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The Institute
exists to study, record and promote the cultural traditions and language
of communities in the North of Scotland and, in particular, of the North
East. It is also concerned with the cultural traditions of groups that have
recently come to live in the region, and of Scottish expatriate communities
abroad - the Scottish diaspora. Under its Director, Dr Ian Russell, an imaginative programme of fieldwork, research, outreach, collaborative projects, education
initiatives, and publications is underway.
Table
of Contents
Scottish Traveller Project Gets Major Funding
Scottish Travellers at the
famous Aikey Brae Fair, Aberdeenshire, c.1906
Photograph from William Rennie, Stuartfield.
The Traveller Education and Informatin Project - Girls from Aberdeen in a real Gypsy wagon at the Open Roads Festival in Glasgow in 2000.
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A project
to research, archive, and promote the oral and cultural traditions
of Scottish Travellers in the North East is to receive major support
from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The award of £90,000, supplemented
by a further £10,000 from the University's Development Trust,
was announced in the New Year. The project will run for three years
under the direction of a keyworker appointed for the purpose. As
well as researching and documenting Traveller lore, the keyworker
will visit schools and community groups to promote storytelling
and other Traveller traditions.
The significance
of Scottish Travellers' culture has been recognised since the 1950s
through the pioneering work of Hamish Henderson and others connected
with the School of Scottish Studies. Jeannie Robertson of Aberdeen
(1908-1975) is acknowledged as the greatest singer of ballads ever
recorded in Scotland, and other Travellers from the North East,
such as Jane Turriff, Stanley Robertson, Elizabeth Stewart, Carmen
Higgins, Lucy Stewart (d.1984), and Davie Stewart (1901-1972), are
considered pre-eminent tradition bearers
The Institute
will provide the ethnographic expertise and guidance for the project,
making 'the record' available through sound and video, on the internet,
and through publications. The keyworker will also work with young
Travellers to encourage their active participation in the project,
through the Traveller Education and Information Project (North East)
based at Aberdeen Foyer.
'It is a great boost to the work of the Institute,' commented Ian
Russell. 'We aim to build relations with schools, so that pupils
become aware of the rich heritage of Scottish traditions among the
Travellers. It will help counteract the negative images of the Travelling
People that abound in Scottish society by demonstrating the creative
contribution that Travellers have made, and continue to make, to
our cultural identity.'
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George Reid Remembered
The George Reid Memorial Fellowship Appeal was launched last November by its patrons Roddy Begg, Buff and Margaret Hardie, John and Sheila Hargreaves, Sheila Reid, Graeme Roberts, Steve and Eva Robertson, Ian Russell, and Robbie Shepherd - the aim: to fund a position at the Elphinstone Institute.
This aim reflects George’s great interest in and passion for the oral and cultural traditions, and language of North-East Scotland. The fellowship will enable Stanley Robertson, one of Scotland’s leading storytellers and ballad singers, to document his own lore and that of his family and community, and visit local schools to conduct storytelling and singing workshops. We plan to dovetail this important initiative with the HLF funded project announced above. If you would like to learn more about the Fellowship and/or offer support for it, please contact the Secretary.
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George William Reid (1944 - 2000), MA LLD,OBE |
From
the Director
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| 2002 promises to be a very busy year with new avenues of research
opening up, the taught M.Litt. in Ethnology and Folklore coming
on stream, a conference on Hugh Miller, two weekend festivals,
the evening public lecture series, and our education outreach
work - not forgetting our publications programme. |
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Dr Ian Russell |
Hugh Miller in Context
To mark the bicentenary of Hugh Miller (1802-1856), a conference is being
held in Cromarty, 10-13 October 2002, under the auspices of the Cromarty
Arts Trust. The Elphinstone Institute has been invited by Convenor Lester
Borley, to organise one of the three conference themes: 'Ethnology and
Social History'. This will address, in particular, Miller's Scenes and
Legends and My Schools and Schoolmasters. The other two themes are geology/natural
history and Miller's role in the socio-political debate that led to the
Disruption. As well as the Elphinstone Institute, the National Trust for
Scotland, the University of the Highlands and Islands (Highland Theological
College at Dingwall), and Scottish Natural Heritage are involved in the
organisation. This will be a high profile event, attracting international
speakers and delegates.
New Research
We have recently welcomed Roddy Mackenzie to the Institute. Roddy, whose
background is in nursing, is registered for an M.Phil and will be researching
the contemporary uses of healing wells.
Congratulations
Warm congratulations to the broadcaster Robbie Shepherd, MBE, who was
awarded the honorary degree of Master of the University at the November
graduations. Robbie is Chairman of the Friends of the Elphinstone Institute.
The Friends
The AGM of the Friends of the Elphinstone Institute will be held in
the Seminar Room, Queen Mother Library, on Monday 18 March, 7.00 - 8.30
p.m.
M.Litt in Ethnology and Folklore
This new postgraduate course will begin in October 2002. It can be taken
full-time (12 months) or part-time (24 months). The course covers the
theory and practice of Ethnology and Folklore. It aims to develop a broad-based
understanding of how the disciplines evolved, and offer an introduction
to the major genres of study - material culture, custom and belief, oral
traditions, childlore and games, sports and pastimes - with a special
concentration on Scottish materials. For more information contact the
Institute.
KIST UPDATE
www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/kist/
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factsheet on the Scots Language issued by the Education Department's
Arts and Cultural Heritage Division (April 2001), the Scottish Executive
'considers the Scots language to be an important part of Scotland's
linguistic and cultural heritage'. It goes on to note that Scots has
an important place in schools, where it can help 'to foster a sense
of personal and national identity through pupils' experience and study
of Scots writing and Scots songs and through their conscious awareness
and use of Scots language.'
The National guidelines on English language acknowledge that Scots
history should be studied, and teachers are now encouraged to value
the spoken language which pupils bring to school. Scottish texts
are to be used in classrooms in the form of poetry, fiction, song,
etc. from past and present sources. The Elphinstone Kist, a rich
repository of local history, poetry and song, is a valuable and
accessible teaching resource for developing knowledge and understanding
of Scots in the classroom. The material in the Kist is easily accessible
with the click of a mouse, and can be downloaded to supplement material
in primary and secondary schools, or for use by the wider community
in the North East and beyond.
The hundreds of website pages in the Kist cater for every taste
and have all sorts of uses. The background and context section is
an excellent introduction to anyone interested in the origins of
North-East Scots in the wider academic community. Social conditions
past and present are presented first hand, through interviews conducted
with local people, or via their own writing. To promote the language
and culture as widely as possible, many strands make up this particular
web: bothy and traditional ballads, information on the artistic
heritage of the area, writing that reflects contemporary life, and
a sampling of the very rich literature from pastmasters of Scots.
Although the work of augmenting and updating the contents of the
Kist continues, the next phase is to identify ways in which it can
best serve the purpose it was intended for: to promote the North
East in schools, at home and abroad, its language, culture and people.
The thrissle-heid is wechty wi seeds…Dinna be blate tae blaw them
tae the fower airts!
Sheena
Blackhall
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'Doric's no Dodo'
by Sheena Blackhall
Tune: 'Barnyards o Delgaty'
Fin I wis young an gaed tae skweel,
Ye cudna spikk the Scots ava,
Bit learnin English wisna hard,
Instead o ae tongue I hid twa.
Chorus:
Mart an office, near an far,
Scots is lowpin, moo fae moo;
Wirds ye canna bind nor bar;
As weel cheenge girse fae green tae blue.
Open up yer lugs, it's thrivin
At the shops, the fitba match;
Scots is like the seeds o thissle,
Grows in ony neuk or patch.
Dreich an dour an gleg an roosty,
Phrases like 'Ca cannie noo',
Are as much a pairt o Scotland's
Tattie crisps an irn bru.
Ye can legislate or rule
Tae banish Scots or heeze it quick;
There's a far mair pouerfu tool:
Fowk are votin wi their spikk.
Sheena
Blackhall
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Cullerlie Singing Weekend
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Once again Tom and Anne Reid’s farm at Cullerlie will be the venue for
the Traditional Singing Weekend, 28-30 June 2002. The third in the series, we plan to make it every bit as good as the
2000 and 2001 festivals. We have an impressive line-up of guests from all over the UK and from
Ireland. The home team includes Margaret Bennett,Sheena Blackhall, Janice and Kathleen Clark, Danny Couper, Jock Duncan,
and Jim and Kate Taylor. From Cornwall we welcome Vic Legg, from Northamptonshire,
Jeff Wesley; and from Mullaghbawn in Northern Ireland, Patricia Flynn
and Mick Quinn. Our Orcadian guest is Billy Budge, former Coxswain of
the Longhope Lifeboat.
Included in the workshops are bothy ballad writing, waulking songs, quilting,
sheep clipping, a sheepdog demonstration, farmhouse cooking, and a tour
of Cullerlie Farm Museum. Dr Margaret Bennett will be giving a talk on
the Saturday morning entitled ‘Highland Folkways’. There will also be
several singarounds and two ceilidhs featuring the guests.
Last year’s guests were exceptional and, together with many fine singers
from the floor, helped to create a superb atmosphere. Thank you to Róisín
White, Jerry O’Reilly, Hannah Hutton, John Cocking, Billy Jolly, Barbara-Ann
Burnett, Allan and Gordon Mackenzie, Geordie Murison, Sheena Blackhall
and Charlie Allan.
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Photograph by Wendy de Rusett.
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Storytelling
at Banchory
 The
Institute, in partnership with Woodend Arts Association, is organising
a storytelling festival on 20-21 April 2002 to present the very
best in traditional and local storytelling. The weekend will be
the first of its kind in the North East, and will be of great interest
to the many enthusiasts for a good yarn, as well as budding storytellers
and hardened shenachies.
The
guests represent a rich mix of talents from a range of backgrounds,
including Traveller tradition. John Campbell and Len Graham from
Mullaghbawn, County Armagh, will be joined by Bob Pegg and Alec
John Williamson from Ross-shire, together with Aberdeen's Stanley
Robertson and Sheena Blackhall.
Other
talented local storytellers at the festival include Sandy Stronach,
'Bunty' Penny, Lorna Alexander, and Jackie Ross. Besides workshops,
storyrounds, and ceilidhs, there will also be two talks - one
by Professor Bill Nicolaisen on contemporary legends, and the
other by Dr Mairi MacArthur on the Gaelic storytelling tradition.
This
will be a very special occasion, and one not to be missed. Bookings
can be made through Woodend Barn (01330 825431) or through the
Institute. Don't delay, places will be limited.
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'Gie her a Haggis!'
| In October 2001 I started work on a PhD at the Elphinstone Institute on the subject of 'Haggis as Food, Legend and Popular Culture'. My aim is to present an analysis of this prominent symbol of Scottishness as a 'cultural complex' involving interrelated narratives, beliefs, customs and material culture. I am approaching these diverse expressive cultural materials from three main perspectives: foodways, narrative and popular culture studies. Firstly, I am tracing the history of the dish, and considering the processes underlying its construction as a cultural symbol. Secondly, I am analysing the legends which portray the haggis as a living creature, considering issues of context, style and form, and the meanings and significance of the legends for their tellers and audiences. Thirdly, I am exploring how haggis is represented in Scottish tourism and popular culture, for example through popular literature and media, souvenirs, the performances of tour guides, and so on. I hope in particular to use the case of the haggis to explore the complex interplay between symbol and stereotype in representations and perceptions of Scottishness on the part of both in- and outsiders. Any materials or anecdotes whatsoever relating to haggis as food and/or as living creature, forwarded to me at the Institute, would be very gratefully received.
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| Joy Fraser
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Music from the Mary Rose
During the recent holidays you may have heard Dr Alburger on BBC Radio 4's 'Sounds from the Seabed'. The programme, recorded in Portsmouth, featured instruments recreated from those found on Henry VIII's ship, which sank in 1545.
The photograph here was taken during the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention in July 2001, when Mary Anne, with Senior Curator Neil Curtis, put on Marischal Museum's 'Fiddles High and Low' exhibition. Now the Flora MacDonald Teaching Fellow in University Music, she is a consultant for a forthcoming web-based project for Historic Collections featuring the University's collection of manuscripts associated with the famous North-East fiddler, James Scott Skinner.
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'The Kind They Used To Burn'
I am at the moment writing up my thesis on Mary Brooksbank and the Dundee socialist women's tradition. Mary Brooksbank was born in Aberdeen in 1897, but moved to Dundee at an early age and spent most of her life there. It was in Dundee that Mary gained her reputation as a socialist orator, poet, and folk singer, and it is these three aspects of her life that are explored in my thesis. The thesis examines Mary's ideas about herself and her community. It looks at Mary's reputation as a communist, and analyses Mary's attempts to challenge the way in which she was seen by taking control over her own represented identity. Mary Brooksbank considered herself as a woman driven by the need to improve the conditions of her community. Her political activity and art reflect her desire to assert control over her own identity, as well as being part of a communal socialist articulation. I am also looking at Mary as a local legend within Dundee, and I would be grateful if anybody with information regarding this aspect of Mary could get in touch with me at the Institute.
Carpenter's 'Secrets'
Photograph by permission of The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
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The James Madison Carpenter Collection is beginning to yield up its secrets more than sixty years after it was made. Songs, mummers plays, dances, and instrumental music from the more than 13,000 manuscript pages will be entered in the customised XML database, making these snapshots of tradition easily accessible for the first time since the 1930s.
The collection contains a great deal of unique material, including cylinder recordings which will allow us to hear some of Gavin Greig's and James Duncan's contributors, previously only available through pen and paper transcriptions.
According to team leader Dr Julia Bishop, writing in a special Carpenter issue of Folk Music Journal (1998), one of the great treasures in the collection is the repertoire of Bell Duncan of Lambshill, Alford, which is eagerly anticipated by enthusiasts and scholars alike. Duncan sang a wide range of songs, including more than sixty classic ballads. Carpenter wrote: 'Her texts are long and full, [with] many of the songs learned from her mother and others sixty-five, seventy years earlier', that is, around 1860 or 1865.
Such a repertoire is just one example of what we have to look forward to from this rich and diverse source, surely the most important unpublished collection of North-East material known.
Thomas A. McKean
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Publications News
Our latest publication - The Bedesman and the Hodbearer: The Epistolary Friendship of Francis James Child and William Walker, edited by Mary Ellen Brown - has been well received, with the reviewer in The Leopard commenting: 'This publication is a mine of information about the North East and its song and language towards the end of the 19th century, while the letters are a delight to read.' It is available from the Institute for £10.00 plus £1.00 p & p.
Publications in the pipeline include:
The Ballad World, a collection of papers from the 1999 Ballad Commission Conference (Komission für Volksdichtung: SIEF) held in Aberdeen;
Crossing Boundaries, a collection of papers from the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention, 2001; and
Folksong: Tradition and Revival, a selection of papers presented at the conference to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the Folk Song Society in 1998.
The Ballads of Glenbuchat, edited by the late David Buchan, presents a previously unpublished manuscript from the University's Historic Collections, which is attributed to the Rev Robert Scott, parish minister at Glenbuchat, and dated 1817. It is accompanied by an essay on the socio-cultural context of the manuscript and the ballads it contains, by Professor James Moreira (Director of the North East Archive at the University of Maine). Publication is due later this year.
Who's Who
at the Elphinstone
Dr Ian Russell, Director,
Ethnology, oral traditions, including music, drama and speech
Dr Colin Milton, Associate Director, Scottish literature and
folklore, especially of the North East
Sheena Blackhall, Scottish Arts Council Creative Writing Fellow,
Creative writing in Scots
Dr Thomas A. McKean, Archives and Research, Oral tradition,
songs and ballads, Gaelic tradition
Joy Fraser, Ph.D. student researching - 'the haggis as food, legend, and popular culture'
Roddy Mackenzie, M.Phil. student researching the contemporary use of healing wells
Siobhan Tolland, Ph.D. student researching 'Mary Brooksbank
of Dundee'
Catriona Low, Secretary
Honorary Research Fellows
Dr Mary Anne Alburger, Traditional music and song, fiddle making, 18th century culture
Dr Caroline Macafee, Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary Association
Professor Bill Nicolaisen, Ethnology, folk narrative, name studies, Scottish place names
Research Associates
Evelyn Hood, Scottish traditions of dance
Dr David Northcroft, Education in the North East
Les Wheeler, Scots language, education
Postscript
If you have any information, comments or suggestions of relevance to the work of the Institute, do not hesitate to contact us.
The Institute relies on outside financial support to make many of its activities possible. If you would like to help us in this way and/or become a Friend of the Elphinstone Institute, please contact the Secretary
The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen,
24 High Street, Aberdeen AB24 3EB Scotland, UK
Tel: 01224 272996 Fax: 01224 272728 Email: elphinstone@abdn.ac.uk
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Elphinstone
Public Lectures
From New Year
to May, a series of public lectures has been arranged at the Regent Lecture Theatre, Regent Walk, Old Aberdeen,
from 7.30-9.00 p.m. on the following Tuesday evenings:
22 January - Dr Ian Russell, University of Aberdeen, 'The Flute Bands of North-East Scotland: Music, Tradition, and Community'
19 February - Dr Katherine Campbell, University of Edinburgh, 'Three Centres of North-East Fiddling: Fochabers, Banchory, and Tarland'
19 March - Sheena Blackhall, University of Aberdeen, 'Taking the Doric Forward'
16 April - Dr Heather Holmes, Napier University/Scottish Executive, 'The Potato in Scotland: A Social History'
21 May - Dr James Robertson, Kingskettle, Fife, 'Hugh Miller: Scenes and Legends'
Page
last updated:
Tuesday, 27-Sep-2005 15:28:18 BST
The
Elphinstone Institute
University of Aberdeen · 24 High Street · Aberdeen AB24
3EB
Tel: 01224 272996 · Fax: 01224 272728 · Email: elphinstone@abdn.ac.uk
© 2004 Elphinstone Institute.
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