"Rules" for wearing family tartan

[slohairt]

Why not the Manitoba provincial tartan?

[HighlandMax]

on different websites pertaining to Tartans and Clans, I have the understanding that you can wear any clan tartan of an allied clan. For example, my Clan is Maxwell, and the Maxwell Clan has several allied Clans, and from my understanding, I could wear the Tartan of any of those allies.
I personally, wouldn't feel comfortable wearing another Tartan, even if it is allowed, but in your case, you don't have much of a choice. If my understanding is true, then what you need to do is find the allied Clans of your surname, and then take your pick.

[fluter]

To be quite honest, those of us who wear a particular tartan as an indication of clan affiliation, are not engaged in an unbroken continuation of the historical clan system; rather we are carrying on the 19th century romantic revival of the Scottish clans that was inspired by the system as it existed prior to the mid 18th century.

I believe we're all agreeing violently on that point. My confusion is on how that leads to an "entitlement" based on a surname, and on no other criterion.

My Scots genealogical ties come primarily through my mother, her grandmother, and her grandmother... so you have piqued my interest by defining your terms as categorically patrilineal.

Since I'm a pedant and curmudgeon, categorical statements always interest me, anyway. They just make me want to find a counterexample.

[Rob Wright]

Whichever tartan you eventually choose upon, make sure you learn what you can about that tartan. Knowledge is power and you will come across as a thoughtful kilt wearer.

Rob

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I just want to interject with a brief statement; and that is that generally speaking there is no such thing as a "right" or an "entitlement" to wear a particular tartan.

The choice of what tartan to wear is a personal one. Tartans are used today to symbolize all manner of things from clans and families, to regions and jobs. It is assumed that when you wear a tartan you have some sort of connection to whatever that tartan represents. Whether that connection is the actual surname you bear or the name of a great-grandparent, that's nobodies business but your own.

I met a man once who wore a kilt in the Cameron tartan because his dear friend, who was active in the Clan Cameron Society, had died and bequeathed the kilt to him. He wore the kilt in honor of his departed friend, despite the fact that he had no connection to the clan. The tartan meant something very dear and personal to him.

It is a fact that when you wear the kilt, people will ask you about the tartan. You should be prepared to give some explanation as to why you wear the particular tartan you do. If you are satisfied with the tartan you have chosen, that should be enough.

Again, there is no such thing as a "right" or "entitlement" to a tartan, with very few exceptions which the general public need not be that concerned about (as I mentioned in an earlier post).

[Corden]

Why not the Manitoba provincial tartan?

Because I am not from manitoba, and frankly, I am not a big fan.. ;-)

To all - thank you very much for your information - this has been a far mroe enlightening post than I had originally thought.. I definitely have more to research when I get my next kilt - whether it be a familial or regional tartan!

Cheers!

[McClef]

Whichever tartan you eventually choose upon, make sure you learn what you can about that tartan. Knowledge is power and you will come across as a thoughtful kilt wearer.

Rob

Sound advice. In my experience one is much less likely to be asked about entitlement and more what the tartan is.

Last week I was stopped by a gentleman in Sainsbury's store in Hereford who seemed to recognise the tartan I was wearing. I told him that it had been sold to me as "Black MacMillan" but that the Clan Chief had refused to recognise it and therefore because of the yellow it could also be known as "Hunting Buchanan" (no Clan Chief to say otherwise)!

And why did he think he recognised it? He was a MacMillan!

[Tobus]

Others here have made many of the points I was going to make in following up on my earlier statements. Modern mythology surrounding tartans is a bad mixture of pre-proscription tradition and Victorian romanticism, which has somehow been morphed into a sense of "entitlement".

The truth is that when clans mattered, there was no such thing as a "clan tartan". People wore whatever tartan pattern they fancied (and often several at a time). And after clans lost their power is when the idea of "clan tartans" began.

Clans were never homogeneous groups of family, all bearing the same surname. There were many documented sept families too. Plus tenant families that lived on clan lands and enjoyed some protection of a clan, but never made it into the official sept category. There were the so-called "broken men" which may have allied with a particular clan too, but did not bear a relevant surname. And none of them wore a clan tartan.

Yes, the modern idea of a clan and its tartan is different today, but it need not be exclusive to those with a recognized patrilineal surname. Any family connection is sufficient.

I also take issue with the idea that being associated with a particular clan or wearing their tartan has anything to do with pledging allegiance/fealty to a chief. Simply having a family connection, whether I bear a particular name or not, is enough to warrant being "part of the family"... which is to say it's a very loose connection of people with something in common, even if it's a distant connection.

But I think this thread exemplifies what I'm talking about. Some people will always insist that only having a proper surname entitles you to be good enough to wear 'their' tartan. You'll find them everywhere, thanks to the revisionist mythology about tartans.

[BoldHighlander]

A lot of things changed after the '45, the Highland Clearances for one; even before that a lot of clan chiefs had become Anglicized both in terms of custom and politics (which may have contributed to the failure of the Jacobite cause and in independant Scotland). Clansmen were pushed off the clan lands to male way for sheep, and the Scottish diaspora scattered to America, Australia and elsewhere. So even though there were still clan chiefs, their role (and influence over their clansmen) became very different.

Another way of putting it (as I've read/heard a few times) is that after Culloden the relationship went from Chief & Clansman to that of Landlord & Crofter.

[Bugbear]

And who decides what the clan tartans are?

Oops, I thought I was out...