THE UISTS AND BARRA. 279 



imposed upon the Council for repressing the practice of 

 sorning, indicates that oppression of the people by the 

 chiefs was so rife as to be a matter of common notoriety. 

 It does not, however, necessarily follow that the heads of 

 the clans were uniformly tyrannical in their conduct to- 

 wards their inferiors. The fidelity of the clansmen to their 

 hereditary leaders, unique though it was, could not have 

 stood the strain of consistent oppression and unrelieved 

 despotism. The chiefs had rough and ready methods ; 

 they were not influenced by the fine distinctions which 

 prevail in modern communities, where justice between man 

 and man is a recognised principle ; they were arbitrary in 

 their dealings with their followers, as they were uncertain 

 in their relations towards one another. But while they 

 took from the people with one hand, they gave with 

 the other ; while they exacted calps from their tenantry, 

 they feasted the calp-payers right royally ; while they 

 plundered their clansmen to replenish their wine-cellars, 

 they let the wine flow in a common carousal. The exac- 

 tion of calp, it may be explained, consisted in an acknow- 

 ledgment of dependence on a chief; it took the form of a 

 death duty represented by the best horse, cow, or ox of 

 the deceased tenant, which was claimed by the chief as a 

 matter of right. The practice gave rise to various abuses, 

 and in 1617, was finally abolished in the Highlands and 

 Isles. 



The uprooting of the Gaelic language and the substitu- 

 tion of English, as the current tongue in the castles of the 

 Hebrides, formed part of the policy of the Council for 

 Anglicising the chiefs. The importance of language as a 

 vehicle for modifying character, thus received due recogni- 

 tion at the hands of the Edinburgh statesmen. That the 

 prevalence of Gaelic was deemed by them to constitute 

 a stumbling-block in the way of reform, is evident from 

 an Act of the Council passed in December, 1616. The 

 provisions of this Act included the establishment of an 

 English school in every parish of the kingdom, and the 

 Bishops were charged with the duty of carrying out the 



