Among the causes which contributed to sustain the warlike character of the Highlanders, the exertions of the bards in stimulating them to deeds of valour in the field of battle, must not be overlooked. One of the most important duties of the bard consisted in attending the clans to the field, and exhorting them before battle to emulate the glories of their ancestors, and to die if necessary in defence of their country. The appeals of the bards, which were delivered and enforced with great vehemence and earnestness, never failed to arouse the feelings; and when amid the din of battle the voices of the bards could no longer be heard, the pipers succeeded them, and cheered on their respective parties with their warlike and inspiring strains. After the termination of the battle, the bard celebrated the praises of the brave warriors who had fallen in battle, and related the heroic actions of the survivors to excite them to similar exertions on future occasions. To impress still more deeply upon the minds of the survivors the honour and heroism of their fallen friends, the piper was employed to perform plaintive dirges for the slain.
From the associations raised in the mind by the great respect thus paid to the dead, and the honours which awaited the survivors who distinguished themselves in the field of battle, by their actions being celebrated by the bards, and transmitted to posterity, originated that magnanimous contempt of death for which the Highlanders are noted. While among some people the idea of death is avoided with studious alarm, the Highlander will speak of it with an easy and unconcerned familiarity, as an event of ordinary occurrence, but in a way “equally remote from dastardly affectation, or fool-hardy presumption, and proportioned solely to the inevitable certainty of the event itself.”[500]
To be interred decently, and in a becoming manner, is a material consideration in the mind of a Highlander, and care is generally taken, even by the poorest, long before the approach of death, to provide sufficient articles to insure a respectable interment. To wish one another an honourable death, crioch onarach, is considered friendly by the Highlanders, and even children will sometimes express the same sentiment towards their parents. “A man well known to the writer of these pages was remarkable for his filial affection, even among the sons and daughters of the mountains, so distinguished for that branch of piety. His mother being a widow, and having a numerous family, who had married very early, he continued to live single, that he might the more sedulously attend to her comfort, and watch over her declining years with the tenderest care. On her birth-day, he always collected his brothers and sisters, and all their families, to a sort of kindly feast, and, in conclusion, gave a toast, not easily translated from the emphatic language, without circumlocution,—An easy and decorous departure to my mother, comes nearest to it. This toast, which would shake the nerves of fashionable delicacy, was received with great applause, the old woman remarking, that God had been always good to her, and she hoped she would die as decently as she had lived, for it is thought of the utmost consequence to die decently. The ritual of decorous departure, and of behaviour to be observed by the friends of the dying on that solemn occasion, being fully established, nothing is more common than to take a solemn leave of old people, as if they were going on a journey, and pretty much in the same terms. People frequently send conditional messages to the departed. If you are permitted, tell my dear brother, that I have merely endured the world since he left it, and that I have been very kind to every creature he used to cherish, for his sake. I have, indeed, heard a person of a very enlightened mind, seriously give a message to an aged person, to deliver to a child he had lost not long before, which she as seriously promised to deliver, with the wonted salvo, if she was permitted.”[501]
In no country was “the savage virtue of hospitality” carried to a greater extent than in the Highlands, and never did stranger receive a heartier welcome than was given to the guest who entered a Highland mansion or cottage. This hospitality was sometimes carried rather too far, particularly in the island of Barra, where, according to Martin, the custom was, that, when strangers from the northern islands went there, “the natives, immediately after their landing, obliged them to eat, even though they should have liberally eat and drank but an hour before their landing there.” This meat they called Bieyta’v, i.e. Ocean meat. Sir Robert Gordon informs us that it was a custom among the western islanders, that when one was invited to another’s house, they never separated till the whole provision was finished; and that, when it was done, they went to the next house, and so on from one house to another until they made a complete round, from neighbour to neighbour, always carrying the head of the family in which they had been last entertained to the next house along with them.[502]
The removal of the court by Malcolm Canmore to the Lowlands was an event which was followed by results very disastrous to the future prosperity of the Highlands. The inhabitants soon sunk into a state of poverty, and, as by the transference of the seat of government the administration of the laws became either inoperative or was feebly enforced, the people gave themselves up to violence and turbulence, and revenged in person those injuries which the laws could no longer redress. Released from the salutary control of monarchical government, the Highlanders soon saw the necessity of substituting some other system in its place, to protect themselves against the aggressions to which they were exposed. From this state of things originated the great power of the Chiefs, who attained their ascendancy over the different little communities into which the population of the Highlands was naturally divided, on account of their superior property, courage, or talent. The powers of the chiefs were very great. They acted as judges or arbiters in the quarrels of their clansmen and followers, and as they were backed by resolute supporters of their rights, their property, and their power, they established within their own territories a jurisdiction almost independent of the kingly authority.
From this division of the people into clans and tribes under separate chiefs, arose many of those institutions, feelings, and usages which characterised the Highlanders. “The nature of the country, and the motives which induced the Celts to make it their refuge, almost necessarily prescribed the form of their institutions. Unequal to contend with the overwhelming numbers, who drove them from the plains, and, anxious to preserve their independence, and their blood uncontaminated by a mixture with strangers, they defended themselves in those strongholds which are, in every country, the sanctuaries of national liberty, and the refuge of those who resist the oppressions and the dominion of a more powerful neighbour. Thus, in the absence of their monarchs, and defended by their barrier of rocks, they did not always submit to the authority of a distant government, which could neither enforce obedience nor afford protection.”[503]
The various little societies into which the Highland population was, by the nature of the country, divided, having no desire to change their residence or to keep up a communication with one another, and having all their wants, which were few, supplied within themselves, became individually isolated. Every district became an independent state, and thus the Highland population, though possessing a community of customs and the same characteristics, was divided or broken into separate masses, and placed under different jurisdictions. A patriarchal[504] system of government, “a sort of hereditary monarchy founded on custom, and allowed by general consent, rather than regulated by laws,” was thus established over each community or clan in the persons of the chiefs.
As a consequence of the separation which was preserved by the different clans, matrimonial alliances were rarely made with strangers, and hence the members of the clan were generally related to one another by the ties of consanguinity or affinity. While this double connexion tended to preserve harmony and good will among the members of the same clan, it also tended, on the other hand, to excite a bitter spirit of animosity between rival clans, whenever an affront or injury was offered by one clan to another, or by individuals of different clans.
Although the chief had great power with his clan in the different relations of landlord, leader, and judge, his authority was far from absolute, as he was obliged to consult the leading men of the clan in matters of importance—in things regarding the clan or particular families, in removing differences, punishing or redressing injuries, preventing lawsuits, supporting declining families, and declaring war against, or adjusting terms of peace with other clans.
As the system of clanship was calculated to cherish a warlike spirit, the young chiefs and heads of families were regarded or despised according to their military or peaceable disposition. If they revenged a quarrel with another clan by killing some of the enemy, or carrying off their cattle and laying their lands waste, they were highly esteemed, and great expectations were formed of their future prowess and exploits. But if they failed in their attempts, they were not respected; and if they appeared disinclined to engage in hostile rencontres, they were despised.[505]