[Re: On substratum religion]

[Walker Trimble]

>Anything to do with 'Mother Goddess' seems to be substratum! Perhaps, it may
>be not be completely appropriate to separate the religious beliefs as they
>evolved, say in the bronze age, into compartments of (substratum, aryan
cosmos
>etc.)

I agree completely.  The idea of "substrate" has been a dangerous one from
the C. XIX on.  It is especially virulent in Indo-European studies and
ranges from the idea that there were no retroflex consonants in the "pure"
or "original" Rg Veda (most importantly, that there was no
__differentiation__ between palatal and retroflex) to Marija Gimbutas'
hypothesis that the neolithic urban cultures of the Balkans and Asia Minor
became the peaceful, matriarchal substrate overwashed by the violent,
patriarchal Indo-Europeans.  The substrate idea is just the compliment, the
necessary apposite, of that nauseating, Aryan Romanticism we so abhor.

Yours,

W. Trimble