Today Susan and I saw our first Highland Game event. I have seen the ad in the Driveline (for the Illinois Highland Game) for a few years now and wanted to go but mid May always seemed filled with family-type events. We attended our first games this year but not in Illinois, in eastern Tennessee where we have relocated. On the drive there I couldn't help but think that "Gee, Tennessee, what's this gonna be"? Moonshine and country folk under a St Andrews Cross?

Well, so much for that. Wow and I mean WOW!! It was one gi-normous affair! Very impressive. Since I have not been to the Illinois games for comparison it would not be fair to do just that! However it was an amazing display of Scottish heritage and Scottish clan unity! Of course, there were the athletic games tossing everything from large rocks (stone put) to sheaf toss to hammer throw, to etc, etc.. The women were especially surprising i.e. big, strong and seeing them hurl those 20 foot poles (Caber Toss) was almost scary!!
The Knoxville Fife & Drum Corp was there with more bag-pipers than you can shake a stick at (see pic). There was also a presentation on the bag-pipe i.e. its history/origin, parts and how people can learn to play. We saw another presentation on Robert Burns as well as a interesting (for me anyway) one on the relationship between Scottish war tactics and those used by the Confederate army in our Civil War. It was interesting where the Rebel Yell really came from!

Again, I cannot say how the Illinois games present families (clans) of Scottish descent. Here each had its own tent and exhibit of its family history back to Scotland as well as artifacts. I estimated that there were about 40 Scottish clans represented but in the parade of clans I counted 60 (see pic)!! Why so many in this part of the country. Apparently eastern Tenn. and S Carolina were centers of Scottish immigrants spurred on by the promise of a 650 acre land grant from King George III. The catch was that the Scots could settle for free but because this land bordered French, Spanish and Indian territory the Scots agreed to fight if invaded. They were known as farmer-soldiers. The other interesting historical fact is that although the Scots had no love loss for King George when the Civil War came around most fought for the south as they felt beholden to the King for the land grant.

Did you know that the name Claymore mine is taken from the name of a Scottish long sword? (from Scottish Gaelic: claidheamh-mòr, "great sword" )

Scottish food, Scottish clothing, bag pipes, everyone running around in kilts....made Susan feel "very" English! By the way Susan's maiden name is Simpson and her ancestors are from the north of the UK. We were able to discover that the Simpsons are part of the Fraser Clan!

~~ Ralph Arata