Human ecology and the early history of St Kilda, Scotland

Journal of Historical Geography

Volumn 25, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 183-200

  Fleming, Andrew ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WALES   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; HUMAN ACTIVITY; RESOURCE ASSESSMENT; SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS;

ST KILDA; UNITED KINGDOM; WESTERN ISLES;

EID: 0033117668     PISSN: 03057488     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1006/jhge.1999.0113     Document Type: Article

References (147)

1. Expert commentary has been provided by A. B. Taylor, The name 'St Kilda', Scottish Studies 13 (1969) 145-58
2. and R. Coates, The Place-Names of St Kilda (Lampeter 1991). Taylor argues that the name 'Skildar' or 'Skilder', originally applied to the 'shield-shaped' islands of Gaskeir or Haskeir Eagach, was marked on sixteenth-and seventeenth-century maps, and then understood to refer to Hirt or Hirta; Martin's use of the name 'St Kilda' was highly influential in spreading its use.
3. According to Taylor, op. cit., the names Hirt and Hirta derive from Old Norse hjortr, meaning 'stags', which supposedly refers to the islands' appearance in profile.
4. T. Steel, The Life and Death of Si Kilda (Edinburgh 1965);
5. C. Maclean, Island on the Edge of the World (Edinburgh 1972);
6. M. Harman, An Isle called Hirte (Waternish, Isle of Skye 1997).
7. The earliest reference to Hirtir occurs in a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga, linking the archipelago to events which took place in 1202; see A. B. Taylor, The Norsemen in St Kilda, Saga Book of the Viking Society 17 (1967-8) 116-44,
8. and W. Sayers, Spiritual navigation in the western sea: Sturlunga saga and Adomnan's Hinba, Scripta Islandica 44 (1993) 30-42.
9. K. Macaulay, The History of St Kilda (Edinburgh 1974, facsimile of 1764 edition) 197-8.
10. R. Coates, op. cit., 5.
11. R. A. Dodgshon, Modelling chiefdoms in the Scottish Highlands and Islands prior to the '45, in B. Arnold and D. B. Gibson (Eds) Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State (Cambridge 1993) 99-109.
12. S. Lee (Ed.), Dictionary of National Biography (London 1893) 289.
13. M. Martin, A Voyage to St Kilda (Edinburgh 1986, facsimile of 1753 edition, originally published 1698), hereinafter VSK.
14. There is an extensive bibliography in Harman, op. cit.
15. M. Martin, A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland (Edinburgh 1981, facsimile of 1716 edition, originally published 1703) 284, hereinafter WI.
16. VSK 44; WI 295.
17. 07287.
18. The beach is mentioned for Harris and North Uist (WI 52, 79). In Lewis and on North Uist, women also rode in the cavalcade ( WI 30, 79). A special cake was involved on Eriskay and at Eoligarry (north Barra) (WI89, 100). There were also cavalcades on Tiree and Coll (WI 270, 271). The most complete account exists for North Uist (WI 79-80), where the cavalcade involved racing for prizes, with no harness except "two small ropes made of bent . . . The men have their sweethearts behind them on horseback, and give and receive mutual presents . . . the women receiving knives and purses, the men fine garters and wild carrots."
19. VSK 43.
20. Macaulay, op. cit. 86-8.
21. Ibid. 88-9
22. VSK 16-7; W I passim.
23. VSK 26; WI25.
24. VSK 58; WI 56, 94.
25. The St Kildan harrow was "of wood as are the teeth in the front also, and all the rest supplied only with long tangles of sea-ware tied to the harrow by the small ends; the roots hanging loose behind, scatter the clods broken by the wooden teeth; this they are forced to use for want of wood" (VSK 18). The Lewis harrow had wooden teeth in the front two rows and "rough heath" in the third row (WI 3).
26. VSK 31.
27. WI 38, 47, 63, 72.
28. For example, 07106-7, 171.
29. VSK 58; WI 299.
30. VSK 49.
31. VSK 52 and passim.
32. VSK 63.
33. VSK 20. Martin refers to Stac Biorach as Stac Dona. See Harman, op. cit. 24.
34. VSK 23
35. VSK 22, 24,25.
36. VSK 36, 59, 25.
37. VSK 59.
38. G. Stell and M. Harman, Buildings of St Kilda (Edinburgh 1988) 29.
39. Sir R. Moray, A description of the island Hirta, Transactions of the Royal Society 12 (1678) 929.
40. R. W. Munro (Ed.), Monro's Western Isles of Scotland and Genealogies of the Clans (Edinburgh 1961) 78.
41. Martin (WI 94, 96) gave accounts of fowling on Berneray (to the south of Barra) and of climbers ascending the rock of Linmull (Mingulay) with the assistance of ropes, the climb being lead by the gingich. Gannets were taken from Ailsa Craig (WI 227-8). Martin also refers to dangerous fowling exploits involving ropes and a "cradle" at Noss (Shetland) and also on Foula (WI 375-6). The most absorbing account is of the summer visit by fowlers from Lewis to the Flannan Isles (WI 16-19). The enterprise involved numerous taboos, rituals and 'superstitions'-"punctilios" as Martin called them. On arrival, the fowlers walked sunways round the island, bare-headed. On no account must they defecate anywhere near their boat, nor kill a bird with a stone or after evening prayers. They prayed, bareheaded, at the old chapel. They were not to speak the name of the Flannan Isles, and Hirta had to be called 'the high country'.
42. VSK 63.
43. VSK 62; WI 299.
44. A. Buchan, A Description of St Kilda (Aberdeen 1974; facsimile of 1752 edition; originally published 1727) 36-7.
45. VSK 42; WI 287.
46. VSK 43, 44.
47. I. F. Grant, The MacLeods: The History of a Clan 1200-1956 (London 1959) 358.
48. Dodgshon, op. cit., fig. 11. 1
49. WI4S.
50. VSK 10, 44-5; WI 289-90.
51. VSK4S.
52. Martin suggests a population of 180 in some places and 200 elsewhere. See VSK 51; WI 284.
53. A. Fleming, The changing commons: the case of Swaledale (England), in A. Oilman and R. Hunt (Eds) Property in Economic Context (Lanham and Oxford 1999).
54. VSK 18; Moray, op. cit. 928.
55. VSK A4.
56. VSK 17; WI 295.
57. Harman, op. cit. 124-6 quotes recorded figures of 27 (Martin), 30, or 33 (Buchan) for the pre-smallpox period
58. 07295.
59. VSK 59.
60. B. Nelson, The Gannel (Berkhamsted 1978) 286.
61. VSK60-1.
62. WI295.
63. VSK 18.
64. Macaulay, op. cit. 40, 186.
65. Moray, op. cit. 928.
66. VSK 53.
67. VSK 59.
68. VSK 50.
69. VSK 54.
70. D. A. Quine, St Kilda Portraits (Ambleside 1988) 152.
71. VSK 49; WI 99.
72. VSK 52.
73. VSK51-2.
74. VSK 53.
75. VSK 44-5.
76. Quine, op. cit. 139.
77. On North Rona, for example, hospitality involved each man killing a sheep ("being in all five, answerable to the number of their families"); on Berneray (or Barra?), each family took in one guest (WI22, 95). When Martin's party arrived on Hirta, "the inhabitants . . . by concert agreed upon a daily maintenance allowance for us, as bread, butter, cheese, mutton, fowls, eggs, fire etc. all of which was to be given in at our lodging twice every day; this was done in a most regular manner, each family by turns paying their quota proportionately to their lands; I remember the allowance for each man per diem, beside a barley cake, was eighteen of the eggs laid by the fowl called by them lavy, and a greater number of the lesser eggs, as they differed in proportion" (VSK 10). On North Rona (WI
78. "they are very precise in the manner of property among themselves; for none of them will by any means allow his neighbour to fish within his property". On St Kilda (PF/291), on the other hand: "one will not allow his neighbour to sit and fish on his seat". There are references to shared maintenance of community officials in relation to the isles south of Barra (WI 99).
79. Munro, op. cit. 78.
80. VSK 48.
81. PF/290.
82. VSK5Q-1.
83. VSK51.
84. WI 293.
85. Harman, op. cit. 269.
86. Harman, op. cit. 194. If one takes the written sources literally, the horses must also have been replaced after Coll MacDonald's raid of 1615, although as Harman points out (ibid. 84) the source which claims that "all the bestiall" were killed on that occasion is likely to have been exaggerating.
87. WI 285-6
88. 07290
89. VSK 49, 51
90. VSK 46-1
91. Moray, op. cit. 929.
92. J. B. Mackenzie, Episode in the Life of Rev. Neil Mackenzie at St Kilda from 1829 to 1843 (privately printed 1911) 30.
93. According to Martin, the seventeenth-century St Kildans were "nice in examining the degrees of consanguinity before marriage". See VSK 38.
94. VSK 50.
95. VSK 66.
96. Mackenzie, op. cit. 21.
97. This image has been widely reproduced, perhaps most influentially in T. Steel, op. cit.
98. R. Connell, St Kilda and the St Kildians (London 1887) 148.
99. Dodgshon, op. cit. fig. 11. 1.
100. Ibid.
101. Grant, op. cit. 211, 236.
102. W. R. Mackay, Early St Kilda: a reconsideration, West Highland Notes and Queries 27 (1985) 17-21.
103. Harman, op. cil. 128.
104. Harman (ibid. 262) points out that Martin, despite his interest in medicine, does not mention infantile tetanus, but Macaulay (who visited Hirta in 1758) does. This leads her to argue that the bacillus probably arrived sometime in the first half of the 18th century, perhaps during the re-population after the 1727 smallpox epidemic, and (ibid. 129) that it was primarily responsible for the stability of population numbers from the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries.
105. E. J. Clegg, Population changes in St Kilda during the 19th and 20th centuries, Journal of Biosocial Science 9 (1977) fig. 2.
106. Harman, op. cit. 126, 128.
107. Ibid. 128.
108. S. Angus and M. M. Elliott, Erosion in Scottish machair with particular reference to the Outer Hebrides, in R. W. G. Carter, T. G. Curtis and M. J. Sheehy (Eds), Coastal Dunes: Geomorphology, Ecology and Management for Conservation (Rotterdam 1992) 93-112.
109. M. J. C. Walker, A pollen diagram from St Kilda, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, New Phytologist 97(1984) 99-113.
110. Munro, op. cil. 78.
111. VSK 48.
112. Clegg, op. cit. table 1.
113. Fleming, op. cit.
114. VSK 18.
115. Macaulay, op. cit. 29-30, 33-4, 196.
116. J. M. Boyd and I. L. Boyd, The Hebrides: A Natural History (London 1990) fig 26.
117. Ibid, table 11. 1
118. Nelson, op. cit. 279.
119. D. Serjeantson, Archaeological and ethnographie evidence for seabird exploitation in Scotland, Archaeozoologia 1111.2 (1988) 209-24.
120. Boyd and Boyd, op. cit. table 11.1.
121. FSAT31
122. Boyd and Boyd, op. cit. fig. 28. There is apparently no statistical information for the common seal.
123. Munro, op. cit. 78.
124. G. Buchanan, Historia Rerum Scoticarum (Aberdeen 1762) 78.
125. Moray, op. cit. 928.
126. R. N. Campbell, St Kilda and its sheep, in P. A. Jewell, C. Milner and J. M. Boyd (Eds) Island Survivors: The Ecology of the Soay Sheep of St Kilda (London 1974) 25.
127. Nelson, op. cil. 94-5.
128. Ibid. 89, 147.
129. Ibid. 142-3.
130. Munro, op. cit. 78;
131. Buchanan, op. cit. 25.
132. K. Williamson, The Atlantic Islands (London 1948) 29-31.
133. Harman, op. cil. 126, 128.
134. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles (Edinburgh 1928) 30-1, 39, 45, 126 plus figs 93 and 175.
135. Grant, op. cit. passim; J. Sinclair (Ed.), The Statistical Account of Scotland 1791-99 (Wakefield 1983) 51.
136. Munro, op. cit. 79;
137. Anon (1577-95) in W. F. Skene (Ed.), Celtic Scotland: a history of ancient Albion (Edinburgh 1890) 431.
138. According to R. C. MacLeod of MacLeod, The Island Clans during Six Centuries (Inverness c. 1930) 139.
139. Harman, op. cit. 100, 125.
140. Macaulay, op. cit. 38.
141. VSK 18.
142. Harman, op. cit. 99, 199.
143. I. F. Grant, Highland Folk Ways (London 1961) 94.
144. Angus and Elliott, op. cit.
145. F. H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh 1884) 147.
146. According to Canon R. C. MacLeod of MacLeod, The MacLeods of Dunvegan (Edinburgh 1927) 1:
147. "there can be no doubt that Leod flourished at some period in the thirteenth century" and "it is almost certain that Leod was born about the year 1200". In The MacLeods: Their History and Traditions (Edinburgh 1928) the same author acknowledged the existence of a debate over whether Leod was 'Norwegian' or 'Celtic'.