Taexali

The Taexali are one of the peoples said to have lived in the area north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus, described by Roman historians Tacitus, Ptolemy and Ammianus Marcellinus as the home of the Caledonii. With the exception of the Caledonians, the names of these tribes were probably reported second- or third-hand to the Romans by Brythonic or Gaulish speakers. The Caledonii are attested from the AD 230 Romano-British Colchester inscription of a dedication by the nephew, or possibly grandson, of "Uepogenus, [a] Caledonian."

According to Tacitus, Agricola defeated a coalition of Caledonian tribes, among them the Taexali, at the Battle of Mons Graupius (in AD 83 or 84). They were not permanently occupied, however, as they lived beyond the Antonine Wall, which marked the most northern region of the Roman Empire.

In his Geography, published in the mid-second century AD (Rivet & Smith 1979, 103-47), Ptolemy names Devana as the only polis (capital) ascribed to the Taexali, along with Cullykhan, an Iron Age promontory fort in the same region.

Little else is known for certain about the Taexali, other than that they lived on small, undefended farms in today's Grampian, and in hamlets along the coastal regions of SE Grampian and NE Tayside. They also may have had an important settlement at the mouth of the River Dee. Though they shared much in common with their southern Venicones neighbours, they were a separate clan.

Archaeologolical comparison shows that settlements and rituals in the Highlands and Islands to the north and west were different to those found in the fertile lowland regions of the south and east of Scotland. For instance, there is evidence that, unlike the Caledonii, the Taexali and Venicones made religious offerings of finely crafted metal artifacts.

The Taexali most likely spoke a Brythonic dialect similar to Cornish and Breton, at least until the arrival of the Gaelic-speaking Dal Riada. Proponents of the Insular Celtic Languages theory, however, assert that, due to the language contact phenomenon, partitioning the Brythonic and Gaulish (P-Celtic) languages on one side and the Goidelic languages (Q-Celtic) on the other may be a superficial divide.

Ptolemy describes some of the northern tribes in the Caledonii federation as having Brythonic names, or names similar to certain Gaulish tribes. The Taexali capital Devana, possibly a form of Devona, the Dee, or the Don, also has several Gaulish parallels. Ptolomy also calls Kinnaird Head, the most northerly point of Aberdeenshire, Taexalorum Promontorium. According to Rivet and Smith, however, Devana is a Roman camp at Kintore in Aberdeenshire.

Though the form and meaning of the name Taexali have been obscured, Andrew Breeze offers evidence of Middle Irish and proto-Pictish cognates that suggest the name means "blood shedders." He also suggests Devona may mean "great goddess."

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