The Great Binding Weave

They say that you can know a people by the weavings that they wear. This is

true of the Inka of the Andes, who wear specific ponchos that speak of their

family lines, the Dagara people of West Africa, the Din?and Pueblo people of

Arizona and, it would seem, most other indigenous peoples throughout the world

as well.

To the trained eye the weavings of tribal peoples speak volumes. With a mere

glance, a seasoned culturalist has access to all sorts of information, such as

history of migrations, battles fought, the lore surrounding certain great

ancestors and other special events that no one else may see in the binding

weave of a garment.

My first experience of this phenomenon occured in 1996. On this particular

evening I had been to a Celtic cultural gathering complete with music, dancing

and lots of heather ale. The evening addressed a variety of topics of

interest such as Celtic mysticism, the Celtic love of nature and focused a

great deal on the importance of the ancestors in Celtic traditions. As a Scot,

I was, of course, in my kilt.

At the conclusion of the ceilidh, I decided to go visit a friend of mine who

was hospitalized in the intensive care unit at the community hospital in

Boulder. He was experiencing a rare medical situation whereby the bones in

his neck had deteriorated and had actually pinched off some of the nerves from

his brain to the rest of his body. The result was the necessity of an

emergencysurgery to remove the fragments of vertebrae and his recovery time

would be several days, with the likelihood that he would not walk again. I

doubted seriously that Phil would even know I was present in the room, yet I

felt the need to check in on him.

Upon my arrival in Phil's room I was surprised to discover that he was

completely conscious and, although slightly groggy from medications, could

communicate clearly with me. The grim prognosis that he would never walk

again had also been overturned, as he had miraculously sprung from the bed

earlier in the day and began walking himself around with the aid of a walker.

I was astonished.

After a while, more visitors entered the room and I decided to go on my way. I

took the elevator down a few floors, stepped out and began walking down the

hall toward the front lobby of the hospital. I noticed an elderly gentleman

in a wheelchair rolling himself down the hall toward me. Just as we began

passing each other he let out a yell and pointed to my kilt, which I was still

wearing from the activities before.

"Hey! I know that! It's the MacEwen!" he declared with assurance.

I was surprised that he knew this just from sight. With over four thousand

recorded tartans in the world, the identification of specific tartans takes

many years of practice.

"How did you know that, sir?" I asked.

"Well, son, the way I knew that is because I'm a Ewing!" he replied.

Like so many other Scottish family names, the name Ewing is an anglicized

version of an older Gaelic name, MacEwen, and is but one of nearly a hundred

variant spellings of this particular clan.



I became very, very excited by his introduction because I had only recently

become aware of the thick bloodlines of my Scots heritage on both sides of my

family, and here was an older man who really seemed to know what he was

talking about.

Our conversation was jovial and went on and on, with the man began telling me

about how he and his son used to be very active in the Scottish community many

years before. They had played the bagpipes, went to Scottish gatherings and

had even been planning a trip to Scotland, . . . . that is, before his son had

been killed in the Vietnam War. With the mentioning of this, Mr. Ewing's

demeanor changed.



As he spoke, the obvious pain the man was living with day in and day out began

to grip me. I knealt down and took his hand into mine. He had no family left

and he had been diagnosed with a terminal illness that required him to make

frequent stays in the hospital. He reported that his lungs were damaged and

how we had to give up playing the bagpipes years before, and how his life had

also decreased in quality over the last year as he had lost his ability to

walk and had become "tied to a damn chair."

What I had previously thought would be a quick conversation about my kilt with

an interested stranger gradually transformed to a deep heartfelt time. Mr.

Ewing expressed his desire to get up to Estes Park, Colorado, to attend the

Longs Peak Highland Festival but that he knew he would never lay eyes on the

gathering. He told me how he didn't really have any possessions, and

certainly none that tied him to his Scottish heritage. I made a mental note

when I heard this, instantly knowing that I would be getting Mr. Ewing a gift.

After a while, it was time for me to go. I stood up, leaned over and we had a

final embrace before my depature.

"It has really been good talking with you, son. You're a good lad" Mr. Ewing

announced.

"Yes. Yes it has been good. I'll come back for a visit, ok, and I'll stay

for longer, "I promised him, as I began walking down the rest of the hallway.

Just as I was about to round the corner I heard a thunderous voice erupt from

behind me. "Hey!"

I turned around, looking back down the long corridor at the sight of the old

man sitting in his wheelchair, with a fist raised above his head.

". . . .Yea, you! Wear that kilt with pride, boy! It is who we are. You

honor them and yourself when you wear it. Don't ever let anyone make fun of

it. If they call it a skirt or a dress, . . . . give 'em a bloody lip, lad!"

the man yelled.

A wave of pride washed over me in that moment. I saluted to him and he

matched my salute, each of us then going our separate ways.

The chance encounter with the man really affected me. Within four days

following the synchronistic meeting with Mr. Ewing, I took a trip to downtown

Denver to our local Scottish store, the Thistle and the Shamrock. I decided

that I wanted to give Mr. Ewing a gift, so I purchased a MacEwen clan cap

badge (clan crest) and a MacEwen scarf in the ancient colors. I absolutely

couldn't wait to give the items to him. From our conversation I knew that the

objects would be sacred to him and that he would greatly appreciate having

them.

I purchased a card covered in Celtic knotwork and wrote an inscription to him:

"To Mr. Ewing. A few small gifts for one who had the presence of mind to

identify his family colors as they were passing by. With this small gesture,

may you know in your heart of hearts that you are not alone. Your kinsman,

Frank MacEowen of MacEoghainn."

That afternoon I went back up to the hospital. I checked in at the front desk

and asked what room Mr. Ewing was in. They directed me to what appeared to be

the Oncology ward, which instantly informed me of what terminal illness he was

grappling with. When I reached his particular floor I checked in with the

help desk and nurse's station, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for the

sight of Mr. Ewing rolling along in his wheelchair.

Eventually a young woman asked if she could help me. I told her I was looking

for an elderly man named Mr. Ewing. The nurse nodded and then looked down on

a piece of paper attached to a clipboard. Slowly she glanced up at me, with a

slight frown.

"Are you part of the family?" she asked in a gentle tone.

"Well, in a manner of speaking," I replied with a laugh.

"Mmm. I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Ewing died last night," the nurse announced,

placing her hand over mine.

I was shocked. I couldn't believe my ears. I asked to be shown which room he

had been in and I decided to go sit inside for a time. There was a strange

emptiness to the place, yet a lingering sense that Mr. Ewing had been there.

With the door securely closed for a few moments, I spoke.

"Mr. Ewing. I'm very sorry I missed you. I brought you some things. I got

you a MacEwen clan cap badge and a scarf, but I guess you won't be needing

them now."

I sat quietly for a long time, contemplating the way in which the old man and

I had met, and the swift nature in which he left his life in just a few short

days after our talk. I cried for a time and his words began echoing inside my

head:

"Wear that kilt with pride. You honor them and yourself when you wear it."

In the day following Mr. Ewing's death, I slowly began to realize that our

connection, albeit brief, had been rooted in the spirit of Celtic fostership.

As Alexander Carmichael tells us in the classic Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and

Incantations--Collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the Last

Century, ''Fostership among the Highlanders is a peculiarly close and more

tender tie even than blood." What began to dawn on me was that, despite how

little I actually knew the man, Mr. Ewing's death had just made him one of my

ancestors. He was a MacEwen who had passed on.

In the traditional Celtic sense of kinship there is an old saying that goes,

"Fuil gu fichead, comhdhaltias gu ceud." It translates, "blood to the

twentieth, fostership to the hundredth degree." Later on that Fall, I

attended the Longs Peak Highland Festival, not for myself, but in memory of

the man who never told me his first name. I wore that kilt with pride. with

honor for myself, for them and for him.

-Frank Henderson MacEowen, M.A.
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