Tea at Trianon: Early Irish Explorers and Settlers

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Early Irish Explorers and Settlers

From Irish Central:

Physically, the people of Duhare appeared to be European according to the Spanish colonists in the area. The people of Duhare had red to brown hair, tan skin and gray eyes, and were noticeably taller than the Spanish. According to Spanish accounts, the people of Duhare were Caucasian, though their houses and pottery were similar to those of American Indians.

The king of Duhare was said to be named Datha and was described by the Spanish as being a giant, even when compared to his peers. He had five children and a wife as tall as him. Datha had brightly colored paint or tattoos on his skin that seemed to distinguish him from the commoners.

Despite Martyr’s report that included the apparently unique tribe of the Duhare, the believed predecessors of the Creek Indian tribe, more recent scholars are wary of the possibility of a Caucasian tribe at that time in America. “In 1922 the Smithsonian Institute published, 'Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors' by the renowned ethnologist, John W. Swanton. It included much of Martyr’s passages on Duhare, but was prefaced with contemptuous remarks by Swanton that the story couldn’t be true and that the Duhare were probably a Siouan tribe,” explains Thornton.

However, later in 2006, People of One Fire, a nationwide team of Native American scholars, primarily of Creek Indian heritage, began a comprehensive research program to obtain more accurate and detailed knowledge of North America’s pre-European history. As part of their research, they began to attempt to translate every single Native American word that was translated by the Spanish. While many of those words were easily translated by modern Creek, Alabama, Koasati or Choctaw dictionaries, the words associated with the province of Duhare defied translation until 2011. (Read more.)