The Lost Cause: Old, New, and What To Do About It

I am not a Southerner, but I am something of a guest of the South. Although an Arizona native, I went to school in Texas (twice), married a gal from Mississippi, and settled in Virginia. Like many Americans, recent controversies surrounding Confederate monuments have spurred along my ongoing efforts to understand Southern heritage.

I appreciated Gregory S. Bucher's "Romanticism of the 'Lost Cause,'" published in First Things, for one particular insight it brought me: just because one racist raises a monument to another racist, that does not necessarily mean that racism was the motive for raising the monument. Without disputing that the Civil War was fundamentally about slavery - the declarations of secession were pretty explicit about that - one can recognize that the 19th century worldview was considerably different from most contemporary worldviews. Lost causes - not just The Lost Cause, but all of them - had a particular appeal to many, both within and outside the South, quite irrespective of the content of the cause. Seemingly fruitless suffering, most in need of justification, was conveniently - in the Romantic worldview - most noble.

History sometimes grants us insights into the motivations of actors, but those insights are rare gems. More often we know what was done, but not why. Doubtless, some erectors of Confederate monuments raised them with the explicit intention to further white supremacy and do so by casting a cloak of courage and liberty - and thus respectability - over the Southern rebellion. But I suspect that many monument erectors, whether they were racists or not, firmly believed themselves to be honoring courage, sacrifice, and freedom, even if their actions had the effect of entrenching white supremacy in the South and whitewashing the historical narrative.

History informs how we behave in the present, but it does not dictate our behavior. Discussions of history and present policy, though interrelated, are distinct issues. We may be cautious about passing historical judgements, while still being clear about what contemporary society should do. But even if, with the value of hindsight, we recognize certain monuments as racist and conclude that they must go, we can still be charitable, perhaps even generous, toward many who erected them and still value them today.

* * *

While listening to Gillian Welch - whose music, though beautiful, is consistently depressing - it occurred to me that swaths of contemporary America have embraced a new permutation of the Lost Cause myth, depicted in a variety of musical and other cultural representations. The patchwork of folk and country references which follow many strike some readers as eclectic; perhaps other selections could have been made, but I think these demonstrate the breadth of this general pattern.

The story goes something like this: America, or this corner of it, this was once an agrarian place. It was not prosperous, but homey and traditional: "We all picked the cotton but we never got rich," as Alabama sings. Or, in the words of the Carolina Chocolate Drops:

Runnin' with your cousins from yard to yard
Livin' was easy but the playin' was hard
Didn't have much, nothing comes for free
All you needed was your family.

In time, this agrarian world gave way to aspects of modern industrialization, things like coal mines and railroads. But many of its promises were unfulfilled and, after having broken the health of so many workers, this industrialization seems to have left them behind. Dan Zanes laments the railroad that never came:

Then up stepped a politician
He stopped her in her tracks
From what I understand
He turned her sent her back
The people down in Guysborough
Still waiting for a train
The dream they had for many years
Proved to be in vain.

Tom Russell describes the closing of a steel mill: "My wife stares out the window with a long and lonely stare / She says 'you kill yourself for 30 years but no one seems to care.'" 

The evils of industrialization are found in the traditional Lost Cause myth as well. Eric Foner explains, “The antebellum South was recalled as a benevolent, orderly society that pitted its noble values against the aggressive greed of northern industrial society.” In both narratives, industrialization is identified with outside forces; it is, at best, fickle, more likely deceptive and exploitative.

Yet for better or worse, industrialization came, and then largely went. So where does that leave us now? There's a strange mix of sorrow in the new Lost Cause at all that is lost and almost a celebration of the ills left behind. Gillian Welch sings:

A river of whiskey flows down in Dixie
Down along the Dixie Line
They pulled up the tracks now
I can't go back now
Can't hardly keep from cryin'.

Indeed, alcohol is a recurring theme, both in sorrow and in celebration. Charlie Daniels boasts:

People say I'm no good and crazy as a loon
'Cause I get stoned in the morning
And get drunk in the afternoon
Kinda like my old blue tick hound
I like to lay around in the shade
And I ain't got no money but I damn sure got it made.

Or, in a more elegiac form, Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss relate a tragic tale:
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time

But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night...
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away her memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees.

Like the traditional Lost Cause, this new narrative admits to failure, but also accepts, even embraces it..

The musical threads of the new Lost Cause tapestry are certainly found in the old Confederate states, the traditional definition of the South. But they are also found across a wider geography, including much of the Rust Belt and Middle America. The areas where this new Lost Cause is found probably align well with parts of the country that voted for Donald Trump. And this should come as little surprise: according to this new mythology, much has indeed been lost, hence the need to make America great again. But amidst this narrative’s drunken post-industrial suffering, there is also a sense that greatness cannot be regained, at least not along the old lines. Thus America did not elect a senator or a general or even a Boy Scout, but, rather, a loud-mouthed, twice-divorced zillionaire with no record of public service. In the ruins of American society, you could say, this is the best we can hope for.

* * *

Southern writers reflect something of the new narrative as well. The characters described by William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, or Walker Percy are hardly winners. They are frequently insane and often vicious. If they have not had a stiff drink lately, they could probably use one. Suffering, these writers admit, is the way of our world.

Their writings share a certain quality of anti-modernism with both Lost Causes, the old and the new. Modern society, they implicitly argue, has not reached the deepest corners of the South or, if it has, it has failed to solve its ills. More likely, modernity has made those ills worse.

One might conclude from this sorry state of affairs that some kind of Southern revivalism is needed: if we reject the modern social, economic, and political arrangements imported from the North, if we go back to the old ways, all will be well. But I do not think this the approach that the likes of Percy and O'Connor would endorse.

Though these Catholic writers had a deep respect for tradition, they recognized that the flaws of the modern era run deep. Our common suffering is ultimately rooted not in modernity, however problematic it may be, but in man's fallen nature. We ought not celebrate our brokenness, but we must at least admit to it. Erecting monuments will not solve our problems. Hiding amidst the babble of modern psychology will ultimately leave us deeply unsatisfied, as Percy repeatedly underscores in Lost in the Cosmos. Rather, we must offer our pathetic situation, the husk of our individual selves and our broken society, to the one who has the power to save, Almighty God. Conversion has the power to accomplish what no amount of nostalgia or memorialization ever could. Lord, have mercy.

Voices of Southern Dissent

I currently reside in Virginia.  I have a son who was born here.  But I struggle with the state's Southern identity, an identity which, for many, is bound up in the American Civil War and the experience of secession.  I don't mean to suggest that all Virginians are racist or that Southern pride is nothing more than support for slavery.  But, because the Confederate rebellion was a part of Virginia's history, many Virginians feel the need to support it or at least remain silent on the matter.  As someone opposed to the rebellion of the Southern states and their practice of slavery, I find this position problematic.

But I think it is worth mentioning that the South was not monolithicly pro-secession in the 19th century and thus need not make a pro-secessionist bent part of its identity today.

Consider, for example, the Loudoun Rangers, a cavalry unit raised in 1862 in northern Virginia, a unit which fought on behalf of the Union and tangled with Mosby's partisans.

Or let us consider Texas, a state which was my adoptive home for eight years.  Sam Houston, one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Texas, was elected governor in 1859.  Houston was no liberal humanitarian: although he enjoyed warm relations with the Cherokee Indians, he owned slaves and opposed abolitionist efforts to free them.  However, he saw secession as ill-advised and treasonous.  When a Texas convention voted for secession and subsequent accession to the Confederacy, Houston refused to recognize the moves, calling them illegal.  Houston was eventually removed from office for refusing to take the Confederate oath.  He explained:

Fellow-Citizens, in the name of your rights and liberties, which I believe have been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of the nationality of Texas, which has been betrayed by the Convention, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of the Constitution of Texas, I refuse to take this oath. In the name of my own conscience and manhood, which this Convention would degrade by dragging me before it, to pander to the malice of my enemies, I refuse to take this oath. I deny the power of this Convention to speak for Texas....I protest....against all the acts and doings of this convention and I declare them null and void.

This is the kind of political idealism - whatever the costs - that Southerners love.  It is also deeply Unionist.  Regarding the war to come, Houston proved himself more clear-sighted than his opponents:

Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Southern independence if God be not against you, but I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of states rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South.

Houston and the men of the Loudoun Rangers were rare, but not unique.  North Texas was full of German and Czech settlers - some of them refugees from the revolutions of 1848 in Europe - who supported the Union.  West Virginia was so off-put by the war of secession it seceded from rebel Virginia.  In addition to the many African-American units raised from among the freed slaves of the South, white Unionist forces were also raised.  The 1st Alabama Cavalry was formed in 1862 by men who opposed secession - most from Alabama, but some from elsewhere, including Georgia.  The regiment fought in various campaigns and was present for the surrender of the rebel Army of Tennessee in 1865.  Arkansas raised eight white regiments and six colored regiments for the Union.  Similar units were raised in Louisiana and North Carolina.  Tennessee formed upwards of 30 regiments in the service of the Union.

I am looking forward to reading David Downing's A South Divided: Portraits of Dissent in the Confederacy.  This is a Southern legacy I may be able to embrace and teach to my children.


Quotations are from James l. Haley, Sam Houston, University of Oklahoma Press (2004), by way of the estimable Wikipedia, which also supplied the image.

State Tartans

I've written before about issues of heritage, suggesting that our cuisine embodies our jumbled backgrounds as Americans, and arguing that - within certain bounds - we can choose our heritage, as I choose to identify with certain elements of Scottish history and certain British regiments.

Recently I stumbled upon a series of cultural artifacts which recalled this question of Americans, their sense of heritage, and the extent to which they can choose it.

A great many states have official tartans, and several more have unofficial ones.  My instinct for all manner of pomp, symbolism, and history is immediately attracted to such things.  But it also begs some questions: must one be of Scottish - or at least some permutation of Celtic - ancestry to wear a tartan?  Should a state have a substantial Scottish-American population before adopting such a tartan?  And when does one actually use such a tartan?  While I hold nothing against those men who wear kilts, I do not, and aside from the flannel shirts I wear on Saturdays, there aren't many opportunities for tartans.  (Or are there?  Do correct me, dear readers.  Perhaps a tartan flatcap?)

Below are a few state tartans of interest to our family, with blurbs stolen from the Scottish Registry of Tartans.

Commissioned by a joint committee of Arizona State's Scottish societies, this tartan was designed by Dr Phil Smith and proclaimed by Governor Symington in December 1995. Colours: green is for the forest that covers half the state; brown for the desert; azure for copper, white for silver; yellow for gold; red for the Native Americans and the red, white and green stripes for the Mexican population.

The unofficial Mississippi tartan has dark green for the never-ending forests of Pine and evergreen leaves of the Magnolia, light green for the lustrous leaves of the Great Southern Oaks, dark blue for the waters of the Mississippi River and the many lakes within the state, red for the color of the state flag and for the blood shed in Mississippi's past, white for the sands of the Gulf Coast and the cotton fields, and yellow for the heart of the Magnolia, the state flower.

The official state tartan of Louisiana was designed by Joe McD.Campbell in 2001. For use by all those with Louisiana affiliations. Blue for the sky, lakes, bayous, rivers and waterways, green for agriculture and forests, white for rice, sugar cane, cotton and the magnolias, black for petroleum and natural resources.

Designed by June Prescott McRoberts (1922-1999), proprietor of the 'Thistles & Bluebonnets' store in Salado, Texas. The tartan was adopted as the Sequicentennial Tartan and was officially adopted as the Texas State Tartan on 25th May 1989. The colors of the Texas Bluebonnet district tartan owe their selection to the bluebonnet flower, a member of the lupin family, which is widespread in many parts of Texas. The flower changes color with the passing of time, the 'brim' becoming flecked with wine red.

The Virginia Quadricentennial Tartan is the official state tartan of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was designed in 2003 by David McGill and in 2005, during preparations for Jamestown 2007, which celebrated the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Colony of Virginia, it was selected as Virginia's tartan because the colors reflected those of the American dogwood, the Virginia state flower and tree.

Pennsylvania Dutch Shoo-Fly Pie

If you have not already picked up the lessons of this little excursion through American cooking and American identity, let me spell it out: our cooking, like our nation, is a mix of deep-held family traditions, often stretching back to the "old country," and eclectic innovation, usually involving taking other people's best ideas and then tinkering with them.  The results can be confusing and incoherent, but also quirky and delightful.

This final recipe neatly embodies that lesson.  I was once invited an an Oslava, thrown by some Slovak-Americans.  They asked everyone to bring an item of food made from an old family recipe.  So I sent my grandmother a note and asked her if she had a recipe that would fit the bill.  In response, she sent me a recipe for Shoo-Fly Pie, and reminded me that my great-grandfather (and countless generations before him) had been Pennsylvania Dutch, a people who enjoy shoo-fly.  This all made good sense to me, since I knew about our family's roots in Pennsylvania, and I had first seen shoo-fly pie in Lancaster County, PA.

Having made the recipe a time or two, I sent my grandmother a note, thanking her for this family recipe.  I do not recall the precise words of her reply, but she as much as said that she simply found the recipe in a cook book.  At this point, the story breaks down.  I am not sure if this was a family cookbook, and so the recipe had come from Great-Great Aunt Mathilda or some such, or if Grandma was simply trying to guess what our family might have baked a few generations before, and then found any old shoo-fly recipe.  (My father says his mother never made it when he was a child.)

In spite of this historical confusion, several facts remain: (1) My family were Pennsylvania Dutch for about two centuries, (2) this recipe comes from my grandmother, and (3) I have become quite a fan of shoo-fly pie, and make it any chance I get.

Alas, this pie is not for everyone.  It is pretty hearty, filling stuff.  I don't know if those old Pennsylvania farmers actually ate it, but I can certainly imagine they did.


Pennsylvania Dutch Shoo-Fly Pie

Filling:
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. plus 1 Tbsp molasses
1 egg
1/2 c. butter, melted
1/2 tsp. baking soda dissolved in 1/2 c. hot coffee
3/4 c. flour (I usually use a combination of white and whole wheat)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Crumbs:
2/3 c. flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. butter (unmelted)

Mix first three ingredients, then add all the rest from the filling list. Pour into 9" pie crust. Cut the butter into flour and sugar for the crumb topping, and sprinkle on top. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until set.  Consider serving with whipped cream.


Today's image comes from Kitchen Kettle Village.

Scandinavian Vegetable Soup - A Revival?

Some of my mother's family was Swedish.  As a thoroughgoing fan of genealogical diversity, I relish this Scandinavian connection.  Perhaps that is part of the reason why some years ago I took to the Scandinavian soup recipe that is the third installment of this four-part adventure in American cooking.

In the name of full disclosure, I must confess that this recipe did not come through a long family.  Instead, it came through that stalwart aid of American gastronomy: a cookbook.  Specifically, this recipe came from Mr. Food Cooks Like Mama, a book I think my brother received for his high school graduation.  I have no idea if anyone in Scandinavia actually eats anything like this - I don't remember seeing it during my short visit there, though I was mostly living on bread and cheese at that point - nor do I have a shred of proof that any of my ancestors ever made anything of the sort.  Still, it is a possibility my over-active imagination is willing to entertain.  And the version we make is a tasty meal, particularly when the weather gets cooler.


Scandinavian Vegetable Soup

1/2 c. butter or vegetable oil (or some combination thereof - I usually go half and half)
1 Tbsp wet garlic
2 c. chopped cabbage, or half a head, or whatever you have laying around
1 chopped onion
1 c. chopped celery, or as much as you have (because what else can you put it in before it gets floppy?)
1 c. frozen peas
2 c. thin-sliced carrots 
2 cans creamed corn
3 c. milk
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. thyme
2 c. cubed cheese (you can shred it, but why bother, when it's just going to melt?)

In a very large pot, saute garlic, cabbage, onion, celery, peas and carrots in butter/oil until tender (usually 10-15 minutes).  Add corn, milk, pepper, and thyme.  Simmer for 15 minutes.  Add cheese, stirring until melted.  Serve.

Whole Grain Coffee Cake - a Paternal Tale

For as long as I can remember, my father has been making breakfast on Saturdays: muffins, biscuits, cornbread, pancakes, waffles...  The custom of special Saturday breakfasts is one I have brought into my own family as well (though I've added cheese grits to the line-up).

Among my father's repertoire of breakfast foods is coffee cake.  He has been baking it since my earliest days, and maybe even earlier.  And, I must say, coffee cake is one of my favorites.  So when I came home from college at the end of one semester, I was deeply disappointed to discover that coffee cake had been declared a forbidden food.  Apparently it was deemed too high in cholesterol, something the doctor was trying to bring down in my father.  Unsatisfied with this change of events, I set out to craft a new, cholesterol-friendly version.  I do not know if I succeeded - I am certainly no nutritionist - but I did end up with a recipe I rather liked.

What was my source?  Well, my father had two recipes, one for regular old coffee cake and one for "cowboy coffee cake."  Now I have poked around the internet a little, but I have yet to find out what connection cowboy coffee cake has to cowboys.  Perhaps none.  I may have asked my father about this at some point, but if I did he didn't know the answer.  Not that this bothered me too much.  I guess I assumed it was an old cowboy recipe, and at one time there were plenty of cowboys on the Plains and out West.

Anyhow, my new recipe more or less merged both of my father's and added generous amounts of whole grains and substituted some of the white sugar for brown.  As I said, I'm not sure it's healthier, but it's certainly tasty!


Whole Grain Coffee Cake

1 1/2 c. white flour

2 T ground flax seed*

3/4 c. white sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

3/4 c. brown sugar, divided

3/4 c. whole wheat flour

1/4 c. wheat bran*

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda

2/3 c. vegetable oil (or apple sauce)

1 c. sour milk (if no sour milk is on hand, add 1 tsp vinegar to 1 c. milk)

2 eggs

butter or margarine, as needed for crumbs

*These ingredients, while quite good, are not essential to the recipe; whole wheat flour may be substituted.

Mix 3/4 c. white flour, flax seed, white sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Set aside 1/3 c. for crumbs.  To the main mixture, add 1/4 c. brown sugar and remaining ingredients (including remaining 3/4 c. white flour).  Pour batter into two greased 8" x 1 1/2" round pans.  Mix remaining 1/2 c. of brown sugar with crumb mixture and cut in butter/margarine as needed (approx. 3 Tbsp) for a crumbly consistency and sprinkle over the top.  Bake at 375 for 25 minutes. 

Once again, our picture is not original.  This one comes from Food.com.

Red Beans & Rice - an American Odyssey

This is not a recipe blog.  However, I spent a goodly while in Britain over the past few months, as this blog bears out.  I wrote about my favorite British regiments, observed Empire Day, did some hypothetical casting for a movie about Brits, celebrated an English saint and reflected upon a British philosopher of history.  A raging Anglophile I may be, but all this talk of Britain got me a little concerned.  Am I not American?  Is everything simply better over there?  Does America have nothing I want to celebrate?

As these questions rolled around in my mind, I was struck by one particularly American aspect of my life: food.  Many of the foods I make on a regular basis are staples of "traditional" American menus.  A fair number actually have their roots in other countries or cultures, though they have been adopted with typically American assimilation.  Likewise, most of these recipes came to me through a mix of family, cook books and good old tinkering.  Perhaps the same results could have come about in another place, but these foods and their stories strike me as quintessentially American.  And so I plan to share a few.

Today's recipe has a slightly odd genesis.  I began making beans and rice because it was cheap, filling and kept well.  I just threw together some ingredients.  If there was any inspiration, it was probably my father's Ham & Beans recipe.  But this was certainly a different creation, a vaguely Southwestern dish for the hungry bachelor.  But after I got married, I discovered that my wife - whose mother is from Mississippi and whose father is from Louisiana - expected "beans and rice" to be New Orleans-style red beans and rice.  With the guidance of her poking and a few pointers from my mother-in-law, my bachelor recipe evolved into something of which I am rather proud.  It looks more Southern than Southwestern now, but I think it retains hints of its origins (in both my homeland and my hungry bachelor phase).  Enjoy!

Red Beans & Rice

3 cups dry beans (I often use one each of kidney, small red and pinto beans, but sometimes I use black too)
2 cans diced tomatoes (I usually use one "Mexican style" and one with green chilis)
14 oz kielbasa sausage, sliced
1 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp ketchup
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Soak beans overnight or quick soak (ie, bring to rolling boil, turn off and let soak for 1 hr).  Begin simmering beans with tomatoes and lots of water.  Saute sausage, onion, green pepper and garlic in vegetable oil.  Add sausage mixture and remaining ingredients to beans.  Cook until beans are tender (2-3 hrs, usually).  Serve over rice.


Unfortunately, no, today's picture is not of my own making.  It comes from Simply Recipes.

Can You Choose Heritage?

Last week I wrote about Alasdair Mac Colla and some of the complications of heritage. This week I would like to address in a slightly more systematic way some of the issues which received a more narrative treatment last week.

Put simply, can you choose your heritage? I suggested this was the case, though I hope my suggestion was received with the bit of whimsy with which it was offered. Distinctions may be in order.

My father is from Nebraska and my mother from Kansas. He went to school for two years at LeTourneau College and then joined the Navy. She attended Wichita State before moving out to Arizona State University in Tempe. These are facts, and not simply in the historical sense of having happened or being verifiable. These are facts which shaped my life in concrete ways: I grew up seeing slides of my father's various deployments in the Pacific, I have visited my relatives in Kansas and Nebraska an uncounted number of times, and I would not have grown up in Arizona if my mother had not transferred schools. These things affect me in immediate ways.

Much of my family came from Germany. The evidence is in our last name, my grandmother can recite snatches of phrases her forebears use to say, and I have heard a few stories relating to this ancestry. In World War I a church my family attended was vandalized because of a German inscription over the door. Great-great grandma Anna Baer grew up on a large farm in Germany and as a child sometimes had to rise very early before dawn to begin helping the laborers. (No, we're not quite sure what they were doing this early, but they were eating "lunch" around sunrise. Our best theory is that they were mowing hay, which apparently cuts better when it is wet.) Great-great-great (?) grandpa August Weinert fled Prussia and eventually became a barn-builder in Nebraska, and served in the Union Army. These stories can be connected directly to my family through a living memory and are definitely fun to recite. But they represent considerably less impact on my life than do the details of my parents' lives.

Jacob von Lindemann came to America in 1710 and settled in Pennsylvania with other German immigrants. Having arrived prior to the Great War for Empire (known locally as the French & Indian War) and the American Revolution, their participation in either conflict is possible, though my family's Mennonite history makes that unlikely. One in six Hessian soldiers hired by the British deserted during the Revolution, and most went on to settle in German communities Pennsylvania; are their Hessians in my family tree? Several of my relations were leading figures in the town of Leipzig at the time when their cousin, Martin Luther, debated Johann Eck; were any of them present for these famed debates? Reaching several centuries earlier, and to another branch of the family, were my Swedish ancestors running roughshod over Russia in the 9th and 10th centuries, like all good Swedish Vikings? At a certain point the documentary evidence dries up and the family stories peter out. Personal history gives way to general history and certitude becomes legend, rumor or speculation.

With this distinction between intimate fact, the stories of living memory and the rumors of speculation, let us turn again to the question, Can you choose your heritage? With regards to the most immediate concerns, the answer is clearly no. These facts are too embedded in my life for me to deny or alter. With regards to the intermediate category of family stories, it seems there is more latitude. For starters, selection takes on a great role: I can choose to tell this story or that, emphasis these ancestors or those. The stories may still be documented, but interpretation becomes more important. One can choose to emphasize the elements of his heritage which fit present circumstances, satisfy particular needs or answer contemporary questions. With the final category of legends, rumors and bald speculation, interpretation begins to eclipse (though not totally supplant) historical evidence.

Returning to the distinction between sign and signified, which I mentioned last week: it seems to me that the most immediate elements of one's heritage are also those in which the sign is most clearly bound up with the signified. My father is a very clever man, but I cannot choose to signify that by saying he graduated from Harvard; I must instead point to his ability to jury-rig most any kind of mechanical device. But in the misty depths of the past, both the signs and the things signified become more malleable. New signs are adopted to signify old ideas, and new significations are given to old signs. It is in such a climate that I am willing to assert that, yes, you can choose your heritage.

Of Scotland and Its Heritage

I was recently reading about Alasdair Mac Colla (c. 1610–1647) a Scotch-Irish solider from Clan Donald. One of the largest clans in Scotland, the Norse-Gaelic MacDonalds at this time held territory in Scotland, the Hebrides and Ulster. Notably, the MacDonalds were also Catholic, unlike their arch-rivals, the Campbells, who were Presbyterian. Alasdair Mac Colla and the MacDonalds fought alongside the Royalists and the Irish Confederation in a series of conflicts including the English Civil War, known collectively as the Wars of Three Kingdoms (ie, England, Scotland and Ireland).

Mac Colla was a man of great violence, and involved in atrocities against the Campbells, but though it does not excuse his actions, it would at least seem he was on the right side. Moreover, he is credited with inventing the 'highland charge,' a nifty tactic whereby Scottish armies, facing English opponents, would fire a volley, then throw down their muskets (and often hit the ground while the English fired a return volley), and then charge the English position with claymores and dirks while the poor English chaps were trying to reload their muskets for a second volley. It was a devastating tactic, particularly prior to the use of the bayonet, and it won the Scots a string of victories for roughly a century.

Duntulm Castle, a ruined MacDonald castle located on the Isle of Skye.

Well, such a dashing figure got me wondering, even hoping, if I might not be related to the fellow. And there is just a grain of possibility. You see, my great-great-great-grandfather, Alonzo Timothy Johnson Sr. was of Scottish ancestry (or so my grandmother told me, God rest her). A quick search of the Scottish clans, however, will reveal that there is no Clan Johnson. There is, however, a sept - a family division - named Johnson, belonging to Clan MacDonald of Ardnamurchan. You see, the MacDonalds are so large and sprawling that there are several branches of them. The MacDonalds of Ardnamurchan are descended from John (Iain) Sprangach MacDonald (d.1340), the third son of Angus Mor MacDonald (d.1292), the 4th chief of the Clan Donald. On his account, they are thus sometimes known as the MacIaians or MacIans (which simply means "son of John"). Some time when Alasdair Mac Colla was a boy, the MacIaians lost their lands through the duplicity of the Campbells, and thus the clan declined in significance. The Johnsons, one particular sept of the MacIaians, threw themselves upon the mercy of the the broader MacDonald community and Clan Gunn, another Norse-Gaelic clan in Scotland's western isles. So it is just possible that my ancestors, if not including Alasdair Mac Colla, at least knew him.

This is, however, a stretch. For one thing, MacDonald of Ardnamurchan is not the only clan to include a sept named Johnson; both Gunn and MacDonald of Glencoe have one as well. But there is another problem: what if my Scottish ancestors changed the spelling of their name at some point? What it if it was once "Johnstone," not "Johnson"? Because that, you see, is quite a different story.

Clan Johnstone is a lowland clan located on the Scottish-English border. For some time they resisted English incursions - and won the friendship of William Wallace for it. All the border clans were a wild bunch, bandit-types who enjoyed having blood feuds with one another. In the case of Clan Johnstone, the primary objects of these feuds were Clan Maxwell, put in its place in 1593, and Clan Moffat, more or less destroyed in 1557. However, like the MacDonalds, the Johnstones supported the Royalists in the English Civil War.

So which one is it? Did my family come from the Lowlands of southern Scotland, or the Isles of the West? Are my sworn enemies the Campbells or the Maxwells? Should I be wearing the tartan of the MacDonalds of the Isles (above left) or of the Johnstones (below right)? Well, funny you should ask about tartans...

The most authoritative work on Scottish tartans is the Vestiarium Scoticum, published in 1842. The only problem is that the Vestiarium is probably a fraud. The story goes that the tartans depicted in the Vestiarium are the ancient patterns used by the clans since time immemorial. The manuscript that helped produce this document passed through the hands of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and had now allowed his grandsons, John Sobieski Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart, to share this authoritative knowledge with the world. However, the "Stuart brothers" were exposed as John Carter Allen and Charles Manning Allen and their tartans as bogus. But by the time that had happened, a funny thing had occurred: the Vestiarium Scoticum had caught on. Today, many of the clans still use the tartans given them by the Vestiarium, in spite of considerable evidence that these are not the ancient tartans of their clans.

Does this matter? Should Scots be outraged? Probably not. Let me submit two reasons for that. First, things like tartans are signs, and should not be confused with the things they signify. So long as it is understood that a particular tartan - or flag, or coat of arms, or song, or holiday - indicates a given clan, its history and its values, the sign itself is of little importance. Second, it seems to me that the stories surrounding the adoption of symbols become part of a heritage themselves. For good or ill, the Vestiarium is now part of Scottish lore, one of those strange quirks of history. To throw it out would be to get ride of part of the story.

So is my family from Clan Johnstone or MacDonald of Ardnamurchan? I am going to answer, "both". This is not to say that I believe this to be the case, in a biological sense. Rather, I accept stories and histories of each as my own. And the very means by which I came to that conclusion - and the fact that I did, when I am sure many others would not - says something about me as well. Call me crazy, but I intend to regale my children and my children's children with stories of Alasdair Mac Colla and the Highland charge.