Resource

Rev. John Lane Buchanan ‘Travels in the Western Hebrides from 1782-1790’ 1793

Sguab Murain (marram grass brush). Comunn Eachdraidh Siabost, Lewis

This brush uses a combination of twined grass to create the handle and the bundles of rush as the sweeping part of the brush.

Marram Grass Pot Scrubber. Uig Historical Society Museum.

This pot scrubber is in the Uig Historical Society Museum, Isle of Lewis. It was made by taking the roots where the sand had been blown off them on the dunes, and then rubbing them together to from a mat. This item was made by a local man , Findlay MacKensie, who remembered this being done in his youth.

This ciosan is of particular significance because of it having a handle. It is made of marram grass and we know that this marram grass was harvested off the north side of Great Bernera on the Isle of Kealasay. There was marram grass at one site on Great Bernera itself but that was obviously not enough for the needs of the islanders. This harvesting was still being done within living memory but noone seems to know who made them and when the last ones were actually made. The handle is wrapped with the same material that is used for the stitching, but no mention is made of what this is. The handle is a solid piece of wood but the attachment of the handle on both sides was almost completely broken.

By Dawn Susan

Marram grass growing on machair, Isle of Lewis

The marram grass was cut from dunes. The photo shows marram grass, with the fine upright leaves, among the flowers of the machair. The machair is the fertile strip of land lying just behind the dunes, commonly on the west coast of the Western Isles. This machair is behind Riof Beach on the Isle of Lewis.

In the Uists, Kirkibost island became the place to go to harvest good quantities of marram. In Ness, Lewis, Eoropie dunes were a local harvesting place. Just off the coast of Great Bernera, Lewis there is a small island called Kealasay to which people went to cut the marram.

Alisdair Davidson told Julie Gurr how hard on the hands marram was to cut and use because it was so sharp, ‘like a razor’.

This is one material that became unavailable to makers. During Victorian times on Orkney, people were stopped from harvesting the marram due to erosion problems.

Resource

Interview with Alisdair Davidson by Julie Gurr 2013

By Dawn Susan

Ciosan from Uist, probably made from marram grass wrapped with willow or bramble. Highland Folk MuseumQP4

The ciosan

 The ciosan is a small, closely woven basket, formerly made on the Western Isles and along the west coast. It is a coiled basket made from sea-bent (marram grass), or sometimes straw. The coils are stitched together using twine made from rush, marram, even split willow or bramble, or bought twine. Unlike in Orkney and Shetland, where similar baskets called toigs are still made, there are no recent accounts of how or why these baskets were made in the Hebrides. Examples in the Highland Folk Museum are usually described as bannock baskets, but accounts from older sources in the Scottish Life Archive describe the ciosan as ‘A meal measure presented to a bride on her wedding day. Diameters range from 7 inches, 4 inches deep to 12 inches high and a mouth about 18 inches wide.  It holds about half a stone of meal. Common in Lewis about 50 years ago (from 1950s).’

Ciosan Highland Folk Museum QP4 Detail

If you have any information about this kind of basket, or how they were used, please contact the editor of this page sjb20@st-andrews.ac.uk

Here is a gallery of ciosans