The Cowboy and His Kilt

[marvelredneck]

Found this article while surfing, it had personal intrest to me considering where I live. I hope this hasn't been posted before, if so mods please delete. Enjoy!

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The Cowboy and His Kilt
Celtic cattle and the music of the American West
by Owen Perkins

The West is a region of myth. In the 30 years of the Old West's heyday, from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century, the bulk of the legends were born, leaving behind a legacy in song and cinema that historians have spent a century trying to debunk.

In the process of forging their own musical genre, David Wilkie and Cowboy Celtic have forever changed the landscape of the Old West. Suddenly we're finding Gaelic spoken at the Alamo and Scots at Little Big Horn, rescoring the soundtrack to a revisionist view of the West.

Wilkie has spent most of the past five years immersed in this cross-cultural musical project, tracing melodies back to Celtic country and following the path of centuries-old immigrants bringing their stamp to the West. Speaking by phone with the Indy from his home in the ranch country of Turner Valley, Alberta, Wilkie spoke about a song he's uncovered called "Farewell to Coigach," written in Montana around the turn of the century by a Scottish immigrant cowboy.

"As far as I know it's the last remaining cowboy song written in the Gaelic language," Wilkie said. "It was written in Montana around the turn of the century. Coigach's a mountain that's on the coast right above Ullapool, a fishing village. For some reason about 25 men of that village decided to move to Montana to become cowboys. It's an incredible story."

Wilkie has also tried his hand at retelling more familiar tales, including the story of General Custer in his medley of "Garry Owen/Custer Died a-Runnin'/Off 'til Monday." Wilkie explained that "a lot of the men that died with Custer were Irish and Scottish. They introduced that music to Custer. 'Garry Owen' was his battle song. It's an old Irish battle song that goes back centuries that his Irish men gave him in the Civil War. They had a brass band on horseback and they actually performed those songs while Custer charged ... But Custer didn't bring them to Little Big Horn, because he figured they'd be in his way. He left his Gatling guns and his musicians behind."

After several visits across the water, Wilkie has become something of an expert on the link to the ancient cattle tradition in the old country. "The cattle culture in Scotland, in particular, goes back centuries, six, seven hundred years of cattle stories and cattle driving, cattle thieving," Wilkie explained.

"Their cattle industry was just winding down when the American cattle industry was just getting started. They were looking for markets in which they could open up to do their cattle business, and the American West was that place. I think at one point, maybe eighty percent of the ranches in Texas and Colorado were owned by Scottish and Irish ranchers."

With three albums to their credit, Cowboy Celtic has been focusing on showing the Celtic influence on American cowboy songs. "What I've tried to do is take the cowboy songs and use Celtic instrumentation, like whistles, harps, and Celtic fiddle styles," Wilkie said. "And then I've tried to take the Scottish songs and play them in a more cowboy way. I've tried to bring them into this middle ground somewhere where it's a different kind of a deal."

The band is at work on a new album, with more of a focus on the Old Country songs, delving farther back into the ancient cowboy culture. "The castles would have these wars over the cattle. There's just some fascinating stories that are not unlike Jesse James and Billy the Kid. But they go back centuries. Back into the 1300s, 1400s."

Wilkie also found out about the cattle "trysts," an old-fashioned precursor to modern day cowboy gatherings. "It was the same kind of thing. There was music, a lot of festivity, a lot of drinking, a lot of fighting," he laughed.

In the long run, the Scottish drovers had at least one essential characteristic in common with their western counterparts. "They sang to the cattle at night for the same reason the cowboys in the West did," Wilkie said, "to calm the herd."

[Bugbear]

"John Stuart Forbes Memorial"
http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/...s_memorial.htm

[marvelredneck]

"John Stuart Forbes Memorial"
http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/...s_memorial.htm

Oh, very interesting, thanks!

[Bugbear]

Cajunscot brought up John Stuart Forbes a while back, and I think that might be where I first came across that page.

[tripleblessed]

"They sang to the cattle at night for the same reason the cowboys in the West did," Wilkie said, "to calm the herd."

A little history. In Siberia there is a state called The Altai, from its mountains, and it's next to Tuva, down along the Chinese border near Mongolia. In this area, during the 80s, Russian archeologists dug up graves about 6,000 years old. They found two bodies in very good shape, along with horses. All were in very good shape because of the permafrost. They decided, on the basis of their interpretation of the tattoos, that they had found a priestess in one and a warrior in another a few miles away. The clothing was in such good shape they put it on models and did a photo shoot, using National Geographic's resources. I saw these mummies in a museum in Novosibirsk, then was able to get out into the area where they were found, but not to the graves. I was probably 40 miles from China and 75 from Mongolia. The Steppes are the area of the domestication of the horse, and the people were herding nomads, with herds of sheep, or goats, or yaks, or camels, or a mix. And lots of horses. The Celts lived next door.

THREAD RELEVANCE - The mummies had very blonde hair and blue eyes, and might well be cousins. Many of you will have heard Tibetan monks or Tuvans throatsinging and this is where it originates. From a singing people riding herd at night, with no one to sing harmony, so they learned to make harmony on their own. The Celts traded with them, got horses, and herding, and singing to the herd to calm them. They carried these loves with them everywhere they went, and from Scotland and Ireland it came with them to the American West.


EDIT: I know I've posted some of this before, but it ties in here, and many new folk lately.

[Bugbear]

I attempted to look up the stats on the Scots in a book I have, They Died with Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn, by Douglas D. Scott, P. Willey, and Melissa A. Connor (U of Oklahoma P, 1998).

Rather than try to explain what I read, I am going to quote the passage at the beginning of the section "Nativity," on page ninety.

Only a little over half, 57 percent, of the Seventh Cavalry had been born in the United States. Immigrants from famine-stricken Ireland account for 15 percent of the Seventh, and from war-torn Germany came another 15%. Five percent of the Seventh were immigrants from England. There were also men from Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Scotland, Switzerland, and several other European countries.

There is a table, but I am not sure how to read it. Scotland might be three percent, I'm not too sure. It sounds like, from the passage, it was less than five percent. Sorry about that.
I haven't found anything on Forbes in the book so far.

[macwilkin]

For more information on this topic, I highly recommend Fernec Szasz's Scots in the North American West 1790-1917 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000).

A.R.B. Hadlane's The Drove Roads of Scotland discusses the Scottish origins of cattle driving & cattle trails:

http://www.scotshistoryonline.co.uk/...ml/drovers.htm
http://www.oldroadsofscotland.com/hi...%20period5.htm

Rob Gibson's Plaids and Bandannas is a relatively new look at the Scottish Cowboy connection:

http://www.caithness.org/caithnessbo...ndbandanas.htm

Along with Forbes, another Scot who died at Little Bighorn was Lt. Donald McIntosh of Company G. His brother, Archie McIntosh, was a famed scout under Gen. George F. Crook in the Apache campaigns in Arizona. They were the sons of a Scottish Hudson's Bay Company employee and a mother who was a descendant of the Seneca chief Red Jacket:

http://www.us7thcavcof.com/Dedication.html

McIntosh is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Regards,

T.

[tripleblessed]

The aspect of cultural heritage of the dead at Little Big Horn has probably not crossed my mind before now. Looking at the numbers, 263 dead according to the National Park Service, other sources seem to vary somewhat. Bugbear's source says 15% were Irish, 3% or so Scots. Some of the dead were Native or civilian scouts? I think this may be the crux in the difference in numbers. 18% of 263 is 47. A significant number, and if some of those were civilians, then the prudent estimate would be 45-50. I think it would fit with Wilkie's statement that a lot of the men were Irish and Scottish.

In addition, I found a list of men who served in the 7th who were not present with Custer on that field but settled in the area, and while probably not an exhaustive listing, a strong percentage had Scots and Irish names.

[Bugbear]

Ya, tripleblessed, my source I cited is a result of a 1984-89 archeological examination of the Little Bighorn battlefield after a 1983 fire cleared off the vegetation.
It has tons of statistical information, and lots of gruesome details.
The book did say, as posted in the OP, The Seventh Cavalry band, "Chief Musician Felix Vinatieri and sixteen privates," stayed behind at the Yellowstone Depot during the battle (26).


Thanks for the suggestions and links, cajunscot; those are some interesting sites, too.

[tripleblessed]

It occurs to me also that of the 57% born in this country, many might well have
been first generation Irish or Scots. My last Scots were here when Washington
was elected, my Irish earlier with the exception of one great-grandmother who
was married in PA to a Union vet in the 1870s. Strong tradition of military service in all those lines, through to the present.