Series of distress; where every morning is labouring with
expedients for the evening; and where all mental pains or pleasure
arose from the dread of winter, the expectation of spring, the
caprices of their Chiefs, and the motions of the neighbouring
clans; where there was neither shame from ignorance, nor pride in
knowledge; neither curiosity to inquire, nor vanity to communicate.
The Chiefs indeed were exempt from urgent penury, and daily
difficulties; and in their houses were preserved what accounts
remained of past ages. But the Chiefs were sometimes ignorant and
careless, and sometimes kept busy by turbulence and contention; and
one generation of ignorance effaces the whole series of unwritten
history. Books are faithful repositories, which may be a while
neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again
impart their instruction: memory, once interrupted, is not to be
recalled. Written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the
cloud that had hidden it has past away, is again bright in its
proper station. Tradition is but a meteor, which, if once it
falls, cannot be rekindled.
It seems to be universally supposed, that much of the local history
was preserved by the Bards, of whom one is said to have been
retained by every great family. After these Bards were some of my
first inquiries; and I received such answers as, for a while, made
me please myself with my increase of knowledge; for I had not then
learned how to estimate the narration of a Highlander.
They said that a great family had a Bard and a Senachi, who were
the poet and historian of the house; and an old gentleman told me
that he remembered one of each. Here was a dawn of intelligence.
Of men that had lived within memory, some certain knowledge might
be attained. Though the office had ceased, its effects might
continue; the poems might be found, though there was no poet.
Another conversation indeed informed me, that the same man was both
Bard and Senachi. This variation discouraged me; but as the
practice might be different in different times, or at the same time
in different families, there was yet no reason for supposing that I
must necessarily sit down in total ignorance.
Soon after I was told by a gentleman, who is generally acknowledged
the greatest master of Hebridian antiquities, that there had indeed
once been both Bards and Senachies; and that Senachi signified 'the
man of talk,' or of conversation; but that neither Bard nor Senachi
had existed for some centuries. I have no reason to suppose it
exactly known at what time the custom ceased, nor did it probably
cease in all houses at once. But whenever the practice of
recitation was disused, the works, whether poetical or historical,
perished with the authors; for in those times nothing had been
written in the Earse language.
Whether the 'Man of talk' was a historian, whose office was to tell
truth, or a story-teller, like those which were in the last
century, and perhaps are now among the Irish, whose trade was only
to amuse, it now would be vain to inquire.
Most of the domestick offices were, I believe, hereditary; and
probably the laureat of a clan was always the son of the last
laureat. The history of the race could no otherwise be
communicated, or retained; but what genius could be expected in a
poet by inheritance?
The nation was wholly illiterate. Neither bards nor Senachies
could write or read; but if they were ignorant, there was no danger
of detection; they were believed by those whose vanity they
flattered.
The recital of genealogies, which has been considered as very
efficacious to the preservation of a true series of ancestry, was
anciently made, when the heir of the family came to manly age.
This practice has never subsisted within time of memory, nor was
much credit due to such rehearsers, who might obtrude fictitious
pedigrees, either to please their masters, or to hide the
deficiency of their own memories.
Where the Chiefs of the Highlands have found the histories of their
descent is difficult to tell; for no Earse genealogy was ever
written. In general this only is evident, that the principal house
of a clan must be very ancient, and that those must have lived long
in a place, of whom it is not known when they came thither.
Thus hopeless are all attempts to find any traces of Highland
learning. Nor are their primitive customs and ancient manner of
life otherwise than very faintly and uncertainly remembered by the
present race.
The peculiarities which strike the native of a commercial country,
proceeded in a great measure from the want of money. To the
servants and dependents that were not domesticks, and if an
estimate be made from the capacity of any of their old houses which
I have seen, their domesticks could have been but few, were
appropriated certain portions of land for their support. Macdonald
has a piece of ground yet, called the Bards or Senachies field.
When a beef was killed for the house, particular parts were claimed
as fees by the several officers, or workmen. What was the right of
each I have not learned. The head belonged to the smith, and the
udder of a cow to the piper: the weaver had likewise his
particular part; and so many pieces followed these prescriptive
claims, that the Laird's was at last but little.
The payment of rent in kind has been so long disused in England,
that it is totally forgotten. It was practised very lately in the
Hebrides, and probably still continues, not only in St. Kilda,
where money is not yet known, but in others of the smaller and
remoter Islands.
