www.WH6FQE.com

I am going to use this section of the website to impart some of my knowledge of all things Scots including customs, traditions, and dress.

 

The correct term is Scots, or Scottish, not Scotch. Scots are the people of Scotland while Scotch is a type of whisky made in Scotland. Whisky comes from Scotland while Whiskey with an e comes from other parts of the world including Kentucky. People are always mistakingly referring to something from Scotland as being Scotch which is one of my pet peeves.

 

The Scots are in a lot of ways very similar to the Hawaiian people. Both kingdoms were overthrown by a foreign country who tried to eradicate the customs, culture, dress, and the very language of the "barbarian" people to make them more "civilized".

 

This is one of the reasons there are so many Scots in Hawaii, and there is a strong bond between Hawaii and Scotland.

 

After the overthrow of Scotland by England, laws were even passed banning the wearing of kilts and tartan, speaking the Gaelic language, and the playing of bagpipes. Much like the effort here in Hawaii to ban speaking the Hawaiian language and the use of hula to tell stories.

 

Luckily those laws have long since been abolished and there has recently been a resurgence in both the Hawaiian and Scottish people to bring back the cultures, traditions, and language of their ancestors and to pass them down to future generations so that they are not forgotten.