Chapter 8 Twenty-First-Century Uses for Twentieth-Century Nova Scotia Gaelic Song Collections From Language Preservation to Revitalization and the Articulation of Cultural Values

Collectors of Gaelic Song

The range and number of Gaelic song collectors active in Nova Scotia during the twentieth century is astonishing. There were collectors from Scotland, such as John Lorne Campbell and Gordon MacLennan; collectors from Nova Scotia, like Helen Creighton and Lilias Toward; and a surprising number of American collectors, including Diane Guggenheim and Ralph Rinzler. What motivated so many people—almost all of whom were from outside the province and non-Gaelic speakers—to collect Gaelic songs in Nova Scotia?

As with nearly all folkloric collecting in the early twentieth century, the scholarly interest in Gaelic song in Nova Scotia was initially strongly informed by romantic nationalist agendas.10 The German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) was highly influential in developing what became known as romantic nationalism and a valorization of folk cultures.11 He was both antimodernist and anti-Enlightenment. He resisted the Enlightenment’s dismissal of folk culture as ignorant, and he opposed the trend in the modern arts of his day to follow foreign fashions and trends.12 To put it simply, Herder argued that each nation-state needed to have its own distinct cultural practices rooted in its own distinct language, for Herder believed that it was “the culture of the Folk, their tales and music and crafts [that] encapsulated the natural ‘cultural core’ before it was complicated (and perhaps corrupted) by ‘society.’”13 In an age marked by struggles for national independence in Europe and its colonies (e.g., the French and American Revolutions, the Napoleonic Wars), Herder’s ideas provided the means and justification for asserting political independence. In Scotland, although it had shared its head of state with England since 1603 and joined with England to form the United Kingdom in 1707, the tenets of romantic nationalism provided Scots—particularly the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders—with the means of presenting themselves as culturally distinct from England. Archaeologist Simon James has shown how the very concept of the Celts, understood today to encompass all Celtic-language-speaking peoples—namely, Irish, Scottish Gaels, Manx, Cornish, Welsh, and Bretons—emerged through romantic nationalism as a means of resisting Anglo-Saxon cultural (if not political) dominance.14 In reality, of course, folk culture did not so much testify to an older, more authentic nation as it was used to construct an idealized version of it.15

Collecting a nation’s distinctive cultural practices became a means of validating a nation’s existence and, in areas encompassing more than one ethnic identity, sometimes used to fight for political independence (Ireland, for example, used cultural nationalism to fight for political independence from England). Because Herder placed particular importance on national languages, songs—as combinations of language and music—were seen as especially valuable cultural markers. Song collection activities proliferated.16 Early song collectors in Canada and the US were interested primarily in offering whether “old country” songs still existed in the “new world,” particularly those no longer known in their countries of origin.17 For example, Stephanie Conn documents American collector MacEdward Leach’s search in Cape Breton for ancient Celtic texts such as Fenian lays and “songs that go as far back as Ossian.”18

Later, Canadian and American folklorists became interested in documenting their own nations’ regional cultures, particularly as they began to fear their loss due to increasing urbanization and industrialization, which many believed was causing the loss of traditional music-making contexts (such as, for example, kitchen parties and ceilidhs) and the loss of minority languages in culturally diverse and cosmopolitan cities such as Halifax and Sydney. Singers within Scottish song traditions (whether English or Gaelic) had always emphasized the importance of transmitting and performing songs exactly as they had been learned. It must therefore have been very disturbing when recordings revealed how often, in fact, songs exhibited variation and change. Today, music scholars and performers are more comfortable with the idea that change is constant and that cultural expressions have always changed and morphed in response to personal and communal factors, sometimes consciously, sometimes not. But in the early twentieth century, scholars clearly interpreted change and variation as cultural decline rather than part of a normal, constant cultural process. In response, they began collecting songs, among other cultural expressions, in an effort to preserve regional cultures before they died out.

Historian Ian McKay argues that a particular form of antimodernism and romanticism was at play in Nova Scotia in the early twentieth century, which he calls “Innocence”:

Innocence emerged in the period from 1920 to 1950 as a kind of mythomoteur, a set of fused and elaborated myths that provided Nova Scotians with an overall framework of meaning, a new way of imagining their community, a new core of a hegemonic liberal common sense. . . . Nova Scotia’s heart, its true essence, resided in the primitive, the rustic, the unspoiled, the picturesque, the quaint, the unchanging: in all those pre-modern things and traditions that seemed outside the rapid flow of change in the twentieth century.19

Other provinces might have emphasized identities rooted in scientific discovery, industrial expansion, and cosmopolitanism, but not Nova Scotia, as Muise and Semple delineate in their history of Nova Scotia tourism in this book. McKay’s conception of Innocence certainly informed many song-collecting efforts in Nova Scotia, including those specifically aimed at collecting Gaelic song and those that extended into the 1960s.

Celticist Ken Nilsen and ethnomusicologist Stephanie Conn have provided helpful histories of Gaelic song collecting in Nova Scotia.20 Among the first collectors was John Lorne Campbell (1906–96), a fluent Gaelic learner who lived at various points on several islands in the Scottish Hebrides. While living on the Isle of Barra, he undertook two research trips to Cape Breton, one in 1932 and a second in 1937. He recorded about one hundred songs on forty-three wax cylinders,21 the most common recording technology of the time. Unfortunately, their soft surfaces, valued for their ability to record sound waves as grooves, also meant they could easily be damaged and worn out after being played only a few times. They are also subject to mould damage. His recordings, which he took back to Scotland with him, are therefore not only difficult to access but quite poor in sound quality. Fortunately, Campbell was aware of the physical deterioration of the recordings and had them transcribed into musical notation by Seamas Ennis of Ireland. As we would expect of an early collector, Campbell’s primary interest was in collecting Gaelic songs from Scotland, particularly the Isle of Barra, that had survived in Cape Breton. He was not interested in collecting newly composed Cape Breton songs, nor was he interested in the songs of communities settled by Gaels from elsewhere in Scotland. Sixty of the songs he collected ultimately wound up in Songs Remembered in Exile, published more than fifty years after his initial field trips. His collection is housed at Canna House in Scotland.

Helen Creighton (1899–1989) of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, began collecting Gaelic songs as early as 1933 when she first visited Cape Breton. However, she didn’t have access to a recorder until 1943, so her earliest song-collecting efforts were documented via musical transcriptions. Creighton was an extremely influential and prolific maritime song collector. She was well known throughout Canada thanks to her CBC radio show as well as her many books, and she helped popularize such songs as “Farewell to Nova Scotia.”22 Although she was not a Gaelic speaker, she published Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia with the assistance of Scottish-born and native Gaelic-speaking scholar C. I. N. MacLeod. Creighton’s collections are housed at the Nova Scotia Archives, the Museum of History in Ottawa, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

A great deal of Gaelic song collecting took place in the 1940s and 1950s, continuing at a reduced rate into the 1960s and 1970s, spearheaded especially by Americans with no Gaelic fluency. As this book’s editors contend in the introduction, the definition of Cape Breton Island keeps changing, and I would argue that this period of collecting marks a shift in understanding the provincial Gaelic community from a Scottish diaspora preserving old country songs to one having its own Nova Scotian identity. Collecting activities were certainly aided by the creation of new road and tourism infrastructure, including the opening of the Canso Causeway in 1955 and the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway, as noted by Muise and Semple in this volume. American collectors included Sidney Robertson Cowell (1903–95, collecting songs in 1939 and the early 1950s, housed at the Folklife Archives of the Smithsonian Institution), Laura Boulton (1899–1980, collecting Cape Breton Gaelic songs in 1941, housed at Columbia University, the Library of Congress, and the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music), MacEdward Leach (1897–1967, collecting Gaelic songs in 1949–51, housed at the Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive, the American Folklife Centre at the Library of Congress, and at the National Museum of History in Ottawa), Diane Hamilton (a pseudonym for Diane Guggenheim, 1924–91, collecting Gaelic songs in 1954 for the Elektra label and released on the LP Nova Scotia Folk Music from Cape Breton, EKL 23, 1954), and Ralph Rinzler (1934–94, collecting in 1964 for the Newport Folk Foundation, housed at the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections at the Smithsonian Institution).

In addition to these American collectors, Scottish-born Celticist Charles Dunn (1915–2006) began collecting Cape Breton Gaelic songs and folklore in 1941, and Lilias Toward, a Cape Breton lawyer who does not seem to have spoken Gaelic, collected local Gaelic and Acadian songs in 1950. A St. Francis Xavier University graduate student from Tiree in Scotland, Kathleen MacKinnon (dates unknown), collected Gaelic songs as part of her thesis research in the early 1960s.23 The Museum of Man in Ottawa—now the Museum of History—commissioned Gordon MacLennan (1931–92), originally from Glasgow and a fluent Gaelic speaker, to collect Gaelic expressions from across Canada (notably Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, and Saskatchewan) from 1968 to 1974, while he was a professor of Celtic at the University of Ottawa.24

Unfortunately for the Nova Scotia Gaelic community, most Gaelic song collectors housed their field recordings outside of Nova Scotia. Some, like Creighton and Campbell, published a portion of their songs (although, in the case of Campbell, only decades after his collecting efforts) so that at least notated versions were accessible to the communities from which the songs were collected, although notated transcriptions are a poor substitute for actual audio recordings. Clearly, Gaelic song collecting had been undertaken for the benefit of outsiders interested in studying a culture that was presumably rapidly disappearing. It was not designed for the benefit of the Gaels themselves.

Around the 1970s, a new wave of American scholars began collecting Nova Scotian Gaelic songs, but rather than making short collecting excursions as earlier collectors had, these scholars actually relocated to Nova Scotia for years, often permanently. They also became fluent Gaelic speakers. Their song recordings remain in the province and have often been used in Gaelic language and cultural revitalization efforts, such as workshops and courses (although access to the original field recordings varies). These scholars include John Shaw (b. 1944; his collecting activities extended over several years, starting in 1964), Seumas Watson (b. 1949–d. 2018; moved to Nova Scotia in 1973), and Ken Nilsen (b. 1947–d. 2012; moved to Nova Scotia in 1984). Rosemary (Hutchinson) McCormack (birth date unknown), originally from Scotland but a long-time resident of Cape Breton, also collected Gaelic cultural materials, producing several commercial releases of Gaelic field recordings (under the label B&R Heritage Enterprises).

Some local Gaelic speakers also collected cultural materials, including Mother St. Margaret of Scotland (Sister Margaret Beaton, 1893–1975), who founded the Beaton Institute (formerly Cape Bretoniana) in 1957 and who arranged for many local Gaelic speakers to make recordings for the collection. The Beaton Institute has subsequently received (and continues to receive) dozens of personal collections and now houses over four thousand video and audio tapes, many of which document Gaelic culture. Sister Margaret MacDonnell (1920–) founded the Cape Breton Gaelic Folklore Collection at St. Francis Xavier University and published The Emigrant Experience.25

Sources of Nova Scotia Gaelic Song

Published song collections provide one means of accessing Nova Scotia Gaelic song repertoire, although they really only represent a fraction of the repertoire once known and practised in Nova Scotia.26 Collectors, of course, were often selective in their collecting. I have already noted that John Lorne Campbell was only interested in collecting Barra songs that had survived in Cape Breton; he was not interested in songs from any other part of Gaelic-speaking Scotland, nor did he make a point of collecting Nova Scotia–composed Gaelic songs.27 Helen Creighton noted that she would quietly erase songs she found inappropriate.28 Of course, as a non-Gaelic speaker, she wouldn’t really know the difference when it came to Gaelic songs, but her language limitations meant that she was constrained to collecting whatever her informants decided to share with her. Certainly, collectors could not always get their informants to provide what they wanted. Charles Dunn found it difficult to elicit certain types of songs, notably satirical songs, from informants.29

Stephanie Conn has also noted that for some not entirely understood reason, the majority of Gaelic song collectors collecting in the mid-twentieth century gravitated to the North Shore of Cape Breton, recording many of the same singers and even the same songs.30 Since Cape Breton Gaels had settled through chain migration such that particular Cape Breton communities were strongly associated with specific regions of Scotland (rather than representing a mix of Scottish communities), these collectors wound up mostly recording songs whose origins were in the Scottish Isles of Lewis and Harris, Protestant regions of the Hebrides. As a result, the North Shore singers and their repertoire have come to have a disproportionate impact on the documented Gaelic song repertoire of Nova Scotia and are now, at a time of cultural revitalization, having a significant effect on the repertoire that’s being revived and reintroduced to the local Gaelic song community.

Singers themselves were also selective in what they offered to record for collectors. We don’t have a lot of information about singers’ selection processes, but they would usually only have a few short opportunities to record songs for collectors, regardless of the size of their repertoires. This was, in some measure, the result of the cost of recording (tape, in the mid-twentieth century, was quite expensive and not readily available; collectors came with a certain amount of tape, which dictated the extent of their recording activities). It was also the result of collectors who made relatively brief collecting trips and did not, therefore, have much time to collect large repertoires. And in part it was due to collectors’ desires to record a cross section of singers rather than focus on a single singer. Later, some collectors focused on eliciting the full repertoire of particular singers (John Shaw, for example, documented the songs of Lauchie MacLellan of Broad Cove31) in order to provide a better understanding of the extent of a single singer’s repertoire.

Collection activities have slowed considerably of late, partly due to the precipitous decline in native Gaelic-speaking tradition bearers, partly because so much was done in the past, and partly because funding agencies’ priorities have changed, making less money available for collecting projects. Attention is increasingly being turned to ways of making existing collections more accessible, particularly through digital media.32 There is no question that the digitization of archival recordings is a necessary and valuable endeavour. Magnetic tape disintegrates over time, particularly if it is not kept in a low-humidity environment with stable temperatures (unfortunately, not the condition of many basements and attics). But digitization is a time-consuming and therefore expensive process, and it does require some specialized equipment (such as reel-to-reel players). Moreover, file formats and computer systems are constantly changing, and it is even more time-consuming and expensive to have to keep updating the file formats of previously digitized materials. Archives do use a standard, stable format that is meant to remain viable despite other changes to computers, but it is not one that the average person with the average computer can easily play. When someone wants to make a collection accessible online, they are forced to convert the archival file into a format that anyone can access. Another challenge is that digital tools such as websites need constant maintenance and updating and are vulnerable to hacking and other threats, as we know from the significant damage caused to the Gaelstream servers at St. Francis Xavier University in 2018.33 Scholars, archivists, and computer programmers still have much work to do to determine how best to preserve archival collections digitally in a sustainable and financially viable way while also making them accessible to the wider public.

Another valuable source of songs, although requiring more effort and time to access, is newspapers. Many Nova Scotia newspapers, notably the Casket (Antigonish), the Eastern Chronicle (New Glasgow), and the Pictou News, published Gaelic columns and songs. Of particular importance is Mac-Talla, edited and published by Jonathan G. MacKinnon in Sydney, 1892–1904. The entire newspaper was in Gaelic, even the advertisements. It was the longest-running Gaelic newspaper anywhere in the world. Many songs can be found published in its pages as well. Newspapers sometimes published newly composed songs but just as often published local favourites. A growing number of these newspapers are being digitized, although it can be challenging to find songs in their digitized pages.34 It can also be difficult to research these songs, since little contextual information tends to be provided in newspapers, and contributors’ and composers’ names are sometimes obscured through the use of initials or pseudonyms.35

Manuscript collections of Nova Scotia Gaelic songs also exist. Two of the most significant, for example, are the Ridge Manuscripts housed in Special Collections in the Angus L. Macdonald Library of St. Francis Xavier University. These manuscripts include a number of compositions by Allan “the Ridge” MacDonald (1794–1868) and his son, Alexander (1823–1904) but also include songs collected by various family members. Almost half of the Angus Stephen Beaton (1888–1967) collection consists of local songs and poetry from Scotland popularly sung in Nova Scotia, while the remainder of the collection is made up of locally composed Nova Scotia songs. A copy of the collection can be accessed through the Beaton Institute.

There are also numerous Gaelic song scrapbooks to be found in archives such as the Beaton Institute, usually consisting of songs cut out of newspapers or carefully written out (either copied from a newspaper or taken down from the singing of family and friends). These scrapbooks not only document songs but suggest which songs appealed most to people and indicate which songs may have been part of the active repertoire at particular times.

Prior to the digitization of archival collections and the creation of websites and online databases where they can be freely accessed, commercial recordings helped make traditional Nova Scotia Gaelic songs more accessible, particularly in the 1990s. Although Cape Breton fiddlers had been making commercial recordings since the late 1920s and archival recordings of Gaelic song began to be made in the 1930s, the earliest commercial recording of Nova Scotia Gaelic songs wasn’t made until 1954 with Diane (Guggenheim) Hamilton’s LP, Nova Scotia Folk Music from Cape Breton, and not again until 1976, with The Music of Cape Breton Volume 1: Gaelic Tradition in Cape Breton, recorded by John Shaw and Rosemary Hutchinson (later McCormack) for the UK label Topic Records.36 Both albums featured local “stars” in their respective traditions, but none of the singers or musicians was a professional, commercial artist.

The growing popularity of Celtic music globally in the late 1980s and through the 1990s resulted in several successful Cape Breton recording artists, most of whom included at least the occasional Gaelic song on their albums: the Rankin Family, the Barra MacNeils, Natalie MacMaster, Ashley MacIsaac, and Slàinte Mhath, to name a few. There were also other singers with more local profiles who made albums that included Gaelic songs, such as Mary and Rita Rankin, Lewis MacKinnon, Neil MacPhee, and Catrìona Parsons. Many of these artists had been influenced by John Allan Cameron, the “godfather of Celtic music,” who had achieved considerable success nationally as the host of The Ceilidh Show, which aired in the 1970s just before Hockey Night in Canada on the CBC, and later as the host of The John Allan Cameron Show. While he never achieved much radio play, his TV appearances made him a household name and an influential figure in the Cape Breton music scene. Although not a fluent Gaelic speaker himself, he did incorporate a number of Gaelic songs into his many albums.37 More recent artists have also released professional recordings of Gaelic songs, including Còig, Anita MacDonald and Ben Miller, Joanne MacIntyre, NicNeil (the MacNeil Sisters), and Fàrsan.

Arguably, the most important Gaelic recording artist in Nova Scotia is Mary Jane Lamond. While most other artists recorded the occasional Gaelic song, Lamond has recorded Gaelic songs exclusively on her six albums (released 1994–2012).38 She is also a fluent learner of the language, whereas many Nova Scotian singers who have included Gaelic songs on their albums are not fluent, learning their songs phonetically. Her albums vary in style, from traditional to contemporary pop rock. She meticulously researches all her songs, acquiring some from archival holdings and others from friends in the community, and she focuses on Nova Scotia repertoire.39

It is difficult to catalogue all the Nova Scotia albums that incorporate Gaelic songs, since a number are self-produced or include only one Gaelic song among a number of English songs or instrumental tunes. However, one is worth noting: the CBC production Còmhla Cruinn (Gathered Together, 2002), which contains a variety of Gaelic songs performed by a contemporary generation of Gaelic singers. It differs from other recordings that feature either historical field recordings or more polished studio productions in that it is professionally recorded with clear sound, but the singers are recorded “live off the floor” and perform in a traditional, rather than arranged, manner. Most of the repertoire consists of milling songs,40 but a variety of genres is represented. The CD is accompanied by extensive liner notes about the Gaelic song tradition in Nova Scotia.

Although I have focused my attention on cataloguing some of the significant and distinctive Gaelic song recordings made in Nova Scotia, it is important to recognize that Scottish recordings have also played a role in the Nova Scotia Gaelic song scene. Stephanie Conn observes that every year, she hears Nova Scotians singing Gaelic songs they acquired from Scottish recordings.41 For example, Mary Jane Lamond recorded the song “Seallaibh Curraigh Eòghainn” on her album Làn Dùil (Full of hope) in 1999. Lamond noted that it likely became known in Cape Breton after a version was released on the influential album Music from the Western Isles, a collection of archival recordings from the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. That earlier recording was released as an LP in 1971 as part of the Scottish Tradition series and rereleased as a CD in 1999. It is also possible to find Nova Scotia Gaelic songs on the albums of some Scottish recording artists.

Gaelic song recordings forge and reinforce valuable social connections, since listeners often learn songs from recordings and then perform them at live song events such as milling frolics or ceilidhs. Moreover, because recordings are material objects rather than ephemeral performances, they can transcend the limits of time and geography. Thus recordings reinforce transatlantic relationships, with Nova Scotia recordings heard in Scotland and vice versa. Moreover, Nova Scotia Gaelic song recordings circulate among speakers and learners across North America and beyond. Recording artists will often learn songs from archival recordings of singers long gone or record songs by composers still remembered but no longer living, bringing singers (and listeners) together regardless of where they live and connecting singers and their audiences with a historical community. Some recording artists even incorporate older tradition bearers into their recordings, as Mary Jane Lamond did with Margaret MacLean on her album Suas e!, keeping her voice alive after Margaret herself passed away.

Nova Scotia Gaelic Song Compositions

The Nova Scotian Gaelic song repertoire is rich, diverse, and extensive and includes thousands of songs.42 Scottish immigrants brought songs with them, and many were retained in Nova Scotia, some long after they were forgotten in Scotland. But Nova Scotian Gaels did not simply maintain Scottish songs; rather, they were actively involved in creating new Gaelic repertoire. John Shaw has provided an overview of the early history of Gaelic song composition in Nova Scotia and compared it to compositions of the same era in Scotland, identifying typical themes, stylistic features, and their development over time.43 Many songs explicitly exalt the Gaelic language—like the song with which this chapter opens—and call on Gaels to continue using it, asserting the power of song to resist language decline.44 Notwithstanding various efforts to find “ancient” Gaelic songs in Nova Scotia, many collectors wound up with Nova Scotia-made Gaelic songs amid their collections.

With the decline in Gaelic speakers, relatively few Nova Scotia songs are part of the active repertoire, and very few Gaelic songs are being created in Nova Scotia today. However, singers regularly seek out songs not part of the active repertoire in order to reinvigorate their own repertoires and, by extension, the community’s. Thus, between the creation of new repertoire and the constantly evolving active repertoire, the Nova Scotian Gaelic song corpus remains flexible and varying, as healthy traditions do.

Numerous examples of Nova Scotian Gaelic song compositions can be found scattered in various published Gaelic song collections and on recordings. A few collections dedicated to local compositions and bards have also been published, such as McLellan’s Failte Cheap Breatuinn (A Cape Breton Welcome), which features the songs of Inverness County bards; Rankin’s Às a Bhràighe (From the Braes), featuring the compositions of Allan “the Ridge” MacDonald (1794–1868); Smeòrach nan Cnoc ‘s nan Gleann (The Songster of the Hills and the Glens); Guthan Prìseil (Precious Voices); and the collected works of Malcolm H. Gillis (1856–1929) drawn from the earlier publication by the same name offering poetry and songs by a variety of bards from Southwest Margaree. The MacKenzies, a family of bards from central Cape Breton, included some of their compositions in the history of their parish, and their songs were later compiled in two separate volumes. Margaret MacDonnell and Michael Newton have published anthologies of Gaelic songs created in North America, including songs made in Nova Scotia.45

Performance and Transmission

As many have observed, Gaelic song permeated the lives of Gaels in Nova Scotia until the mid-twentieth century, at which point socio-economic changes, including urbanization and industrialization; the introduction of electricity, telephones, and television; improved roads and increasingly accessible cars; and increasingly accessible recording technologies and players changed the manner, frequency, and venues of social interaction, entertainment, and transmission of news. The Gaelic language was already being actively repressed. It was deliberately excluded from educational curricula, and schoolchildren were punished for speaking Gaelic instead of English.46 Even a Gaelic accent in English was deemed a marker of “backwardness.” The Gaelic language declined precipitously as Gaelic communities emptied, their residents moving to the island’s urban areas to take advantage of coal and steel industry jobs and to off-island industrial centres such as Boston and Detroit. At the same time that out-migration reduced the overall number of Gaelic speakers, Gaels were absorbing the lessons that Gaelic offered no particular economic advantage and that discriminatory practices meant that it could actually inhibit both social and economic opportunities. Gaelic-speaking parents deliberately raised English-speaking children in the hopes of ensuring they had every advantage possible.

Prior to industrialization and urbanization, throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, Gaelic singing could be heard accompanying all manner of work activities, accompanying dance, in the church,47 and at social occasions. Because of the frequency of singing in social and family contexts, people were able to learn songs through oral transmission. Stephanie Conn has written eloquently about the role of memory and social interaction in the performance and transmission of Gaelic song in Cape Breton.48 She argues that songs and singing are connected to at least three different levels of memory: communal memory of heritage (i.e., “This song is part of the tradition of my people”), memory of past social events at which the song was sung (i.e., “I remember all the times I’ve heard this song and who was there”), and individual memory (i.e., “I remember the words and melody of this song”). Although a singer may have learned a song orally, he or she may also have a collection of material goods—including recordings (both amateur and professional), published song collections, scrapbooks of lyrics, photographs, and so on—linked to the song. These material objects may seem designed to help the singer be exact in his or her learning of a song, since the singer can refer to the words in a book or hear the melody on a recording. But Conn argues that rather than limit a singer’s individuality in performance, these items can provide the historical and cultural context of a particular song and of Gaelic song as a whole. Moreover, a performance of a traditional song isn’t just about remembering the past. Rather, each performance will influence the future in some way as well. For example, singing a song publicly that hasn’t been performed for many years could result in that same song being learned by others or requested at future events that might not otherwise have included that song. A singer’s individual style of performance can affect future performances through imitation or even through rejection. To truly “know” a song requires not just reproducing it accurately—whether from the memory of a performance, a recording, or a book—but also the ability to draw on one’s personal experiences and memories.

Although “traditional” cultures are often represented as being primarily oral—and this is true of the characterization of Gaelic song in Nova Scotia as well49—Gaelic singers have often made use of published and written records of Gaelic song to assist them in remembering and learning repertoire.50 Michael Newton has documented that Gaelic newspapers were known in Canada from as early as 1840, and their importance is attested to in numerous Gaelic songs that praise newspaper editors and columnists.51 One of the aspects that makes Gaelic song and singing so interesting to study and experience is the dynamic interplay between the oral and the written. Although no one in the Nova Scotian Gaelic community would accept the performance of a song learned exclusively from written sources, they do accept that written sources have a role to play in the song tradition. Published collections, personal scrapbooks, and newspaper song columns do not simply document the lyrics (and sometimes the music), thereby making it easier for a singer to recall them. Rather, they document a whole cultural history embedded in songs’ lyrics, they hint at the importance and prevalence of singing in Gaelic communities, and they signal the songs that people felt were worth preserving.

In traditional Nova Scotian Gaelic culture, songs and singing were not taught in formal lessons. Rather, the transmission of songs and singing generally occurred much more informally through repeated encounters with songs and singing in various contexts, supplemented by material objects such as books and recordings. One of the pre-eminent contexts for social Gaelic singing was the ceilidh.52 “Ceilidh” means “visit,” although it has come to mean a party or a concert among English speakers. Ceilidhs were once common, although they have declined with the advent of electricity, the telephone, radio, television, computers, and the internet. Ceilidhs provided opportunities for people to share their news with each other and to make their own entertainment. Everyone at a ceilidh would contribute in some way, such as through a story, song, tune, or dance. Often the evening’s progression was quite organic, such that one person might tell the history of an ancestor’s arrival to the area, which would remind someone of a song, which would inspire a tune, and so on.

As recording technologies became more affordable and accessible, starting around the 1950s, the Gaels themselves began making their own recordings of their songs and expressive culture, often at ceilidhs. While some of these house recordings have made their way into archives such as the Beaton Institute, there are untold numbers still held in private collections. Many have been duplicated and shared with friends and family. Some have become quite well known within the community. In this way, Nova Scotia Gaels asserted agency over their own song tradition, choosing what to record and circulating recordings, maintaining their collections in community as well as of use to community.

Value and Use of Collections Today

A great many hours and dollars were spent collecting Gaelic songs in Nova Scotia over the twentieth century with the hope of preserving what was perceived to be a dying language and culture. Were they successful? Now that we have them, what do we do with them? I would argue that there are two basic ways that Gaelic song collections are being used in Nova Scotia today: one is pragmatic and instrumental, and the other is ideological.

The pragmatic and instrumental purposes to which Gaelic song collections can be put are likely fairly self-evident and unsurprising. Songs offer a valuable tool in language learning and cultural transmission. Suzanne Bilello of the New York office of UNESCO observes,

The death of a language inevitably leads to the permanent loss of oral traditions and expressions. However, it is these oral expressions themselves and their performance in public that best help to safeguard a language rather than dictionaries, grammars and databases. Languages live in songs and stories, riddles and rhymes and so the protection of languages and the transmission of oral traditions and expressions go hand and hand.53

Bilello’s point is well evidenced in Nova Scotia if we consider how important songs are in inspiring people to learn Gaelic. First, songs galvanize people to learn the language. New students often describe being inspired to start taking Gaelic-language classes after hearing a compelling Gaelic song. Songs are also used to engage language learners, to enrich the language classroom, and to break up drier lessons pertaining to, say, grammar or involving extensive repetition and drilling. Gaelic songs help language learners learn and recall vocabulary and grammar while working on their pronunciation, all in a culturally relevant form. Gaelic songs document Gaelic culture, history, and genealogy. We can learn more than language and grammar from them: we can learn the way that Gaels lived and about their beliefs and values.

More interesting, perhaps, but more difficult to discuss are the ideological uses to which Gaelic song collections are put. Gaelic song texts on their own mean little. They are significant when understood within their cultural context. But what is that cultural context? Music anthropologist Alan Merriam proposed an elegant and simple framework for understanding music cultures as systems involving the interaction of three components: sounds, behaviours (or actions), and beliefs.54 The songs themselves are the sounds, and behaviours include both the act of song collecting and the pragmatic acts of using song collections. Gaelic song and Gaelic song collections play a significant role in defining and articulating Gaelic values and beliefs not only through song lyrics themselves but also through the very existence and body of Gaelic song collections. I want to suggest that song collections are used to shape and articulate three key Gaelic values that are deemed significant to a contemporary Nova Scotian Gaelic identity: the value of artistic creation, the value of hospitality and inclusivity, and the value of family lineage and legacy.

The extraordinary depth and breadth of Gaelic song collections symbolize the importance of artistic and literary creativity in Gaelic culture, as does the transmission of large numbers of songs over generations: the assumption is that only people who value musical and verbal artistry would produce such a large number of songs over such a long period of time and across wide territories—spanning even oceans. Indeed, the twentieth-century Scottish Gaelic literary giant Sorley MacLean was adamant about the significance and quality of Gaelic literature: “I am convinced that Scottish Gaelic song is the chief artistic glory of the Scots, and of all people of Celtic speech, and one of the greatest artistic glories of Europe.”55 Moreover, songs permeated daily life. They were not relegated to a few special contexts. Instead, songs accompanied almost every form of manual and household labour imaginable while also playing a central role at social events such as ceilidhs. Songs were created to document major events, honour beloved family members, tease friends, articulate religious and spiritual sentiments, and express gratitude for all that the song makers and singers had. Not only were songs sung by Gaels at all social levels, but they were also created by all manner of Gaels, not just those deemed to be skilled bards.56 Puirt-a-beul (mouth music), for example, was generally created by average people.57 Milling songs were traditionally extemporized on the spot by participants, and only later did their texts become fixed. In short, the size of the song repertoire, its duration, its use in daily life, and its creation by Gaels from all social echelons are taken as evidence of the value given to songs and, by extension, artistic creation.

Second is the value of hospitality and inclusivity. Traditionally, Gaels saw generosity and hospitality as critical virtues that families and community members must practice. Visiting formed an important part of Gaelic culture historically and is being nurtured again through formal interventions such as Gaelic Affairs’ Cum Sìos (“keep down,” a phrase used to invite guests to sit and stay awhile) initiative, part of the Bun is Bàrr (“root and branch”) mentoring program. The Cum Sìos program is designed to encourage and support Gaelic learners to visit Gaelic-speaking elders and fluent speakers in the community. Ceilidh culture meant that anyone could visit anyone else at any time and expect a warm welcome and a bite to eat. A ceilidh could involve a single neighbour, or it could involve a large group of people and turn into a party. Ceilidh culture was emphatically inclusive, and reciprocal sharing of songs and stories was expected, regardless of the participants’ vocal qualities or musical skills. Thus, the sharing of songs was practised by most community members with considerable frequency. Although many Gaelic songs are meant to be sung solo, many more are meant to be sung communally, with everyone present encouraged to join the lead singer on the choruses. By sharing songs in social contexts such as ceilidhs, songs were transmitted across communities and generations. The significant size of the collected Gaelic song repertoire, the quantity of Gaelic song recordings, and the very structure of Gaelic songs give evidence of a generous and hospitable culture. Without a spirit of sharing and hospitality, it would not have been possible for such a large song repertoire to have been retained and collected. Songs and singing continue to be used to form and reinforce social bonds and to function as a fundamental element in many Gaelic social interactions.

Finally, there is the value of family lineage and legacy. Using patronymics, Gaels can often trace their families back multiple generations. Many Nova Scotia Gaels are acutely aware of the identity of their Scottish ancestors, when they immigrated to Nova Scotia, and where they settled. It is not uncommon to find modern Gaels living on the lands or even in the homes of their ancestors. Songs help document and preserve family lineages. Some Gaels can name bards in their families. Others can identify songs made by a family ancestor. Yet others know songs that tell of a family ancestor. In other situations, Gaels will sing a song learned from a family member, perhaps one passed down through the family. It is as important to acknowledge a song’s lineage as it is to acknowledge an individual’s family lineage by identifying its source and history. Gaelic learners will often make a point of learning songs from the communities of their ancestors, since these will typically represent community dialects as well as local references. Songs, by virtue of their intangibility, easily travel across time and place and, in so doing, help connect people of today with their pasts, both locally and abroad.

These three values—artistry/creativity, hospitality, and honouring family and musical lineages—are key qualities of a contemporary Nova Scotian Gaelic identity. Songs are used to teach learners about what it means to be a Gael, and they also serve to shape, articulate, and enact these values. These values are articulated in song texts. But more importantly, these values are rooted in the very existence of a large body of songs and the act of singing them in culturally relevant contexts. As music educator Christopher Small argues,

The act of musicking establishes in the place where it is happening a set of relationships, and it is in those relationships that the meaning of the act lies. They are to be found not only between those organized sounds which are conventionally thought of as being the stuff of musical meaning but also between the people who are taking part, in whatever capacity, in the performance; and they model, or stand as metaphor for, ideal relationships as the participants in the performance imagine them to be: relationships between person and person, between individual and society, between humanity and the natural world and even perhaps the supernatural world.58

Both singing and the act of song collecting can be understood as “musicking,” in Small’s conception of the term, enacting relationships and values that Gaels idealize as central to a Nova Scotian Gaelic identity.

Conclusions

The twentieth century was a century of song collecting in Nova Scotia, echoing a global movement that sought to preserve fragile traditions from the onslaught of capitalism, urbanization, globalization, and modernization. Ian McKay argues that most Nova Scotia folk collectors were middle-class urbanites who had rather classist views of the folk from whom they collected. They saw the folk as unwitting carriers of tradition. The middle-class collectors believed themselves to be uniquely capable of recognizing the value of the folk’s traditions and of preserving them. But what this history of Gaelic song collecting reveals is that the profile, methods, and aims of collectors changed over time and that collectors could never be characterized homogenously. There were collectors who spoke no Gaelic, and there were fluent Gaelic-speaking collectors. There were collectors who made short collecting trips from the US and Scotland, and there were collectors who came from Nova Scotia or who moved permanently to the province. Moreover, those early collections—no matter how problematic the methods or framing of their creators—are now being used by members of the Nova Scotia Gaelic community themselves to strengthen traditional culture and language. It is unfortunate that efforts to make these collections more broadly available are difficult to fund. Although Gaelic song books were published in significant numbers from the 1960s to the 1980s, and although digitization projects proliferated in the 1990s and early 2000s, it can be challenging to find funding for digitization projects today.

Historically, Gaels were subject to extensive, long-term, and pervasive marginalization, disenfranchisement, and colonization, first in Scotland, then in Nova Scotia.59 Gaels were negatively characterized as poor, uneducated, and savage, marked by the Gaelic language and by a Gaelic accent in English, leading many Gaels to stop transmitting Gaelic to their children. And yet extensive collecting activities in the twentieth century documented and preserved an exceptionally rich, deep, and varied song repertoire. Ironically, most urges to document Gaelic language and culture did not come from respect or the desire to preserve them. Rather, the collectors saw the Gaels as a vanishing culture, naturally failing in competition with the supposedly superior Anglo-Saxon culture and English language. Happily, regardless of their motives, their collections now provide a strong foundation for revitalization.

Notes

1. 1. Thanks to Michael Newton for suggesting this song. It can be found in a collection of Nova Scotia Gaelic verse: Macleod, Bàrdachd à Albainn Nuaidh.

2. 2. Dembling, “Gaelic in Canada.”

3. 3. Macleod, Bàrdachd à Albainn Nuaidh; Creighton and MacLeod, Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia.

4. 4. Williams, Marxism and Literature, 125.

5. 5. While Gaelic communities could be found across Canada at one time, there are few studies of Gaelic song, music, and dance outside of Nova Scotia, although folklorist Margaret Bennett has made a point of studying other areas. See Bennett, “Codroy Valley Milling Frolic”; Bennett, Last Stronghold; Bennett, “Gaelic Song in Eastern Canada”; Bennett, Oatmeal and the Catechism. But also see MacPherson, “Like a Peeling on the Water.” I resist limiting this discussion to Cape Breton even though the island is typically seen as the heart of the Nova Scotia Gaeltacht (Gaelic community), since significant and related Gaelic communities also existed in the eastern regions of the Nova Scotia mainland.

6. 6. A useful tool is the recently released Nova Scotia Gaelic Song Index (https://dasg.ac.uk/LIL/), which provides metadata about more than six thousand Gaelic songs known in Nova Scotia, with information about where each can be found.

7. 7. For one exception, see Blakely, “Music in Nova Scotia,” who writes, “The first music to be published in Nova Scotia was The Nova Scotia Songster in February 1836. This selection of Scotch, English, Irish, Love, Naval and Comic Songs had been published at Pictou by James Dawson, an enterprising merchant there, and father of Sir William Dawson, famous as the principal of McGill University. In 1831, James Dawson had decided to publish a new selection of Church Music of about 350 pages. ‘The Harmonium: A Collection of Sacred Music adapted for the use of churches in British North America’ appeared in 1836 or 1837 and proved sufficiently popular for a new enlarged third edition to be published in 1849 by James Dawson & Sons” (226–27).

8. 8. For example, research into the nineteenth-century Nova Scotia bookselling business of James Dawson reveals booklists featuring many Scottish (rather than Nova Scotia) song publications clearly aimed at his Scottish immigrant customers. MacDonald and Vogan, “James Dawson of Pictou.”

9. 9. Take, as an example, Alexander MacLean Sinclair (1840–1924), who was an avid collector of Gaelic songs from both Scotland and Nova Scotia. However, he collected songs as texts. He published many volumes of Gaelic poetry, including Clàrsach na Coille (Harp of the Forest, self-published in 1881), which is perhaps the earliest published collection to include Nova Scotia Gaelic song compositions. He also published many song texts in east coast newspapers containing Gaelic columns. See Kenneth E. Nilsen’s biography of Alexander MacLean Sinclair in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, accessed 17 January 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/sinclair_alexander_maclean_15E.html; Michael Linkletter, “The Alexander Maclean Sinclair Papers in Nova Scotia Archives,” Scotia: Interdisciplinary Journal of Scottish Studies 27 (2003), reprinted by Nova Scotia Archives with permission of the author and the publisher, accessed 17 January 2024, https://archives.novascotia.ca/gaelic/linkletter/. At best, however, these songs would be accompanied by the name of the tune to which they would be sung.

10. 10. Two useful studies analyzing the relationship between romantic nationalism and music are Bohlman, Music of European Nationalism; and Gelbart, Invention of “Folk Music” and “Art Music.”

11. 11. Much has been published on Herder and romantic nationalism. I suggest Wilson’s article “Herder, Folklore and Romantic Nationalism” as an introduction to the topic from a folklore perspective.

12. 12. McKay, Quest of the Folk, 10.

13. 13. McKay, 11.

14. 14. James, Atlantic Celts, 218.

15. 15. McKay, Quest of the Folk, 15.

16. 16. See Bohlman, Music of European Nationalism, esp. chap. 3.

17. 17. McKay, “He Is More Picturesque,” 20; McKay, Quest of the Folk; Filene, Romancing the Folk, esp. chap. 1.

18. 18. Letter from Duncan Emrich, chief of the folklore section of the Library of Congress, to his superior, Harold Spivacke, proposing support for MacEdward Leach’s collecting activities in Nova Scotia, 22 June 1949 (cited in MacEdward Leach and the Songs of Atlantic Canada website, https://mmap.mun.ca/folk-songs-of-atlantic-canada/pages/leachsfieldwork). See Conn, “Carn Mor de Chlachan Beaga,” 191.

19. 19. McKay, Quest of the Folk, 30.

20. 20. Nilsen, “Living Celtic Speech”; Conn, “Carn Mor de Chlachan Beaga.”

21. 21. Campbell, Songs Remembered in Exile, 2–3.

22. 22. Helen Creighton Folklore Society, “Farewell to Nova Scotia / the Nova Scotia Song,” https://www.helencreighton.org/collection/farewell-to-nova-scotia-the-nova-scotia-song/. For a critical analysis of Creighton’s radio show, see Webb, “Cultural Intervention.”

23. 23. MacKinnon, “Short Study of the History and Traditions.”

24. 24. Falzett, “Scottish Gaelic Oral Tradition.”

25. 25. MacDonell, Emigrant Experience.

26. 26. Published song collections include, for example, McLellan, Failte Cheap Breatuinn; Gillis and Nicholson, Smeòrach nan Cnoc ‘s nan Gleann (1939); Creighton and MacLeod, Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia; Fergusson, Fad Air Falbh As Innse Gall; MacDonell, Emigrant Experience; MacKenzie, MacKenzies’ History of Christmas Island Parish; Campbell, Songs Remembered in Exile; Shaw, Brìgh an Òrain; Rankin, As a’ Bhràighe; Landin, Guthan Prìseil.

27. 27. Campbell, Songs Remembered in Exile, 3.

28. 28. McKay, Quest of the Folk, 115. See also Creighton, Life in Folklore, 162. For a critical analysis of Creighton’s collecting, see McKay, “He Is More Picturesque.”

29. 29. Newton, “Interview with Prof Charles Dunn,” https://virtualgael.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/interview-with-prof-charles-dunn-of-harvard-in-2002/.

30. 30. Conn, “Carn Mor de Chlachan Beaga,” 236–38.

31. 31. Shaw, Brìgh an Òrain.

32. 32. John Shaw’s collection is available online through St. Francis Xavier University (http://gaelstream.stfx.ca/). MacEdward Leach’s is also online, hosted by Memorial University (https://mmap.mun.ca/folk-songs-of-atlantic-canada), and Charles Dunn’s collection was recently made available online through Harvard University, where he was a professor (http://www.celtic.fas.harvard.edu/hcFolklore_Dunn.shtml). The Beaton Institute at Cape Breton University also hosts a small selection of Gaelic songs as part of its virtual exhibit, “Music: Cape Breton’s Diversity in Unity” (http://beatoninstitutemusic.ca/), and a growing number through its virtual archives (https://beatoninstitute.com/), notably through the “Stòras Gàidhlig Cheap Breatuinn” link. “An Drochaid Eadarainn” (“The Bridge between Us,” http://www.androchaid.ca/, hosted by the Highland Village) is a different kind of resource that encourages community members to upload their own personal Gaelic collections and to use those of others, particularly for teaching and learning purposes. The Nova Scotia Gaelic Song Index can be used to locate songs in various collections, whether in audio archives, commercial recordings, published books, newspapers, or archival manuscripts (https://dasg.ac.uk/LIL/). The index is hosted by the Digital Archive of Scottish Gaelic (DASG), which also recently digitized a collection of recordings made by C. I. N. MacLeod, most of which were made in Nova Scotia (https://dasg.ac.uk/about/history/en).

33. 33. Gaelstream was impacted when the computing systems of St. Francis Xavier University were hacked in late 2018, and it appears that some content is now missing, although efforts are underway to locate and restore it.

34. 34. A digitized version of Mac-Talla is available from Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (https://leabharlann.smo.uhi.ac.uk/archive/mactalla/?lang=en) and DASG (https://dasg.ac.uk/). Various other historical Nova Scotia newspapers, including several Gaelic language papers, are available online through Nova Scotia Archives (https://novascotia.ca/archives/newspapers/).

35. 35. The Nova Scotia Gaelic Song Index documents, for example, more than thirteen hundred songs in the pages of Mac-Talla. Whenever possible, it provides basic contextual information.

36. 36. Volume 2 features instrumental music. McKinnon, “Fiddling to Fortune.”

37. 37. McDonald, “John Allan Cameron.”

38. 38. Lamond’s albums include Bho Thìr Nan Craobh / From the Land of the Trees; Suas e!; Làn Dùil; Òrain Ghàidhlig / Gaelic Songs of Cape Breton; Stòras; and, with Wendy MacIsaac, Seinn.

39. 39. One might reasonably ask why an artist might choose to record and release songs in a language such as Gaelic, understood by so few people in the world. The answer to that question is complicated and beyond the scope of this chapter. However, it is a topic I’ve addressed in more detail elsewhere: Sparling, “One Foot on Either Side of the Chasm,” http://www.shimajournal.org/issues/v1n1/f.%20Sparling%20Shima%20v1n1.pdf. It is also a topic addressed from a number of perspectives in Berger and Carroll, Global Pop, Local Language. Lamond’s first album, Bho Thìr Nan Craobh (From the Land of Trees, 1994) was produced by B&R Heritage Enterprises, headed by Rosemary McCormack. B&R Heritage Enterprises went on to produce a number of albums featuring Gaelic song, including A Tribute to the North Shore Gaelic Singers (1996), Òr Cheap Breatuinn (Cape Breton Gold, 1997), and Tàlant nam Bàrd (Talent of the Bards, 1998), all of which consist exclusively of Gaelic song. B&R Heritage Enterprises also produced Tìr Mo Ghràidh (The Land I Love, n.d.), featuring various forms of Gaelic expressive culture including fiddling, storytelling, and song, and Nollaig Chrìdheil: A Holiday Selection of Gaelic Songs, Music and Stories (1995).

40. 40. Milling songs, known as waulking songs in Scotland and as òrain luaidh in Gaelic, are one of the important genres of Gaelic song in Nova Scotia. Milling frolics are collective labour events at which, historically, women gathered to beat woven cloth in order to fluff and “full” wool fibres to preshrink it while making it warmer and more weather resistant. The participants took turns leading songs to accompany the repetitive and time-consuming work, with the group joining on choruses. Although there is no longer any material need to hold milling frolics, they continue to be held in Nova Scotia as a primary Gaelic cultural and social activity. They now include both men and women, and just about any song can be made into a milling song so long as there’s a chorus that the group can collectively sing. For more on milling frolics, see Sparling, “Taking the Piss Out.”

41. 41. Conn, “Carn Mor de Chlachan Beaga,” 218.

42. 42. The Nova Scotia Gaelic Song Index, noted earlier, has indexed more than six thousand Gaelic songs known in Nova Scotia, a mix primarily of songs originally from Scotland and songs newly composed in Nova Scotia.

43. 43. Shaw, “Brief Beginnings.” For a much earlier article drawing attention to Canadian Gaelic songwriters and describing their basic characteristics, see Fraser, “Gaelic Folk-Songs of Canada.”

44. 44. Newton, Seanchaidh na Coille, 376.

45. 45. McLellan, Failte Cheap Breatuinn; Rankin, As a’ Bhràighe; Gillis and Nicholson, Smeòrach nan Cnoc ‘s nan Gleann (2004); Landin, Guthan Prìseil; MacKenzie, MacKenzies’ History of Christmas Island Parish; MacKenzie, MacKenzie, and MacKenzie, Eairdsidh Sheumais Agus a Dhà Mhac; MacKenzie and MacNeil, Mar a b’ àbhaist ‘s a’ Ghleann; MacDonell, Emigrant Experience; Newton, Seanchaidh na Coille.

    Note also that folklorist Tom McKean’s excellent ethnographic study of a Skye bard recently active describes the bard’s role and creative processes and, although not about a Canadian bard, might offer insight into the Nova Scotian bardic tradition and compositional process: Hebridean Song-Maker; see also McKean, “Gaelic Songmaker’s Response”; McKean, “Satire and the Exchange of Song.”

46. 46. For a helpful overview of Gaelic education in Nova Scotia, see McEwan, “Gaelic Education in Nova Scotia Schools,” https://gaelic.co/ns-gaelic-education/.

47. 47. There was a unique song tradition in the Gaelic Protestant churches of Nova Scotia that originated and is still practiced in Scotland. It involves “lining out” the psalms. A precentor would start a psalm, singing the opening words alone while the congregation figured out which psalm he was singing and to what tune. The congregation would then join in, singing the subsequent lines in slow, highly elaborated, and idiosyncratic ways, resulting in a distinctive heterophonic texture. Unfortunately, this practice has received little scholarly attention on either side of the Atlantic, although see Cowell, “Connection between the Precenting of Psalms”; Knudsen, “Ornamental Hymn/Psalm Singing”; Porter, “Northwest European Heterophony Type”; and Miller, “Oral Tradition Psalmody.”

48. 48. Conn, “Fitting between Present and Past.”

49. 49. Dunn, Highland Settler, 37; Campbell, Songs Remembered in Exile, 1; Rankin, As a’ Bhràighe, 5.

50. 50. Heather Sparling, “Transmission Processes in Cape Breton Gaelic Song Culture.”

51. 51. Newton, Seanchaidh na Coille, 376–80.

52. 52. MacDonald, “Cape Breton Ceilidh”; see also Shaw, Brìgh an Òrain, 14–15.

53. 53. Bilello, “Statement on the Occasion.” Thanks to Tiber Falzett for bringing my attention to Bilello’s statement.

54. 54. Merriam, Anthropology of Music, 32–33.

55. 55. MacLean, “Old Songs and New Poetry,” 106.

56. 56. Newton, Seanchaidh na Coille, 13.

57. 57. Sparling, Reeling Roosters and Dancing Ducks, 153.

58. 58. Small, Musicking, 13.

59. 59. Dorian, Language Death; Wardhaugh, Languages in Competition; MacKinnon, Gaelic; Newton, Seanchaidh na Coille, 32–40.

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