One of the aspects I delve into a little deeper with the book Liath Luachra: The Seeking (and the entire series, in fact) is around the workings of âtribesâ, at least in terms of how they related to ancient Ireland.
The concept of âtribeâ (âtuathâ or âtreibhâ in Irish) is one that most westerners are familiar with on an intellectual level. Due to the individualised, ânationâ-based societies in which the vast majority of us now live in however, we donât really have a practical understanding of how tribal systems function or how they influence human interaction or behaviour.
If you look up a definition of âtribeâ from the usual sources, most English-based dictionaries will usually define it in the form of âa human populationâ that has the basic elements of:
- a common ancestry; and
- a common/homogenous culture
Which is a bit simplistic, to be honest.
When you think about it, itâs a pretty fundamental for people to come together. And thatâs not only for social interaction but for the purpose of survival in threatening or trying circumstances. When it comes to human beings, the established truth is that, over the longer term, groups of people tend to operate (and survive) far more effectively than individuals, particularly where thereâs an established interdependency between their members. Thatâs summed up quite nicely by the old Gaelic saying:
âMaireann na daoine ar scĂĄil a chĂ©ileâ
Itâs in the shadow of one another that people endure.
In ancient Ireland, where the population was substantially smaller than it is today, the most natural groupings would have been those based on familial bonds. Like all families however, those relationships were dynamic in that once groups reached a certain size (and the interdependency or internal bonds between people weakened), members would have âmoved outâ, splitting away from the larger group to form âsub-tribesâ, some eventually growing large enough to be recognised by others as tribes in their own right. Certain tribes of course, would have gone the opposite way, combining with other tribes to form much larger tribal confederations.
One aspect of tribal life that many modern â particularly western â definitions tend to overlook, is the importance of a common geographical territory or âhomelandâ in which tribes operate and over which they hold authority (even nomadic tribes have established routes they follow). This element is important as land ârootsâ the society living on it. Basically, that means that over a long period of occupation, people establish very strong interactions with â and connections to â the land, connections that strengthen tribal identity. This is one of the reasons, tribal identity tends to be far stronger and encourages far greater loyalty than ânationalâ identityâ.
Losing authority or control over a territory (as expressed through a tribeâs continued occupation or presence on it) â would have had a deleterious effect in that it separated tribal members from their established cultural history and stories â critical factors of identity (and probably linked to the reasons many westerners grapple with their own sense of âbelongingâ).
Unfortunately, even today, many western nations struggle to understand tribal models as they donât fit neatly into their paradigm and/or governance systems. Some western governments, seeing them as something that doesnât concur with their concept of ânationhoodâ, simply donât want to.
And thatâs a loss for everyone.
