"There comes a time when silence is betrayal"
(Martin Luther King)
Scotch Cattle was the name taken
by a secret brotherhood of coal miners in South Wales. Dressed in cow skins, wearing elaborate headgear
comprised of the severed head of a black bull, the gang would raid at night, visiting
and terrorising the home of a local miner known to be working during a strike
or liaising with an employer against the local mining community. Sometimes as many as 300 men would gather high
on the mountain. With torches ablaze they would arrive at a house announcing
their presence by screaming and shouting, blowing horns and rattling chains. They
would break-open the house door, smash windows, destroy all furniture and burn any
fabric items in a bonfire. If the homeowner were to resist he would be beaten
severely, regularly breaking their bones so as prevent them returning to work. Several
members of these bands were possibly idealists, but others were local thugs merely
looking for a chance to loot property from the groups' targets—or even, in some
cases, from bystanders. The brotherhood flourished during the 1820s and 1830s,
the last confirmable reference to a Scotch Cattle raid dates from 1850. However,
in 1926, the Scotch Cattle were revived by pickets in the great strike who dressed
themselves as Scotch Cattle, evoking the memory of the terroristic enforcement
of solidarity that the Cattle had carried out in the past. The origins of the
name Scotch Cattle are unclear – one theory is the name derives from the idea a
local mine owner kept a herd of Scottish Black Cattle. The stealing and
skinning of the animal could be seen as a provocative act, an act of defiance, solidarity
against the appalling working and living conditions subjected on the men and
their families by the rich landowner.
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