Religion of the Yellow Stick

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The religion of the yellow stick (Scottish Gaelic: Creideamh a’ bhata bhuidhe) was a facetious name given to the forced "belief" of certain churchgoers in the Hebrides (Scotland). Such actions, however, were not unique to the Hebrides, but occurred in other parts of Scotland in sterner times.

A Coll priest of former times was accustomed to drive recalcitrant natives to church by a smart application of his walking stick; those who yielded were thus said to come under Creideamh a’ bhata bhuidhe.

Another version says that Hector (Scottish Gaelic: Eachann) the son of Donald MacLean of Coll, was the one who applied the yellow stick. Hector was Laird in 1715, and as the religion of the yellow stick was introduced into Rùm in 1726, it is beyond doubt that Hector was the author or propagator of it. He was dignified in appearance and stern in manners, and could no doubt wield the yellow stick gracefully and with efficiency. Dr Samuel Johnson, on his famous journey round the Hebrides (1775) encountered the story; in Rum he said that there were

"fifty-eight families, who continued Papists for some time after the Laird became a Protestant. Their adherence to their old religion was strengthened by the countenance of the Laird’s sister, a zealous Romanist, till one Sunday, as they were going to mass under the conduct of their patroness, MacLean met them on the way, gave one of them a blow on the head with a yellow stick, I suppose a cane, for which the Earse had no name [actually untrue], and drove them to the kirk, from which they have never since departed. Since the use of this method of conversion, the inhabitants of Egg and Canna, who continue Papists, call the Protestantism of Rum, the Religion of the Yellow Stick."

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This article incorporates text from “Dwelly’s [Scottish] Gaelic Dictionary” (1911) (Creideamh-a’ bhata-bhuidhe)