Fake News, Do the Bigoudens Have Mongol Origins?

Myth or reality? We separate fact from fiction about the possible Mongol origins of the Bigoudens

What about the origins of the most Breton of the Bretons? Slanted eyes, mongoloid spots... enough clues to claim that the Bigoudens descend from Mongol ancestors? That's what some testimonies found on the Internet suggest: "Since I was little, people often asked me if I had Asian origins: I have a round face, prominent cheekbones, brown and slanted eyes. Yet no Asian ancestors in sight, at first glance I would be "100%" Breton, at least French" read here. These questions can make you smile, which is what led us to dig into the subject, before discovering that many articles and studies had already covered it.So, true or false? Well, the answer is controversial and opinions diverge - let's take a look at these true/false claims.

They are convinced, it is true

It is Bertrand François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, an engineer, who throws the stone in the pond by asserting firmly that the Bigoudens have Mongol origins in his work Voyage en Basse-Bretagne chez les Bigoudens de Pont-l’Abbé published in 1892. The Lapons, the Mongols-Kalkhas, the Kalmyks, the Tibetans or the Buryats... all origins are covered! La Bourdonnais bases his claims on a survey he conducted in 1888 on about twenty people mostly living in Finistère but also in the Côtes-du-Nord (now Côtes-d'Armor) and Morbihan. He mainly bases the success of his book on the plagiarism of many lines from Voyage dans le Finistère ou Etat de ce département en 1794 et 1795 by the writer Jacques Cambry, published in 1799. La Bourdonnais says he sees in the Bigouden who forms his study sample "a pure-bred Mongol", "with features carved with an axe" at that. Even the medical doctoral student René Le Feunteun adds that the Bigoudens form a "mongoloid race [...] who has only adopted the Breton language, preserving its customs, its type and a partial costume". Well, it's true, you might believe that in terms of clothing, the Bigoudens and Mongols share a pronounced taste for embroidery: between the Bigouden headdress and the ouelun or the kabic and the deel.

Others say it's a myth

We are in 1983, a team of academics led by professors Le Menn and Youinou decides to debunk this received idea. Sponsored by the Inserm, their immunogenetic study led them to examine 500 people living in the Bigouden country, born there before 1945 and whose four grandparents were born in the country. This was followed by blood samples and the study of 23 genetic markers to finally be able to state that "there is strictly no genetic analogy between Bigoudens and Asians". Instead, one should see a genetic link with populations from the Isle of Man or Wales. The most Breton of the Bretons would therefore have Breton origins.

But how to explain the presence of these distinctive physical signs so widely described? Le Menn states that it is linked to the isolation of these populations that allowed them to preserve the traits inherited from the first migrants of the 5th century, which included the Sarmatians.
Ah, indeed! The Sarmatians, a people of the Urals, neighbors of Mongolia... "Coincidence? I don't think so."