Life On Lone St . Kilda .

Otago Witness, Issue 2080, 4 January 1894, Page 40

Life On Lone St . Kilda .

By (DINORNIS).

{Specially Written and Illustrated for the Witness) (Continued.) .... A hardy race. Whose life no cultivated grace, No elegance, can show. The St. Kildans are no savages though their isle is a remote one. Nothing, I take it, is commoner than among savage races to find the women doing all the vftrk and the men devoting all their attention to the quarrelling and loafing. In St. Kilda both men and women work industriously, even energetically. It is in the nature of things that the vast majority of workera obtain only a modicum of what they earn, but in this little island whatever its inhabitants earn they own, and this, without their knowing it perhaps, must have a great influence in lightening* their toil. For many generations they have carried out", successfully too, it might almost be said, a method of communism not based upon previous echeming. Their outdoor work is almost entirely communal ; that done indoor beiDg the concern of the families engaged in it only. Every capable man and woman takes a share in the occupations of the island. In regard to outdoor work, they never do anything without having a talk about it. Even in a wee place like St. Kilds, something of the nature of a public assembly, a sort of board of works, to decide the routine of business is necessary. This parliament of theirs meets daily on working days and every man is a member of ie, and occasionally, also, the women put In a word or two, though they have not got the franchise there yet. They have* no palaver house, so they meet in the open air in front of some one of the cottages. I need hardly say there is no Upper House in St. Kilda. When they invent one, let us hope they will place it on the top of Oonnacher, 1300 ft above the sea.

The subjects to be discussed are all strictly practical — whether it is to be boat-mending or bird-catchiDg or lißg-fishiDg or eggcoilecting or Euch like tasks. There are no written rules of discussion, and no speaker to rule members out of order if the debate waxes over hot. They all talk loudly, and all at once, so you may be sure it is not a model parliament. Sometimes they end the how-de-do by casting lots. In earlier times they always decided what was to be done and whQswas to do it by means of the process referred to. Nowadays, if there exist any considerable differences of opinion they take a vote, and the decision of the majority is accepted cheerfully, and the day's task set about without further delay.

This daily palaver is a valuable institution for the St. Kildans. If each family kept to itself and worked by itself they'd soon all go melancholy mad. Their daily bow-wow cheers them and helps to drive away any tendency to brood. The islanders are much more like the ancient herdsmen and flockowners who were the first students of the stars than we are who live in cities and trust to town clocks and almanacs for the time of day and the turn of the tides. The St. Kildans can tell the hours very accurately by observing the shadows thrown by various hills and rocke, as. well as by noting the position of the sun itself. When the sun is obscured they measure time by the ebbing and flowing of the sea, their judgment of this matter depending upon very accurate knowledge of the changes of the moon, a part of natural science in which they are thoroughly versed. The aspect of clouds, tho direction of the wind, the noises made by the eea as it beats on the rocks — all such matters are closely conned by the inlander?, whose lives very often depend upon the trustworthiness of such knowledge. Ig ia a good and wholesome thing for the St. Kildans that they are not tied down to one routine occupation all the year round. The kinds of labour pursued on the island are greatly varied, and variety, as the saying goes, is the spice of life. Life would be fearfully monotonous on St. Kilda if the sole industry was bird-catching, bat as a matter of fact there is plenty oE change. At the proper seasons the crops call for attention, and receive, at least, what the islanders think necessary. In summer the Eheep are

caught, and the wool taken from them by plucking — at least that was so a few years pgo, »nd I have not heard of a pair of shsepshears ever having been seen on St. Kilda. At the beginning of winter the women spin the threao, and during the winter the men weave it into cloth. At different seasons l different birds are on the rocks, and many ♦ varied devices are followed to bring about

their capture. There is no lack of variety, and no desire to shirk work.

As may be inferred, agriculture in St. Kilda is not wrought up to the high level of excellence on which we find it elsewhere. The islanders grow oats, barley, rye, and potatoes, and think to do the best by their crops ; but they plant everything too thickly, and the crops are half-choked before they are half- grown. They used, until quite recently, a spade of very primitive form, such as used to be oommon throughout the Highlands and Hebrides. It had a long handle, a strong wooden foot-peg, and the blade was very badly shaped, being only capable of tossing sods, not of lifting loose earth. The harrows they used were of wood with one row of wooden teeth at the front, timber being too scarce to allow of all the teeth being made of it. To supply this deficiency they used to fasten a lot of tangle by the thin end to the underside of the harrow, and the roots hanging loose behind scattered the clods after a fashion.

As the time draws on for their corn to ripen there is no keen competition between the Buckeye, or the M'Cormiok, or indeed any of the famous reapers and binders

which elsewhere strive for the farmers' favour. They settle the business of harvesting much more simply in St. Kilda. They do not use sickles even, but just pluck the oats and barley up by the roots, and there is an end to the trouble. In former times they pulled the grain in this way, not because of the lack of suitable cutting tools only, but because it suited them better for roofthatching when thus treated. Some of their old-fashioned ways of doing things are by no means lacking in smartness. They can put the grain through the varioua necessary processes and make it into bread within an hour from the time when it was growing in the field. This trick of theirs of shelling, winnowing, drying, grinding, and baking in an hour's time was once common in the Highlands and islands. The process is described in Boswell's " Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides." This part of the work is done by the women. The ears of grain are

held in the left hand, a flame is applied with the right, the husks and chaff blaze, and a smart tap with a stick at the proper moment frees the grains. Nowadays the oats are usually threshed with a flail,, then scorched in an iron pot, or in a straw basket, containing hot stones, previous to being ground. The grinding is done by the women, who make the mills go at a great speed. These mills, called querns, are of the simple form familiar to everyone— two circular stone?, one on the top of the other, with a handle let into the upper one, the same as are still in common use in the East, and, indeed, in modified forms, among all sorts of undeveloped folk in many parts of the world.

The soil of St. Kilda is not of a very highclass quality. Tne bills are mostly covered with black and brown earth to a depth of from a few inches to lft in some places. On the top there is a peat moss yielding plenty of turf, which serves for fuel. The arable

land is a sloping tract near the village, and this piece of land is subdivided in ancient village-commune style among the different fßm licp. To their primitive agricultural tools allusion has already been made. They enriched the ground witli turf ashee, straw, the bones, wings, and entrails of seafowl, large quantities of the carcases of puffins, &c, &c. The defunct puffins are said to

make most excellent manure, and the things grow very well despite various drawbaoks, but the odour to noses not accustomed to it is shocking. According to Martin there used to be 2000 sheep on St. Kilda, with goat-like horns and " speckled " wool. Probably his estimate included all those owned by the islanders. Many of the sheep were and are still grazed upon the great rocks lying near St. Kilda. The isles Soa and Boreray are both grazing grounds, as well as many of the lesser islets. Of horses, they had. early in the century about 20, but years ago the oldest inhabitant could only just remember seeing the last surviving pony upon the island. ~ . The St. Kildans now live in ordinary stone-built cottages roofed with iron. These houses were built about 30 years since, but previous lo that time the people lived in great huts of the same pattern as used to be common to all the western isles. These old houses were very substantial, though no lime was used in building them. They had double walls of stone with turf packed in between. The floors were sunk beneath the surface of the ground a little way. These huts were thatched with straw, had only

apologies for doors, no windows to speak of, and the chimney did double duty by letting the smoke out and the light in. If it rained or hailed or snowed a due proportion found its way into the interior, and helped, doubtless, to increase the enjoyment of thoee sitting on the rude stools about the earthen hearth. The way in which the roofing was fixed can hardly be described as brilliantly clever. The thatch was held down by ropeß of straw or twisted heather, to the ends of which, beneath the eaves, large stones were attached. Boswell, when he saw houses of this sort in Skye, thought that when the wind rose the stones were likely to come down and knock someone on the head.

Some of these huts had beds in the wall, access to whioh was got by way of an aperture like the mouth of a baker's oven. Cosy nests, no doubt, bat not to be commended from a hygienic standpoint. Although strangers found these houses to be intolerably smoky and close, with " ancient and fishlike smells" everywhere, the islanders thought them very comfortable, beiDg habituated to their peculiarities. The heavy thatch kept out the winter cold, and it was easy, with turf and rotten driftwood, to keep a good fire roaring on the hearth when it was needed. To shelter them from the tempestuous south-west winds all these houses had their doors opening at the northeast side.

A still more primitive type of house used to obtain in St. Kilda. This was of the bee-

hive pattern, and was literally the same, allowing for the difference of materials, as is still used by various native African tribes. The architecture of such a house is extremely simple : first a circular pit was dug, around the mouth of this, upon the surface of the earth, a low wall of stones and turf was reared ; upon this were laid the rafters or slopiug supports for the thatch, which might be straw, heather, or gorse. At the peak of the roof the rafters were tied round a piece

I of hollow tree trunk, forming a chimney and 1 air hole. The fire was in the middle of the earthen floor, ia a depression usually, and the sleepers lay around it in a radius with their fest pointiog inwsrd. The door in the bee-skep houses was a mere hole big enough for a grown man to crawl in at. It is long since the last one of thiß class of house disappeared from St. Kilda, but on Boreray

a fine specimen existed till about 50 yeans ago. The idea of digging a hole to save the trouble of building a wall is simple and ingenious, and seems to be very widely diffused. Such houses would probably be Cooler in summer and warmer in winter, and at all times would present less surface to the wind than buildings placed upon the surface of the ground.

I have mentioned the seafowl as an item of the firss importance in St. Kildan economics. Ib is quite likely that bad there been no seafowl there would likewise have been no St. Kildans. The people are there mainly because the birds are there; the other sources of supply — the few aores of corn and the fish they take- occasionally — could not. for long keep even the smallest population in life. A few weeks of storm or a bad harvest would suffice to cause serious famine in the island. " The humble blessings of bread and wildfowl, of peaceful cottages and little flocks, of angling rods and hunting rppes" may be, all "the riches, honours, and profits they aspire after " ; unhappily they don't always secure even these, for in Sfc. Kilda, as elsewhere, dearth and famine sometimes prevail. Like much greater and more skilful farmers they have a bad year occasionally. On the principle, I suppose, that misfortunes never come singly, it. now and then happens that both birds and crops fail at the same time, and theie has been famine in real earnest on the wee island.

When famine threatens great lauds all the world soon hears of it, and something at least is done to lessen the evil. But alas for the poor St. Kildan. His ocean-bound home 1b not joined by submarine cable to the great land of which it forms the most remote untended fragment. When famine stalks abroad in oft Kilda the folk must suffer and wait. The same storm that destroys ■ their crops and drives their 'sheep in scores over the cliffs if long continued, effectually outs them off from means of communication with the mainland. Even the few passing ships are useless to them at suqh times, for all sailors know and dread the vicinity during bad weather. During such stormy spells even the "factor's smack " remains securely in harbour, and the islanders must straggle on as well as may bo. The grain and potatoes laid away for seed will be eaten ; if it be summer the green crops will be plucked up and eaten also. Mr Sands was on the island once during such a dearth when everyone was on short rations, and he was able to send for and bring assistance in such a novel manner as the Sb. Kildan had never dreamt of before. His first experiment consisted in oarviDg a small canoe, into the hold of whioh he put two bottles containing letters. The natives," with extreme incredulity as to the results, saw this little ark launched, during a favourable wind, upon February 5, 1877. On January 28 such a storm blew over St. Kilda as had never been experienced by Mr Sands before that time. The wind blew with extreme fury from the north-west, bringing with it heavy showers of sleet. The waves, as they came rolling into the bay huge and threatening, had their heads blown off and scattered as spindrift by the wind, yet Mr Sands says upon this day many of the women went to church barefooted.

Mr Sands hoped the canoe would be driven by wind and tide to Uisfc, and, despite tho predictions of the islanders that it would be heard of no more, it was found stranded on a sandbank at Poolewe, in Rosshire, by a gentleman, who posted the letters. Five days before launching the canoe, Mr Sands had despatched a life buoy rigged with a mast and sail, and having a bottle containing a letter lashed to it This circular ship made a remarkable voyage, being found at Birsay, in Orkney, nine days later. The missive it carried brought about a prompt visit from the Government vessel Jackal with a supply of oatmeal and biscuits to keep the folk goiDg in life. It. need hardly be added that the St. Kildans were quite taken aback upop finding that these queer floating messengers so quickly brought them efficient aid.

Usually there is plenty to eat on the island. The quality of the viands may not be excessively fine, yot, with strong hunger for a Bauce, even roasted solan-goose or puffin may be some at leatt eatable. Roast puffin is said to taste like kippered herring with a flavour of dogfish. The St. Kildans eat them at any rate, and I daresay other people would do so also if they had to. The island cookery is. nlbra plain, but apart from that I fear it would take a very great cook to turn a solan-goose into a dainty.

One great good thing which I doubt not has a powerful effect on their appetites is that they go direct to Nature to tupply their needs. The birds they pursue are not to be got without hardihood and daring. Pickled puffin or solan-goose may not be superlative delicacies in themselves, but we may be sure that they are vastly more palatable to the man who risked bis life to get them than to the fame man had he bought them over a counter.

(To be continued,)