Highland Land Raids

“Is treasa tuath na tigherna”: the clan is mightier than the chief!

The Occupations now happening all over the world are not a completely new form of popular protest. This tactic, in one form or another, has been used for many centuries, and one of those forms was the Highland “land raid.”

After the defeat of the last uprising of the Highland clans in 1745-1746, the ancient warrior society of the Scottish Highlands was destroyed forever. The warrior class of the clan system were the first to emigrate in the generations following the defeat of the uprising. The warriors or “Highland gentlemen” had always been a kind of middle class between the clan chiefs and the rural peasantry, but now with that middle class gone there was a huge gulf instead of a united clan. On one side of the gulf, the now Anglicized clan chiefs, who no longer identified with Gaelic culture and now saw the peasants as mere tenants rather than clansmen. Along with the alienated chiefs were the new landlords from England and the Scottish Lowlands. On the other side of the gulf, the common people, now with no warriors to protect their interests and with increasingly little connection to the ruling chiefs.

 

The tragic result of this was the Highland Clearances, in which thousands and thousands of Highlanders were brutally cleared from their ancestral homes to make way for herds of sheep to profit the landlords. Evictions were carried out with the help of soldiers and sheriffs, often leaving the Highlanders with nowhere to turn except the small unprofitable crofts on barren land to which the landlords drove them. At first the Highlanders did not actively resist, but by the 1880s they had finally had enough. The tactics they adopted were eviction resistance and the use of the “land raid” or occupation.

 

Land raiders would occupy the fertile lands from which their grandparents had been cleared, refusing to leave until they were granted suitable farm-land at a rent they could afford. The reaction of the landlords and the authorities was brutality and violence, but the crofters fought back with cudgels and stones in the so-called “Crofters' War.” The land raids continued until the Second World War, and the motto of the land raiders was this:

 

“Is treasa tuath na tigherna”: the clan is mightier than the chief.

Less Than Brilliant Congressional Moments

"There is no doubt that history does repeat itself."

Approval for Congress has reached an all time low. This in and of itself is history in the making. Congress takes great enjoyment in behaving badly while frowning on the improper form of others. That being said, this, the 112th Congress, is not nearly as incorrigible as members of prior Congresses whose actions certainly speak louder than words echoing through history.

Did you know that on January 30, 1798 the Honorable Representative of Vermont, Matthew Lyon (Democratic-Republican), was charged with “disorderly conduct” by the House of Representatives? After exchanging several insults with the Honorable Representative of Connecticut, Roger Griswold (Federalist), Mr. Lyon then proceeded to spit tobacco juice on him.

Not long after being charged with “disorderly conduct” the Honorable Mr. Lyon acquired an additional charge of “gross indecency of language in his defense before the House”. This was the result of another confrontation with the Honorable Mr. Griswold on February 8, 1798.

The Honorable Mr. Griswold felt that it was then necessary to even the score there by acquiring his own charge of “disorderly conduct” on February 15, 1798. This particular incident involved Mr. Griswold striking Mr. Lyon with a “stout cane” while on the House floor. Mr. Lyon was kind enough to respond by returning the favor and striking Mr. Griswold with fireplace tongs.

Johns Adams was the subject at the center of this sequence of events. The dispute over whether or not he should be President and Adam’s military stance regarding France and the need to show force in order to create war. Sound familiar?

While these tantrums happened among respected Representatives in an earlier Congress, it is not difficult to visualize these same events occurring behind the closed doors of our current Congress. There is no doubt that history does repeat itself. When considering the grandstanding and bickering that currently exists the likelihood of former methods coloring the House floor it is not a far reach to expect history to re-visit – frequently.

Learning From the Remains of the Queen Anne’s Revenge

In the 1700s, a vicious pirate roamed the seas of the Caribbean, pillaging and capturing ships and sending his victims to a watery grave.  His name was Edward Teach, though most new him by the title of Blackbeard.  He managed to have one of the most successful careers of any pirate, accumulating a horde of wealth in just two years of unlawful activity.  In 1718, Blackbeard’s famous ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge sank beneath the seas.  While Blackbeard was not on the ship at the time, he would meet his own end shortly afterwards.

Since 1988, archaeologists have been searching the evidence, looking for clues as to where Blackbeard’s ship might have gone under.  Finally, in 1996, they found the Queen Anne’s Revenge off the coast of North Carolina.  In the fall of 1997, excavation began on the ship’s remains and it has been progressing steadily for nearly 15 years since, despite consistent interruptions due to storms and hurricanes.

Underwater archaeologists have their hands full with this relic.  More than 500 separate pieces have been removed from the site so far, many of them molded together by the effects of the sea.  There are an estimated 10,000 different artifacts in total, waiting to be cleaned and treated to protect them from rapid destruction at the hands of the open air.

Countless bits of information can be learned from Blackbeard’s ship.  Archaeologists are studying each artifact in order to discover where its origins were, putting the pieces of the puzzle together and figuring out what life aboard a pirate ship might have really been like.  Items on the ship, such as cannons, can relate what the pirate was thinking in the way that he outfitted it.  The presence of multiple and varied cannon types and origins already begin to pose questions as to Blackbeard’s strategy of armament.  Artifacts that were taken from other ships can give clues as to where Blackbeard sailed his ship and what

was considered useful enough to keep.

Finds such as this put events that were unseen and only partially recorded into focus, providing the much-needed information that can fill gaps in our understanding.  Many of the stories surrounding the pirate’s exploits can be confirmed or denied by what items are found on his ship.  In the end, the learning becomes exponential, and as more is discovered about the life and make-up of a pirate ship, more models can be built and related to other ships, giving people today a unique insight into what life as a pirate might have been like nearly 300 years ago.

Researchers May Have Discovered The Viking "Sun Stone"

Viking folklore describes a sun stone that Nordic sailors would use to navigate overcast days. Researchers may have discovered it.

The Vikings of the North Atlantic were known far and wide as adept sailors, as well as ferocious fighters. In their voyages they are known to have sailed as far as Greenland and, many say, even to modern-day Canada. Most evidence points to the fact that Vikings used the sun to navigate their ships. However, in the far northern climates it is often over-cast, particularly around the British Isles. How did they manage these setbacks and still arrive at their destination?

Much of Viking folklore alludes to a mysterious “Sun Stone”, a navigational tool that historians have not been able to locate at any of their archeological digs. A recent development, however, hypothesizes that Vikings’ “Sun Stone” may actually be a calcite crystal housed in a special instrument used for locating the sun’s position. The calcite works by depolarizing the sun’s light on a cloudy day. Even when the sky is overcast, the sun’s light sends off polarized concentric circles of light. On a clear day you can see these circular patterns looking toward the sun. On a cloudy day the calcite can refract the polarized light to show you the relative position of those rings.

According to Wired.com, the calcite does this by a property known as “birefringence”. The light passing through the crystal is actually broken along two paths, and the brightness of the two paths of light relative to one another will show how “slanted” the angle of the sunlight hitting the crystal is. By adjusting the crystal until both paths of light are equally bright, the medieval Viking captain could allegedly keep his ship on course. Wherever the instrument housing the calcite crystal is pointing when both paths are equally bright, that’s the direction o the sun.

To test this theory Guy Ropars and a team of researchers at the University of Rennes, built a sun stone by taking a chunk of calcite crystal from the spars in Iceland and housing it in a wooden box-like instrument. The box is designed with a hole to direct light form the sky directly onto the crystal which then in turn projects the two paths of light onto a surface. Standing on the shore and calibrating the sun stone from a known position, Ropars and his team set sail to test their sun stone for a fully over-cast day. The result? Ropars found that navigating by this Sun Stone was over 99% correct.

It’s an ingenious solution to open-sea navigation, but Ropars cautioned that no actual device like this has ever been discovered at any archeological dig. It simply uses the tools and resources available to Vikings at that time to construct a possible instrument that would have fit this ancient Viking “Sun Stone”.

"When Adam Delved and Eve Span, Who Was Then the Gentleman?"

John Ball and the Peasant Rebellion of 1381

In light of current events around the world, it might be a good idea to look at the story of John Ball, the radical priest who was one of the leaders of the peasant rebellion of 1381. When I say “radical priest,” I don't mean that any of his ideas were all that extreme, but they did appear that way to the rulers of England. In the words of John Ball himself:

 

“When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty.”

 

The phrase “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?” became a rallying cry for peasant rebellions across medieval Europe, as men and women who had never tasted liberty decided to take up arms and fight for their rights. The main goal of the 1381 rebellion was for serfdom to be abolished, a decidedly modest and reasonable goal for people who had suffered so much. The rebel leader Wat Tyler was killed during negotiations, the rebellion was crushed, and John Ball was hung by the authorities.

 

Even though the rebel peasants did not achieve their goal, historians believe that the example of the peasant rebellion did lead to the eventual emancipation of the serfs. At the height of the uprising, the peasants succeeded in storming the Tower of London and executing some of England's most powerful noblemen. The specter of what the peasants could do when they were really angry terrified the ruling classes, and convinced them that if revolution was to be avoided, reform was inevitable. Serfdom faded away in England over the next century, so even if the peasants didn't win the war, they did succeed in improving the lives of England's lower classes over time.

83 Centimeters Adds To the Mystery of the Teotihuacan City

"The Teotihuacan is one of the great mysteries in history. "

Saburo Sugiyama, an archaeologist from Japan, has unearthed an amazing discovery which adds to the mystery of the ancient Teotihuacan City approximately 30 miles northeast of Mexico City. What he has discovered is that the 83 centimeters is repeated over and over in the architecture of the city which is approximately 7 square miles - and almost unbelievably 83 kilometers in surface area! This is an amazing coincidence all to itself.

 

What this means isn't exactly clear but when a pattern like this emerges that is repeated so frequently and with such precision it almost always means something significant.

The Teotihuacan is one of the great mysteries in history. It is believed to have started about 100 years BC and continued into the 7th century when all 200,000 inhabitants suddenly left this grand city. The city peak in influence around the 4th or 5th century and this is reflected in the other great cultures of the time such as the Mayans.

 

The Teotihuacan city is fun place to visit and it attracts thousands of visitors each year, especially with its proximity to Mexico City. There are giant pyramid type structures with complex apartments built for the people of that time. There's also the Avenue of the Dead to explore and beautiful well-preserved murals to seek out.

Archeologists Find Intact Viking Burial Site in Scotland

An evidently high-status and battle-worn Viking’s burial site was discovered in Scotland by a team funded by the University of Manchester.

I’ve long been fascinated by the Viking culture, a loosely affiliated group of largely Scandinavian clans that went “a’viking” (which is to say, looting, pillaging, and even conquering in some cases) across western and central Europe during the Middle Ages. Made up of ethnic Danes, Norsemen (modern Norwegians), Swedes, and various other smaller groups; these groups were the most feared men and women in the European world at that time. Largely Scandinavian farmers that were pushed from their ancestral homelands by the expansion of the Catholic church, they adopted a warfaring way of life and built it into a cultural and religious heritage. Much of their day-to-day life, and particularly their warrior-based hierarchy, is still relatively unknown. However, a recent find by a team of archeologists from the University of Manchester may shed more light on these Medieval warriors.

The Ardnamurchan Transition Project is an ongoing effort by a teachm of Scottish archaeologists to explore and record finds along the Ardnamurchan peninsula in a remote area of Scotland. Their highest profile find yet is that of a 1,000 year-old intact burial site of a high-status Viking, most likely a lord or “chieftan”. The man was uncovered in a 5-meter long grave that was inside his Viking ship, which was also buried. With him were found an intricately carved sword, a shield boss (the circular metal piece in the center of a shield), a spear, ax, and bronze cloak pin. Also found with him was a knife, the bronze tip of a drinking horn, a whetstone from Norway, and pottery fragments from Ireland and elsewhere. The finds seems to support that he was a high-ranking Viking, buried with his weapons and with items from a number of places through the British Isles and Scandinavian Peninsulas. Given the items contained in the grave, and the style of burial, the man was most likely of Norse origin, and likely had not been a landed lord but a true Viking; attacks and pillaging across the coastlines and retreating back to the sea. Many Vikings at this time actually invaded Britain, taking over the fortresses and lands of local nobles from Scotland to northern England (then called Northumbria).

The Ardnamurchan Transition project will continue to guarantee funding from British, Scottish, and Irish sources as they ramp up their work in the Peninsula. Finds have gone back much further than this spectacular Viking find, all the way back to 4,500-6,000 years ago among Neolithic herders and farmers.

Was Vincent Van Gogh Murdered?

New evidence points to the possibility that Van Gogh was shot (accidentally...by someone else).

Over 120 years it has been widely accepted that Vincent Van Gogh ended his own life. Isolated and frequently depressed, his life was a litany of melancholic anecdotes, from his unrequited love affair to his self-mutilation (He cut off his own ear in one particular fit of depression). Historians have described Van Gogh's death as one in which he shot himself in the chest in a field in France, and then returned to an inn he had been staying at to die two days later. However, a recent book by the authors of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, propose a different story; one in which Van Gogh did not shoot himself, but was murdered.

Covered on Sunday’s 60 Minutes, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s new book Van Gogh: The Life has turned quite a few heads in the art and history worlds as they attempt to rewrite an established story in an iconic author’s life. The established story goes like this: On July 27th, 1889, Vincent Van Gogh walked to a wheat field outside of Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris, France. There he shot himself in the chest, and walked back to the inn in which he was staying. There it is well-documented that he had sustained a severe injury, even reporting to his own brother that he had shot himself, but died nonetheless two days later. In Naifeh and White’s account, however, he was shot by someone else, possibly accidentally by local school children, and returned to the inn, covering up their deed before he died soon after.

“The first inkling I got that there was something wrong was when I really started to look at the existing story. There were so many things about it that were wrong and didn’t make sense,” Smith told 60 Minutes. The authors contend that the gun was held at a distance from Van Gogh, and that the bullet’s trajectory was at a “crazy angle”. Additionally, Naifeh asked 60 Minutes, “How did he climb through these vast wheat fields and down the escarpment into the town?” Historical accounts also suggest that local children, particularly two young boys, tormented Van Gogh in the last years of his life.

Whether you believe that these small inconsistencies are significant enough circumstantial evidence to give credence to their claims, it doesn’t change Van Gogh’s legacy as a post-impressionist painter, or the mental anguish and melancholy that has been so closely associated with the artist’s work.

History or Historicity?

I’m pretty ambivalent on taking a liberal approach to recreating historical events on film or in books. It’s a difficult question and one that really has no answer. There are two questions relevant to any interpretation. The first being is it better for people to have a inaccurate representation, an interpretation rife with literary license? Or, is it better for the common man to know nothing about a historical event at all, to live a life in which he isn’t aware that this event even happened? This is a conundrum that has to come to anyone with an interest in representing historical facts in a way that is commercially viable and presented with a want to appeal to consumers.

I often think about this question when I read popular history books or watch any type of historical movie. I took quite a few history classes in colleges and the professors always warned us to be skeptical of this type of document. It wasn’t that they weren’t accurate—although they often are fabricated to the point of inauthenticity—it is that the writing comes with an eye for drama, a willingness to emulate the novel, so, to these professors at least, it isn’t really history.

And I agree, sometimes it’s difficult to take these popular histories as fact. I’ve read several of Erik Larson’s books and he uses quotes and anecdotes so liberally that it’s impossible not to wonder how he so precisely links dialogue (which he quells from real letters, journals or autobiographies) to the instance when the dialogue was supposed to occur.

In addition, it can be difficult to trust some of these types of books because you know that they are designed to appeal to consumers, so they have to be milked for the greatest dramatic potential. For example, in Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, he relies on a word-of-mouth account about a soldier’s death, but the soldier didn’t die for another 20 years after the account published in his book or the subsequent TV miniseries. Did his death add dramatic intensity? Certainly, but perhaps this want for dramatic intensity causes such scholars to be careless in their accuracy because they so want the most dramatic alternative to be the truth.  

But then I think of a lot of the history texts I was assigned to read in college. First, they are often dry and dense. Second, they are written in a way that only historians who know a specific jargon can enter the conversation. And I don’t think that this should be the point either. Dramatic potential shouldn’t be the aim, no, but neither should creating documents only accessible—or available—to the select few completing history degrees.

What do you think is the solution?

Cannibalistic Ancient Mexican Xiximes Tribe

The Xiximes, and probably their neighbors the Acaxees, killed and ate enemies to help the corn grow.

The Xiximes people of northern Mexico were an ancient culture that lived in stone and clay hovels nestled into cliffsides in what is now Durango state. Historical documents by Jesuit missionaries described the Xixemes as “barbarian” and “savage”, relating numerous incidents of cannibalism as part of their cultural heritage. A recent archeological operation has uncovered evidence confirming the Jesuits’ stories. The Xiximes were indeed cannibalistic, a part of their cultural and religious heritage. In fact, newfound bones show that their form of cannibalism was highly selective and ritualized, but have developed as a way for the tribe to subsist through famine.

The Xiximes numbered 5,000 at their tribe’s height and believed that ingesting the bodies and souls of their kind would improve the fertility of their corn harvest in the coming year. A recent analysis of over three dozens human bones confirms evidence of defleshing and boiling. They would then use the bones, carved ritualistically, for ceremonies. An archeologist behind the new study told National Geographic that, “that cannibalism was a crucial aspect of their worldview, their identity.” Although there has never been any physical evidence to prove cannibalism among the neighboring Acaxees, the cultural similarities and Jesuit accounts provide good circumstantial evidence. Although the Xiximes and Acaxees would fight and kill other indigenous groups, even invading Spaniards, they would only eat their own kind. “Other native groups and Spanish colonizers were apparently ritually worthless, according to historical studies.”

In the Cueva Del Maguey, a small collection of hovels within a cliffside cave, a deposit of bones have given scientists ample evidence in confirming the Jesuit reports. Scientists found that 80% of the bones, found with the small houses, which dated back to 1425 AD, bear marks of either having been boiled or cut with blades made of stone. The bones have been relatively untouched for centuries, giving scientists high degrees of certainty in their tests.

The Xiximes people enacted the circle of life with bloody results. After each corn harvest, the Xiximes warriors would be dispatched into the forests. At times they would “hunt” and kill lone men working in fields or traveling along paths. Other times there would be small forest skirmishes with other villages and victims would be brought back to be ritually butchered. According to the studies, researchers believe that warriors would physically break the bodies apart, it being too impractical to transport them whole. After the bodies were flayed and boiled, the bones would be stored until the beginning of the next harvest season, when the Xiximes would hang them from doorways and roofs to entice spirits to help the corn grow.

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