I watched an eclectic St. Patrick's Day
Parade in Salt Lake City. Eclectic because most of the marching
bands were bagpipes, there were several brigades of cars (Mini
Coopers etc) plenty of Shriners, Civil War groups Union and
Confederate, Harley riders and one transvestite on roller skates.
Interestingly there were many beer truck flotillas and Irish bars
represented. I'll come back to that.
One guy with an IRA t-shirt walked by me in the crowd and I yelled “murderer, murderer” but he didn't stop.
All of which led me to think about how
the Celts were the main population of Europe in 200 BCE at the same
time as one fairly homogeneous ethnic population covered the American
continents.
Starting in 200 BCE, a small group of Etrusco-Romans grew large and powerful enough, over several centuries, to attack and dominate most of the Celts and drove the remaining Celts to the far Northern parts of Albion.
Similarly, starting in 1600, a small group of English
speaking-Vikings grew large enough and powerful enough to dominate
most of the North American natives and drive the rest to the Northern
reaches of the American continent.
Both groups that were defeated and driven North seem to have a great affection for alcohol. The Celts are certainly different in their celebration of alcohol than the Chinese who don't celebrate bars in the Chinese New Year's Parade. The same would be true for Japanese, Turks, Indians and Israelis if they had parades.
The more significant common quality of
the Celts and the North American natives was their intense tribalism.
The story of Vercingetorix is about the last battle of the Celts
before being over run by Julius Caesar. Vercingetorix was surrounded at the present
day French village of Dijon in 52 BCE by advancing Roman legions from
Southern France. Winter arrived and Vercingetorix had the chance to
gather reinforcements from all the Celtic tribes from Spain to
Switzerland, which he tried to do. Very few tribes would help him. He was defeated in the
Spring along with all the remaining Celtic lands.
The same story of tribalism, isolation and poor cooperation defines the battles of the North American natives against the slowly advancing, Westward moving, English speaking population.
I will speculate more in future blogs about the surviving tribalism in the world, from the IRA (who should not be permitted to use R, Republican, in their name; they are anti-republican fascists) to the Arabs.