WHERE NEGROES SPEAK GAELIC

Evening Star, Issue 22328, 2 May 1936, Page 7

WHERE NEGROES SPEAK GAELIC

Rudyard Kipling’s keen eye for the bizarre seldom spotted a more striking Ivo of literary material than in his discovery of Nova Scotia’s negroes who speak Gaelic. Few even m Nova Scotia knew the province held “ coalblack Celts,” as Kipling called them, until he told of them in his ‘ Captains Courageous.’ And even then the scoffers were many (says the ‘ Canadian News Letter ’). Later a Nova Scotia educationist made a personal inquiry into the matter, found - Kipling was perfectly correct, and meeting the writer in London some time afterward told him about the controversy. ‘ Fools,” exclaimed Kipling. “ Didn’t they know I would not put such a thing down if I were not sure of the facts?” The ancestors of Kipling’s “ coalblack Celts” came to Nova Scotia as servants to United Empire Loyalists who sought refuge in that , country at the time of the American Revolution. Presently they' drifted to the Scottish farming communities of Cane Breton Island, where Gaelic was the language in ordinary use, and perforce they learned it. To-day English has replaced it for general use, but in many families—including many negro ones—a knowledge of Gaelic is handed down proudly from one generation to the next. Kipling heard of this on a visit to Nova Scotia and put the fact to striking, use.