"Rules" for wearing family tartan

[Tobus]

Tartans (unlike coats of arms) are usually intended to be worn by more than one individual at a time, most being intended for entire clans or names; yet the situation of entitlement vs. capability is almost identical. Anyone is capable of assuming a coat of arms, but not all those who assume a particular coat of arms are actually entitled to bear them.

"Almost identical"? They're completely different. Where there is a legal entitlement to arms, there is none for tartan. There never was. The tartans themselves did not originate from any sense of entitlement whatsoever, and comparing it to something that did and calling it "almost identical" is stretching things quite a bit.

The idea of tartan being restricted to certain surnames is nothing more than a recent tradition (less than two centuries old), which was never universally practiced in any time period, and is only observed by a few romanticists who want tartan to mean something other than what it originally did.

And while I fully respect the idea of clan tartans having some meaning to people and offering a sense of connection to kin, I think it's important to be truthful and objective in relaying to others the history of tartan, instead of trying to push a narrow, romanticized, mythical agenda.

Myself, I wear only one tartan: the clan of my mother. And I am even taking steps to adopt her name (although the reason has nothing to do with tartan affiliation) which would put me in full compliance with Mr. Mackinnon's advice. But at the end of the day, I don't really care what he thinks is 'correct' or not. Just because he wrote it down doesn't make him the authority; nor is his opinion the final word. Plenty of other historians disagree with him. I wear the tartan I have blood ties to, which has absolutely nothing to do with what my last name is.

[Rob Wright]

I come from lowland stock. I Can trace back to the families old stomping grounds in the borders. Kilt wearing is NOT a family tradition. I am the first Douglas of my line to wear the family tartan. The Douglas tartan is a symbol that allows me to broadcast to others and say, "I acknowledge my Scottish heritage."

I made a decision to learn more about my family when I chose to order my first kilt. Wearing the Douglas tartan does not change a single thing about my family, our stories, or the connection to Scotland. The tartan is the most visible symbol I choose to use to proclaim my family's Scottish connection.

Mackinnon's opinion that only one who has the surname has an "entitlement" to the tartan, while one without the surname is free to wear it but cannot claim "entitlement" in essence renders the whole idea meaningless. What on earth does it mean to claim some individuals have a special entitlement to a tartan, which he then admits that anyone else is free to wear? In effect it means that there is no such entitlement at all; the notion that there is serves only to "puff up" the man who actually bears the clan surname. It creates the illusion that he is somehow more "authentically Scottish" than the person with a sept name.

Well said Matt, well said.

Rob

[BoldHighlander]

From
Collins Scottish Clan & Family Encyclopedia
by George Way of Plean LLB (hons), SSC, FRSA, FSA (Scot)
& Romilly Squire OStJ, DA, FRSA, FSA (Scot)
& with the assistance & imprimatur of the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs:

"As already stated, chiefs are considered the authority as to what tartans their clans should wear. Any tartan specified in a Grant of Arms by the Lord Lyon is registered by him, and clan chiefs recognized as such may have their tartans recorded in Lyon Court Books. Otherwise the rules are not strict....

Similarly, there is no real restriction on the wearing of a specific tartan, apart from good taste. The typical statement 'my great-grandmother was a MacPherson therefore I have the right to wear the clan tartan' has no basis in fact. No such 'right' exists. Also, a man takes his father's idenitity only, and any claims made through the female line are not, strictly speaking, valid. In fact, there is nothing to stop anyone wearing whatever pattern of tartan takes their fancy but they should not, it is suggested, make invalid claims as to any reason they may have for doing so.

There are, however, shibboleths which exist over the wearing of different tartans at the same time: wearing two different tartans of your clan may be defensible, but wearing tartans of more than one clan is almost certainly not."

[OC Richard]

Wowza... I can't believe I just waded through nine or ten pages of this.

We should keep in mind, when we speak of clan tartans, that in the early 19th century when people were attempting to ascertain each clan's tartan, that the chiefs themselves didn't know they had a tartan to ascertain.

It's why so many were willing and eager to take as gospel the Hay Allan's brothers' putative ancient manuscript. These fakers told the chiefs what their "authentic" tartan was, the weavers wove it and the chiefs wore it... and it was all bogus. It's why I have little patience for all this talk of tradition and clans and rights etc etc.

Tartan wearing was "whimsy". People wore tartans they liked, and none had any significance.

Here's a portrait of the MacDonald children, which well documents the orginial attitude, that the specific designs were meaningless:



It may not be clear due to the small size of the image, but one of the boys is wearing three different patterns, and the other boy is wearing a fourth, none of them traditional MacDonald tartans. That was the norm in 18th century portraits, each item of clothing in a different pattern, though the colours harmonised. (Actually a couple of these patterns have been lifted off this portrait in modern times and woven.)

On the other hand, someone earlier said that all of our tartans are 19th century inventions. Not the one I wear! Which can be dated to the first quarter of the 18th century. And many others can be dated to before 1745, and many others to before 1800. That's what makes studying tartans so interesting to me, the layers of it all, how old stuff was overlayed with a layer of Hay-Allan stuff etc.

And this stuff about tracing our ancestory... if you go back 200 years each of us had 1,024 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents... 400 years ago each of us had more than a million people that we're the direct descendants of. So we could each probably choose any last name that existed in the part of the world our ancestors came from, and it would be just as much "our" name as the one we happen to currently use.

The more I read about the history of Highland Dress, and about DNA research, the more I come to the conclusion that we might as well wear any tartan we like.