The Great Ethnographic Mysteries

The human race is unpredictable. Just when you have worked out how it works some strange thing happens which shatters your preconceptions.

Take the Vikings. These brave warriors went all over Europe in their longships putting people to the sword and raping and pillaging their way to a substantial empire stretching from Scandinavia to Italy. One of the most aggressive and bloodthirty peoples in history. Where are the Vikings now? They have become the Swedes and the Danes and the Finns and the Norwegians. Moderate, democratic, neutral, peace-loving peoples. Politically correct and socially responsible. No threat to anyone. What happened? Are they trying to conquer with boredom what they once conquered with violence? All of these nations are fine and upstanding but something serious must have happened to make them prefer designing furniture to running amok.

There is also the case of the rail workers. When America started building its railway network on the east coast most of the workers were Irish. By the time they got to the west coast most of the workers were Chinese. No one has ever satisfactorily explained what made all the Irish people turn Chinese. Was it the diet? The climate? The nature of the work? Some peculiar combination of these? The most likely explanation is that as the line stretched further and further the workers had to look further and further into the distance to see their colleagues and do their jobs. They did this by squinting and thus developed slitted eyes. To avoid racist abuse from fellow Irish they then adopted Chinese identities and found a new home with genuine Chinese who were beginning to work on the railway. Impossible? Compare the sound of Chinese names to the sounds made in Dublin pubs by the local inebriates and judge for yourself.

But the greatest ethnographic mystery also concerns the Irish. We are all used to jokes made by one race about another which may offend but are not intended to cause serious harm. The Americans have their Polack jokes for example which are not intended as wholesale attacks on Americans of Polish origin or an excuse for negative attitudes or discrimination of any sort. The Germans make jokes (yes) about the French and the French make jokes about the English. The English tell jokes about the Irish and the Irish tell jokes about the Kerrymen. Who do the Kerrymen tell jokes about? Maybe it is Corkmen as some have claimed. So who do the Corkmen tell jokes about? Are they the end of the line? What would happen if the Corkmen doubled back and told jokes about the other end of the line? Is this indeed the point of the exercise?

Someone somewhere knows who started the national jokes and what the other end of the line is. I suspect that there are a few Kerrymen sitting in their villages who know the secret. Revisionist history claims that Celtic nations came from everywhere except where the last expert says they came from. Maybe all nations are Celtic and all nations therefore part Irish. Every nation is laughing at itself by laughing at others. And if the buck stops at the Kerrymen they are the one serious nation left on earth and the revolution is quietly ushered in. Impossible? Remember the Ayatollah?