DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

The Celtic Art Coracle Volume 1 Issue 9

DE DANAANS IN AMERICA

The idea of “First People”, such as applies to the Anasazi ancestors of the Hopis, can be compared with Irish traditions concerning the De Danaans. The legends suggest a colonization of Ireland by people of the Near-East, the Milesians, the Sea People, led by “Mil of the Ships”. Presumably the author of the Irish tale had heard of the Phoenicians, whose capitol was Miletia.

Out of Miletia, also, sailed the ships of Tarshish which are thought to have colonized all along the southern Gulf Stream to Mexico, according to James Bailey, the author of Godmen and Titans, who suggests that many of the tales of culture bearers around the Atlantic rim may relate to Bronze age prospectors seeking tin by secret routes. Knowledge of such a route may have originated the legend of Atlantis. Plato’s directions tell how to get to Atlantis: go out through the gates of Gibraltar, turn left, straight down the coast of Africa a couple of days, turn right a couple of miles, and you hit “the river with no banks” upon which you can pull up you oars, or roll up your sails, and the current will take you to “Atlantis” in a couple of weeks. The scene that greets the eyes when you get to Atlantis, as described by Plato, could well be a description of a Middle-American metropolis modeled on an Egyptian plan.

If such routes were indeed travelled in the Bronze age, this might explain some tantalising correspondences between traditions on both sides of the Atlantic: Quetzlcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, was also known as Kukulcan. This name, as James Bailey pointed out sounds tantalizingy like the name of the Ulster hero, Cuchulain. Another Ulster tale concerns the son of Finn MacCool, Oisin, who was taken away to the Land in the Remote West, where he stayed 300 years. After this time, he pined for home and returned. A similar tale is told of Kukulcan, that he came from the land of in the east, across the ocean, by way of stepping stones, stayed for 300 years, and went home, to attend to a crisis in his native land.

The tale of Kukulkan is from the Popul Vuh, sacred writings of the Zapotek culture. Intriguingly, a carving in a temple there resembles very closely a similar design found in Celtic art, as for instance in the Book of Lindisfarne.

© Aidan Meehan 1983