Origins of the kilt, is it Celtic or not?

[Blu (Ontario)]

Sorry guys, it must be the hurricane bearing down on me.

Dread, it occurs to me that facets of each culture on the planet seems to develop at or around the same time: this garment you have been talking about (American Native and Greco-Roman), polychromatic music (Gregorian chant and Aztec tonality), monumetal architecture (Chaco Canyon and Machu Pichu [Stonehenge?]). Couldn't we deduce that human cultures follow predictable paths of artistic and social expression?

Necessity is the mother of invention. Similar solutions to a common problem or need will re-appear within unrelated groups as a matter of survival. This also happens in nature with unrelated species... (both insects and birds fly). Non furcated wrap garments are simple and versatile. Similar versions will also appear within different groups. Very difficult to say what influences what over the course of time. Time for a scientific study in clothing cladogenetics :confused: perhaps it could be called "Kladistics for Kilts"! :o

blu

[Archangel]

Is this what you're looking for? It's from an irreverent Scottish site dedicated to saving Scots from Short-Bread Tin history. Sometimes their language and politics is crude but, hey, that's my culture. (Oh, but it doesn't usually slag the Irish, is that a problem?)
Tartan History: http://www.firstfoot.com/Kulture/tartanorigins.htm

Have a look at the other culture links.

[Manu]

Is this what you're looking for? It's from an irreverent Scottish site dedicated to saving Scots from Short-Bread Tin history. Sometimes their language and politics is crude but, hey, that's my culture. (Oh, but it doesn't usually slag the Irish, is that a problem?)
Tartan History: http://www.firstfoot.com/Kulture/tartanorigins.htm

Have a look at the other culture links.

Pretty straight forward to the point. Im sure a lot of people disagree with that article...

[Kilted Kit]

Question to Sir Robert:
How,Sir,is the descendent of proud Celtic highlanders to distinguish himself from from glum, puddle-faced,
abstemious, Calvinist Sassenachs?

[Sir Robert]

One is that there was a huge ammount of cultural exchange between the Celts and the Picts.

The Picts as a culture were wiped from the face of the Earth by the Scoti who were a Celtic tribe. The Picti/Scoti later called "Scots" invented the Kilt.

While the brat + belt = great kilt, I can not find any pan-celtic connection for the phillybeg, it just is not there.

Am I saying that the Irish Catholics can't wear a kilt? No I am not, but neither will I stand and defend them when they claim that the kilt is pan-Celtic.

[macwilkin]

I've noticed a couple of comments in this thread about "Calvinist Sassenachs" and Irish Catholics -- please, let's watch these comments, as we do not need any sectarian arguments developing.

Regards,

Todd

[Schultz]

The Picts as a culture were wiped from the face of the Earth by the Scoti who were a Celtic tribe. The Picti/Scoti later called "Scots" invented the Kilt.

While I agree with you that the kilt is a Scottish garment and not a "pan-Celtic" one in origin, let's not forget that those Scoti that you are referring to came from Ireland.

[An t-Ileach]

One is that there was a huge ammount of cultural exchange between the Celts and the Picts.

The Picts as a culture were wiped from the face of the Earth by the Scoti who were a Celtic tribe. The Picti/Scoti later called "Scots" invented the Kilt.

I'm not sure how accurate the second part of the quote might be, Sir Robert. Cairney held that the Scotti were Errainian Gaels who might have been Cruibhne in origin, or intermarried with them before they crossed over to Ireland; he then held that the Dal Riadans crossed back to the Earra-Gaidheal (Argyll) in the 5th or 6th Century. Anyway, the various Pictish kingdoms to the east - such as Ce, Fortrenn, Fib - themselves expanded and Fortrenn absorbed most of them - there was certainly intermarriage between the Scots and the Picts of Fortrenn (and also with the "Welsh" of Strathclyde). Some writers have held that Pictish was a separate 'P' Celtic language: this is speculation, as there isn't enough evidence apart from place-names. But Fortrenn under Oengus mac Fergusso (a suspiciously Scots sounding name) did conquer Dal Riada; and Dal Riada rose again under Coinnich mac Ailpein (a rather Strathclyde sounding name) (Kenneth MacAlpine) and formed the Kingdom of the Picts and Scots. So I don't think the one wiped out the other culturally - I assume that there was a gradual cultural convergence.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I've been avoiding posting on this thread, but I just want to interject and point out one thing.

The earliest form of the kilt, as we know it, is the belted plaid, and this was a garment that was born in the late sixteenth century Scottish Highlands. Over the next three hundred years, it came to become what we know today as the kilt -- and until modern times, all of that evolution of the garment was in the Scottish Highlands.

It was adopted as a pan-Scottish garment during the nineteenth century as a way of showing Scottish nationalism. It's use as a pan-Celtic garment, however, it entirely modern, beginning in the latter part of the twentieth century for the most part.

So, the kilt developed in the culture and environment of Scotland during the past four hundred years.

All this talk of the original Scoti tribe coming from Ireland, and the influences of the Picts, or the Vikings, and the dress of Biblical times, and the dress of the ancient Egyptians and so forth -- all of this has to do with peoples and events that took place at least one thousand years before the belted plaid was ever conceived of in Scotland.

As romantic as it is to imagine some pre-historic or ancient connection for the kilt, the fact is that any similarity between it and any ancient garment we see is simply coincidence. The evidence to prove any direct link is simply not there.

Let's not forget the very large time frame that is being discussed in this thread. Thank you.
M

[An t-Ileach]

I don't think anyone should dispute with Matthew Newsome as to the origins of the kilt - he has written eloquently on his website and on his blog about the belted plaid. This should be taken as a given.

As an historian (I wasn't always a saddler) with a close interest in the rise and fall of Dal Riada, and a fan of Kenneth Bannerman, a 1,400 year time frame doesn't seem that long (but then, naturally, historians tend to live in the past - it can be really fascinating), and all of it has contributed to who and where we are today. Even that in the 5th and 6th Centuries our ancestors wore the leine and brat contributed to our present condition. But, perhaps Matthew's rebuke is appropriate if we're drifting too far "off topic".

Still cuimhnich air na daoine o'n dh'thainig sinn (to adjust the saying slightly) - "remember the men from whom we come" - isn't a bad motto, even if it has led to digression.