I certainly agree that the word tradition is vastly overworked and seems to mean different things to different people.

As an example of how I arrive at my understanding I offer the words of Mary Jane Lamond, A Cape Breton Singer spoken in an interview on a Carolina based radio station. The song she was referring to was sung in Scots Gaelic on the occassion of her visit to the Isle of Harris.

"These women were coming over to meet me and sing some songs. As they approached they started to sing a very common milling song in Cape Breton, When they sang it, the way that they sang it, they had the same verses and virtually the same words, I had this strange sensation came over me as I suddenly realised the tenacity of the tradition. Those people in Cape Breton and those women in Scotland with no contact, have kept that song the same for over two-hundred years."

Also to understand this aspect of "tradition" it is necessary to ask why this interview was taking place in the Carolinas. Willy Ruff investigating the origins of gospel music in the black churches of the Carolinas ended up in the Western Isles

"Ruff began researching at the Sterling Library at Yale, one of the world's greatest collections of books and papers. He found records detailing how Highlanders had settled in North Carolina in the 1700s. He found evidence of slaves in North Carolina who could speak only Gaelic, and discovered the story of how a group of Hebrideans, on landing at Cape Fear, heard a Gaelic voice in the dialect of their village. When they rounded the corner they saw a black man speaking the language and assumed they too would turn that colour because of the sun."

To cut a long story short

"A chance meeting with James Craig, a piper with the Royal Scots, put Ruff in touch with congregations in Lewis and Donald Morrison, a leader of singing.

" When I finally met Donald, we sat down and I played him music. It was like a wonderful blind test. First I played him some psalms by white congregations, and then by a black one. He then leapt to his feet and shouted: 'That's us!'
When I heard Donald and his congregation sing in Stornoway I was in no doubt there was a connection."

Warwick Edwards, a reader in the music department of Glasgow University, added: "Psalm singing from the Western Isles is certainly known in America. Whether you can link that up with gospel music is another matter. However one should never underestimate the longevity of these deep-down traditions. They cross oceans and people should be encouraged to investigate this further." His conclusion was the slaves had learnt it from their Scottish slave masters.

Opinion on this differs. Some think the African slaves learnt it from their white counterparts also sent from various parts of the Highlands. But that's another issue.

I see "tradition" as a sort of cultural store house, as I suggest a form of Ancestral Memory. New songs "in the tradition" would be built on this knowledge, poosibly with the assumption that most of the audience would be a party to this 'knowledge' or common history.

OK so I'm a hopless romantic, but I find it almost uncanny on occasions.

SM