What do Picts look like?
- Thread starter Style
- Start date
When I commissioned the cover for across the Thunder River I basically told Chris Quilliams to look at the ambush scene from the later movie and Conan-ise it. It was pretty straightforward other than me sending it back to have the heroine's chest enlarged to an appropriately Hyborian level. :wink:
I just realized something from the "What do Atlanteans look like?" thread. Check out this passage from the Kane story The Moon of Skulls:
Note that this was written in 1930, prior to the first Conan tale. So before REH wrote a single Conan story, we have a record of him referring to red and white men. So much for the "everyone is classified as either black, white or yellow" theory.
So can we assume that REH did not envision Picts are red men, i.e. native Americans, since he repeatedly called them white?
Again, I'm not talking culture, dress or ornamentation. I'm talking racial traits.
Moon of Skulls said:
Note that this was written in 1930, prior to the first Conan tale. So before REH wrote a single Conan story, we have a record of him referring to red and white men. So much for the "everyone is classified as either black, white or yellow" theory.
So can we assume that REH did not envision Picts are red men, i.e. native Americans, since he repeatedly called them white?
Again, I'm not talking culture, dress or ornamentation. I'm talking racial traits.
You may also want to check out the Cairn on the Headland, where he describes a northern European and a southern european as distinctly different peoples. The Picts were white, but not the same "type" of white in much the same way as modern people refer to "white Anglo Saxon" and "Hispanic". Although their culture owes a lot to the north American Indian, as perceived in 1930s Texas.
Barbarossa Rotbart
Mongoose
For me the picts are the pre-celtic cultures in the west (Britain, Ireland, Iberian Penisula), which vanished after the celt conquered them. BTW it is still not clear if the historical picts were celts or not.
I like to envision the Picts as being a cultural and racial mix of the North American Indian and the pre-Roman Celt/Gael-like tribes of the British Isles. I don't think that REH intended for them to perfectly mirror any one modern race, but rather to reflect the practices and appearance of both of these 'savage', and barbaric tribal peoples. It does stand to note that they are referred to as 'white men', but are not regarded as such by the majority of 'civilized' Hyborians, so the Picts swarthy complexion with distinctly caucasian features seems to describe a native American appearance despite their placement in a distinctly EurAsian setting. I'm sure that living in early 20th century Texas, Howards proximity to native American culture (and the old western stories about them) went a long way to influence his development of Picts in the Hyborian Age. 
Thorvang said:I like to envision the Picts as being a cultural and racial mix of the North American Indian and the pre-Roman Celt/Gael-like tribes of the British Isles. I don't think that REH intended for them to perfectly mirror any one modern race, but rather to reflect the practices and appearance of both of these 'savage', and barbaric tribal peoples. It does stand to note that they are referred to as 'white men', but are not regarded as such by the majority of 'civilized' Hyborians, so the Picts swarthy complexion with distinctly caucasian features seems to describe a native American appearance despite their placement in a distinctly EurAsian setting. I'm sure that living in early 20th century Texas, Howards proximity to native American culture (and the old western stories about them) went a long way to influence his development of Picts in the Hyborian Age.
This is, IMHO, the correct analysis. The description in Howard's stories and the names of the tribes goes a long way to suggesting the Woodland Indians of the French & Indian War period.
Similar threads
