Well I just wanted you to watch that because I know that some of you will love getting to hear Amazing Grace played by a piper and others will have been cringing the whole time while you were listening. Bagpipers are an amazing breed of soldiers they are not your typical bugler like in other armies. While all your drummers and buglers in other armies are at the back of the army and do not actually fight, the bagpipers are in the front of the regiment and are bolstering the moral of the troops before they go into battle. The ring of the pipes through the hills is one sound that carries for a super long distance. After unnerving their enemies with their music,(also the fact that they painted themselves so that they were all white), and the battle would commence the pipers didn't retreat to the back of the troops they stayed in the front and put down their pipes and pulled out their swords and fought along with all the other troops.
To me that is one of the biggest pieces of Folk knowledge that can't really be passed down which is that when everyone else is feeling nervous and needs their spirits lifted before the coming battle to play and do what ever you can to help to strengthen your fellow soldiers. When the time comes for the actual fighting, whether you are fighting on the hills of Ireland or slogging through the trials of college classes, you need to face the battle when it comes. This kind of attitude to work out your own problems is not a piece of knowledge that seems to have been passed down as well as it should have been. Today for some reason many people seem to want all of their problems handled for them but as in the past a good work ethic and some dire circumstances can really help to spur on the Folk knowledge that I have learned from the piper of the past.
There was this 10 year old boy in my home ward that wanted bagpipes for Christmas. So his Dad got himself and his sweet boy bagpipes and they learned how to play them together. They performed a few times at different ward functions. Personally I think watching someone play bagpipes is more exciting than just listening.
ReplyDeleteIt was really an interesting topic to read and learn more about.
Great choice!
Montana this was a really cool topic!
ReplyDeleteI think the camaraderie and esprit de corps felt between soldiers, whether symbolized through playing bagpipes or whatever else, is an interesting bit of folk knowledge because it has been prevalent across all civilizations throughout history and still continues to this day.
Ahahaha! I was definitely one of those who was cringing while watching the video. :P Don't get me wrong, I think bagpipe players must be very talented to play like that! The music just don't resonate with me like it must have resonated with those ancient Irish soldiers. :)
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, your post got me thinking about this "lost" piece of folk knowledge and why it was lost. It seems to me that this particular virtue (while something deeply personal) has much to do with the culture of the time and the community in which these soldiers were raised. Not only did the piper stand and fight, his fellow comrades expected it from him! Now if this attitude has been lost from our culture, the blame falls not only to the parents (who are seen as the principle instructors) but to the modern institutions of learning. Is it possible to create an institution of learning where values such as courage and responsibility are taught like they were anciently?
Re: Jake
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting question. Can we create an institution of learning to bring back values like courage and responsibility? On the one hand, I think it was Professor Petersen who said that almost anything we had in the past, we can have again, but how do we go about doing that for these kinds of folk knowledge that are getting less and less common.
I do have to point out, the Church does a better than average job at teaching these; just ask someone who has served a mission what they learned about responsibility while they served.
I think that with certain kinds of past folk knowledge there is no way that they can become folk knowledge again. Like foot binding that occurred in china. Today, if anyone were psychotic enough to choose to bind their feet, some type of instruction or text would be needed to properly do so. But in ancient china, it was a tradition that was passed down for so long that mothers would just teach their daughters how to do it.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that it is some knowledge that needed to be forgotten and lost. Not forgotten in the sense that it is erased from history. But knowledge that isn't passed down generation to generation by doing
I guess that makes sense, and maybe Dr. Petersen wasn't referring to folk knowledge when she said what she said. (does anyone else remember hearing that?) Anyway, that's interesting, I wonder how often that has happened in the past; folk knowledge that changes into a different form of knowledge, learned from a book etc. I suppose there are probably quite a few.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think is amazing is how different people can gather and learn the same knowledge, but they will retain it differently and from that, that knowledge is evolved and changes.
ReplyDeleteFor example: 2 people can learn how to play the piano, but they could split into one person playing jazz and the other classical.
I just think how spectacular it is that knowledge can be twisted and warped to fit a person's personality too.