Scotland's Rock Art Project (ScRAP)
Date 9 July 2018
Event ID 1118233
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1118233
Date Fieldwork Started: 09/07/2018
Compiled by: ScRAP
Location Notes: This is a rocky headland below the ruined chapel with extensive outcropping rock. The circular depressions are at the high tide mark and are all almost certainly bait holes, or toll sollaidh, used for grinding whelks, cockles, limpets, mussels, and other shell-fish before throwing them into the sea to attract fish.
They may be some of the bait holes referred to by Alexander Carmichael, writing on Carmina Gadelica ii, 361: 'The Lady Amie (14th century), wife of John, Lord of the Isles, sent men round the islands to make hollows in the rocks in which the people might break shell-fish and prepare bait. Such pits are called 'toll solaidh,' bait holes. These mortars resemble cup cuttings, for which antiquarians have mistaken them.' This information may derive from a document about Teampall Chà irinis in North Uist, recorded from John Mackinnon in 1871.
