatest strengths was our tribalism. We

were born into and grew up in communities where all

people were related by ties of kinship and committment.

We all had our place, and there were traditional roles we

could adopt. We were guided by custom, rather than ruled

by laws, and each tribe, each village, through the customs

of exogamy (marrying outside the clan), had various ties

with surrounding tribes as well. All the villages would come

together at the marketplace, and at the great seasonal

festivals.

Of course, the tribalism we cherished was also our

downfall. Intertribal rivalries and competition made it

almost impossible for us to unite in defense against an

imperial foe, and Rome just walked all over us. We still

struggle today with vestiges of this attitude: the

Republicans ("Party of the Republic") all cast their votes in

behalf of a single candidate, while the Democrats ("Party of

the People") tend to split votes among half a dozen

different candidates, and so lose elections.

Still, if we can learn those hard lessons and overcome

our natural tendency towards factionalism, the

decentralized model of tribal communities is closer to our

hearts than the autocratic model of imperial Rome which

contemporary world politics aspires to emulate. Against the

Empire, we have always been members of the Rebel

Alliance. The key word is "alliance."

Just as our political inclinations are shaped by our

primordial sense of tribalism, so does our natural religious

orientation reflect our origins. We claim the name of

Pagans "country dwellers;" people of the land. We honor

and revere Mother Nature, Mother Earth, and the gods,

goddesses and spirits of Nature. Our temples and

cathedrals are holy places and landforms: sacred groves,

caves, mountains, springs, etc. We celebrate the seasonal

festivals in the Wheel of the Year, and the phases of the

white Moon among the stars. We base our rites and rituals

not on exact replicas of what we know to have been

performed at Eleusis or Cornwall those millenia ago (for in

most cases we do not know exactly what our ancient

ancestors did) but upon a mythic interweaving,

incorporating those threads of the tapestry that have

survived with an artful reconstruction adapted to our

present needs. We have always been artists, and ritual is

a high and holy art form. We create as much as we

recreate, and this is appropriate, for our religion does not

lie in the rote repetition of dead and frozen forms, but in the

very essence of magical celebration. We know what feels

right, what empowers us, what fills our hearts. We are

constantly growing and evolving. I truly believe our

ancestors would feel as much at home in our modern

rituals as they did in their own time visiting a neighboring

village down the river. The essence of Pagan religion is,

after all, attunement with Nature; and when we return to

Her, our diversity of forms enhances our oneness of spirit.

As children of the same Mother, we discover true unity

through diversity.

One of the key roles in any tribal society is that of the

Shaman. Such were (and are) healers, herbalists,

midwives, priest(esse)s, diviners, magicians, teachers and

psychopomps (spirit guides). The Shaman utilizes altered

states of consciousness to elicit psychic phenomena and

travel to and from the spirit realm, or Dreamtime. It is my

contention that those we call Witches were the tribal

Shamans of pre-Christian Europe. In seeking to reclaim, re-

establish and reassert our own cultural roots our own lost

legacy we have inevitably rediscovered Witchcraft, and its

rightful place in our society. Paganism is not a euphemism

for Witchcraft; "Pagan" refers to the entire cultural/religious

matrix of Nature-focused orientation. Witchcraft was not,

traditionally, a religion per se, but a practice, an art, a role

within the context of a Pagan community. While modern

Witchcraft has, in fact, evolved into a religion unto itself, it

retains a strong identification with its shamanic roots, and

aspires to once again serve that original function within the

greater community.

So does it really matter whether modern Neo-

Paganism, or modern Witchcraft, can claim an unbroken

succession from those ancient times, before the Burning,

before the Conquest? Does it matter whether Gerald

Gardner made it all up, or whether we are even now making

it up as we go along? I think not. The essence is more

important than the form, and adopted children can belong

to a family just as much as the natural kids. The ancients

got their religion directly from Nature. As we do also, so

are we one with them.