On the Manx of the Isle of Man. Author(s): Richard King Source: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 1 (1872), pp. xiii-xv Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2841279 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 01:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.2.32.121 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 01:05:56 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Transcript
On the Manx of the Isle of Man.Author(s): Richard KingSource: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 1(1872), pp. xiii-xvPublished by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2841279 .
Accessed: 15/06/2014 01:05
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserveand extend access to The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
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TrHE minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. Captain C. C. POOLE, Assist.-Com., Myansang, Pegu, was elected a
Fellow; and Professor CAV. LUIGI CALORI, of Bologna, Italy, was elected a Corresponding Member.
The following donations were announced, and the thanks of the meeting voted to the donors:
FOR THE vIBRARY.
From the Hon. E. G. SQuIER-Historical Notes on the employment of Ne- groes in the American Army of the Revolution. By Geo. H. Moore.
From the EDITOR-The Food Journal. January, 1871. - From the ACADEMY-Jaarboek van de Koninklijke Akademie van Weten.
schappen gevestigd te Amsterdam, voor 1868. From the ACADEDIY-Verslagen en Mededeelingen de Eon. Akad. van We-
tenschappen: Afdeeling Natuurkunde. Tweede reeks; derde deel. From the ACADEmY-Processan-verbaal van de Gewoone Vergaderingen.
1869-70. From the SOCIETY-Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in
Wien, No. 5. From the EDITOR-Nature; to date.
Mr. J. WILKINSON exhibited skulls and weapons, and other works of art, found in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery near Barrington, in Cambridge- shire.
The following paper was read by the author:
III.-On the 'MANX of the ISLE OF MAN. By RICHARD KING, Esq., M.D., F.A.S.L.
THE Manx were originally a race of fishermen and smugglers, and they are still to be considered a race of fishermen.
Owing to want of records it is very difficult to procure any written information concerning the original inhabitants. The ancient history of the Isle is involved in impenetrable obscurity, and so mixed up with fiction, that it is impossible to separate the real from the imaginary.
Ethnologists and historians have conjectured, and I believe cor- rectly, that the first possessors of the isle were Celts of the Gaelic branch. Dr. Robert Gordon Latham is of that opinion. He says that in Ireland, in the Highlands of Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, we have Celts of the Gaelic, in Wales and Brittany, Celts of the British branch.
The Manx are tall, robust, frank, hospitable, and, in common with all the Celtic races, excessively superstitious. But few of the Manx have attained any distinguished literary, scientific, or political emi- nence; but we must not forget that the Isle produced the late Profes- sor Edward Forbes, one of the greatest naturalists who ever brought his knowledge of the living world to elucidate the physical and organic
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changes in the past history of the earth. I much doubt, however, if he was pure Manx.
The Manx, as I have stated, are said to be tall; but what do you call tall ? I have taken steps to that end. The Esquimaux were con- sidered to be a dwarfish race until, by a series of measurements, I proved them to be a taller race than the English, the English averaging for the man five feet six inches, and for the woman five feet two inches. The standard of the French is below that of the Belgians, and the Esquimaux is above it. This uncertainty of stature will soon be remedied, as, through the Duke of Argyll, instructions have been sent out to all our colonies throughout the 'world, to obtain height, and proportion upon a given standard of measuirement of all the uncivilised races in the world, as far as they can be obtained.
The pure Manx population has not been ascertained, and I have called the attention of the Registrar-General to this end in taking the next census. The entire population of the island was in
This table shows that the Isle of Man has undergone great changes in population, attributable to conquiest, immigration, and emigration with which the historian has to deal.
Etymologists are at variance respecting the derivation of the name of the island. Some seek its root in the Celtic, others in the Saxon, and others again in the Erse or Scandinavian languages. At various times, and by various authors, the island has been christened Mona. In Welsh it is Monaw, in Saxon Mannie, in Irish Manand, in Scandi- navian Bfon, and in Manx Mannin. All these forms may be referred to the Sanscrit root, Afdn.*
The language of the Isle of Man is one of the six Celtic dialects which philologists have shown to belong to the class of Indo-European languages, and which are divided into high and low; the high being the Welsh, Cornish, and Armorican; the low being the Erse division, or the Gaelic, Irish, and Manx. As a spoken language Manx is not unlikely to die out in another generation, being rarely used in conver- sation except amongst the peasantry. In most of the parish churches twenty-five years ago it was used on three Sundays out of four, but it is now entirely discontinued. But while the Manx are fast losing their language, they unquestionably preserve their individuality as a primitive race.
The native literature consists of a grand historical ballad of the beginning of the sixteenth century, the ballads of Illiam Dhone, of Molley Charane, of Thirree fo Snaightly, and ballads on sacred sub- jects, called Carols or Carvals; political and satirical poems and songs, with translations of various works. A Grammar and a Dictionary were composed nearly a century ago by the Rev. Dr. Kelly. Kelly's dictionary was reprinted for the Manx Society in 1866, under the
* Nelson's Pictorial Guide to the Isle of Man, p. 8.
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editorship of the Rev. W. Gill and the Rev. J. T. Clarke. Mr. Quaritch, of Piccadilly, has just produced a reprint of the Grammar of that language, which he has been kind enough to present to our library.
The cutrrency of the Isle of Man is now assimilated to that of Eng- land. The copper coinage has impressed on the reverse the arms of the island-three armed legs and the motto, Quocunque jeceris stabit -Wherever you throw it, it will stand. This device, which was the ancient symbol of Trinacria or Sicily, according to some authorities, was introduced into the Isle of Man by the Normans; according to others it was introduced by Alexander the Third, King of Scotland.*
DIscussION. The CHAIRMAN said that Dr. King was no doubt right in stating
that the Keltic element in the Isle of Man was Gaelic, not Kymric. The language of the people was Gaelic. There seemed to be both a Scandinavian and a Saxon element. The name Tinwald was derived from the Icelandic, viz.: from tinga, "to speak," valld, "'a hill." The Tinwald is a hill where the people formerly assembled to speak; a division was called a sheading, from the Saxon sceadan (Ger. scheiden), "to divide;" and a judge was called a deemster.
The author of the paper traced the name. of the Isle of Man to the Sanskrit man, but he did not give the meaning of the Sanskrit word. He (the chairman) thought the derivation rather far-fetched, and he did not think there was any Sanskrit name in Europe nearer than Mount Haemus. The Sailskrit word mdn had many meanings. As a verb it signified to adore; as a noun, self-confidence, pride, arrogance, a measuring'; and man is to think, and mind. A better derivation of the name "Man" might be found in the Celtic. Dr. Owen Pughe gave as one of the nmeanings of mon, "an isolated one." He says " the Welsh call the Isle of Anglesea, 'I Mon,' and in order to distinguish it'from Mon Aw, the Mon of the water or the Isle of Man, it is sometimes called Mon Fynnydd or Mon of the Mountains." Hence the Monapia of Pliny; the Monceda of Ptolemy; the Menavia of Orosius and Bede. Caesar called it Mona; but when Tacitus men- tions Mona, he refers to Anglesea, not to the Isle of Man.
The following paper was then read:
IV.-On the ANTHROPOLOGY of LANCASHIRE. By JOHN BEDDOE, Esq., M.D., Pres. A.S.L.
LANCASHIRE falls naturally into three or four divisions. Of these the first and most important is the counitry between the Ribble and Mer- sey, closely connected with Cheshire geographically and historically. The second is Furness or North Lonsdale, as for some purposes it is very incorrectly styled, which is geographically a part of Cumberland. The thirdand fourth are South Lonsdale and Amounderness, of which the former naturally connects itself with Westmorland, to which the
* Nelson's Pictorial GuAide to the Isle of Man.
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