kilts in Scotland

[bjproc]

Am I deceived or is the middle one of those three kilts not made of tartan? Can anyone tell what the material is? Tweed?

.

the old table cloth i think




(joking )

[DireStraitsFan]

Post deleted by author.

[DireStraitsFan]

Yes of course they would be,

1. the scots are made up of many differant bloodlines, scandanavian/nordic, germanic, angol saxon etc etc.
so when a newworlder says he is of scottish ethnicity he is actually made up of many ethnicities.

3. most scottish americans are made up of many, many differant ethnicities, and most who claim to be "wholly scottish" be in for a shock if they had a dna test.

4. I do not believe that being born in scotland makes you scottish nor do I believe it is whether your parents are scottish.

to be scottish you must have at least been brought up in scotland and experianced and assimilated scotlands culture, identity, dialect, people, sense of belief, ideology, sense of inward and outword perceptions, education system, world views etc etc.

this is what makes you scottish, my friend is from iceland and moved to scotland when he was 10 he is now in his late twenties and I consider him wholly scottish as he knows what it truely means to be scottish after having the above attributes assimilate and reavaluate his identity.
and as a result I conisder him scottish.

canadians with scots parents etc, are ... well canadians. !

there may be people on this forum whi disagree with me but I think I have portayed what it is to be scottish pretty well.

I think you're mixing up cultural identity with ethnicity. Mark Knopfler is from Scotland, but he is not ethnically Scottish. His father was Hungarian and his mother was English. There is a distinction between the terms that you are using to mean the same thing. Nationality and ethnicity can be two different things.

[DireStraitsFan]

Both of the these photos date from some three quarters of a century after Sir Walter Scott died in 1831. The second photo is of a group of boys and their (?) teacher. It is obvious that it's summer (mostly bare foot boys with cheeks of tan) and because it's a group photo this must be a "special occasion", perhaps commemorating the end of the school year? Hence the idea of dressing your wee lad in his Sunday best. I don't think we should read into these photos anything other than what we see--- ten boys in breeks, three in kilts, all out front of their school at end of term with their teacher.

But that's what you've just done, isn't it? You've drawn conclusions based on what you see. The only difference is, the conclusions that you have drawn are meant to support your view.

Pot calling the kettle black if you ask me.

[DireStraitsFan]

Post deleted by author.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

But that's what you've just done, isn't it? You've drawn conclusions based on what you see. The only difference is, the conclusions that you have drawn are meant to support your view.
Pot calling the kettle black if you ask me.

Well, I didn't ask you, but since you have raised the question:

Everyone who looks at a picture interprets it on some level. My reading of the photograph, and comments thereon, were in response to the comments about whether or not the kilt was an everyday garment in early 20th century Scotland. I think it's obvious that these kids are not the scions of wealthy highland families. That being the case, photography would be a luxury reserved for special events. Now from this photograph we may draw two conclusions: (1) this is a "special event" and (2) fewer than a third of the lads are kilted.

As for the "Special Event"... well, if you can come up with a more plausible "event" in the life of these boys at the moment the photograph was taken, fine. It doesn't alter the fact that poor people didn't indulge in many Kodak moments and for them, this was a "special event".

What the photograph does show, and I feel it shows it pretty conclusively, is that by the first decade of the last century kilt wearing, even among poor, rural Scots, was fading into obscurity. Yes there were "Highland Societies" and the like, but these were the indulgences of the middle and upper classes; people with money. Something in short supply in the mining villages of Lanarkshire and the crofting communities out in the Islands.

Now about my drawing conclusions: The only conclusion I've drawn is that, because some of the boys are bare foot it's probably summer. The absence of rain, snow, or people bundled up in sealskin coats and mukluks also points to pleasant weather, something one generally associates with summer in Scotland. As the woman standing behind the boys is better dressed than the lads, you might want to assume her income is independent of the local community-- perhaps a teacher and perhaps she and the boys are standing in front of the school house. Not that it matters.

What does matter is that the photograph supports the contention that by the beginning of the last century very few people in Scotland, even the poorest, wore the kilt.

I'd be interested to hear your views, based on the photograph.

[Jock Scot]

With the greatest respect to all that have contributed to this thread,is it not time for some of us to agree to disagree on the more contentious matters and honourably put this thread to bed?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Got MY vote on that!

[Oldhiker]

this picture was contributed to the site by me, the date is 1893 location Otter Ferry, Cowal, Arygle. These are crofters in this area, not wealthy in a monetary sense. You can't tell in the photo since it isn't color but the 2 boys on right in kilts are wearing the Lamont tartan.
The owner of this photo lives in NZ. I think he said this would have been there daily attire. If you look closely they appear to be normal young boys and in the need of a good bath. The photo of the girls had them in prim & proper dress's

[Chef]

But that's what you've just done, isn't it? You've drawn conclusions based on what you see. The only difference is, the conclusions that you have drawn are meant to support your view.

Pot calling the kettle black if you ask me.

I think MacMillan's conclusions are on a strong footing. The weather is fairly obvious. The ideas about students and teacher are quite likely although there certainly could be other possibilities.

The important one to the discussion though, is the fact that it was a special event rather than everyday life. The very fact that there was a photo taken supports this. Photos were still only a very occasional thing for all but the rich at the turn of the last century and usually reserved for times of note.