Springville, Utah

https://www.heraldextra.com/entertainment/arts-and-theater/visual/springville-exhibition-depicts-family-history-through-art/article_88cb7f7e-e1b6-5a77-a561-f44b0df26cf6.html

From: The Island Means Minago. 
 Toronto: NC Press, 1975. p.13

She would either be burned to honour the end of the summer or one family would be chosen keep the dolly safely in the house all winter, until the Spring. Then she would be given back to the earth to ensure the continued fertility of the land. 

The dolly would have originally been made from whichever grain was grown locally. The dolls would have been woven in any number of traditional ways, and can be quite beautiful. Maize didn't come to Europe until much later. 

There is more detailed information about 'straw craft and wheat weaving' on @cailleachsherbarium 's website, including videos of how to weave one more traditionally. This one, pictured, isn't my finest! It's how I was shown at Garvald Home Farm  where they are made alongside bread dragons to celebrate both the Autumn Equinox and Michaelmas. 

 Scottish clan (from Gaelic clann, literally 'children', more broadly 'kindred' is a kinship group among the Scottish people. Clans give a sense of shared identity and descent to members, and in modern times have an official structure recognised by the Court of the Lord Lyon, which regulates Scottish heraldry and coats of arms. Most clans have their own tartan patterns, usually dating from the 19th century, which members may incorporate into kilts or other clothing.

The modern image of clans, each with their own tartan and specific land, was promulgated by the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott after influence by others. Historically, tartan designs were associated with Lowland and Highland districts whose weavers tended to produce cloth patterns favoured in those districts. By process of social evolution, it followed that the clans/families prominent in a particular district would wear the tartan of that district, and it was but a short step for that community to become identified by it.

Many clans have their own clan chief; those that do not are known as armigerous clans. Clans generally identify with geographical areas originally controlled by their founders, sometimes with an ancestral castle and clan gatherings, which form a regular part of the social scene. The most notable clan event of recent times was The Gathering 2009 in Edinburgh, which attracted at least 47,000 participants from around the world.

It is a common misconception that every person who bears a clan's name is a lineal descendant of the chiefs.Many clansmen, although not related to the chief, took the chief's surname as their own to either show solidarity, or to obtain basic protection or for much needed sustenance. Most of the followers of the clan were tenants, who supplied labour to the clan leaders. Contrary to popular belief, the ordinary clansmen rarely had any blood tie of kinship with the clan chiefs, but they sometimes took the chief's surname as their own when surnames came into common use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus, by the eighteenth century the myth had arisen that the whole clan was descended from one ancestor, perhaps relying on Scottish Gaelic clann originally having a primary sense of 'children' or 'offspring'.

Many clans have often claimed mythological founders that reinforced their status and gave a romantic and glorified notion of their origins.Most powerful clans gave themselves origins based on Irish mythology. For example, there have been claims that the Clan Donald were descended from either Conn, a second-century king of Ulster, or Cuchulainn, the legendary hero of Ulster.Whilst their political enemies the Clan Campbell have claimed as their progenitor Diarmaid the Boar, who was rooted in the Fingalian or Fenian Cycle.

On the other hand, the Clans Mackinnon and Gregor claimed ancestry from the Siol Alpin family, who descend from Alpin, father of Kenneth MacAlpin, who united the Scottish kingdom in 843.Only one confederation of clans, which included the Clan Sweeney, Clan Lamont, Clan MacLea, Clan MacLachlan and Clan MacNeill, can trace their ancestry back to the fifth century Niall of the Nine Hostages, High King of Ireland.

However, in reality, the progenitors of clans can rarely be authenticated further back than the 11th century, and a continuity of lineage in most cases cannot be found until the 13th or 14th centuries.

The emergence of clans had more to do with political turmoil than ethnicity.The Scottish Crown's conquest of Argyll and the Outer Hebrides from the Norsemen in the 13th century, which followed on from the pacification of the Mormaer of Moray and the northern rebellions of the 12th and 13th centuries, created the opportunity for war lords to impose their dominance over local families who accepted their protection. These warrior chiefs can largely be categorized as Celtic; however, their origins range from Gaelic to Norse-Gaelic and British.By the 14th century, there had been further influx of kindreds whose ethnicity ranged from Norman or Anglo-Norman and Flemish, such as the Clan Cameron, Clan Fraser, Clan Menzies, Clan Chisholm and Clan Grant.

During the Wars of Scottish Independence, feudal tenures were introduced by Robert the Bruce, to harness and control the prowess of clans by the award of charters for land in order to gain support in the national cause against the English. For example, the Clan MacDonald were elevated above the Clan MacDougall, two clans who shared a common descent from a great Norse-Gaelic warlord named Somerled of the 12th century.Clanship was thus not only a strong tie of local kinship but also of feudalism to the Scottish Crown. It is this feudal component, reinforced by Scots law, that separates Scottish clanship from the tribalism that is found in aboriginal groups in Australasia, Africa, and the Americas.

During the 1638 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, all sides were 'Royalist', in the sense of a shared belief monarchy was divinely inspired. The choice of whether to support Charles I, or the Covenanter government, was largely driven by disputes within the Scottish elite. In 1639, Covenanter politician Argyll, head of Clan Campbell, was given a commission of 'fire and sword', which he used to seize MacDonald territories in Lochaber, and those held by Clan Ogilvy in Angus.As a result, both clans supported Montrose's Royalist campaign of 1644-1645, in hopes of regaining them.

When Charles II regained the throne in 1660, the Rescissory Act 1661 restored bishops to the Church of Scotland. This was supported by many chiefs since it suited the hierarchical clan structure and encouraged obedience to authority. Both Charles and his brother James VII used Highland levies, known as the "Highland Host", to control Campbell-dominated areas in the South-West and suppress the 1685 Argyll's Rising. By 1680, it is estimated there were fewer than 16,000 Catholics in Scotland, confined to parts of the aristocracy and Gaelic-speaking clans in the Highlands and Islands.

When James was deposed in the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, choice of sides was largely opportunistic. The Presbyterian Macleans backed the Jacobites to regain territories in Mull lost to the Campbells in the 1670s; the Catholic Keppoch MacDonalds tried to sack the pro-Jacobite town of Inverness, and were bought off only after Dundee intervened.

Highland involvement in the Jacobite risings was the result of their remoteness, and the feudal clan system which required tenants to provide military service. Historian Frank McLynn identifies seven primary drivers in Jacobitism, support for the Stuarts being the least important; a large percentage of Jacobite support in 1745 Rising came from Lowlanders who opposed the 1707 Union, and members of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

In 1745, the majority of clan leaders advised Prince Charles to return to France, including MacDonald of Sleat and Norman MacLeod. By arriving without French military support, they felt Charles failed to keep his commitments, while it is also suggested Sleat and MacLeod were vulnerable to government sanctions due to their involvement in illegally selling tenants into indentured servitude.

Enough were persuaded, but the choice was rarely simple; Donald Cameron of Lochiel committed himself only after he was provided "security for the full value of his estate should the rising prove abortive," while MacLeod and Sleat helped Charles escape after Culloden.

In 1493, James IV confiscated the Lordship of the Isles from the MacDonalds. This destabilised the region, while links between the Scottish MacDonalds and Irish MacDonnells meant unrest in one country often spilled into the other. James VI took various measures to deal with the resulting instability, including the 1587 'Slaughter under trust' law, later used in the 1692 Glencoe Massacre. To prevent endemic feuding, it required disputes to be settled by the Crown, specifically murder committed in 'cold-blood', once articles of surrender had been agreed, or hospitality accepted.Its first recorded use was in 1588, when Lachlan Maclean was prosecuted for the murder of his new stepfather, John MacDonald, and 17 other members of the MacDonald wedding party.

Other measures had limited impact; imposing financial sureties on landowners for the good behaviour of their tenants often failed, as many were not regarded as the clan chief. The 1603 Union of the Crowns coincided with the end of the Anglo-Irish Nine Years' War, followed by land confiscations in 1608. Previously the most Gaelic part of Ireland, the Plantation of Ulster tried to ensure stability in Western Scotland by importing Scots and English Protestants. This process was often supported by the original owners; in 1607 Sir Randall MacDonnell settled 300 Presbyterian Scots families on his land in Antrim.

This ended the Irish practice of using Highland gallowglass, or mercenaries, while the 1609 Statutes of Iona imposed a range of measures on clan chiefs, designed to integrate them into the Scottish landed classes. Whilst there is debate over their practical effect, they were an influential force on clan elites in the long term.

Intended to weaken or eliminate the use of Gaelic language and customs, the Statutes obliged clan chiefs to reside in Edinburgh, and have their heirs educated in the English-speaking Lowlands.Since the Highlands were a largely non-cash economy, this meant they shifted towards commercial exploitation of their lands, rather than managing them as part of a social system. The resulting chronic indebtedness eventually led to the sale of many of the great Highland estates in the late 18th and early 19th century.

During the 18th century, in an effort to increase the income from their estates, clan chiefs started to restrict the ability of tacksmen to sublet. This meant more of the rent paid by those actually farming the land went to the landowner. The result, though, was the removal of this layer of clan society. In a process that accelerated from the 1770s onward, by the early 19th century the tacksman had become a rare component of society. Historian T. M. Devine describes "the displacement of this class as one of the clearest demonstrations of the death of the old Gaelic society." Many tacksmen, as well as the wealthier farmers (who were tired of repeated rent increases) chose to emigrate. This could be taken as resistance to the changes in the Highland agricultural economy, as the introduction of agricultural improvement gave rise to the Highland clearances.The loss of this middle tier of Highland society represented not only a flight of capital from Gaeldom, but also a loss of entrepreneurial energy. The first major step in the clearances was the decision of the Dukes of Argyll to put tacks (or leases) of farms and townships up for auction. This began with Campbell property in Kintyre in the 1710s and spread after 1737 to all their holdings. This action as a commercial landlord, letting land to the highest bidder, was a clear breach of the principle of dùthchas.

The Jacobite rising of 1745 used to be described as the pivotal event in the demise in clanship. There is no doubt that the aftermath of the uprising saw savage punitive expeditions against clans that had supported the Jacobites, and legislative attempts to demolish clan culture. However, the emphasis of historians now is on the conversion of chiefs into landlords in a slow transition over a long period. The successive Jacobite rebellions, in the view of T.M. Devine, simply paused the process of change whilst the military aspects of clans regained temporary importance; the apparent surge in social change after the '45 was merely a process of catching up with the financial pressures that gave rise to landlordism.The various pieces of legislation that followed Culloden included the Heritable Jurisdictions Act which extinguished the right of chiefs to hold courts and transferred this role to the judiciary. The traditional loyalties of clansmen were probably unaffected by this. There is also doubt about any real effect from the banning of Highland dress (which was repealed in 1782 anyway).

The Highland Clearances saw further actions by clan chiefs to raise more money from their lands. In the first phase of clearance, when agricultural improvement was introduced, many of the peasant farmers were evicted and resettled in newly created crofting communities, usually in coastal areas. The small size of the crofts were intended to force the tenants to work in other industries, such as fishing or the kelp industry. With a shortage of work, the numbers of Highlanders who became seasonal migrants to the Lowlands increased. This gave an advantage in speaking English, as the "language of work". It was found that when the Gaelic Schools Society started teaching basic literacy in Gaelic in the early decades of the 19th century, there was an increase in literacy in English. This paradox may be explained by the annual report of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK) in 1829, which stated: "so ignorant are the parents that it is difficult to convince them that it can be any benefit to their children to learn Gaelic, though they are all anxious ... to have them taught English".

The second phase of the Highland clearances affected overpopulated crofting communities which were no longer able to support themselves due to famine and/or collapse of the industries on which they relied. "Assisted passages" were provided to destitute tenants by landlords who found this cheaper than continued cycles of famine relief to those in substantial rent arrears. This applied particularly to the Western Highlands and the Hebrides. Many Highland estates were no longer owned by clan chiefs,[a] but landlords of both the new and old type encouraged the emigration of destitute tenants to Canada and, later, to Australia. The clearances were followed by a period of even greater emigration, which continued (with a brief lull for the First World War) up to the start of the Great Depression.

The Will-o'-the-Wisp

The will o' the wisp (called in Gaelic Teine biorach = sharp fire) is said to be of quite modern appearance, at least in South Uist. It was first seen, it is said, in 1812, and is the haunting spirit of a young girl from Benbecula, who frequented the machair, or sandy plain beside the sea, in search of the galium verum, used in the dyeing of the local cloth or tweed. Her sin was that of seeking to get an undue share of a product which should have been equally divided for the common good, and which has at all times to be husbanded as one of the plants which bind the sandy soil together where it has been redeemed from the sea.

There is, however, another story as to the origin of the jack o' lantern. The haunting spirit is that of a blacksmith, who could get no admittance even into hell. He was very cold, and begged for a single ember to warm himself, and at last one was given him, and he has gone shivering about with it ever since.

A special interest of this story is that it tells against the common Hebridean tradition of a cold hell, a tradition one soon learns to accept in South Uist, the land of cold mist and sweeping winds, and damp, and drafts, and rain, where even the nether regions with a fire in them have a suggestion of comfort. Hell is therefore discouragingly known as "the place of the wind of the cold passages, or the wind of the cold channels."