Why sing the lament?

Traditionally a lament, in song at least, has tended to lean closer to the more emotionally loaded definition of the word, being an expression of grief or sorrow, but has not been exempt from association with the looser interpretation of usage, being more simply an expression of regret or disappointment.  I mention this mainly because I thought it might perhaps be pertinent to pop (not so sure the alliteration works in the blogosphere anywhere near as well as it might in poetry or verse but I'm running with it!) a wee explanation as to the etymology of this blog's title, 'Tumshie Heid's Lament', here just in the interests of sharing, or a little clarity at the very least, in what prompted the giving of that particular titular power inherent in name giving or calling.

Initially I had intended to begin posting here back in November 2015, beginning with a short post on the further waning and almost gone practice of carving Tumshie Lanterns for Hallowe'en.  I'm not about, now, to get all seasonally discombobulated but suffice to say there are good reasons, about which there are numerous academic studies giving at least passing reference and inclusion in a general summary of customs, to suspect the practice has older, likely pagan roots associated with the Samhain festival, which is also generally considered to have been the Celtic New Year. These are of course older associations than the most recent common usage of the Rutebaga turnip, a Scandinavian import, as a basis for carving might at first suggest.  In more recent times, increasingly so since around the mid 1980s, the traditional tumshie has of course become replaced by the pumpkin.

Having grown up in a Scottish mining community, with the tumshie as the only fitting and seasonal option for lantern carving, I don't lament the lack of cut fingers or less hours wasted gouging with barely effective spoons, to negligible effect in terms of just how scary your lantern looked after your Herculean efforts, other than scarily unlike anything you'd set out to carve in the first place.  I most certainly have no lamentation over no longer having to close my nostrils against the stench of singeing turnip rind once a candle was placed inside the completed (or at least, not doing any more to it  now it's been four hours etc etc) article.  It's certain, as a tradition in evolution, responding to changing demands and circumstance, the pumpkin wins hands down.

Of course, what can't be measured is what is lost along with the gouging, self flagellating ritual of the tumshie carve.  Certainly an element of 'rites of passage', in a child being trusted to carve a tumshie, with all its difficulties and idiosyncrasies I missed now; family and/or community bonding, where carving was shared for longer with younger children, are both far less likely with the few quick scoops and strokes into the flesh of a soft pumpkin a modern lantern carve takes.

Neither of which are pertinent to my lament though, and it is a lament of sorrow, perhaps not of grief but absolutely of regret and disappointment.  Its root is in the notion which fades and becomes culturally less relevant or lost, as is often the case, as a parallel to the loss of the lantern itself.  It is in a further loss of meaning in cultural exchange around the act.  For me, in particular, in this case, I find it lamentable that my son, despite having been introduced to tumshie carving as a young child, and all the pumpkin generations of which he is part, finds no currency in using the term 'tumshie-heid'!

I understand for some Scots speakers, and in this I presume it is likely a generational or geographical difference, that the term carries negative weight and was mainly used in a pejorative sense conveying stupidity.  For us, growing up in West Fife in the 1970s, it was used liberally by our parents and grandparents but more in a sense of if you were being a bit silly, or, as I've since found out the Scots Dictionary supports as an older derivation and usage, as an admonishment if you had been particularly gullible, as in, with a ruffle of the hair to a child whose been tricked out of a last sweet, 'Ya tumshie-heid!'.  The implication in both usages is that the person's brains have been scooped out, in the latter of the two it's just done with a little more affection!

With a nod towards all of this then, round these parts, well in my kitchen and now this blog anyway, we sing (or blether on aboot!) the Tumshie Heids Lament! (I promise, there's no actual song!). And we reserve the right to use the term liberally, where entirely appropriate and only with a socially accepted modicum of affection too of course, and to all and sundry urge you to do so too, even if it's met with looks of confusion and lack of comprehension, and to know if it's flung in this direction, even if wholly inappropriately used, it will be met with a goofy, gullible, all too trusting tumshie heid smile!

The Refuted Legacy of a Motherless Child?

It is perhaps fitting that when finally I put word to blog, for blogging has long been in the offing chez Tumshie, it is with a post to here.  This is where I had intended to file away, for your perusal, any such findings, and dare I venture the odd musing, as I may have on cultural anthropological matters, particularly (but not exclusively, for I have a wider, more general interest than the specifics of where my academic work has thus far led) of a contemporary nature.  My current study, which is intended to be both historiographically and ethnographically exhaustive, will by its nature be some time in completion. It's frame of reference is perhaps narrow and necessarily focussed in some ways, being within the scope of the general title 'A Political Historiography and Ethnography of Frontal Lobe Epilepsy in Scotland'.  This leaves more within the field of study, and outwith those parameters, for contemporary cultural anthropological exploration than a naturally curious Tumshie and a growing pile of notes and scribblings for studies, articles or (maybe even) full research later (after this one no longer demands all the attention it deserves, obviously) marked 'this looks interesting' can avoid meeting and getting a bit messy over!

So, I say fitting, in that, for a blog intended to shine a wee light into the worlds of things like contemporary folk etymologies or idiomatic cultural exchanges, just when I was despairing of finding the time for a blog to come along, three appear at once!  Having originally intended to write about three different inter-linked subjects, I've separated them out and will just provide links between them where they overlap.  This blog will cover any areas which arise during the course of my studies which are not covered by its parameters and anything else of a mainly cultural anthropological or ethnological nature.  Although I intend to keep it light and accessible, it may delve deeper sometimes, given the time, too.  It will sometimes link to a more intermittent but intended to be more direct, currently loosely thought of as, 'Semiotics thru a Scottish lens', street photography based blog called 'mind yer gap'.  Both will be hosted by The Articulum Press, as well as in a stand alone format, and a third blog, imaginatively titled 'The Articulum Press', linking to them, will chart my work with them as the funding body behind my main research.

All of which, of what may become familiar, wittering preamble brings me to today's titular subject, relevant to the date.  This is a slight expansion of an early draft précis-ing my thoughts and findings on the subject of contemporary Mothers Day observance and its derivation, first published earlier today on the excellent Scottish based new media platform, Kiltr:

Mothering Sunday in the UK has differing roots and traditions to those associated with Mothers Day in the US, though both now tend to follow similar patterns of observance.  As far back as the sixteenth century, on the fourth Sunday in Lent, three weeks before Easter, Christians returned from wherever they were to their 'mother' church and were said to have gone 'a-mothering'.  This developed secular associations with mothering and childhood so that in later years anyone 'in service' was given the day off to visit family.  It became a tradition to pick flowers along the way to place in church or to give to mothers.  By the early 1900s these traditions and their religious associations were waning and rarely observed.

In the US around this time, following her own mother's death, Anna Jarvis conceived of Mothers Day as a way of honouring the sacrifices mothers make for their children.  Having initially gained backing from Wanamakers retail stores for her plan and after campaigning successfully for a national Mothers Day (in the US this became the second Sunday in May), Jarvis denounced what the day had quickly become.

She now began a counter-campaign against celebration of the day, speaking out against retailers, confectioners and florists and urging people not to buy 'Mothers Day flowers, cards and candies'.  She railed against the exploitation of sentiment and over commercialisation of the holiday, actively lobbied government for its removal from the calendar and by the time of her death disowned any association with it.

Despite this reversal already being underway, in the UK, inspired by Jarvis' initial efforts, Constance Penswick Smith created the Mothering Sunday Movement, with the aim of reinstating the earlier observances along the lines of the new US holiday.  Its success came less as the religious revival she had hoped for but much more as an exploited opportunity by merchants and retailers who relentlessly promoted it.  By the 1950s it was celebrated across the UK with as much commercial success as it was in the US.

I wish all of you spending time with your mothers tomorrow a wonderful day, time spent with family, acknowledging and strengthening your bonds, is always time well spent.  As someone with my own lifelong uneasy relationship with the day, can I ask you to please spare a thought for all of those ignored by Jarvis, Smith and the innumerable relentless commercial interests since, who far from 'celebrating' are far more likely to made to feel the exact opposite by its enforced and ubiquitously marketed, saccharine sentimentality and misappropriated sense of obligation.

A little scratch beneath the surface of the origins of the song I have attached here (there are better versions of the 'spiritual', Richie Havens' or Odetta's being my faves, but the film alongside this one seemed fittingly poignant, old feelings persisting even into a modern urban context), with its roots as a folk 'spiritual' among those with African American slave inheritance, sung in remembrance of those children sold as chattels in seperation from their mothers/parents, and its recurring and enduring relevance as a 'cover', would seem to indicate they would have been far more numerous even in their day than either Jarvis or Smith may have cared to imagine.

http://youtu.be/baYgGjio6iA