The Scots Have Influenced My Culture, What Do I Do?

[Bugbear]

... And, like Terry, I also had to deal with a bit of anti-German sentiment going back to the world wars.
My mother even used to talk, when we had infections, of the “germans” that were making us sick!
Regards,
Mike

I understand to some degree. That's probably part of what is contributing to some of my awkward feelings about my family heritage and tradition, and why some statements subconsciously "rub me the wrong way."

The traditions of the two sides of my family don't get along with each other...
And I don't know how to bring it up here, but if I were to try to carry on several of my family's traditions, I really wouldn't be able to get along with many people. Learned that right away when I started school, as I said, so I have to pick out some of the nice things on the edges of my family heritage that were overshadowed.

Thanks for that link on the oaks, MacBean, I saved a copy.

[wildrover]

Even the deciduous species in Europe or eastern North America retain their brown leaves throughout the winter, sort of like the emigrant Scots and their tartans! (gotta keep it on topic)

You just answered a question I've had for a while regarding the tree outside my home...I always wondered why it didn't drop its leaves...tho a good hailstorm does an adequate job of helping.

(I figure about a yard a year would do, but acorns are loved by birds and move faster than that)

Well, that all depends on the airspeed of...ok, I'll stop there. Nhi!

BB, are you saying you've lost track of your cultural individuality?

[Bugbear]

... BB, are you saying you've lost track of your cultural individuality?

I'm not sure what that term means.

I could provide a link with proof of why I can not follow in my family's footsteps, a tip of the iceberg example, but I am quite nervous about sending that as a PM. I would not post it on the open forum.

I posted that link to Electric Scotland in OP for a specific reason, it shows a Scottish tradition that most of my family does not have, or that my family is ashamed of in some cases, while falsely claiming to be Scottish. Go figure. :confused:

That was beaten out of me on day one of kindergarten, and other things have had to go over the years; finally the false Scottishness...

* I'm afraid I haven't been able to convey that very well and it's been a little frustrating.. Or in some cases it feels like I am having a conversation with a brick wall.

[McElmurry]

Let’s see if we can weaken the brick wall a bit. Your first question was:

What do the Scots of the forum make of this mixed culture that goes way, way back in my history?

The one Scot who responded said:

So worry not, a young country like yours will take more than a wee while to really be comfortable with who you are. Who knows, by then, no one in your country will give a damn about clan tartans and Scotland and they will all be able to recognize your State tartans at a glance. All it needs is time. A lot of time.

In the context of this forum I take this to mean we Americans are more than welcome to adopt the kilt but perhaps we try too hard sometimes to prove a Highland connection or find our inner Scottishness. The goal of many of the threads on this site is to help us wear the kilt well regardless of the style in which we wear it.

My combined studies into my genealogy and the history of “The Islands” has so far taught me that history is much more nuanced than what we are taught in school. When we study our genealogy and history we will lose some things we had believed as they will be proven false but we will gain new connections to history that will enrich our lives. For instance I cannot now in good conscience stand at the Butt of Lewis and claim to be a Morrison when it seems much more likely the McElmurrys came from County Down. On the other hand I gained a rich tradition of literature that includes my legendary kin the O’Morna who were sidekicks to Finn McCool.

The first McElmurry of my line born in the new world married a woman from a First Nation. One of my goals is to find out if she was from the Carolinas or the Kentucky/Illinois border area. He was killed and scalped at the age of 32 and his killer was identified by the red headed scalp he was carrying. Their son also married a woman from a First Nation in the Kentucky/Illinois area. If I wanted to honor these families I suppose I would wear a breechclout as I serious doubt any of them ever wore a kilt either in the new world or Ulster.

While I have struggled some trying to understand where I come from my way is made easier because I live in a live and let live state and do not have relatives or friends with a preconceived notion of who I should be and how I should express that. I sense that your world is not as sunny as mine.

I hope somewhere in these ramblings there is something that will make your brick wall a bit softer.

[Bugbear]

Thanks, McElmurry.

And thanks again, Jock, for providing some input.

* Also as I said, the issue of non-kilt related topics, or the misunderstanding I had, was cleared up after I posted this thread. Kind of had a little scare for about twelve hours.
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...c-forum-59913/

[Mike_Oettle]

Bugbear wrote: “The traditions of the two sides of my family don't get along with each other . . .”
Maybe they do and maybe they don’t.
My very English grandparents in Pretoria were rubbed up the wrong way by my father, but I never could understand why. Perhaps they were just too willing to misunderstand things he said.
I disliked them for that, but they were the ones who nurtured my interest in a lot of things that were British, such as a fondness for the royal family and my interest in heraldry.
And people have often hated particular nationalities because of what has happened during a war. My paternal grandfather was stationed in Windhoek, capital of South West Africa (now Namibia) at a time when nazism was becoming very influential in both Germany and the German-speaking community in SWA.
In Germany, the nazis forbade our relatives to write to the family in Southern Africa, which resulted in decades of being cut off from them.
And in SWA, my uncles’ and aunts’ German-speaking schoolmates, with whom they had become quite friendly, suddenly started cutting them dead, because they were perceived not to be of the master race. (My father, being older, was away at university during the school terms.)
There are always differences in culture within a family. And if they don’t get along together too well in your parents’ or grandparents’ generation, you need to come to terms with your heritage on your own.
I have exercised the choice to align myself closely with my Scottish ancestry, through my mother’s maternal grandfather, even though the family recalls him as a bit of a rascal.
I don’t know whether he ever wore a kilt, and I don’t particularly care. I like Scottish dress, and am keen to wear a kilt again.
Regards,
Mike

[Bugbear]

Thanks Mike, and other posters.

Also, thank you to the library folk, and people who work with books.

Some of the people I lived with, when I was a teenager, had a way of incorporating new things into their culture and heritage... It's difficult to explain. The strange thing is that their language, which I never got the hang of and could not speak well, does not add new words. Everything is a description in terms of something already in the language. A car has arms and legs for example, or something like that. There is also a very misunderstood concept that your world and history is in your head.

[Lachlan09]

The antipathy between peoples of different background, when living in a small town, is a sad thing.

I remember in the late 1950’s, when I was a small boy in Musselburgh (near Edinburgh), a wee town of never more than 18,000 souls, there was a watchmakers / jewelers shop in North High Street called “Baxter’s”. My Dad was friendly with the owner, a Pole. Mr Baxter had been in the exiled Polish Army in Scotland in WW2 and had trained there. He later fought in Italy and after he was demobbed, he settled back in Scotland, changed his name to Baxter and became British. I met Mr Baxter on many occasions as a boy and he was very nice.

Meanwhile, across the street, lived Mr Gerard Steinberg, with whom my dad was also friendly. Mr Steinberg was German and had been in the German Army in WW2. He had fought in North Africa and was captured in Tunisia. He spent the rest of the war in a British POW camp. After the war, he decided to stay in Scotland, settling down in Musselburgh. I believe he became naturalized also, marrying and settling down. I met Mr Steinberg on many occasions as a boy and he was also very nice.

Unfortunately those two nice men hated each other. I don’t need to explain here why - it’s obvious. But to me as a young boy, I couldn’t understand what was happening.

[Bugbear]

Thanks for posting, Lachlan09, I missed your post for some reason.

Kind of backing away from the History forum.

[Bugbear]

Here is a quote from a historian, who cajunscot suggested the other day, that speaks for it's self.

History is not, as someone once said, "just one damn thing after another." Unless it is badly taught or written, it is not a dry record of events; it is about how people experience, study, and interpret the past. Each generation reviews and rewrites history in the light of its own experiences and understandings, aspirations, and anxieties. Different societies, different groups within society, and even different individuals will often disagree about the meaning of events, the ways in which events happened, and even, sometimes, whether events happened at all. There is no single history that tells the whole story; there can be many different histories, telling many different stories, and many different ways of remembering, recording, and recounting the past. (2)

Calloway, Colin G. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.

There's a little bit of discussion of Scots/Native American people and culture in this textbook, so it's not completely off topic. It might take a while to get the book cajunscot had suggested.