Welcome to the Scottish Highland Games of Enumclaw, Washington.
Kindly, click on the pictures to enlarge them.
In the picture above is my friend Josh, who owns a utility kilt business and is the hub for much of the Celtic happenings in the southern part of the State of Washington. He is a huge man and when he saw that I was going to take a picture of him, he asked for me to wait so he could suck in his stomach! ;-) I laughed and tapped my own as I prepared to take his picture. He's the fellow in the tent.
This is Steve and our good friend Hugh, who got away from his own clan tent to walk about with us through the fair grounds.
Here's a picture of "himself" with Steve, my partner.
Sorry, I couldn't remove the fence that was separating the athletes from the fans. If you look closely, you can see a caber being readied to be tossed. It is not unlike tossing a telephone pole only these weigh between 100 - 180 lbs. The person unfortunate enough to have to pick one of these things up, runs (or walks fast) with it and then, tosses it so it will land first, on the opposite end of the caber and fall over. How far one can toss it decides the winner.
Here is another picture of the caber being tossed.
North Channel Kilts was one of the many vendors at the fair grounds. They made the tartan I am wearing in a previous picture. Since there aren't many Irish tartans in stock, they had to look up my tartan and count how many threads go a certain direction and on and on until they have the pattern of the tartan. They follow the pattern and weave the material and the kilt is made from that. To have the correct pattern go around you, the kilt is pleated continuing the correct tartan pattern. Some of these kilts can be nine yards long if they were unpleated. I joked with the man taking my measurements when I had that one made and I said there was going to be a herd of sheep that were going to be really cold for awhile. ;-) I have two kilts, the one pictured is the O'Farrell Tartan, on my mother's side and the Tara tartan from on my father's side. ( not shown here )
This is our friend, Clain who was the person to have answer questions regarding the Buchanan Clan. You can see the clan tartan he is wearing.
During the Highland Games, there are other competitions happening in other areas of the fair grounds. We missed the harp competition, and the dancing competition, but were able to watch a bit of the pipe & drum band competitions. Here is a band marching up the way preparing to march on to the field for their try in the competition.
Here is another picture of them turning on to the competition field. There is nothing wrong with your eye sight, I have been trying to capture the proper colours of the tartans and the sky seems to be changing throughout the day. When taking a picture of a person who happens to be in one of those tents, the pictures come out too dark without a flash, so I have been tinkering with them. Your eyes are just fine. ;-)
Here we are with Hugh in the picture and he was the person to see if you wanted to know anything about the Gunn Clan. Their clan tent is in the background. There were many food vendors, some of them producing traditional Scottish and Irish dishes, from Haggis to Bangers, and all different types of spuds. There were many Celtic bands that played from the Tempest's to the Wicked Tinkers and the day stayed mostly cloudy with a temperature around 75 degrees F. ( approximately 25 degrees C. for my Canadian friends. ) with a light breeze. A beautiful day to meet with the different clans and enjoy the fun.
16 comments:
When you say they "had to look up my tartan" to count the threads...do they have a catalog of such things, or did they just lift up your kilt and look underneath?
And good gosh, what's a caber?
Looks like you had a great time, which is a perfect way to spend a day this time of year!
Greg: Each tartan representing a clan has a certain number of threads of a certain colour that go in a vertical direction and a certain number of threads of a certain colour going horizontally. That distinguishes the clans from each other in all the Celtic regions where tartans are still used. I'm sure there must be a book of some sort that gives that information. Most of the companies who make tartans, know what the right combinations are, and this is serious stuff to have it done correctly. I'm not sure whether this was decided by the earlier clan's weavers who may have written down this information or not, but it has been followed religiously.
Since the Irish do not wear their tartans nearly to the degree that the Scots do,( and they started all of this ) their tartans are not made up in mass. ( There are only about 19 clans in Ireland ) This of course, drives up the price of having one made due to the research, making sure one has the correct colours and mathematical combination of them going up and down. Then the weavers set out making the material on their looms. The kilt makers take over from there and put the pleats together so the pattern of the tartan will be the same all the way around the person. It can take a lot of yards to accomplish this. My O'Farrell kilt is an heavy one ( they used a heavy gauge when weaving it and I joke that a whole herd of sheep's wool was sacrificed in the process of making it. poor, cold sheep ) whilst my Tara tartan is much lighter and had been mass produced because the Murphy clan also uses this tartan.
Under my kilt, is it?! ;-) The only things I wear under my kilt are my hose and shoes. ;-)
In the centre of the two pictures you will see a man ( in a kilt ) ha, sorry, holding what looks like a telephone pole, that is a caber. They pick them up and basically, throw them. Exciting, eh? Well, think about it, if you lived up in the Highlands of Scotland and had no real form of entertainment, you might start tossing things around yourself. I understand it's nothing compared to "Dwarf Tossing." just made that up... I know nothing about Dwarf Tossing, but I do remember a time when . . . ;-)
Oh, now I don't know if you're just teasing me, or just saving the material for your fantastic next post (not to be confused with a caber, apparently).
I have a necktie of our family's Cummings tartan...only worn for special occasions, to be sure. Not so much sheep sacrifice there....or their wool, I mean.
; )
(Oh, yah..."the guy in the kilt", that's helpful for seperating them out...)
Greg: My comment after the Dwarf toss was a joke. I wish I had some story to share about that! What a hoot, unless one is a dwarf that is, as we saw in "Lord of the Rings."
Interesting thought of using the caber as a metaphor for "something under my kilt." I'm afraid my moments of "caber-tossing" have wained somewhat since my youth. ;-) Those long socks are called hose. I'll bet you were thinking I was doing a bit of "cross-dressing" ;)
Enlarging some of those caber tossing pictures might help in seeing what is happening. Too bad they didn't have some of the other events happening simultaneously like they did last year, I would have had more pictures of the different events.
First time to read through and through and my my... The flourishing Irish / Celtic culture ROCKS!!!! I always wondered about the tartans of the different clans as they are very colorful and very beautiful. This is really interesting to me!!!
P.S. Do those who wear kilts dont really wear any underwear? I've read it somewhere and it said that is how it is traditionally done.
Thanks for sharing ur wonderful entry to your readers :)
I've seen the caber toss on Wide World Of Sports. Pretty remarkable. Does the caber derive from something in non-sporting life? Many national and regional sports start out as competitive versions of farm or ranch chores (the rodeo for instance).
Simon: Fáilte! (welcome in Irish Gaelic)
The many different patterns and colours and how they were woven together, is how a clan could recognize another clan's tartan from a distance and more importantly, whether they were friends with that clan or enemies. This isn't the case in modern times where a person displays their clan tartan through pride at gatherings. Of course, you can talk to different Scotsmen and they will jokingly still carry the grudge with the "Campbell's" who in times of old, were fighting with most and didn't get along with anyone it seems. It's interesting to note that there were always little wars over someone doing a night raid on another clan and stealing someone's cow or sheep, which was a relief for most other countries because if the Celts, a very formidable opponent in battle, ever banded together as a single group ... well woe be tide their opponents.
Yes, the traditional way to wear a kilt is without underwear. Today, the timid may still will wear them and the fellows who participate in the highland games, but most kiltophiles do not wear any. The fellows participating in the games do wear them so they don't give the audience more than they bargained for when competing.
Thanks for stopping by and drop by again.
Slán leat. (goodbye)
Joe: Most of the competitive games do come from farming events or are at least similar to them with the exception of the caber toss. I can not think of anything with farming that would deal with that unless the farmer or one of his strong sons would show off his strength by tossing smaller trees out of a planting row. The Scots were more into cattle and sheep farming, and most likely had small gardens to sustain the family or barley fields. The climate in Scotland as well as Ireland, is good for certain things. Our own gardens in the states can grow all different kinds of things, but it was potatoes, cabbage, turnips onions and the hardy plants that survived those climates.
Back to the games, there is another event where one tosses a bag of hay or what ever is in it, with a pitchfork over what looks like a goal post where the horizontal bar is lifted in degrees. The winner was able to toss the bag over the highest mark over their opponents.
There is also the hammer toss and a shot put, which came from tossing heavy stones. I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting.
These annual gatherings of clans had a festive atmosphere as well, with plenty of music, food, dancing competitions and the judging of which farm animal won the ribbon for being best in its field. Our fairs are very similar. It was a way for everyone to stop what they were doing to attend the festivities toward the end of a working summer. It was also a chance for the young available lads and lassies to be able to "eye" each other and see how well they had grown over the past year. ;-)
Caber tossing...I was thinking maybe some connection to barn raising? as in pole barn? that might be the connection. Thanks for sharing the beautiful pics. Men in kilts. It's a beautiful thing.
Lacey: I'll have to research that one and see what connection there may be. I agree, that there is something about a man in a kilt that is attractive.
sounds like a bast.
Question Butch: I recently was given some material that contained Celtic patterns. Subsequently I found out that it is our family pattern. Unfortunately there is no one on that side of the family who would be aware of etiology. Would you have any idea where I would begin to source out the meanings, symbolism and any thing else relevant to its history? Thanks.
Al: I always enjoy our annual visit to the Highland Games.
There are a few books that may answer your questions, but I think this one has a lot of information about the Irish families and Irish clans.
If you are referring to "patterns" being designs in a tartan then this book would interest you.
"Clans & Families of Ireland"
(The Heritage and Heraldry of Irish Clans and Families) by John Grenham with a forward by Donal Begley, Chief Herald of Ireland.
Two books by Barry Cunliffe
"The Celtic World" ( An illustrated history of the Celtic Race )
and a larger version with the same name for a good history of the Celtic race.
If you are wondering what the symbols in a crest mean, I've got the information around here someplace. Unfortunately, when we moved to the Northwest almost 18 years ago, we didn't use the Dewey Decimal System to file our books and things so half the time, I need to hunt information down rather than knowing exactly where it is. ;)
Let me know if I have answered your question, regarding the patterns or of I missed the mark completely.
looks like fun...and I like the shirts
Wonderman: They are comfortable as well as the kilt. Lots of things to do from food vendors, to purchasing a Claymore (sword).
Isn't this really just a ruse for men to let their junk air out?
Paul: Oh, ... you found us out! ;-)
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