To Black Watch or not to Black Watch?

[Orthzar]

I like it, mostly because it is simple and covers all the bases of kilting. I agree that more turnover in the hose would be nice, but it is a small detail that I didn't notice until Jordan mentioned it.

[Jay]

Hmmmm, to jump off topic here, if a group of crows is a murder, and group of sheep is a flock, what is a group of tartans?

1 tartan is called a single malt.

A group of tartans are called a blended malt.

[Burly Brute]

...the wee kilt.

[OC Richard]

The Black Watch tartan was known as the Government Sett, and was based on a Campbell tartan.

I just reread the beginning of this thread and noticed this statement.

In The Setts Of The Scottish Tartans Donald C Stewart writes

BLACK WATCH

All the accounts of the inception of the Black Watch tartan speak of it as a design new at the time when the regiment was formed. In that it is not identical with any then-exisiting pattern, this is true enough. There remains the possibility that it was an abstraction from patterns already in use.

Many of the tartans of today are founded on the scheme of the Black Watch, and some of them we know to have been admittedly built on it, such as the Forbes and the Gordon. But there are others that may be earlier than the Black Watch. Unfortunately, it is difficult to fix the age of these. Yet, in addition to the merely traditional designs, there are several actual fragments, of great age, in which the characteristic feature of the Black Watch is to be seen. DW Stewart shows the design of a fragment, named the MacRae Hunting, and dating from before 1715, which is clearly of the Black Watch type, and the fragment he describes as having been worn by Prince Charles Edward while in the MacKintosh county contains the same germ-idea. (The author goes on to enumerate several other examples.)

Whatever the actual sources of these fragments may have been, they seem to rule out the idea that the Black Watch tartan was entirely original, and at the same time rule out the neccessity of supposing that such tartans as the Athol Murray derive from the Black Watch.


CAMPBELL

Campbell of Argyll or Campbell of Lochawe consist of the Black Watch as a foundation with alternately a white and a yellow line...

The Smiths write of is as the oldest of the Campbell designs and members of the Clan have adduced it to support their claim that the Black Watch is essentially a Campbell tartan.

[macwilkin]

I just reread the beginning of this thread and noticed this statement.

In The Setts Of The Scottish Tartans Donald C Stewart writes

BLACK WATCH

All the accounts of the inception of the Black Watch tartan speak of it as a design new at the time when the regiment was formed. In that it is not identical with any then-exisiting pattern, this is true enough. There remains the possibility that it was an abstraction from patterns already in use.

Many of the tartans of today are founded on the scheme of the Black Watch, and some of them we know to have been admittedly built on it, such as the Forbes and the Gordon. But there are others that may be earlier than the Black Watch. Unfortunately, it is difficult to fix the age of these. Yet, in addition to the merely traditional designs, there are several actual fragments, of great age, in which the characteristic feature of the Black Watch is to be seen. DW Stweart shows the design of a fragment, named the MacRae Hunting, and dating from before 1715, which is clearly of the Black Watch type, and the fragment he describes as having been worn by Prince Charles Edward while in the MacKintosh county contains the same germ-idea. (The author goes on to enumerate several other examples.)

Whatever the actual sources of these fragments may have been, they seem to rule out the idea that the Black Watch tartan was entirely original, and at the same time rule out the neccessity of supposing that such tartans as the Athol Murray derive from the Black Watch.


CAMPBELL

Campbell of Argyll or Campbell of Lochawe consist of the Black Watch as a foundation with alternately a white and a yellow line...

The Smiths write of is as the oldest of the Campbell designs and members of the Clan have adduced it to support their claim that the Black Watch is essentially a Campbell tartan.

Remember though, that Stewart wrote this in the 1960s. You might wish to review what the late tartan scholar James Scarlett had to say about the origins of the Government Sett. I'm sure Matt & Peter will chime in on this as well...

T.

[Bigkahuna]

Dale Seago wrote: “So if someone jumped on you about wearing a particular tartan because it ‘belongs to’ Clan X you could just reply, ‘Neener neener, doesn’t either, it’s 1690 and Clan X doesn't have a tartan yet.’ ”

Somehow this doesn’t ring true for me. And I am not entirely happy with Todd’s (Cajunscot’s) approach either – “. . . perhaps it's better to wear a non-named tartan”.
To my mind, the problem with a non-named tartan is that once is woven, it has an existence, and logically should have a name. Simply insisting that it is nameless seems rather silly to me.
Certainly one should strive to wear garments that fit the period – the breacan feile rather than the filibeg – and to use colours that were actually produced in those times.
But one is still stuck with the question: What tartans were worn in those days? And the answer is: We don’t know.
So anything one comes up with is an invention.
And, as Zardoz remarks: “As long as you don't mistake the ‘renaissance faire’ for a ‘period-correct renaissance era re-enactment’ you may ‘get away’ with a tailored kilt and lots of other ‘anachronistic’ things as part of your costume.

Perhaps in closing I should quote Yul Brynner as the King of Siam: “Is a puzzlement!”
Regarfds,
Mike

"Etc, Etc, Etc".

[OC Richard]

Remember though, that Stewart wrote this in the 1960s. You might wish to review what the late tartan scholar James Scarlett had to say about the origins of the Government Sett.
T.

Very intriguing! What did James Scarlett have to say about its origins, and if his conclusions are different than Stewart's, is it because new evidence has come to light in the intervening years, or is it simply a different interpretation of the same evidence Stewart mentions?

[macwilkin]

Very intriguing! What did James Scarlett have to say about its origins, and if his conclusions are different than Stewart's, is it because new evidence has come to light in the intervening years, or is it simply a different interpretation of the same evidence Stewart mentions?

Basically, Scarlett (who was a research partner of Stewart until the latter's death in the 1970s) believed that it was the military tartans that gave "birth" to concept of clan tartans, and not the other way around. His theory & findings may be found in his "The Origins and Development of Military Tartans: a re-appraisal", which was published in 2003, and is available through the STA. Matt has an article on his web site which summarizes Scarlett's theory, but I can't quite figure out how to link to the specific article.

T.

[Bugbear]

Looks like there's been a Whole bunch of changes over there at Matt's web site; someone's been doing some major HTML code crunching.
I think this might be the article you are talking about,cajunscot, but I'm not sure.
http://www.albanach.org/sources.html
The articles now load into an in-line frame, and it gives a "link to" address.

I would have to look at his source code, but I think the page address stays the same no matter what loads into the frame...

* Ya, I looked at a saved copy of that page, and he now has a single page with a navagation bar and an iframe that all the links of the navagation target. If you save a "HTML only" copy of that page, it will not save the article, and using the address from the brouzer's address bar will just load the home page. You'll have to get new addresses for all the articles, in place of the old links, to link to them, as far as I can tell.
Hope that helps.

[OC Richard]

Basically, Scarlett believed that it was the military tartans that gave "birth" to concept of clan tartans, and not the other way around.

Yes I think this is true in general.

But about Black Watch, surely a pre-1715 fragment of tartan showing a similar structure must argue against the Black Watch tartan being a purely new invention at the time of the regiment's raising.