North British Warrior

[Conal]

But true, the "average" man of the north probably considered himself a Celt,

Bet he didn't. I bet he'd never even heard of the word. I doubt very much that there was any sense of a 'national' rather than a tribal identity at all.

But what of perhaps a concept of belong to a wider group that we now refer to as Celts?

Druids were said to meet annualy in central Gaul, whilst their most prominenet site may have been that little island off north Wales. This could be argued as implying a group identy spanning the lands in between.

I recall a story where a Galatian noble was asked to intercede with regard to a problem in Gaul. This again can imply either a tribal tie or that they possessed a more global "celtic" view of themselves as inter-related.

In the Gallic war Vorcingetorix was given command of all tribal warriors and I find it incongruos that they did not identfy with each other as different from the Latin, Greek and Germanic peoples. Ceasars made a statmentr "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in our Gauls, the third" If this is not just Julius muddling things up (which I accept is a possibilty) you have self identities wider than the tribe. These then banded together to fight JC ... the Germans did not join in (at least not on their side :roll: ), which may indicate a general identification as "Belgi-Celti-Aqui" as separate to both Germans and Romans.

As to an example from a tribal society look a the Iroquois Confederacy with members from 6 tribes.