Glenfiddich Whisky Distillery
2018
Single channel HD video, 6:12 minutes
Skye marble, dimensions variable.
History comes from what gets left behind, sometimes with purpose, sometimes not.
The remnants we find are used to make fragmented stories.
Stone Circles have played an important role in peoples understanding of their history.
Over time they have been used for different purposes and social rituals.
Stone Circles were used to study the sun, moon and stars
And to appreciate the landscape in which people lived.
In certain eras Stone Circles were sites where funerary rituals took place.
Burial and cremation were the primary funerary rites.
Both allow a transformation of body to earth and a transition from one world to another.
Burials and funerary rituals can reveal a lot about a person’s status in society.
What do we know of people who did not have status or were excluded from the rites and traditions of their own societies?
There is a story in local folklore of a woman named Barbara Mcintosh who lived, worked and died on a farm at the foot of Ben Rinnes, just up the road.
After her husband abandoned her Barbara continued to raise their two children and work the farm.
Eventually Barbara died by suicide
Who can say what led her to that moment or what could have prevented it?
Trauma can happen in a moment or over time, but its effects last a lifetime and often beyond.
According to the laws of the time, Barbara could not be buried on consecrated land.
She was wrapped in tartan plaid and a party carried her towards the top of Ben Rinnes where the lands of the three lairds met.
Halfway up a storm hit. The party decided not to go on and buried Barbara in the peat where they stood.
The story of Barbara’s death lived on. A hundred years after her death disbelieving local loons attempted to disprove the tale.
They climbed Ben Rinnes to the area that had since been named Babbie’s Moss to see whether Barbara’s body indeed lay beneath the peat.
Her body was perfectly preserved in the peat except for one of the men’s spades piercing her face when they hit the coffin.
The tartan plaid her body had been wrapped in all those years ago was as bright as
the day it fell off the loom.
The loons buried Barbara again beneath the peat.
Another twenty years passed and some more locals doubted the tale.
Another group came to Babbie’s Moss with spades and found her still preserved under the peat.
This time, the police captain found out and decided to give Barbara a proper burial. She was exhumed once again and buried in Aberlour cemetery. The minister and the captain were the only attendees.
Funerary rituals can be seen as a re-ordering of the world, protection against the chaos death can bring.
Barbara was not afforded a traditional burial and the resulting preservation of her body meant she did not rest in peace.
This story fascinated me, and I could relate to Barbara’s story. I wondered who she was. And I realised this story wasn’t about Barbara Mcintosh at all, but about her death and the people who made decisions about her body; about history and what it doesn’t tell us.
Records say no more than how she died, where she was buried and that she was married. There is no record of her life or children.
Artists at Glenfiddich International Residency Programme 2018. Melissa M Button. Saejin Choi. Elyse de Valle. Rhona Jack. Gao Yu. Vanessa Maltese. Biplap Sarkar. Wang Teyu.
Exhibition Three - Elyse de Valle. Wang Teyu. Biplap Sarkar.
Image credits: John Paul, Liu Yao, Elyse de Valle