a short piece on the Picts

[Anton]

There were a people called Pictiones in Gaul and we know the same 'tribal' names occur in different parts of the Celtic world.  Perhaps that is what inspired Ritchie.  It is certainly a possibility that Pict derives from a real name.

Without wanting to labour the point, Islam was an alien culture imposed upon Roman provincials of Tunisia. A radical departure.

Pict culture on the other hand, however it manifested, was a native development from a cultural mileu shared with those it came to dominate. Business as usual-probably. 

[Erpingham]

Trying to get my understanding clear.  Picts would actually be what they called themselves and all the Roman stuff about them being called after their painted bodies would be jokey wordplay?

[Andreas Johansson]

Trying to get my understanding clear.  Picts would actually be what they called themselves and all the Roman stuff about them being called after their painted bodies would be jokey wordplay?

Something like that, yes, allowing that the exact form of the name in Latin might be modified on account of the folk etymology.

[Andreas Johansson]

Pict culture on the other hand, however it manifested, was a native development from a cultural mileu shared with those it came to dominate. Business as usual-probably.

I'm thinking your problem is more with Woolf's theory than with the analogy used to express it.