drunemeton

[Muddy Fox]

I like this thread, the idea of the Celts sticking together and drumming of an impending enemy. I was speaking to someone the other day who works in the centre of Birmingham, England and a Muslim man drove past him with a sticker in his car windscreen which said "The Twin Towers was an inside job".
What better way to keep the masses subdued and compliant than to use "martyrs" to enforce the pariticular religion/belief structure which you want to endorse amongst a people. And how so much better to cause harm or extinction, if you can get away with it, to those who speak out. Use one against the other. I see the Pope is in full swing today with apparent "Religious Leaders", with a message of freedom and tolerance even for "agnostics", as long as they are present at the prayer meeting.

[Strabo]

Surprisingly, give and take were not opposites in the minds of ancient Indo-European speakers, which is why guest and host are fundamentally the same word. It is quite hard for a modern person to understand thought processes in a world without money. Personally, I always find it strange how archaeologists deny that trade in the modern sense developed until very late, but stress the importance of ancient gift exchange. One can have great fun speculating on the sociology revealed by that nem- root (something like 'apportion') developing to 'pasture' in Greek and to 'take' in Germanic.