Over five hundred years ago, my family took to the road.

We weren’t alone.

There are large groups of people who have not had a permanent home for hundreds of years. Some of them are well known such as the Gypsies, or Romany, but others aren’t known at all unless you are one of them or a researcher with an interest in the hidden peoples. Sometimes one of the group makes the mistake of coming into the light for awhile, only to disappear again as soon as possible. There is no one name for the types of people who took to the road and never settled down, so I call them the Long Walkers.

Some of the Long Walkers are called Travellers. Notice the double "L." That is the preferred spelling as each of these groups has a British origin, so British spelling rules apply. The Travellers are divided into these groups — and they usually have nothing to do with each other; despising each other, in fact.

1. New Age Travellers are societal drop-outs, many from the Age of Aquarius, who hit the road, joined communes, and now travel in caravans and tents from town to town throughout the UK and the European Community. They are not hidden and other Traveller groups do not accept them as true Travellers.

2. Irish Travellers are the most notorious of all traveling groups. I will have five or six blogs on them later on this Spring. They come from a very ancient people — perhaps the original folk of Ireland — and came to America in the late 1700’s. They have clans in several areas including White Settlement, TX, Traveller’s Rest, SC, Murphy Village, SC, and smaller groups in NJ, MS, and TN. They are well known to law enforcement.

3. English Travellers are more accurately known as Romnichals. They are descendants of Romany Gypsies who entered England in the 1500’s. They are also in the US in communities around Wisconsin Dells, St. Louis, Downers Grove, IL, and in tucked away areas of Louisiana, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Many people who claim to be Black Dutch are actually Romnichal, if they are not Melungeon, Mestee or some other mixed race group. I’ll do a blog on the English Travellers (or two) later on.

4. Scottish Travellers are known, in Scotland, as Summer Walkers or Pearl Fishers. In days past they were called tinkers (as were the Irish Travellers and gypsy groups), but that term is now considered offensive. The only times I’ve heard this term used was in Ireland by police officers (the Garda) when they wanted to let the Travelling Folk know how little respect the Garda had for them. The Scottish Travellers were also known by the old Scots word "Nawkins" or "Nachins."

Scottish Travellers hit the road sometime before 1250 for it is there that they show up in literature. There is no consensus about their origins or why they took to the road. Most assume that, in the days before civil rights, habeas corpus, etc. these families were kicked off the land by a laird or king and didn’t find a new home. This was not that unusual in Scotland, especially in the years 1220-1900 when absentee landlords combined with religious warfare and clan wars to produce a very dark time, indeed, for the poor man without friends or resources.

Scottish Travellers are and were known as story tellers, entertainers, humorists, and musicians. They were also known for being a form of traveling shop, labor pool, and repair center. They developed regular routes and sold goods, repaired carts and pots and pans, and worked the horses or land as they went from one side of Scotland to the other. During the harsh Scottish Highland winters, they would rent lodgings or live in hastily erected shacks and tents (or homes made of peat and mud cut into brick shape and topped with thatch) in the lee of a mountain. They walked when the weather got better — thus, the "Summer Walkers." They also fished for the multi-colored pearls that come from Scottish rivers such as the Connel. They would take a four sided box without a top or bottom (unless they were wealthy enough to have glass on the bottom side) and hold it into the water, allowing them to see the oysters plainly. To this day, only the Travellers are allowed to hunt for pearls in Scottish rivers. Black, blue, purple, pink and white pearls are then sold for cash. The Travellers never bank their money but spend it quickly, or keep large amounts of cash on hand, or they turn it over into silver and gold and carry that with them. They learned, the hard way, that they cannot trust banks or governments, so they fend for themselves.

They, alone among all the Traveller groups, came to the US and continued to travel outside of it. While the Irish and English formed their communities, the Scots kept moving. And we are still moving. My father, now 76, had not lived anywhere more than 4 years in his life until just recently when he passed 4 years in southern Ohio. The last time I spoke to him on the phone… he was talking about putting the house up for sale and moving on. To where? That has never mattered. As I grew up we rarely stayed anywhere more than a couple of years. He might move on an hour or so down the road or he might move to another country. That is the way of our family. And that is the way of the Travellers.

It took a year of badgering, researching, and pushing before I could get enough out of my father to know we were Travellers. One day I will put all of that work down on paper, but in the meantime, here are some of the unique aspects of Scottish Travelling folk.

They tend to travel before a birth so that the children have the right to be in more than one country. We have done that as well, with a daughter born in Glasgow, Scotland and a son born in Lancaster, Ohio. They tend to be drawn to thrown away people, or outcasts, the broken, or the hidden. Our family has always moved to a place where the church is unknown, started one, built it into a viable unit, and quickly moved on. Before it was fashionable to be accepting of other cultures, we lived among them and treated them as brothers. Even today, I am a minister for a church with a heart for the homeless, poor, and broken.

The Scottish Travellers are usually accepted by other groups, just as they were accepted in Scotland, as a source of joy, work, and support. Some of my earliest memories are of driving dirt roads until they turned into mud and then rock, abandoning the car and walking cross country over rugged hills and down dark ravines as my father named each tree and rock (I always wondered how he knew where everything was and what its real name was). Eventually, we would come into a clearing where ramshackle homes sat, sometimes up on stilts. Mountain people would come out and hug my father, knowing him on sight. This scenario was played out in a dozen different locations, in different countries, from Siberia to Guyana to Ghana to…

Scottish Travellers intermarry with other groups from time to time. Most frequently, when they marry outside the Travellers, they marry Melungeons, Gypsies, or mixed blood groups such as Redbones, Brass Ankles, the Guineas of WV, or Lumbees. My daughter is dark skinned and almond eyed. By mid-summer she looks like a Gypsy. My son is pale, tall, and strong like a Celtic warrior of old. My father is red skinned, dark, with a sharp "Roman" nose. The differences continue, but so do the similarities: a love of words, songs, stories, and an affinity for war (even if, as in my father’s case, that war is a spiritual one). Also — a desire to constantly move on.

I have to nail my shoes to the floor to keep from moving. Every city I pass through, I stop and get
real estate ads, look at the streets, check out the lay of the land — all silently and on my own. I will not stay with people when I go do my seminars or meetings. I require a hotel and privacy. I might eat a meal with someone, but not every day and never more than once a day. The Scottish Travellers are known for passing through quietly, not making a noise unless they are wanted, needed. In Scotland there are less than a thousand of us alive (World Wars One and Two decimated them. Almost every male signed up and served). There are three times that many outside of Scotland. We live in the US, but not in communities (except for one in New England — I will not be more specific than that). We live in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and on quite a few islands in the Caribbean or Pacific. In Scotland, only a hundred Meads remain, almost entirely on the Mull of Kintyre, outside Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye, or up on the roads around Loch Maree.

There were marriages between the Scottish Travellers and the Melungeons. I am only partially Melungeon, but enough to have their mark in my DNA and in my medical history. I have had a life among the hidden people and know many of them. This blog will continue to name and list them so that you may know some of the rich heritage and history all around you… and yet hidden from you.