[lit-ideas] Re: Duff and the Communists
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:06:57 -0700
Would that be a good name for a band?
Before the urge to crab took over all else--and boy did we eat well
on Saturday night--Lawrence and I were discussing casualty figures in
the Mexican War and how likely it was that anyone understood their
import for the Civil War. My sense is that we've talked that line of
thought out. Enlighten me if I'm wrong.
Before even all that happened, I had wanted to tell you about MacDuff
and the Communists, a tale that Nicholas Shakespeare, who wrote an
introduction to Bruce Chatwin's "In Patagonia," began and that I have
embroidered. Here's what N. Shakespeare writes:
"Swiftly [Chatwin] drew from me how, as an adolescent living in
Buenos Aires, I read aloud to the blind Borges; how our house in
Martinez was guarded by ex-SAS bodyguards who stored their grenades
in my younger brother's desk; and a story I'd picked up in Salta,
about a figure called Guemes, a hero of Argentinia's independence who
had lent his colors to the famous gaucho poncho. Black for the death
of Guemes, red for the blood of his soldiers.
It was the Guemes story that held Chatwin...[snip]...Guemes, I had
learned--indeed I'd worn the same poncho--was an hispanicization of
the Scottish Wemyss: the colors were possibly those of a Wemyss
tartan. Chatwin's blue eyes widened and with hands waiving he
explained how he was at this moment at work on a theory about the
color red. Did I know that Garibaldi, while fighting for neighboring
Uruguay's independence, had filched a consignment of these ponchos
from a warehouse in Montevideo and, on the ship back to Italy, had
scissored them into uniforms for his 'red-shirts'--and so inspired
the red flags flying over the barricades of revolutionary Europe and
ultimately the Kremlin?
I didn't, but I left his flat taking very seriously the link between
a Scots tartan and the red flag of Socialism."
My first bit of checking established that Guemes existed and that the
Wemyss tartan was indeed black and red:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martín_Miguel_de_Güemes
http://www.scotclans.com/scottish_clans/clan_wemyss/tartan.html
Before we go further, I admit I couldn't establish the Guemes/Wemyss
link. The general himself was born in Argentina. Perhaps someone
else on the list can follow that trail?
I can, however, provide a bit of backstory on the Wemyss family, who
are part of the clan MacDuff, who are descended from a black but not
necessarily duff king, named...King Duff; "dubh," from which I
understand we get "Duff," is gaelic for "black."
Parenthesis: the OED suggests modern meanings of "duff"--the golf
stroke and shoddy goods may be of Scottish origin, but neither shows
up in Jamieson, (1808) or Cleishbotham's hand-book (1858), the two
earliest Scottish dictionaries. (Cleishbotham does have "duffart," a
"stupid, inactive person").
King Duff was murdered, which murder gives rise...one way or
another...accounts differ...to Shakespeare's play.
http://www.rampantscotland.com/clans/blclanmacduff.htm
Here's one version of what the sources say:
http://www.io.com/~jlockett/Grist/English/macbethsources.html
So it is not too hard to imagine that the black and the red from the
Wemyss tartan, a black and a red that in Argentina were thought
symbols of death and blood, may have had their origin in the bloody
murder of a black king, of king Duff. But that would be wrong. The
tartan of the MacDuffs looks like this:
http://www.lindaclifford.com/MacDuff.html
Some black and red present, but hardly the dominant motif.
So who were these MacDuffs? And what was their relationship with the
Wemysses? The MacDuffs had the right to place the crown on the
Scottish king's head. When Robert the Bruce was crowned by the clan
chief's sister, the English seized her as soon as they could and kept
her in a public cage.
The MacDuffs were also neighbors to my lot, Clan Chattan and the
Mackintoshes, which BTW is a how we get to have a rampant lion on the
seal.
http://www.heraldry-scotland.co.uk/westhigh5.html
Oooooooh!
And the clan Weymyss? One of the Mrs. Weymysses was the daughter of
the Cock of the North, he who founded the Gordon Setter dog line and
raised the 92nd highlanders. Allan Ramsay in 1745 painted a famous
image of her looking like she's been sucking lemons, with her husband
covered from head to toe--and that's *exactly* what I mean; he's
wearing tartan tights--in plaid. Alas I can't find this picture
online. I mention him because I hoped to find he was exiled to
Argentina for involvement in the Jacobite uprising, but no such luck:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Charteris,_7th_Earl_of_Wemyss
So what to do? Try googling Weymyss Argentina, looking for a trace
of emigration?
http://www.thepeerage.com/p19066.htm
Hon. Muriel Annette Burns, daughter of James Cleland Burns, 3rd Baron
Inverclyde of Castle Wemyss, was the grandmother of Nigel Argentine
Allington.
Only google could get you there!
So, in sum, I'm stuck. But I've mentioned Shakespeare and Burns,
make reference to Stendhal, followed a theory spun by N. Shakespeare
and Bruce Chatwin and aimed at spreading fun. Which is what summers
are for, no?
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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