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Kilts of many colors
The Charleston Scottish Games and Highland Gathering bring together bagpipers clad in the tartans that represent their heritage. Pipe bands from across the Southeast compete during the gathering, showing their skill at coaxing music from bagpipes.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Heave ho!
Willie Danzer competes in the sheaf toss at the 2017 Charleston Scottish Games and Highland Gathering. Athletic competitions at Highland games require a combination of brute strength and proper athletic form.
Photo by Mic Smith
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Don’t mess with the kinswomen
Aslynn Halvorson of Anderson gives it her all in the weight-throw competition of the 2017 Charleston Scottish Games and Highland Gathering.
Photo by Mic Smith
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On their toes
Many Highland dances are rooted in military tradition, serving as a way to select the most agile and athletic warriors.
Photo by Mic Smith
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The Highland meets the Lowcountry
During the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan celebration, descendants of 12 founding Scottish families parade through the chapel of First (Scots) Presbyterian Church in Charleston wearing symbols of Palmetto State pride with traditional clan attire.
Photo by Mic Smith
To the south, the high, lonesome sound of bagpipes trills above the rolling drumbeats. To the west, spectators stand in line for sausage rolls, meat pastries, Scotch eggs and haggis pockets. On a stage in the east, young girls wearing colorful Aboyne dresses dance the lilt and the fling.
But, in the middle of the 2017 Charleston Scottish Games and Highland Gathering, Berkeley Electric Cooperative member Shane Sutherland has tuned everything out as he picks up a 22-pound hammer.
Burly and bearded, Sutherland plants his feet firmly, then twists his body at the waist, his kilt twirling as he swings the hammer overhead and heaves the implement into the air with a groan. The hammer helicopters a remarkable 79 feet before thudding onto the soft ground of Boone Hall Plantation.
The crowd applauds, and a grin forms in his thick, black beard as Sutherland claps his taped hands together. His competitors—all as burly, bearded, imposing and kilted—acknowledge his throw with head nods and grunts of encouragement.
A native of Goose Creek, Sutherland has been competing in the games for 16 years and knows how to pace himself. The morning events—the putting of the stone and the weight throws—have been grueling enough. And, still to come are the afternoon events, including the sheaf toss—in which he must chuck a hay bale over a raised bar with a pitchfork—and the caber toss—in which he must make a 19-foot cypress log cartwheel by heaving it from his shoulder.
It makes for an exhausting weekend, but Sutherland looks forward to competing every year.
“I get to do what I love and meet and see people from all over,” he says. “It is so much more than throwing trees and rocks. The history and the people are a major draw, too.”
History, heritage and haggis
Organized by the nonprofit Scottish Society of Charleston and drawing more than 6,000 people annually, the Charleston Scottish Games and Highland Gathering is the state’s largest celebration of Celtic heritage.
“History and heritage go hand in hand,” says Jeff Castle, the society’s president. “Scots are often-times lumped in with the British and the Irish and misunderstood as a bunch of hot-headed loonies in kilts who eat sheep entrails with whisky for dinner. In truth, Scots have made immense contributions in politics, economics, medicine, philosophy and science. All while eating sheep entrails, drinking whisky and battling the English.”
Indeed, Scots have contributed significantly to South Carolina history. Scots Covenanters, Presbyterians fleeing religious persecution, first arrived in Port Royal in 1684. Although the Spanish burned their settlement in 1686, the Scots were here, and here to stay. For such is the nature of the Scottish—to persevere through a fierce loyalty to kinship.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the clan system. At every Scottish heritage celebration, clans (synonymous with families) will stake their tents, inviting kinsmen and kinswomen to come by and learn more about their namesakes and heritage.
“Everyone of Scottish heritage is obsessed with figuring out which clan they belong to,” Castle explains. “And, most of us could claim to belong to more than one. This leads to great debate over which tartan to wear to which occasion and which other clans are allies or foes. Each clan has its own motto, songs and history.”
During the festival, a ring of clan tents—McLeods, McPhersons, Armstrongs, Campbells, Wallaces, MacDougalls and many others—encircle the athletic field. At the Clan Donnachaidh of the Carolinas tent, Robert Duncan invites me in, despite the fact that I profess to be Welsh-Irish.
“Any Scot worth his salt knows he’s Irish,” he says with a grin, launching into a history lesson about Brian Boru, the High King of Scotland originally from Ireland, and about Jacobite risings and the Battle of Culloden.
Duncan tells me his is the oldest clan (Donnachaidh means “Sons of Duncan”), and he shows me the different tartans—the plaid patterns representing a clan—that he wears for different heritage events.
Last night, for instance, he wore the Duncan Tartan to the Tartan Ball—a $100-a-head, formal, Scotch-sipping affair that kicks off the weekend’s pageantry at the Daniel Island Club, where the men wear kilts as part of their formalwear and the women dress up in Highland evening gowns.
The Tartan Ball officially begins when The Citadel’s Regimental Pipe Band marches in, bagpipes blaring, for what’s known as the “Piping in of the Haggis.” Former society president David McDougall then reads “Address to the Haggis” by Scottish poet Robert Burns, and Castle gets the first bite of the infamous dish—a pudding containing sheep’s heart, liver and lungs—and washes it down with a shot of Scotch.
Then the band comes on. The dancing begins. The photographs get snapped. People mingle over plates of fried oysters and tenderloin.
One tartan-wearing first-time attendee, Greg Williams of Beech Island, explains why he attended the event. “My grandmother told me we were Scottish when I was looking into my heritage as a high schooler. As we discussed history at school, the teacher and some other students talked about their ancestors being at some of the events, and it sparked some curiosity in me.”
Duncan says Williams’ experience is common at heritage celebrations. People make a connection and then get interested; it’s not the other way around.
So, it is with something like curious trepidation that I venture over to the South Carolina Genealogical Society tent at the festival. Here I am, not Scottish and not a Charlestonian, at a Scottish heritage event in a town known for being preoccupied with lineage (who is kin to whom).
At the genealogical booth—a staple of all Scottish-heritage celebrations—my name does not come up in the Scottish books. But, then I see that one of the books on display is titled The Surnames of Wales. Jim McDonald, a historical genealogist for Clan Donald USA—wearing a skunk-head pouch called a sporran with his kilt—looks up my mother’s maiden name and tells me that the Welsh had tartans, too. I am as worthy, he says, of wearing a family tartan as any Scot.
Suddenly, I understand the impulse behind these celebrations—a sense of belonging. Once you make an ancestral connection, you feel as if you are a part of something larger than yourself.
Dancing warriors
There seems to be a unique kind of pride in being Scottish, and it stems from the fact that Scottish culture is very martial and warrior-like. Nearly every tradition, it seems, reflects a history of rebellion and warfare.
Of course, there are many popular depictions of Scots as warriors. Nothing did more to incite interest in Scottish heritage than the 1994 Oscar-winning film Braveheart. At festivals, kids still get their faces painted blue like Mel Gibson’s character, William Wallace. (Many Scots are quick to point out that this is a romanticized version of the actual man.) The plotline of HBO’s popular Game of Thrones also steals a great deal from Scottish and English military history.
And, oddly enough, you also see expressions of the warrior culture in the unlikeliest places. At the dancing stage, as young girls bounce up and down in remarkable synchronicity, I meet Diane Dubock of Spring Hills, Florida. Originally from Motherwell, Scotland, Dubock travels to Scottish heritage events all over the country.
She tells me that Highland dancing began as a way for the Scottish kings and clan chiefs to pick their bodyguards.
“They wanted the most agile men out there to protect them,” she says. “The Scottish regiments learned how to dance, and it was a display of national pride.”
In the 1920s, according to Dubock, women started competing in dance competitions, soundly beating the men. Now, you have little girls from all over the country taking an interest in Celtic dance. Just ask Brynn Brown, an 8-year-old from Aiken, competing in the beginner category of her first Highland Games.
“It’s so much fun,” she gushes. “If I didn’t do it, I don’t know. It’s a part of my life!”
At the music stage, The American Rogues, complete in Highland dress and kilts, play a loud, banging set of bagpipe-driven music. And, true to Scottish form, they honor the military between songs. Nelson Stewart, the bandleader, tells the crowd about playing fundraisers for the Navy SEALS and for veterans all over the country.
“It seems all of our clans are filled with veterans, and the SAMS organization, the Scottish American Military Society, is a fixture at our games,” Castle says. “As far back as the Wars for Scottish Independence on through the Jacobite rebellion and the two World Wars, Scots have been proud warriors and soldiers.”
Turning the caber
As the Saturday festival events draw to a close, it’s time for Sutherland to pick up the cypress log and give it, literally, a whirl. Typically, this is the highlight of the athletic competition and the festival. And the emcee knows it. He asks for the ale-soaked spectators to give it up for the hometown boy, and the crowd goes wild.
Sutherland squats down, embraces the tree as if about to tackle it, then cradles it on his shoulder and begins to walk with it. His goal is to toss the tree so that it flips and the other side hits the ground in the 12 o’clock position and flips again. To succeed in doing so is to have “turned the caber.”
Sutherland heaves the tree, and for a brief second, it looks like it might turn. But, the tree wobbles and comes crashing down, and the crowd lets out the kind of sigh and applause that say, “Ah, too bad. But I couldn’t have done that myself!”
“My cabers had been awesome this week. I had the speed, had a good pitch. I just stepped in a hole,” Sutherland says afterwards, disappointed with his performance but not dejected. He loves competing in these events, win or lose.
“This is my golf,” he continues. “Everyone needs a hobby and, in my case, one that keeps me competitive and training in the gym.”
Closing procession
The weekend closes on Sunday as it began, with pipes and drums, this time at a church service known as the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan.
At First (Scots) Presbyterian Church, organized in 1731 by a dozen Scottish families, worshipers gather for Scottish Heritage Sunday, in which the families march in with their tartan banners as the bagpipes play “Highland Cathedral.”
Although it’s an American tradition, the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan is based on Scottish history and legend. And it is, of course, a tradition with military origins.
When Scotland returned to British rule following the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Scots were no longer allowed to carry arms, wear kilts or display Scottish heritage or pride. Thus, Scots would secretly carry a piece of their tartans with them to the Kirk (the church). During World War II, Dr. Peter Marshall, the chaplain of the U.S. Senate, led services called “Kirkin’s” in support of the contributions made by the Scottish to the war.
After the service concludes, the churchgoers gather outside as The Citadel’s Regimental Pipe Band plays those bagpipes loudly and proudly. It is a beautiful day, and anyone walking the streets of downtown Charleston and hearing the music knows for sure: The Scots are here, and here to stay.
Photo by Mic Smith
South Carolina’s 2018 Celtic heritage celebrations
Tartan Day South Highland Games and Celtic Festival, March 22–25
Historic Columbia Speedway, 2001 Charleston Highway, Cayce; tartandaysouth.com
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Saltwater Highland Games, March 23–25
North Myrtle Beach Park & Sports Complex, 150 Citizens Circle, Little River(843) 492-0515; myrtlebeachhighlandgames.com
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Gallabrae and Greenville Scottish Games, May 25–27
Furman University, 3300 Poinsett Highway, Greenville; gallabrae.com
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Charleston Scottish Games and Highland Gathering, Nov. 3
Boone Hall Plantation, 2521 Highway 17 North, Mount Pleasant; charlestonscots@gmail.com; charlestonscots.org
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Clover Highland Games, Nov. 10
Various locations in and around the town of Clover(803) 222-3312; cloverhighlandgames.com