| Contents |
Piping in the Jacobite Highlands from 1745 -- The MacGregors and piping in Glengarry -- Keppoch, Clanranald, and Cameron piping -- Piping in MacLean country -- Fraser, Farquharson, MacIntosh, Grant, Chisholm, and Barra MacNeil pipers -- Raasay MacLeods, Glencoe MacDonalds, Appin Stewarts, and Cluny MacPhersons -- "Hereditary" or chiefs' pipers in Hanoverian Scotland -- Piping in MacCrimmon and MacDonald Skye and in Strathspey (Grants) -- Piping in Glenorchy/Breadalbane, in Islay, and in MacDougall and MacIntyre territory -- Sutherland and Gairloch, Seaforth, and Gordon piping -- New World piping in Cape Breton -- The East Bay area of Cape Breton and the MacLean pipers in Washabuck -- Piping and tradition in the Margarees, Inverness County -- Piping in the Glendale area, River Denys Mountain, Melford, Big Marsh, Orangedale, and Valley Mills -- Pipers, piping, and cultural glimpses of West Lake Ainslie -- Reverend Archibald Campbell's observations of piping in Judique -- Some pipers in Northern Cape Breton. |
| Abstract |
The work is the result of over thirty years of oral fieldwork among the last Gaels in Cape Breton, for whom piping fit unself-consciously into community life, as well as an exhaustive synthesis of Scottish archival and secondary sources. Reflecting the invaluable memories of now-deceased new world Gaelic lore-bearers, the author shows that traditional community piping in both the old and new world Gàihealtachlan was, and for a long time remained, the same, exposing the distortions introduced by the tendency to interpret the written record from the perspective of modern, post-eighteenth-century bagpiping. Following up the argument in his previous book, Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945, the author traces the shift from tradition to modernism in the old world through detailed genealogies, focusing on how the social function of the Scottish piper changed and step-dance piping progressively disappeared. Old and New World Highland Bagpiping will stir controversy and debate in the piping world while providing reminders of the value of oral history and the importance of describing cultural phenomena with great care and detail. |
