The Highland Heart of North America

[Singlemalt]

Thank you Nathan, I have mentioned on this forum before that although my paternal grandparents were immigrants to Canada directly from Invernesshire most of my Scottish influence, the songs, the stories and the language came to me from my mother and her family which had been here at least 200 years, but in Cape Breton.

[ronin6290]

Wonderful post. Being close here in Maine we have a lot of cross-cultural influences. I've been reading much of Cape Breton lately. Really enjoyed this post. Thanks.

[Lorna]

Thanks for the terrific post and links. Many of us from outside Nova Scotia of Scottish descent have lost many of our traditions either through family circumstance and/or the passage of time. Nova Scotians are fortunate to have such a rich history and to be wise enough to maintain it.

[CMcG]

I'd like to add something to this, though by doing so, I'm not intending to take anything away from Cape Breton or Nova Scotia. Instead, I would like to add another example to the idea that culture can be preserved in a diasporic context.

The Highland Dirk Dance was apparently lost to the mists of time in Scotland, but was preserved in Canada. It was rediscovered and documented in Vancouver, BC, in the 1950s by dance researchers. There is now a guy in Scotland named Louis Pastore who is using it as part of his effort to reconstruct traditional Scottish martial arts, claiming that the Dirk Dance embodies certain combative training methods.
http://dirkdance.tripod.com/id6.html

[Nathan]

I'd like to add something to this, though by doing so, I'm not intending to take anything away from Cape Breton or Nova Scotia. Instead, I would like to add another example to the idea that culture can be preserved in a diasporic context.

Very interesting post about the Dirk Dance. Certainly, there are many other examples of diaspora tradition. I didn't mention that the "Cape Breton" culture isn't exclusive to the Island and really spills into Antigonish Co. Nova Scotia and thins out gradually across the province and the culture is also very similar in many parts of Prince Edward Island.

In fact, I'm planning to write a few other threads on similar topics including:

The MacDonnells of Glengarry Ontario,
The Scottish influence on Metis culture and fiddling,
The Scottish origins of Blue Grass and Appalachian music, and
My argument that we ought to expand the concept of the "Celtic Crescent" to "the Celtic circle" to include Newfoundland, Cape Breton and perhaps the broader Maritimes in the concept of the Celtic nations.

Afterall, Brittany was populated by Britons, Scotland was Gaelicized by the Dal Riata Irish as was the Isle of Man, so migration has always been a factor in spreading Celtic cultures.

[neloon]

Nathan,
"Scotland was Gaelicized by the Dal Riata Irish "
Recent archaeological and linguistic discoveries suggest that this was not so. There were separate Scottish and Irish q-Celtic communities though, of course, there would have been some interchange between them.

Alan

[unixken]

http://dirkdance.tripod.com/id6.html

Colin, from the link you gave, I read this quote...

"The dance was passed to the Flett's from Mary Isdale McNab who stipulated that she would teach it only on the condition that it was a 'personal' dance and not to be taught to anyone else. "

I have to wonder how much tradition (in any culture) is... not "lost" per se, but deliberately thrown away. (Or allowed to die?)

[Nathan]

Nathan,
"Scotland was Gaelicized by the Dal Riata Irish "
Recent archaeological and linguistic discoveries suggest that this was not so. There were separate Scottish and Irish q-Celtic communities though, of course, there would have been some interchange between them.

Alan

I would be very interested to know more about this! Here's what I've learned.

1) Prior to 20th Century standardization, there is a continuum of Goidelic dialects that changed gradually from Southern Ireland to North West Scotland.

2) That throughout most of Scottish History, the written works such as the Red Book and the two books of Clanranald were in "classical Gaelic" and this was also the case for Ireland. It wasn't until the translation of the Bible into contemporary Scottish Gaelic in the 1700s I believe that much was written in the local dialect.

3) Shannachie story tellers in Scotland, Ireland and Cape Breton all tell the tales of the Ulster circuit and the wording is almost identical.

4) The Scottish Gaels were called the "Wild Irish" for many centuries and the word "Scot" referred originally to the Irish.

5) In early sources, the Goidelic language of Scotland was referred to as "Erse" and Scots was referred to as "Inglis".

6) The Irish aspect of Gaelic identity took on such importance that folk geneologies were created to tie Scottish Chiefs to Irish monarchs, (see the belief among descendants of Somairle that his paternal Grandfather was Conn of Ireland rather than the Scandanavian that current DNA evidence suggests." This is also expressed through the Red Hand of Ulster and Harp of Tara being found on various Scottish Coats of Arms.

7) It is not only the language that is similar but the oral tradition, the music, dance, art and story telling traditions all suggest a common origin.

8) The divergences in Irish and Scottish Gaelic can be well accounted for by the strong Viking influence on the Outer Hebrides.

So, I'm not saying you're wrong, Alan, I'm just saying the "recent archaeological and linguistic discoveries" would have to be quite compelling to outweigh the conventional wisdom and if you have links, I'd very much love to see them!

[CMcG]

Nathan,
"Scotland was Gaelicized by the Dal Riata Irish "
Recent archaeological and linguistic discoveries suggest that this was not so. There were separate Scottish and Irish q-Celtic communities though, of course, there would have been some interchange between them.

Alan

...
So, I'm not saying you're wrong, Alan, I'm just saying the "recent archaeological and linguistic discoveries" would have to be quite compelling to outweigh the conventional wisdom and if you have links, I'd very much love to see them!

I believe Alan is referring to Campbell's article "Were the Scots Irish?"
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...scotsirish.htm

His research shows that, long before Dal Riata, Gaelic speakers inhabited the entire region of Ireland, the Highlands, and the Western Islands. Part of his argument, however, is that classifying these groups as "Irish" or "Scottish" involves imposing modern ideas of colonialism and nationalism onto a situation that does not support it. He suggests instead that there were regional identities among a group of seafaring Gaels who were culturally and linguistically connected -- rather than separated -- by the water. Dal Riata, then, can be viewed as the coalescence of a kingdom spanning a region of already-Gaelic influence.

[neloon]

Thanks, Colin, that's the main reference.
It was believed at one time that q-Celtic tribes went to Ireland and p-Celtic tribes went to the "mainland" and became inter alia the "Picts" - though there is also a suggestion that the Picts were an intermingling of p-Celtic and earlier inhabitants. The Pictish culture was swamped by Gaelic from the west which, it was assumed, must have started in Ireland. Campbell's work seems to be now widely accepted.
Maybe this should be another thread.
Alan