Aye, the celebration o culture & ancestry is a tangled web indeed...

I was reminded of this in a seminary class, when our Native American professor was going down the long list of evils perpetrated by "God-fearing" Europeans & European-Americans against the many indigenous groups they encountered. When I tried to point out that various Celtic peoples had suffered similar forms of cultural oppression and even attempted genocide, he became very uncomfortable.

Throughout that course, we engaged in a delicate dance, trying to find ways to discuss shared concerns and cultural survival issues in a way that did not trigger his concerns about "white power" and other, more subtle forms of European-American racism.

We never did find a comfortable middle ground--there was too much blood on the earth for that--but I would never consider those discussions worthless. They helped me understand the complex emotions, the political and socio-economic realities of such cultural issues. I believe we both recognized that there is much work to be done in both our respective communities if we are to achieve both communal/internal pride, knowledge & wisdom, and the ability to regard , with pride and respect, those cultures outside our own.

Celtic culture has always had elements of violence, bigotry and self-aggrandizement. I suspect this is true in all cultures, and it is easy enough for a fear-based group of disempowered, disconnected people to "invent" a heritage and world-view based on such principles. But we must remember--and teach others to remember--that these negative elements did not exist in isolation, and there were other values within the culture that mitigated or balanced them out. The Celtic value of hospitality, for example, demanded respect for strangers and considerate care for the wanderer, the downtrodden & the displaced. Do these so-called "Celtic" supremicist groups teach their members about the ancient codes of honorable & hospitable conduct, or do they just paint themselves blue and keep waving their claymores?

Those of us who claim European-American ancestry have a deep obligation to study our cultures of origin and trace both their destructive and constructive elements. We must live and work with an awareness of these elements, but we must do even more: we have an obligation to end their imbalance, lest they continue to seep and smolder and strike out, unanticipated and unchecked. Wendell Berry alludes to this in his essay, "A Native Hill", when he writes that, "the road-builders...were placeless people: Because they belonged to no place, it was almost inevitable that they should behave violently towards theplaces they came to." (The rest of the essay is worth reading; find it if you can.)

We may never "belong" to a place as deeply as those whose ancestors never immigrated/emigrated anyplace. But we can tap into our own sources of cultural wisdom to find that old (Celtic?) ideal of "the fitness of things", and seek our proper place. We can help others seek their roots, as well, and share the understanding that roots require relationships, and relationships require responsibility. Then we can relax a bit, settle in, get out our instruments, and enjoy making some "roots music" together!

--Cuilionn