The Testimony of Tradition

by David MacRitchie

CHAPTER III.

It is clear that those popular traditions and records, as well as the indisputable statements of Brand and Wallace, indicate two very different kinds of people, who, sometimes fighting, sometimes inter-marrying, occupied territories that were, in many cases, conterminous. That they were often enemies is evident. The Finn-man, when alone, was hunted from the non-Finnish islands by the natives: and, on the other hand, he was "wont to pursue boats at sea," and to demand tribute from the fishermen—when his superior arms, or the number of his comrades, warranted him to do so.

Now, there is documentary evidence of this state of things during the seventeenth century; though the localities therein referred to are the Northern Hebrides, rather than the Orkney and Shetland Isles. But the description corresponds, in everything else, with that given by the Islesmen of the North-East. We are told[39] that, in the year 1635, certain sections of the Hebridean Islanders "comes in troupes and companeis out of the Yles where they dwell to the Yles and Loches where the fishes ar tane and there violentlie spoyles his Majesteis subjects of their fisches and sometimes of their victualls and other furniture and persewes thame of their lyffes, breakes the schooles of thair herring and comitts manie moe insolenceis upoun thame to the great hinder and disappointing of the fishing, hurt of his Majesteis subjects, to the contempt of his Majesteis auctoritte and lawes," etc. This—even to the detail that they "by their coming drive away the Fishes from the Coasts"—is an exactly similar account to that given, in the same century, to Brand and Wallace, and in the present century (but relating to about the same period) to Dr. Karl Blind. In the one case, the scene is the North-Western coasts of Scotland: in the other it is the North-Eastern. But the kind of people described are pretty evidently alike.

In either case, too, the Mer-folk or Finn-men are not spoken of as subjects of the Modern-British kingdom. The Proclamation of 1635, quoted above, does not regard "some of the inhabitants of the Yles of this kingdome," as being "his Majesteis subjects." The phrase, "Yles of this kingdome" does, indeed, imply something of a common nationality; but, as a matter of fact, certain portions of North-Western Scotland were not strictly under the rule of Charles the First, at that period. That this was so may be seen (if nowhere else) in the papers relating to those territories, of dates ranging from 1574 to 1635, which are quoted in the Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis (pp. 100-121). One of these is a letter written by Charles I. "to the Privy Council of Scotland directing an inquiry into the exactions by the Heritors of the [Hebridean] Isles from those engaged in the Fisheries; and the bringing in of Foreigners by the Heritors." And this letter runs as follows: "Whereas it is not unknown to you with what care we have intendit the good of the Association of the Fischings within thess our Kingdomes for the use of our subjects[40] and that we will be provident to protect them from the exaction of the heritours in the Yles, who as we are informed without warrant exact sundrie dewteis from them to their great prejudice, bringing in strangers and loading the vessells with fisches and other native commoditeis contrair to our lawis," etc. The letter then commands the Scotch Privy Council to learn "upon what warrant they ["the landislordis of the Yles wher the fisching is">[ tak thess dewteis." In the Report made, six months later, by the Commissioners appointed by the Privy Council, regarding "the duteis exacted be the Ylanders frome his Majesteis subjects of the associatioun resorting in these parts," it is stated: "that it was the ancient custome[2] ... to everie ane of thame in whose boundis the herring fishing fell oute, to exact of[41] everie barke and ship resorting thereto" such-and-such a tribute, in money and in kind: "Being demandit by what warrand they uplift the saids exactions and dewteis foresaids, they answer that they ar heretours of the ground and so may lawfully take up satisfactioun for ground leave and ankerage; it being ane ancient custome and in use to be done past memorie of man."

Through all these documents of this period there runs a feeling (not distinctly formulated) that "his Majesteis subjects"—"his Majesteis frie liegis"—"the haill inhabitantis of The Burrowis of this Realme"—were terms that did not strictly apply to "the heritours in the Yles." And that these latter—though nominally the subjects of the British monarch—still exercised a kind of semi-sovereignty in their own territories; enforcing tribute from "his Majesty's free lieges," and carrying on commercial relations with "foreigners," contrary to the wishes of Charles himself. That these independent rights were to some extent recognized by Charles may be gathered from his own expressions in the documents referred to. And the existence of this antagonism to British law was quite distinctly acknowledged by Charles' father (James) when, in the year 1608, he issued his instructions to a Commission "appointed for the Improvement of the Isles;" wherein he states his "desire to remove all suche scandalous reproches aganis that state, in suffering a pairt of it to be possessed with suche wild savageis voide of Godis feare and our obedience."[42]

Nor was this independence confined to the mere exacting of a tribute, according to "ancient custom," from those fishermen who, themselves coming under the denomination of "his Majesty's subjects," resorted occasionally to the coasts of the North-Western Isles. The Report of 1634 showed that this tax was rigorously levied by those Island kings when the alien fishermen arrived within the "bounds" of certain islands. But they did not content themselves with this. The Proclamation of the Scotch Privy Council of the following year (1635) begins by stating that "the Lords of Privy Council ar informed that of lait ther hes been manie great insolenceis committit be some of the inhabitants of the Yles of this kingdome not onlie upoun his Majesteis subjects hanting the trade of fisching in the Yles but upon the Lords and others of the Association[43] of the Royall Fishing of Great Britane and Ireland; whiche Ylanders comes in troupes and companeis out of the Yles where they dwell to the Yles and Loches where the fishes ar tane and there violentlie spoyles his Majesteis subjects of their fisches and sometimes of their victualls and other furniture and persewes thame of their lyffes," etc. This statement reveals quite plainly a condition of enmity between "his Majesty's subjects," and certain sections of the Hebridean population. And the traveller, Pennant, furnishes additional proof of this state of things, in describing the condition of society in the Island of Skye (or its vicinity) at about the period under consideration. "Each chieftain (he tells us—and the "chieftains" of whom he speaks were presumably "his Majesty's subjects")—each chieftain had his armour-bearer, who preceded his master in time of war, and, by my author's account in time of peace; for they went armed even to church, in the manner the North-Americans [the colonists] do at present in the frontier settlement, and for the same reason, the dread of savages." Of which "savages" there are many traditions still extant in the legendary lore of the West Highlands.

Of more historical nature is the evidence of Buchanan, who, in describing the Inner Hebrides, during the seventeenth century, states that the island of Pabbay, close to the Skye coast, was then "infamous for robberies, where the thieves, from their lurking-places in the woods, with which it is covered, intercept the unwary travellers." Of the island of Rona, lying a little to the northward of Pabbay, and, at that time, "covered with wood and heath," he says: "In a deep bay it has a harbour, dangerous for voyagers, as it affords a covert for pirates, whence to surprise the passengers." To the west of Skye, and in the Outer Hebrides, there was the island of Uist, containing "numerous caves covered with heath, the lurking-places of robbers." Off the mainland coast to the north-east of Skye, lay "the island Eu, almost wholly covered with wood, and of service only to the robbers, who lurk there to surprise travellers;" while "more to the north lies Gruinort (says the same writer), also darkened with wood, and infested with robbers." That is to say, all of these districts belonged to certain races who waged war against other populations in that archipelago; and who, in all probability, were the "savages" referred to by the traveller Pennant.

It is not only this latter writer and James VI. of Scotland who refer to certain North British populations in the seventeenth century as "savages." Nor are such people only visible in the Hebrides at that date. "In a curious old book called 'Northern Memoirs; calculated for the Meridian of Scotland,' written in the year 1658,"[44] the following short description occurs with reference to the district of Strath Navar, in the north of the county of Sutherland:—

"The next curiosity to entertain you with, is the county of Southerland, which we enter by crossing a small arm of the ocean from Tain to Dornoch. So from thence we travel into Cathness and the county of Stranavar, where a rude sort of inhabitants dwell (almost as barbarous as Cannibals), who, when they kill a beast, boil him in his hide, make a caldron of his skin, browis of his bowels, drink of his blood, and bread and meat of his carcase. Since few or none amongst them hitherto have as yet understood any better rules or methods of eating."

Here, then, is a community of people, "almost as barbarous as Cannibals," in the estimation of a civilized writer of 1658. But none of the expressions of this kind, used by writers of the seventeenth century, will strike modern men more strongly than that applied to the Finn-men of Orkney in the Minute Book of the Edinburgh College of Physicians. To the civilized Scotch of two centuries ago those Finn-men were simply savages,—"barbarous men." The term "savage" is always a relative one; and what one civilization regards as savagery is really the fag-end of an earlier civilization. Nevertheless, the seventeenth-century Finn-man represented what must necessarily appear to us as a "savage" state of society, if that word is to have any meaning at all. And the predominant castes of Orkney and Shetland and the mainland of Scotland were quite in unison upon this point. The Edinburgh physicians, as a matter of course, regarded those kayakers as "barbarous men," just as we regard their Arctic kindred to-day. The same view was taken by the predominant castes in the Inner Hebrides, at the same period, and apparently with regard to the same race of people. At that period, therefore, the seventeenth century, we see the higher castes of Scotland asserting themselves against an "Eskimo" race that threatened the safety of the more civilized populations all along the northern and western fringe of the country.