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Guddling In The Carrying Stream.

 

Alexander Carmichael and

The Carmina Gadelica

 

Carmichael was a native Gael, born in Lismore in 1832.  His work as a Customs and Excise Inspector meant he did a lot of travelling.  It also meant he was able to pursue a strong interest in prayers, sayings, stories and blessings commonly used in the Gaidhealtachd crofting communities. Alexander Carmichael was not a Gaelic scholar but always referred to himself as “The Collector”.

 

Travelling all around the Western Isles and western mainland by boat and by foot, he made a meticulous written record of what remnants he came across of the ancient sayings and prayers.  In his day there were no tape recorders or Mini Disc recorders.  He was saddened that he could not simultaneously collect the tunes to go with the words:

 

“The music of the hymns had a distinct individuality, in some respects resembling and in many respects differing from the old Gregorian chants of the church.  I greatly regret that I was not able to record this peculiar and beautiful music, probably the music of the old Celtic Church.”

 

He did not collect to publish but to preserve and to save what he could for generations to come.  Today this collection – The Carmina Gadelica stretching to five volumes in all – is an unparalleled source of these incantations and provides an amazing insight into past crofting life. 

 

He lived through the terrible upheaval of the Clearances and felt deeply the damage done to Gaidhealtachd communities during these times.  Lord Napier observed that Carmichael’s submissions to the Napier Commission had more to do with the passing of The Crofters’ Act in 1886 than most people knew.  After publication of the first two volumes of the Carmina Gadelica in 1900 Carmichael wrote:

 

“I am profoundly thankful that I have been able to do a little, if but a little, for my much beloved and maligned people.  Everything Highland is becoming of interest.  Let us show the world that our dearly beloved people were not the rude, barbarous, creedless, Godless, ignorant men and women that prejudiced writers have represented them.  It is to me, heart breaking to see the spiteful manner in which Highlanders have been spoken of.”

 

The remaining volumes were published by his daughter after his death.  Of his lifetime’s work he wrote:

 

“These notes and poems have been an education to me.  And so have the men and women reciters from whose dictation I wrote them down.  They are almost all dead now, leaving no successors.  With reverend hand and grateful heart I place this stone upon the cairn of those who composed and those who transmitted the work.”

 

 

The School of Scottish Studies

This was founded at Edinburgh University in 1951.  Over the years successive generations of dedicated staff have created collections of oral material of international significance.  Any visitor to this archive will note that scholars from all around the world – and from Gaidhealtachd schools and communities – are coming and going, eager to listen to the invaluable recordings stored there.  The School of Scottish Studies has some seventy-five recordings made in Mackay Country.  Most of them are from the 1950s.  The Mackay Country project is working to get copies of them all brought back here to enable local people the chance of hearing these recordings.  They include music, songs, stories and descriptions of local life in Gaelic and in English. 

 

As a result of the School of Scottish Studies’ endeavours, some very distinguished folklorists and collectors have worked in Mackay Country. 

 

 

Mackay Country Recordings
from School of Scottish Studies

 

Informant

Location of Recording

Ailidh Dall - Alexander Stewart

various

Peter MacIntosh

Tongue

D A Mackenzie

Tongue

Son of D A Mackenzie

Tongue

Geordie Sheumais Mackay

Bettyhill

Hugh Munro

Sutherland

Christine Stewart

Lairg

Ailidh Dall & Mrs Bella MacIntosh

Skerray

Mrs Bella MacIntosh

Cross-burn, Skerray

Donald and Mina Macleod

Bettyhill

Mrs Mary Stewart

Bettyhill

Mrs Mary Stewart & Alec Stewart

Lairg

George William MacKay

Naver Bridge

Mrs Mackay - Bean Geordie S

Naver Bridge

Maurice Mackay

Naver Bridge

Margaret Mackay

Naver Bridge

Christine Mackay

Naver Bridge

Duncan Mackay

Naver Bridge

Geordie Sheumais Mackay

Naver Bridge

Christine Stewart - Essie

Armadale

Mrs Mary Stewart

Armadale

Angus Mackay

Strathy & Melvich

Angus Mackay

Melvich

Various inc the Stewarts

Sutherland

Donald MacIntosh

Skerray

Mrs Kitty Mackay

Sutherland

Essie and Gordon Stewart

Sutherland

Donald. S. Mackay

Durness

Billy White

Durness

Andrew Stewart

Durness

John Campbell

Durness

Christie Campbell

Durness

Adam Gunn

Smoo Cave Hotel

John and William Morrison

Durness

Donald. S. Mackay

Durness

Angus Campbell

Durness

Mrs Mackay, Hilean

Durness

George Morrison, Sango Beag

Durness

Mrs George Morrison

Durness

John MacIntosh, Lerin

Durness

Magnus Mackay

Kirtomy

William Mackay

Tongue

Jessie MacLeod

Strath Halladale

John Morrison

Kinlochbervie

George Mackenzie

Durness

Andrew Mackay

Crossroads, Talmine, Melness

William Ross

Achriesgill

George & Ina Campbell

KLB

John Mackay, Trantlebeg

Strath Halladale

Joseph Mackay

Talmine, Melness

Hugh MacDonald

Melness

Donald Mackay

Skerray

Donald Mackay

Tubeg

Edie Mackay

Strathnaver

James (Jimson) Munro

Skerray

George Mackenzie

Durness

George Mackenzie and Ian Laidlaw

Durness

Ina Campbell

Durness

Hector Mackay, Donald MacDougall

Durness

Eddie Davies

Sutherland

John Ewan Stewart

Laide

John Ewan Stewart and Rae Mackay

Laide & Durness

Marjory Morrison

Durness

Alec George Mackay

Melness

Mr Dickie

Altnaharra

Mrs Ross reading sermon by Rev John MacKay

Achina

 

 

 

 

 

Alan Lomax

American Folk Music Collector

 

Alan Lomax’s father, John. A. Lomax, was a pioneer in the collection of American folk song.  Together, in the 1930s, they created and developed the Library of Congress’s Archive of American Folk Song.  This became a major national resource.  After sixty years of collecting this Library Collection grew to become an unparalleled audio and video folk music, dance and ritual collection from around the world. 

 

During the 1950s Alan Lomax was working with Columbia Records to make a series of records of folk song from around the world.  He became subject to the investigations and pressures which were part of MacCarthyism in the USA.  Lomax took refuge in Scotland and took the opportunity to work on a Scottish LP for the Columbia series of records.

 

 With him Alan Lomax brought a machine which would transform collecting and oral history work forever – a tape recorder.  It needed electricity – no batteries then – but it made possible a great flurry of collecting by School of Scottish Studies staff like Calum MacLean, John MacInnes, Norman MacLean and Hamish Henderson.  Normal MacLean will be better known to many of you as a comedian and musician. 

 

Alan Lomax continued his folklore work throughout his life.  In 1977 he helped create the Association for Cultural Equity.  Lomax said:

 

“ We have an overarching goal – the world of manifold civilisations animated by the vision of cultural equity.”

 

 

His vision was for:

 

“The right of every culture to have equal time on the air and equal time in the classroom.”

 

The Association for Cultural Equity continues this vision.  At an event there a year after Lomax’s death the Cuban poet Osvaldo Labrada wrote ‘El Odeo’ (translated from Spanish):

 

El Odeo

Hate surges up in a man

When he looses his culture. 

Hate surges up in a man

When he looses his culture. 

And he doesn’t have the strength

To hold onto his name. 

 

Osvaldo Labrada - 2003

 

Margaret Fay Shaw and

John Lorne Campbell

In the field of collections and scholarship, Margaret Fay Shaw and John Lorne Campbell are an inspiration. 

 

Margaret was born in 1903 in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania, USA.  She came to Scotland as a teenager and spent a year at St Bride’s School in Helensburgh.  She went on to study music in Paris and New York.  When she came back to Scotland, she cycled through the Hebrides and settled in South Uist.  There she met the Gaelic scholar John Lorne Campbell who was living on Barra at the time.  The couple married in Glasgow in 1935.  After their marriage the couple moved to Canna.  Shaw is known for her photographic record of the Hebrides and, along with her husband, collected Gaelic songs and folklore. 

 

 

John Lorne Campbell was an eminent folklorist, historian and author, noted for his study of Hebridean and Gaelic culture.  He was brought up in Argyllshire and lived for a time on Barra where he enjoyed the company of author Compton MacKenzie. 

 

Margaret Fay Shaw and John Lorne Campbell had a strong combination of skills – or methods – photography, music, listening, living in the community, historical scholarship and Gaelic scholarship.  All of these, combined with a passion for the subject, made their work powerful and important. 

 

 

The Unique Hamish Henderson

It is very hard to sum up in but a few lines the immense contribution made by Hamish Henderson to Scottish culture and matters of concern within Mackay Country.

 

Hamish was the “illegitimate son of a Highland serving woman and an Irish soldier”[1].  He was a soldier, a scholar, a song-writer and a collector.  Like the famous 18th century poet Alasdair MacMhaigstir Alasdair, “he could fight and he could sing”.  In the words of Alec Finlay in his Introduction to the First Edition of ‘Alias MacAlias’:

 

 

“From his wartime exploits with the Highland Div., to his achievements as a poet, song-maker, folklorist, translator and political activist, Hamish made an unquantifiable contribution to the renewal of Scottish culture.  He figures alongside Robert Burns and Hugh MacDiarmid: like Burns his lifework bridges the gap between the ‘heich’ and ‘laich’ arts, renewing the carrying stream of traditional culture through a popular folksong Revival; and with MacDiarmid he shaped a renewal of national consciousness.”[2]

 

In 1951 Hamish Henderson joined the School of Scottish Studies.  He worked with Alan Lomax and others.  The School of Scottish Studies lacked money for funding collecting trips.  The ‘Yanks’ had funding and the Scottish collectors had contacts - so they made trips together. 

 

 

In 1955, in the company of Peter Kennedy – a musicologist working for the BBC in England - and his Welsh wife Tommy, Hamish made a trip through Sutherland.  They were actually heading for Orkney. 

 

Hamish’s family were half from Sutherland and half from Perthshire.  The year before, Hamish had made the acquaintance of the Perthshire Stewarts in Blairgowrie.  He made many recordings with them. 

 

On a sunny, summer Sunday morning in Braetongue, Hamish came upon the Sutherland Stewarts.  He described this first meeting for Timothy Neat:

 

 

“I rose from my tent and walked over the brow of the hill to look south across one of the great landscapes of Scotland: Ben Hope and Ben Loyal silhouetted above the small, illuminated fields of the croft-lands.  Suddenly my heart went cold – there, just below me, was a half circle of tents with chimneys smoking – bow-tents – the domed, grey-green galleys of the Stewarts of Remarstaig …  Those whom I was soon to know, as ‘The Summer Walkers’.  I might have been in Mongolia.  I might have stood there any summer during the last eight thousand years and seen a similar sight.  I know no more beautiful landscape in the world, no grander campsite under the stars.  The Stewarts call Braetongue the King of Campsites.  It remained Ailidh Dall’s favourite camping place long after he went blind – until he died.  No wonder.”[3]

 

 

There was just one problem.  It was 1955 and it was the Sabbath:

 

“It was Sunday.  This was Sutherland and the Sabbath kept as strictly as anywhere in all of Scotland.  Maybe I’d forgotten but I knew I only had this one day before Peter Kennedy would move on so I immediately asked Ailidh Dall, ‘Have you heard the word of God today?’  He said he hadn’t.  It was the right questions for Ailidh Dall was a devotedly religious man, who prayed twice a day and would conduct family services each Sunday.  I told him I had a Gaelic New testament up in my tent; that I would like to bring it back and read from it.

 

When I returned, the family gathered round and I read to them a chapter from St Mathew’s Gospel – the one about scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites.  It sounds very fierce and marvellous in Gaelic.  The word of God was spoken, the ice well and truly broken!  And it was not twenty minutes before we were recording Ossian stories in that beautiful, primeval timeless landscape – among people James MacPherson might have met two hundred years before when he was searching out the substance of his great bogus epic.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Work of Timothy Neat

As can be seen by the many paragraphs quoted here from Timothy Neat’s books, his own work has been very important for Mackay Country communities.  Timothy Neat is a writer and a film-maker.  Inspired by Hamish Henderson’s work, he went back to Essie Stewart, Gordon, Stewart, Eddie Davies and Hamish himself, to learn more about their lives.  The result is the book ‘The Summer Walkers’. 

 

However this is only a small part of what Timothy Neat has achieved.  In his book ‘The Voice of the Bard’, written with John MacInnes, he presents the life and work of Hugh MacIntosh, Port Skerra.  John MacInnes was one of the early collectors for the School of Scottish Studies and went on to become a professor and an eminent Gaelic scholar.

 

 

Hugh MacIntosh wrote many poems and songs in Gaelic and English.  His favourites were those which he composed for his wife, Mary.  Hugh’s poem ‘Air Cuimhneachan Rob Dhuinn’ – Homage to Robb Donn – is included in the book with an English translation.  Other important 20th century tradition bearers feature too in ‘When I Was Young – Vol 2.  They are the late Christie Campbell, Durness; Joseph Mackay, Melness and Hugh MacDonald, Melness. 

 

In his book ‘When I Was Young – Vol 1’, Timothy Neat includes a chapter all about Mina Mackay Stevens of Eilean nan Roan.  Mina talks about her memories of life on the island as a child, island stories and her early working life in the Bettyhill Hotel and the Tongue Hotel. 

 

Through his work Timothy Neat has given us beautifully presented depictions of local life.  By seeking out and valuing these tales he reminds us of what is special and precious about people and communities here:

 

“..in estimating the value of the past we should note that whereas many of the physical products of man’s best-being are well cared for in the world’s libraries, art galleries, museums and great houses, many of our purely human treasures lie exposed, vulnerable and often decried.  Prime amongst these are ways of life and the collective wisdom of the world’s extant, much put upon traditional communities.  Money speaks and such communities are almost be definition poor, but for millennia, they have husbanded values the galloping, technological world would be foolish to forget.”[4] 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] [1] Page xxiii Alec Finlay (Editor) 2004 Alias MacAlias Writings on Songs, Folk and Literature Hamish Henderson Polygon, Edinburgh

 

[2] Page xiii Alec Finlay (Editor) 2004 Alias MacAlias Writings on Songs, Folk and Literature Hamish Henderson Polygon, Edinburgh

 

[3] Page 70  - Quoted by Timothy Neat in ‘The Summer Walkers’, published by Canongate, Edinburgh  – 2002.

 

[4] Page xi Timothy Neat 2000 When I Was Young – Voices From Lost Communities in Scotland: The Islands Birlinn, Edinburgh

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