"Rules" for wearing family tartan

[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.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Tartan and Heraldry have two very different origins and two very different usages, though because of the modern-day association of tartans with surnames, and the modern-day misconception that "coats-of-arms" are associated with surnames, tartan often gets treated in a heraldic fashion. But really, any time one tries to draw comparisons between the two, one is treading in muddy waters.

I wrote an article a few years ago on this subject for The Scottish Banner, which is archived here:
http://albanach.org/tartans_heraldry.htm

The origins of heraldry are medieval, if not earlier -- in other words, it goes back for centuries, possibly more than a thousand years. It originated as a graphic means to represent an individual identity. A picture or design would be displayed to represent a particular person.

When a knight's identitiy would be otherwise concealed by a full helmet, having his arms painted on his shield, or displayed on his surcoat (hence "coat of arms"), or a crest mounted on his helm, served as a means of identifying him. Heraldry could be displayed on banners flying high above a rallying point on the battle field. Heraldry could be used to mark property to show ownership. But heraldry originated, and has always been used, as a means of identifying an individual person.

Tartan, on the other hand, originated as a textile, a manufacture, and a fashion. Weavers would create artistic designs in the cloth they produced by arranging stripes of various width and color in the warp and weft of the fabric. Tartan weaving was by no means limited to the Scottish Highlands, but the art form became rather characteristic of Highland clothing. The Scots became known for their tartan designs -- not specific, named tartan designs, mind you, but rather their creation of and usage of tartan in general.

When tartan was banned in the Act of Proscription, it was not "clan tartan" being banned. It was tartan in general, as a symbol of the Gaelic culture.

People wore tartans, generally -- they bought their cloth from the weavers based largely on what pattern they found attractive, not what the tartan was or was not named. This practice persisted for much longer than people generally realize. Last year when visiting the Charleston Museum (SC), I recorded the details of a kilt outfit from the late nineteenth century that someone with the surname Rhett had made in Scotland and imported. The tartan was not one recognized today -- no name, no clan.

We have an outfit on display in the Scottish Tartans Museum that belonged to William Muirhead that dates from the 1840s. Today, the tartan has been recorded as the Muirhead tartan, named for the man who wore the outfit. But at the time, in the 1840s, it was an unnamed tartan pattern, loosely based on a Stewart sett.

Even tartans which did have a name were often worn irrespective of what that name might be. We have another kilt in our collection dating from 1800-1820 and it originally belonged to a man named Peter Malcolm. The tartan is from Wilsons of Bannockburn and they called it Locheil. Now there is absolutely no evidence to sugget that Peter Malcolm was from the Locheil region or had any familiar ties to the Locheil Camerons. Likely he just liked the tartan.

The earliest named tartans were named after regiments, after cities and regions, and sometimes just given fancy names like "Regent" and "Caledonia" and "Waterloo." Actually, the earliest way that weavers identified particular tartan pattens in their records was simply by assigning them a number!

Tartan designs have always come and gone -- weavers and wearers have always been free to create their own new designs or alter and renname old ones. This is an ongoing practice. It's never been regulated by any authoritative body.

Now the custom has arisen over the past 200+ years of wearing tartans in a symbolic or representative fashion. By wearing a tartan with a certain name, you are identifying yourself as having some kind of affiliation with what the tartan is named for -- most often a clan, but it might be a district or these days a corporation or club or a web forum! And the principle is generally accepted that a clan chief has the right to declare what tartan(s) is/are recognized as official for that clan. By extension, this same perogative extends to the respective authority of whatever other body may wish to have a tartan (the CEO of a company, or the governing council of a town, etc.)

But that's as far as any such "authority" over tartan extends. People remain free, as they always have been, to wear any tartan they like. Tartan is not heraldic. No special permission needs to be sought after or acquired. No entitlement is necessary.

[campbell]

Some of the more popular universal tartans are:

Royal Stewart
Hunting Stewart
Black Stewart
Black watch (Campbell modern)
Pride of Scotland
Caledonia
Jacobite


All of these tartans are worn without regard to Clan affliation or surname.

A few common Clan tartans are:
Buchanan
Dress Gordon (White)
Gordon Modern (Military - Green)
Lindsay Modern
MacKenzie
MacLeod (Hunting - Green, official tartan of the Boy Scouts)
Wallace (Dress-red)
Wallace (Hunting-green)

These tartans are clan tartans but are worn by many individuals who want a kilt to wear around the house or to non-Scottish events. However, if you are attending a Scottish event, and do not have a clan it is best to wear a universal tartan.

All solid color kilts (non-tartan) are also worn without regard to clan or surname, but saffron and green kilts are associated with the Irish community in the minds of many people. Solid black is the most common choice for a non-tartan kilt. However, for those of Scots background a proper kilt should be made of tartan fabric.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

[Brian K]

...those who bear the surname of that clan are indeed entitled to wear it, irrespective of the fact that anyone else can wear it without the same entitlement.

That seems a lot like being given a certificate entitling me to a free desert with my meal at a restaurant, and finding out that they give the free desert to anyone who asks for it - entitling certificate or no. The certificate is worthless.

Regards,

Brian

[Monkey@Arms]

others bearing non-clan affiliated names have no right to them, though they can (if they choose) be obnoxious and disregard this tradition by wearing them without any entitlement.

Glad to see you showing your true opinions. I'll keep them in mind while reading your future postings.

Best regards,

Jake

[Micric]

Yes jake, I quite agree!

I'm not just a "Whimsy tartan anarchist"
It seems I'm an "Obnoxious Whimsy Tartan Anarchist!!"

My, That's impressive!!

Can't help but think of Billy Connoley, as the rough Highlander the "Blackadder" series.

He sits in Edmunds chair.
Edmund says,
" I'm sorry, but that's my seat!"

To which Billy replies,
"'s'allright,..dont apologise!!"

and I wont. :-)

[BoldHighlander]

Gentlemen, all this talk about 'right' or 'entitlement' to wear certain clan tartans causes me to pause & go back and re-read my previous post where I quoted the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs on the subject:

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..."

Now from what I gather from this is that (a) there is no so-called 'right' or 'entitlement' to certain clan tartans, that is another "kilt myth" (b) yes, my heritage/blood linage is Macdonalds, Mackay etc & I can choose to wear any of those clans tartans (or not) as I wish, but then so can anyone else not of the name or blood, just don't (c) make any invalid claims as to why (e.g. don't claim to be a Macdonald if your not), & (d) wear it in good taste is all.

Let's once & for all put this so-called 'right' & 'entitlement' argument to bed.
If its good enough for the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs to say no such 'right' exist, then its good enough for me!

[auld argonian]

However clearly and logically the cooler heads on this forum explain this, there will still be the drunk wearing pants at the Highland Games who will be challenging you to a throw-down because you're wearing his family tartan that has been his family's tartan for thousands of years........

Best

AA