On Holy Days, Whisky and Water
Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul/Angus Peter Campbell on traditions on different islands gave us different words and different meanings.
A monolingual English speaker asked me the other day what the word ‘Uisge’ meant. He’s a keen hill-walker, and he said to me that he saw the name everywhere on the map, and wondered what it meant. I was a bit surprised, because I thought that ‘uisge’ was a word that almost literally everyone knows, if only from the word ‘uisge-beatha’!
Anyway, his pronounciation of the word wasn’t the best, for the actual place name (of a waterfall) he wanted to identify was ‘Uisge Dubh’. Or ‘Whisky Doo’, as he said! So, naturally, I told him it means ‘black water’.
There’s a place called Blackwaterfoot on the Isle of Arran, and Loch an Uisge-Ghil (The Loch of the White Water) north of the Loch Skipport Road and East of Gerinish in South Uist, and we have Uisgebhagh (Uskavagh) – the Water of the Bay in Benbecula. Not to mention the Uisge Bàn Falls (the Fair Water Falls) in Nova Scotia in Canada!
My conversation about the meaning of ‘uisge’ prompted me to say to my friend that though ‘uisge’ is the word I use for water, folk from Lewis (and some other places) call it ‘bùrn’. Applying to fresh running water, or tap-water, but not to salt water or rain. So that, over time, the word ‘bùrn’ has become associated with (Presbyterian) Lewis and mostly unused in the (mostly Catholic) Southern Isles.
Yet, it was not always so. If you take a stroll through that magnificent collection Camina Gadelica – prayers and ‘abairtean’ (phrases) and hymns and incantations and songs and stories and lore collected by the remarkable Alexander Carmichael (a native of the Island of Lismore) in the Gaelic-speaking regions of Scotland between 1860 and 1909 (my grandparents’ time) you will find that the word ‘uisge’ was also used then in Lewis.
In a fascinating footnote in Volume V1 of Carmina, Camichael says this: “Bùrn – water. In Lewis, water brought in on a Sunday is called ‘uisge’, and water brought in on any other day is called ‘bùrn’. The people will not wash on Sunday with water (bùrn) brought in the previous day.’ Carmichael then adds in a further footnote: ‘This does not hold for recent times as no water is (now) taken in on Sunday.’
Carmichael also notes that the word ‘Uisge’ was a taboo word on the Flannan Islands – it had to be called ‘Bùrn.’ The remarkable Skye writer and traveller Martin Martin (c 1660 – 1718) gives a first-hand account of that in his wonderful book ‘A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland.’ Speaking of the Flannan Isle (An t-Eilean Mòr) he writes, ‘There are several other things that must not be called by their common names, e.g., Visk, which in the language of the natives signifies Water, they call Burn; a Rock, which in their language is Creg, must here be called Cruey, i.e., hard…’
Alexander Carmichael is equally fascinating about Sunday, or the Sabbath. We all know that strict Sabbitarianism held a solid grip on Lewis, Harris, North Uist, Skye and many other Protestant areas until quite recently. Some of us remember the Reverend Angus Smith (I had the privilege of knowing that admirable man) lying down in front of the first-ever Sunday ferry to Skye, when the tabloids famously labelled him ‘The Ferry Reverend.’
Carmichael’s evidence suggests that though Catholic South Uist may not have been labelled with the ticket of strict Sabbatarianism, the Sunday was still regarded as a Holy Day to be strictly kept apart from the other six days. Carmichael transcribed a ‘Duan’ (Song/Poem) in the 1890s from Janet Currie of Staoinebrig, who was a descendent of the famous MacMhuirich dynasty, the renowned poet-historians to Clanranald.
Carmichael gives a lovely decscription of her, ‘She was a tall, strong, dark-haired, ruddy-complexioned woman, with a clear, sonorous voice. Her language was remarkably fluent and copious, though many of her words and phrases, being obsolete, were unintelligble to the stranger… Poems similar to this can be traced back to the 8th century.’
And this is the ‘Duan’ Janet Currie chanted:
Di-domhnuich, an seachdamh latha,
Dh’ orduich Dia gu fois a ghabhail,
Gu cumail na beath-maireannaich,
Gun feum a thoir a damh no duine,
No a creubh mar dheonaich Muire,
Gun sniamh snath sioda no strol,
Gun fuaigheal, gun ghreiseadh ni’s mo,
Gun churachd, gun chliathadh, gun bhuain,
Gun iomaradh, gun iomairt, gun iasgaireachd,
Gun dol a mach dh’ an t-sliabh sheilg,
Gun snaitheadh deilgne Di-domhnuich,
Gun chartadh taighe, gun bhualadh,
Gun atha, gun mhuileann Di-domhnuich…
Which translates:
The Lord’s Day, the seventh day,
God ordained to take rest,
To keep the life everlasting,
Without taking use of ox or man,
Or of creature as Mary desired,
Without spinning thread of silk or of satin,
Without sewing, without embroidery either,
Without sowing, without harrowing, without reaping,
Without rowing, without games, without fishing,
Without going out to the hunting hill,
Without trimming arrows on the Lord’s Day,
Without cleaning byre, without threshing crn,
Without kilning, without milling on the Lord’s Day.
And lest you think its’s all to do with the thou shalt nots Janet Currie’s song goes on to tell of the benefits of resting on that special day:
‘Whosoever would keep the Lord’s Day,
Even would it be to them and lasting,
From setting of sun on Saturday
Till rising of sun on Monday:
He would obtain recompense therefrom,
Produce after the ploughs,
Fish on the pure salt-water stream,
Fish excelling in every river confluence.
The water of the Lord’s Day mild as honey,
Whoso would partake of it as drink
Would obtain health in consequence
From every disease afflicting him…’
What’s not to like about these great rewards…?
You get my drift: the Sabbath was as holy in Roman Catholic South Uist as in Calvinist Lewis! A pity we don’t know our own songs and stories and myths and legends and histories and languages as well as we ought: it would correct a whole heap of misunderstandings.
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And there were people born on South Uist like my mother who was an Auld Kirker, who kept the Sabbath even though she lived in Glasgow for most of her adult life. She poked fun at the holiness of the Wee Frees, but I think this was more out of a sense of the Uists and Barra solidarity and superiority in the quality of their Gaelic compared to that spoken in Lewis, Harris, Skye and, especially, Raasay – we had ultra holy neighbours from Raasay! However, she was a sincere Christian and got on well with the Gaelic diaspora from all islands who were resident in Sandyford, Finnieston and Partick.
Evidently, going by the name of the river Duisk (An Dubh-Uisge), Carrick, Ayrshire sides with Lewis!
Chord seo rium gu mòr! A good Lewis friend shared this with me an Uibhistich – fansinating and sheds light on our frequently banters along the lines of …You say burn I say uisge/ you say gorm, I say liath/ you say milisean, I say suiteas/ you say falt, I say gruag – the list goes on
This is a beautiful and important piece, drawing attention as it does to a sense of water understood in both secular and sacred terms. Also, in its repositioning of the Hebridean Sabbath not as domineering oppression, but as a blessing for all life. It reminds me of a story I heard from China I think it was about fish sensing when the holy days were, and then venturing further than normal up the stream because that too was their day of rest. My father used to say likewise about the fishing, that “the fish need a day of rest”, though I confess that in this age I’ll take families out mackerel fishing on Sundays on the mainland (but not in the Isles) as that’s often the only time they’ve got.
I am delighted by Angus Peter’s unreserved use of the Carmina Gadelical. For a time, it came under attack from some scholars, who suggested that Carmichael’s English translations had embelished and filled gaps in some of his Gaelic sources. I felt that they were applying modern ethnographic standards to somebody who was both an ethnographer and, hailing from Lismore, a tradition bearer (or of a tradition bearing culture). I was pleased in 2013 to have this view confirmed when I was speaking in Barra, and Calum Macneil expressed to me his dismay at some of the scholarly deconstructions of some of the material that had been passed on within his own family. I am aware that here is a tension here between the practices of academia and those of indigenous cultures. What Macneil said could have been echoed in many another part of the world. How to reconcile that, because there can be validity in both points of view? To me, the reconciliation lies in pointing out to the scholars that whereas historical accuracy is important to document, a living tradition must not be made to ossify, whether by the straitjackets of scholarly demands or by misapplications of copyright in the course of cultural approriation. It is the funcition of a bard – in the wide but culturally rooted sense of that term – to not just carry (or bear) and transmit a tradition, but also, to treat it as a living thing. A living thing needs fed and sometimes healed or repaired. When I examine the some of the fine detail critiques of Carmichael, I don’t see fraud, I see relatively minor patchwork that it befits of a tradition bearer to undertake. Macpherson with Ossian carried that to another level and arguably overstepped the mark, but even he has been rehabilitated in recent years, as has (prepare to cringe slightly) Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, and the list could go on.
That said – and the importance of letting linguistic/cultural historians do what they do while also underesting the ongoing flow dynamics of a living tradition – I think that an added factor in the sometime put-down of Carmichael and more generally, so-called “Celtoscepticism” (yes, I’m mixing it nicely here!) is a religious edge, whereby a secular scholarly discomfort with “spirituality” dovetails in with the same discomfort amongst those of a “rational” religious persuasion. Ergo, the knocking of Carmichael that I’ve picked up amongst some of strong Presbyterian persuasion, including in Lewis where I was raised, ties in with a residual unease (over the past 40 years I’m talking about) with Catholicism, and specifically with the Carmina, what we were raised to think of as being “Papist superstitions”. There is, of course, nothing “Papist” that I can recall about the Carmina’s profound spirituality, but there is a profound panentheism, often muddled as pantheism. Moreover, when I read some of the scholarship that kicked off Celtoscepticism, I am dismayed at how shallow its understanding can be. For example, I don’t think Prof Sim-Williams’ seminal paper, “Teh Visionary Celt” (1986, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 11) and its attack on “the Celtic Twilight” would stand up well against more recent revisionism, especially Prof Carey’s “A Single Ray of the Sun” (2011, Celtic Studies Publications, happily now back in print) and especaily his remarkable chapter about the faeries, “The Baptism of the Gods”. Such is how scholarship ebbs and flows, but again, great care should be taken with fragile living.
O dear, in what was meant to be a short comment I have walked out onto thin ice! But for reference, for those who might be interested in the debate around Carmichael, including my friend Prof Meek’s criticisms, can I draw attention to the book from the Isalands Book Trust, “The Life and Legacy of Alexander Carmichael” ed. by D.U. Stiubhart. They’ve still got stock on the IBT website at just £7.50: https://islandsbooktrust.org/products/the-life-and-legacy-of-alexander-carmichael. And for the Carmina Gadelica itself, for most English readers who don’t want the parallel Gaelic, the abridged Floris edition is very good, I think around £20. The endnotes are especially instructive. But for the full whammy, remember it’s 6 volumes, but the first 3 are scanned online and I’ve got them linked at Item 20 here:
https://www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/resources.htm#Carmina
I’m not going to re-read this to tighten up wording and take scholarly care, or I’ll never get the day’s work done. Treat this as no more than a comment, but one that very much appreciates the use to which one of the Hebrides’ great living bards has put Carmichael’s anthology, collected in the 19th century while more of the tradition was still there to be harvested, and passed on, not as dead stalks, but as … seedstock!