First up, an article about Finland in the aftermath of the second world war. Now passed onto a Finnish neighbour.
Second up, a useful antidote to the vision of the Isles of Aran put together by Robert Flaherty and noticed at reference 2. An antidote in the form of an article about collecting folk songs from the Gaelic part of Scotland, from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, by one Margaret Shaw Campbell, who spent six years there, 1929-1934, about the same time at Flaherty was working, a place which, while rather bigger, was probably not that different from an Aran Island.
One of my concerns about the Aran film was all the rope on show in and around their boats. How did they pay for the stuff? So I now know that on South Uist they made rope out of heather. The caption explains that the rope so made was used for tying down the thatch roofs (turf plus grass/reed/heather plus chicken wire) and says nothing about using the stuff at sea.
But they also caught mackerel, which they were squeamish about eating themselves, but were quite happy to smoke for sale to the Swedes, who used to visit to take on a cargo from time to time. So a source of cash. Herrings were OK.
Sheep were important, the wool from which went to make clothes for the islanders and fancy tweeds for the foreigners, with the famous Harris Tweed coming from the next island along.
Rats were something of a pest, infesting the houses and outbuildings. No doubt if it was not so cold and wet there would have been worse.
Peat was an important fuel. But were the supplies unlimited? Does peat count as an honorary fossil fuel and so not very cuddly at all? I seem to recall that the Broads of Norfolk started life as peat diggings.
There was a bit of plough land but no draught animals to speak of. So they used the foot plough, known to them as the cas-chrom. Wikipedia knows all about them.
There were lots of long winter nights, shut in with nothing much to do. I wonder about the level of domestic and other violence. Drink fuelled? And while we are at it, what about TB and other lung complaints?
Snap above is an Aran Island, not South Uist. Rugged in parts, but with plenty of green for sheep. From gmaps, pretty much the whole island appears to have been divided into neat rectangular fields - which must be good for something. And there is an aerodrome, Inishmore Airport, gmaps 53.1055244,-9.6547968. Handy for the visiting toffs from the big towns over the water.
I wonder whether all these islands were once much more green, say a couple of thousand years ago, than they are now, maybe even with trees, but are now more or less grazed down to the rock? I seem to recall that the Viking settlements of eastern Greenland foundered on that account.
In any event, I think it is clear that Mr. Flaherty was laying it on a bit strong. Life was hard, but not that hard.
PS 1: my next door neighbour - who still has some Gaelic - thought that the documentary was really a bit of romance about the far away Emerald Isle for all the many citizens of the US of Irish descent. Made at a time when memories of the bad behaviour (if can so euphemise it) of the Prots and the Brits was still fresh and raw.
PS 2: the article about songs immediately followed one about the people of the Cameroons, complete with plenty of pictures of people with more or less no clothes on. An acceptable and popular form of soft-porn in those far off times, the late 1940's. Popular, in fact, ever since the advent of photographs in mass produced magazines in the late nineteenth century.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/waiting-rooms.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/guildford-cathedral.html.
Reference 3: Man of Aran - Robert Flaherty - 1934.
Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Aran.
Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_plough.
No comments:
Post a Comment