Anglo-Celt Indigenousness
Non-indigenousness is only a recent construct in the English-speaking world. But is British Aboriginality still alive and well?
My wife is a British Islander, an Anglo-Celt with a strong connection to her own indigenous descent. (Talk about sleeping with the enemy!) That ancestry is still strong for her people. You can see a kind of frustrated indigenous longing in the tribalism and ritualised violence that emerges during English soccer riots, when all the repressed warriors burst enraged from their non-indigenous facades.
Genetic studies have disproven the belief that this Britsh aboriginal blood has been "bred out" over millennia of invasion. Romans, Saxons, Normans, and now ethnic groups from around the world have contributed to the bronze-age British gene pool, but they have not eclipsed it. On the contrary, genetic research shows that the original bloodlines are still strong, and will remain so despite ongoing international additions.
This makes me wonder why so many people assume that Australian Indigenous ancestry has been somehow "diluted" over a mere 150 to 200 years. People see the dark skin fade, and assume the ancestral lines are extinguished at the same time. But genetic principles don't change to suit politics, I'm sorry to say. We will endure for millennia, just as my wife's people have.
People of British descent ask me why I can't just leave the past behind me, and simply move towards the future. But I don't question their right to remember and celebrate the feats of their famous indigenous warrior ancestors such as Queen Boudicea and King Caractacus, who struggled against Roman occupation. I don't question the right of their ancestors to have destested and fought the Romans until they left their shores. This is because I respect my wife's ancestry and ancient claim to her own aboriginality, the same way she respects mine.
Our relationship has its difficulties in bringing together often opposing worldviews, but we always find our way through. I think our marriage is a great model for reconciliation in this country. If everybody could respect each other's ancestry and culture the way we do... Well, wouldn't that be nice.
Check out the Aboriginal Rights article on Gaelic Indigenousness. You have to see the picture there of the "craggan cup". This picture tells me that even the British "cup o' tea" tradition, while claimed as "civilised" social behaviour, actually has its origins in ancient Indigenous custom.
