My point, for Michael Morris and others: yes, if Scots Gaelic call-and-response people interacted with African-Americans in 1740, influences could have been transmitted. Well, of course they could, and probably were. What I was querying was how much that influence was transmitted. My crucial point was: because call-and-response has lasted in the Isle of Lewis to the present day has no logical connection whatsoever with an assertion that they were the only people using call-and-response in 17th century north America, and that therefore any call-and-response music subsequently arising had its roots in Scots Gaelic music. It is technically possible that the assertion is true, but the lasting of this form in Lewis is no evidence at all. What we must do is look at what happened in southern USA 1700-1900, not what is happening now in the Lewis. That is just TV "make a controversy" stuff.