Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 5, 1897

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
131
THE HIGHLANDERS OF SCOTLAND.
BY EX-DEAN OF CUID PAVID MACDONAID, ABERDEEN.
.. TJTHENTIC history casts but a dim light
_%f upon the race or races that first peopled
^Mi the Highlands of Scotland. We are
assured by weighty authorities that we cannot
claim absolute purity for our Celtic tribes ; that
in fact the original population must have received
at ditt'erent periods a large admixture of foreign
blood. The present inhabitants of the Highlands
may be traced back to the Picts, who no doubt
largely intermingled with colonists from Ireland
called Scots. For the earliest historical notice
of our northern ancestors, we must go back to
the time of the Roman Invasion. The Cale-
donians, with whom the Roman legions came
into contact, were distinguished by "ruddy locks
and lusty limbs." They subsisted on milk and
the flesh of their Hocks, together with the
produce of the chase ; and were nearly destitute
of clothes, their bodies being tatooed or painted,
doubtless in a similar fashion to the North
GAI.OACrS ADlii;f:SSING THE CALEDONIANS ON THE EVE OF liATTLE.
American Indians of our own day. Like the
latter, too, they were divided into clans or tribes,
and lived in a state of constant feud with one
another. The march northwards of Agricola,
however, united for a time the scattered clans,
andin the summer of 84 a. D.a liattle wasfoughtat
Ardoch between an army of 30,000 Highlanders
and about 20,000 Romans, which, as might be
expected, ended disastrously for the former.
Primitive in their manners and customs, the
Caledonians were not altogether destitute of the
arts, for in the battle referred to they employed
war chariots of a rude kind, requiring the skill
of artificers in their construction.
ORIGIN OK THE CiAEL.
The Highlanders are, no doubt, of Celtic
origin; but from the ninth down to the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, the Highlands and
Islands were subjected to continual incursions
from Scandinavian hosts, who appear to have
intermarried with the natives, and this mixture
of races must have contributed much to produce
the hardy sons of the mountain, who afterwards
made themselves powerfully felt in the political