The
Gal-Gael Peoples of Scotland: On Tradition Re-bearing, Recovery of Place and
Making Identity Anew
by Alastair McIntosh
[Also availagle in PDF
of
original Cencrastus published version with photographs (7.4 MB) - click
here]
This
material was first published by Cencrastus: Scottish and International Literature, Arts and Affairs,
Edinburgh, 56, 6-15, 1997. The version here carries a short introduction and updated notes. It
appeared in Nature Religion Today, ed. Joanne
Pearson, Richard Roberts & Geoffrey Samuel, Edinburgh University Press,
180-202,1998. In this version as produced here, it comprises an introduction,
the GalGael poem, and extensive notes to the poem which represent an essay in
their own right about place, belonging and identity within the Celtic tradition.
Click here for further research material on Scots
constitutional theology.
Click
here to jump to: [The GalGael poem (on this page)] [The
GalGael poem notes] [The GalGael
Trust website] [The late Colin Macleod - Eulogies]
[PDF
of original Cencrastus published version (7.4 MB)]
Introduction
(this bit's mainly for the academics)
How do we overcome that anomie of which Durkheim wrote a century ago - that sense of
placelessness, emptiness, rootlessness and meaninglessness which colonisation
and the neo-colonialism of advanced industrial society has bequested?
This question is daily forced in the face of Europe’s poor. And it has
emerged in Scotland at the cutting edge of action for social and ecological
justice. At its heart is the nature of identity and belonging in communities
that are no longer tribal and pre-industrial, but multi-ethnic and postmodern.
The poetic work and integral endnotes that follows developed out of
Glasgow’s M77 motorway protest at Pollok and the confluence that this formed
with other events. These included moves towards re-establishing a Scottish
parliament, Scottish land reform (especially on the Isle of Eigg) and the
campaign to prevent Mt. Roineabhal on the Isle of Harris - a National Scenic
Area - from being turned into a superquarry by Redland Aggregates plc to pave
Europe with more motorways.
The statement was requested of me by Colin MacLeod, who lead the Pollok
protest and started a family there. It had been asked of him by Mi’Kmaq
warrior chief (now, emeritus) and sacred peace pipe carrier, Sulian Stone Eagle
Herney, in his capacity as director of the First Nations Environmental Network
in Canada. Stone Eagle had visited Pollok in 1994 on his way to the Isle of
Harris at my invitation. Together with the Rev. Prof. Donald MacLeod of the Free
Church College, the three of us presented the government public inquiry with
unprecedented theological testimony concerning reverence for the integrity of
creation.
On his home territory of Cape Breton Island, Stone Eagle had been
mandated by the late Grand Chief Donald Marshall to prevent the superquarrying
of Mt. Kluscap by Kelly Rock, a local subsidiary of Readymix Concrete.
International publicity over the defending of our Scottish mountain helped in
the defence of his.
In defence of the Earth, in striving for native land rights and in search
of cultural soul, our respective native peoples are presently coming together
after five centuries of tragic colonial history. This calls for new and
inclusive understandings of what it means to be “indigenous”. It means
recovering our near-lost traditions so that we can again bear them as a compass.
And if the elders are broken, the young, like so many of those at Pollok, must
rise to early responsibility. Thus the Mi’Kmaq have made Colin MacLeod into
the first ever non-Mi’Kmaq district war chief in recognition of his assumption
of responsibility in non-violent defence of mother Earth. And as Barney
MacCormack, bard of Craigencalt in Fife, wrote on the wall of my son Adam’s
tree house:
Child go
break off from the herd
go beyond
the lowlands
leave the
valley of shed antlers
the elders
are sick
it is your time now
The
Gal-Gael Peoples of Scotland
Written
at the request of and dedicated to Tawny, Colin and Gehan
Macleod
and other powerful gentle warriors at the Pollok Free State M77 Motorway Protest
in Glasgow, whose endeavours for renewal are both ecological and cultural.
We,
the Gal-Gael, being a loose association of some native peoples of Scotland,
extend our hand to all other indigenous peoples in the world. By invitation of
First Nation friends in North America we ask to address you with these words.
(I)
The Shoaling
Dear
fellow creatures, sisters, brothers, children:
for
some years now we have been listening
Awakening
to hear you speak
in
ocean swell across the great Atlantic
in
musical rhythms danced from brightest Africa’s savannah
in
wind’s feathered mantras fluttering out from prayer flags
of
the high Himalaya
in
ancient Aboriginal songlines
waulking
even through Precambrian bedrock folds
of
overworld high roads
underworld
low roads
North
South East
West
of our own recovering discovering shamanic tradition
By
all such ways and more
dear
long-lost much-abus’ed friends
we
have heard the speaking of your drums
been
touch’ed
late
if not last
by
open waiting of your hearts
And
ask you to accept us now
a
native peoples
the
‘Gal-Gael’
of
Scotland, Alba,
these
Northern tracts of Albion
by
apple fragrant Avalon
When
sun’s white light streams in through raindrop lens
and
rainbows arch the covenant of hope
all
colours make all peoples from one source
And
so it is we here
and
more besides
have
wrestled long and hard with what it means
to
be a Scottish native peoples
of
diversity
What
does it mean
to
be the black among us like the white
the
Pole, Italian, Russian and Pakistani
the
Tamil, Sinhalese the Japanese and Chinese
English
just as Scot or Welsh, Flemish German Moslem Jew pagan
Irish
- Protestant and Catholic?
What
does it mean for us a rainbow spectrum
to
be a Peoples of this place?
Fully
indigenous. Fully belonging.
By
salmon’s course
we
have arrived
long
shoaling at the estuary, waiting, waiting, waiting
but
Spate now running So we leap ...
Protesting
motorways in Glasgow
Refuting
superquarry mountain destruction Bride’s isle the He-brides
Fighting
to heat the dampened love-warm crisis-torn homes
of
those of us in urban native reservation housing schemes
(where
TV up a tower block offers nature’s only window
one
fifth of Scotland’s people live in poverty)
And
“resetting seeds of Eden”
one
foot venturing into Eden
with
Muir and Burns, MacDiarmid, White and mostly unnamed women’s song
pressing
down “wet desert” sod to replant native trees
in
Border dale and Highland strath
and
on the blighted bing
Struggling
to regain
a
music, dance and language
once
usurped from forebears’ cradling embrace
usurped
to break the spirit
take
our land
and
even God and gods and saints of old
and
scar the very strata deep
with
alcohol soaked nicotine smoked Prozac choked
dysfunctionality
Lateral
violence of unresolv’ed angst
unable
to engage
with
power from above
so
sideways striking to and from within and all around
...
hurting ... hurting ... hurting ...
with
intergenerational poverty knocking on from then to now
people
disempowered in rent-racked famine days
Half
a million Highland folk ...
(Lowlanders
before like English further back in time)
...
Cleared ... from kindly providential clachan
...
Cleared ... to fact’ory or to emigrant ship
...
dumped ... Aotearoa ... North America
...
recruited ... skirling hireling regiments of “Queen’s Owned Highlanders”
Empire
stitched from butcher’s wounds
opp’ressed
turned oppressor sprung from opp’ressed’ pain
both
sides the Atlantic surging with emotion
Intergenerational
Transatlantic Cultural Trauma
a
three-way brokenness
native
peoples our side, the Ossianic Western edge
native
peoples their side, the Eastern oceanic seaboard
and
Everywhere that breaking dominant disembedded culture
that
is in part
us
too
Can
you forgive us?
Red
woman, man, child, creature
red
earth
Can
we together mend these bygone ongoing murders
of
murdered souls murdering bodies filled with soul
cultural
genocide Roman Norman Modern Empire
corporate
limited liability limited responsibility
IMF,
GATT-World Trade Organisation, World Bank
triumvirate
idols Mammon Moloch Money
loansharks
surfing water gardens of the poor
thrashing
around in usurious name of pax prosperity
...
Trashing all ... All ... but that Invincible prophetic Remnant of humanity
that
hazel nut-like flotsam coasting oceans of the heart in Exodus
those
holograms of wisdom
dropped
by tree of life in sacred trout filled limpid pool
swept
down of old on mighty streams of righteousness
but
cast up fragile yet relentlessly on shore of modern times
there
to wait reminding us, reminding us, re-minding us ...
...
re-member ... re-vision ... re-claim ...
and
with a raindrop soft pre-emptive start
reminding
too that “only forgiveness ... breaks the law of karma”
(II)
Invocation
Ohhh
... friends we call across the seas to you from echo chamber of the soul
we
call now stirred by rhythm that you drum
We
call upon the triple billion year old songlines of world’s oldest rock
“I
lift a stone; it is the meaning of life I clasp” - says the bard MacDiarmid
So
let us honour stone. Let us call afresh the foundational litany:
The
Lewisian Gneiss ...
...
Druim Alban’s kelson of the Baltic to Canadian Shield
The
superquarry threatened South Harris igneous complex
(surveyed
by supine Roineabhal
beholding
all Scarista’s ancient parish of Kilbride
annunciating
Brigh, Bride, Brigit, womanhood of God
from
Barra and the South to Clisham and beyond ... the Holy He-brides
these
scattered jewels from God’s eighth day
of
legen’dary last Creation act)[26]
Ohhh
... the lithogenic litany ... “turn but a stone an angel stirs”
The
Cairngorm pegmatites and sparkling Aberdeenshire granite
The
Old Red Sandstone
The
Durness limestone sequences and Bathgate’s forest Carboniferous
The
Tertiary radiating basalt dykes from great volcanoes Mull and Raasay
The
Sgurr of Eigg and Ailsa Craig
(where
seventh century Irish shaman Sweeney roosted)
The
Seat of Arthur
(watching
over Calton faerie hill
where
pending Parliament awaits return of Stone of Destiny)
The
Calanais standing stones and Ring of Brora
The
high crosses of Iona pulsing Ireland Ireland Southern Hebridean Ireland
The
twin menhirs of Muirkirk
(resanctifying
desecrated opencast fields ploughed of coal)
The
cairns to poets and to the brave land raiders
The
idle pebbles tossed
with
cosmogenic tanka’s spiral winkle shell
tossed
to and fro, round and round, inwards outwards
dark
moon full moon vortexing on today’s high tide at noon
Ohhh
... the rocks the rocks the rocks
we
call on you ...
Rise
up from sleep sunk strata beds!
Giant
women, wizened men, totemic creatures once laid down to be our hills
Wake
up! Wake up! Wake up and waulk this Earth in us!
...
bring back the land within the people’s care
...
bring back the care to touch from hand to land
(III)
Re-membering
Aye
...
and
so we have united as strong women
resisting
landlord’s factor
non-lethal
direct action Crofters’ War, Timex strike
We
have united, men of gentleness
straining
back temptation just to be like them
and
bomb and bribe and blight
Turning
instead the heartwood of their minds
by
climbing threatened tree
or
gently blocking course of Trident submarine
(seven-hundred
two-score-ten Hiroshimas each one)
Aye
... Aye and three times Aye
three
times “yes” of Holy Trinity ... Father, Child,
Sophia
WomanSpirit Holy Spirit Rising
Three
times Aye the Triune Goddess
Maiden
Mother Crone
Life
Death Rebirth
Her
mantle oh so green laid out each spring
to
fill the world with milk and flowers
...
Bri’gh! ... Bri’gh! ...
Bri’gh! ...
of
the oak Cill-Dara, of Iona and of Bethlehem
And
three-times-three - Aye
ring
out nine blossom bells afresh from silver bardic bough
Restore
once more a Politics of Poetry!
...
for only such poetics can again renew the face of Earth
inform
our ancient people’s highest aspiration
and
like a rowan arch exclude
a
waiting nation’s re-awaiting parcelled rogues
We
must restore the schools and ways of ancient learning
to
stand them proud beside the richness of the new
restore
what Lord and Bishop wrecked - cruel Statutes of Iona 1609
...
twelve most powerful Highland chiefs
...
kidnapped ... imprisoned over winter ...
forced
to forfeit friendship, tongue, and bard’s vocation
forced
to put out culture’s flames
(but
done with sacred blessing’s triple peat
the
embers only smoored so not to chill)
Aye
Statues of an Iona cudgelled into modern time by Whitby’s Roman synod
Aye
post-Culloden Proscription even of our ancient spirit’ual dress
Aye
... we now bypass you 664, 1609, 1747
We
rise now up on eagle wings
above
that colonisation of our lands and minds
...
as fire in head reheats the sacred salmon’s sap
we
watch it run ... a babbling silver stream
anointing
wisdom’s ninth Proverbial dwelling place the heart
We
hear with inner ear ancestral chorus, look, and See,
And
Are Again Of Shining Countenance!
We
are the Tuatha de Danann
emerged
by standing stone from Sithean, faerie hill
emerged
to Be again Free again the mother Goddess Danann’s people
....
Holy ... Holy ... Holy ...
No
exiled “metaphor for the imagination” any more
the
tree ringed mushroom fringed hollow knowe of light
No
fortress mound to house true nature’s child
unfree
in wider desecrated world to be true nature wild ... but Reality!
...
And see! See yon distant mythic Fiann ...
that
once sunk down amangst the stanes became a stane
Awakening
now! In us with strength to hurl from shores or catch from air
not
mountain boulder there left cleft upon the beach
from
some old tribal war of legendary adolescent pique
but
phantom intercontinental jet ballistic missile star war supergun exports
to
catch them Halt! them take them from the sky
and
beat them into railway tracks
and
homesteads for the poor
(IV) Re-visioning
We
are become again a people
known
or unknown touched
by
rose of Scotland little white rose
that
smells so sharp and sweet it breaks the heart
by
eagle, deer, wild cat and long-gone bear
here
in spirit where extinct in flesh
Strong
totems for recovery - we need strong totems at this time
Remember
... that three years before
Culloden
massacred gasp from clansfolk’s tribal voice
the
last wolf was shot extinct in Scotland
Nature’s
death precursing culture’s “thickest night”
Culloden
- last battle mainland British soil 1746
internal
colonial conquest
blood
mingling inseparably soaked through moss Drumossie moor
friend
and foe and which is “us” and which is “them” now?
Where
the “Gaeltachd” wither “Galltachd”
Unavoidably
mingled
for
a’ that and a’ that
sacrificing,
sanctifying, down to an ice-age cleans’ed strata
that
is both cultural and in depth, archaeological
long
stinking but now compost-rendered for new growth
Something
poised
...
both psychic and somatic
...
genetic and prophetic
Remnant
sprig from taproot of antiquity
awaiting
spring to bud re-formed
and
Blossom as is needed in our agitated times
...
a cultural cultivation ...
Indeed!
Let us observe that
the
capacity of nature and of human nature
to
be hurt
is
exceeded
in
the fullness of time
only
by
the capacity to heal ...
And
that must be joy’s greatest cause for hope
So
you ... our friends to whom this statement is addressed
You,
we know, will understand.
Take
you, First Nation Peoples, North America
uneasy
unasked hosts to our Diaspora
You,
Chippewa protest leader challenging Exon’s mines, Walter Bresette
says
... “We are all native people now. The door is shut. We are all inside.”
You,
Mi’Kmaq superquarry warrior chief Sulian Stone Eagle Herney
says
... “Your mountain, your shorelines your rivers and your air
are
just as much mine and my grandchildren’s
as
ours is yours.”
You,
great teacher huntress Winona La Duke
walking
troubled by the Minnesota lakes
who
rejects “genocide by arithmetic”
that
allows “indigenous” belonging
to
be governmentally defined by statutes staturing racial purity
Rejecting
thresholds like one-sixteenth blood relationship
to
be a Sioux or Cree or Cherokee
for
human love will always
mingle,
meld, and make of prismed light
a
golden melanged mockery of all pretensions
to
any presumption
of
racial purity
that
violates sunlight’s loving magic dance
a
dance insisting
as
it pleases, teases
Equally
to be white light, coloured light
or
warm absorbing dark that holds all light
(V)
Re-claiming
Aye
... aye ... aye
Scotland
understands a thing or two about belonging
We
have a Gaelic proverb:
“The
Bonds of Milk are Stronger than the Bonds of Blood”
Nurture,
kinship, counts for more than mere blood lineage
And
so let us propose
an
ancient new criterion for belonging here;
All
Are Indigenous, Native To This Place. All
Who
Are Willing To Cherish
And
Be Cherished
By
This Place
And
Its Peoples
All
are indigenous, native to this place. All
who
are willing to cherish
and
be cherished
by
this place
and
its peoples
Those
whose souls so resonate
All
we, known and unknown to us
are
troubled claiming for ourselves
the
obvious tribal names of indigeniety.
Few
if any are “pure”
Pict,
Norse, Flemish, Saxon, Angle,
Indian,
Greek, Hispanic, Arab
Scotia’s
royal lineage to daughter of Pharaoh.
Even
Gaelic tongue of Irish forebears
dappled
once a Pictish land
with
blood as well as milk
So
What Choice Have We
But
To Embrace Full Spectrum?
What
choice want we
save
the pleasures so to do?
And
to SHINE ON. Oh yes friend. SHINE ON!
Once
Vikings raped and pillaged here
and
then too melded
gentle
with the healing power of place and time
Became
us!
became
“Gall-Gaidheil,” the Gal-Gael
“emerged
as a mixed ethnic group by the middle of the ninth century”
in
the Hebrides and south-west Scotland
giving
Gall-oway its name
and
Isle of Lewis, Harris - “Innse
Gall” - the Isle of Strangers
terrible
then, a violated and a violating people
(like
us today perhaps?)
but
us they were
We’re
all Gal-Gael now
and
only by facing the shadows of history
can
sunlight warm our backs
and
melt the frozen crust
of
ice congeal’ed blood around the heart.
Today
eight-tenths of Scotland’s private land
is
owned by less
than
one tenth
of
one percent
of
Scotland’s people
Let’s
call a spade a spade:
...
too many of us languish lost
in
concrete jungles’
post-indust’rial
redundancy
dumped
there by those who see no treasure in each soul
(for
that is what distinguishes
their
force for life-extinguishing
in
sectioning nature off
these
men of property)
We’ve
had enough!
We
now insist on being heard and standing up and standing out
and
coming into Being
speaking
as it is our truth to power for what it is
“...
fur the wains’ sake ... our ane sake ...”
So
we declare ... identity
a
claim of right
a
name that mingles, honours
many
nations in this place
A
bioregional identity defending place
nae
force of arms
but
power o’ reverence
transcending
narrow nationalism
so
not to bleach out ethnic richness rainbow hues
and
not to fight in ways that scar and cannot be undone
but
yet to find a focal understanding ...
some
constellation of belonging ...
of
folk and place and wonted work
(VI)
Affirmation
Well
... here we are
Round
protest hearth in Glasgow’s Pollok wood
and
we again evoke the name
“Gal-Gael”
Impure.
Bitter-sweet. Riddled with contradiction.
But
belonging here, now
here
and now
to
and fro
rocking
... rocking ... rocking
Rolling
into life and |