Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Marching Through Time Part 2

We also spent some time (1770s) with the Scottish encampment.

Here we learned many amazing things about their time and place.

Firstly, they were from the time and place where the Second Doctor picked up Jamie, one of my favorite companions.

Secondly, they predate clan tartans.  The Emperor happened to ask, and it turns out clan tartans date from 1820.  Not the 1820s, 1820.

The concept that a clan wore a particular tartan was a fiction dreamed up by an English travel writer, and popularized by Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.  It settled in the English mind so firmly that when the King visited in Scottland in 1820, he asked to meet all the clan chiefs "wearing their clan tartans."

Well... wearing tartans at all was a Highland thing, but at least they could look in their closets. The Lowland chiefs had to look through weaver pattern books and pick something out!  In the case of the fellow behind Choclo, his clan's tartan was chosen by the chief's wife, who chose a blue that matched her eyes.

That doesn't mean a clan tartan isn't a real thing now, 235 years later!  In fact, I think it has helped many emigrating Scots hold on to their Scottish culture (disclosure, my dear MIL was from the Clan McKnight).

We did see a few later encampments, but the younger Zoomlians were pretty well hot and tired by the time we hit anything like modern times.

I think these guys were British from the 1850s.  They were brave enough to let Choclo hold the sword but not brave enough to let him draw it, which explains his look of consternation.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a successful event without dancing!

Here we have Klenda and Leena:

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