THCD, Not THCD

[JohntheBiker]

We can all thank Jock Scot for this quote:

" Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the adherence of idle minds and minor tyrants". Field Marshal Lord Slim.

I think that it is very much on point for this discussion. Such discussions about THCD help to inform my choices, but they are, after all, my choices about what I will feel comfortable in wearing.

[Liam]

THCD is an acronym developed here at xmarksthescot to describe a real cultural practice in Scotland. The concept of what would or would not be considered traditional to a Highlander existed well before the internet, let alone xmts. Traditional Highland Civilian Dress is descriptive nomenclature, but just like the dinosaurs existed before the palaeontologists called them dinosaurs, THCD existed before xmarkers called it THCD.

Nathan...with respect, to a dinosaur like myself, I do not recall the restriction of being "in Scotland" ever being placed on THCD, when various valiant attempts were made to define it. Highland dress is obviously worn all over the world where descendants of Scots find themselves. They brought with them their traditions, including dress, dance, and other remnants of their heritage.

[Tobus]

Nathan...with respect, to a dinosaur like myself, I do not recall the restriction of being "in Scotland" ever being placed on THCD

Depends on who you ask. Many Scots consider it not only non-traditional but downright wrong to wear it outside of the Highlands. That may be a rather antiquated view that's dying out, but it exists.

[Nathan]

Nathan...with respect, to a dinosaur like myself, I do not recall the restriction of being "in Scotland" ever being placed on THCD, when various valiant attempts were made to define it. Highland dress is obviously worn all over the world where descendants of Scots find themselves. They brought with them their traditions, including dress, dance, and other remnants of their heritage.

Liam,

It's nice to have a spirited exchange. I like you and I hope I can express my point a little better to avoid confusion.

It is absolutely the case that

Highland dress is obviously worn all over the world where descendants of Scots find themselves. They brought with them their traditions, including dress, dance, and other remnants of their heritage.

No argument from me. I live and breathe this sentiment and personally only wear the kilt because this is my experience.

That fact notwithstanding, the diaspora doesn't set the traditional style in Scotland. Scotland sets the traditional style in the diaspora. That's why we wear modern kilts and knit hose and not the féileadh-mór and large blue bonnets of the earlier emigrants. Most of us were already here before the Victorian era and we happily adapted to the changes that came about across the pond.

My point is that the Highlanders have their own aesthetic with regards to Highland Dress. They look to each other as it slowly evolves through the generations, not to the diaspora.

If an item falls out of fashion in the Highlands (say a dirk) but remains en vogue in the diaspora, it's no longer traditional Highland civilian dress.

If a Canadian goes to a Highland Games in a kilt, golf shirt, baseball cap, sneakers, sealskin sporran with metal cantle and a silver plate buckled waist belt with a bejewelled dirk hanging from it, he has every right to. He's celebrating his heritage in his own way. But even if you filled a field with 500 men arrayed as such, it wouldn't make it traditional highland civilian dress.

Now, unlikely though it may be, if that style became the norm on the Highland Games fields of Inverness or Arisaig, we would likely have to acknowledge it as the new tradition, especially if that's what the armigers and gentry showed up wearing.

Life is how it is, not as we would have it be.

Slàinte!

[OC Richard]

Oftentimes discussions can go round in circles due to people having different definitions of a key word or phrase.

Sorry for the repetition, for those who have heard me say it before, but for me "traditional" has a very specific meaning: something which has come down to the present moment from an unknown origin in the distant past through an unbroken evolutionary chain.

So, something with a known inventor, say, one of the tartans created by the Allen Brothers, cannot be 'traditional' however old or venerated.

Likewise something which is no longer current cannot be 'traditional'. If you go back along that unbroken chain of evolutionary antecedents and pluck out something from the past it is 'historical' rather than 'traditional', in other words traditional things are modern things.

Traditions are defined by the usages of the people who are within the tradition, not by rules. (Of course usages are governed by custom, which might be considered rules.)

With Highland Dress what has come down to us is are the forms which took their modern shape in the early years of the 20th century, with clear distinctions between three modes 1) civilian Day Dress 2) civilian Evening Dress and 3) military dress. Prior to around 1900 there was more variation and freedom and these modes were not as clear-cut.

Anyhow I pretty much agree with all the OP's postulations... but then again, I'm not a Highlander! Just a student of Highland Dress.

[Liam]

My point is that traditions relating to Highland dress need not and in does not evolve only in the Highlands of Scotland. We are talking about Highland dress, not dress in the Highlands. Consider the game of golf as a similar example, that actually has rules. The game originated in Scotland and has been governed in Great Britain by the Royal and Ancient Golf committee. In the US the game is governed by the USGA and in Canada by the CGA. Highland dancing is similar, (I expect). The rules or in the case of THCD, traditions of civilian highland dress evolve in parallel without one governing the others. They may and do take note of what is happening in the other jurisdictions, and modify their "rules", just as "traditions" slowly evolve.

[cizinec]

... but then again, I'm not a Highlander! Just a student of Highland Dress.

I am neither a highlander nor a student of highland dress. I just wear a kilt and I want it to look sharp and not ridiculous. Is that THCD? Maybe, maybe not, but I reckon it'll look awful darn good if I get it right. I also reckon that was the whole purpose behind all those "rules" they put on what to wear in the Highlands anyhow.

[Tobus]

Sorry for the repetition, for those who have heard me say it before, but for me "traditional" has a very specific meaning: something which has come down to the present moment from an unknown origin in the distant past through an unbroken evolutionary chain.

So, something with a known inventor, say, one of the tartans created by the Allen Brothers, cannot be 'traditional' however old or venerated.

I've never heard anyone make this particular case before, and to be quite honest, I'm at a complete loss to understand why something must be of unknown origin to be traditional. I cannot fathom what the origin has to do with whether it has become a tradition or not. What's your logic here?

[OC Richard]

I'm using, perhaps incorrectly, the same definition encountered in music.

A "traditional" song has no known composer. If the song had a known composer than no matter how old it is, it's not a "traditional" song but a composed one.

The same is true with every component of Traditional Highland Dress. We can't point back and say so-and-so invented the kilt, or the sporran, or any of it. Of course traditional things nearly always have "creation myths" associated with them, but that's all they are. Stories about an Englishman inventing the kilt and so forth, none of it provable. (He probably "invented" something already invented at other times and places, as often happens.)

Anyhow using myself as the whipping boy...

This outfit is "traditional". It would have not looked out of place to anyone in the 1920s or at any point in between then and today (well, they wouldn't have known what the tartan is)



This outfit isn't, because sporrans like that haven't been considered appropriate for tweed Day Dress since around 1900



I would consider that outfit "historical". I wouldn't seem all that out of place with this lot (though diced hose, a Glengarry, and facial hair would help!)



or this lot

[CMcG]

I'm using, perhaps incorrectly, the same definition encountered in music.

A "traditional" song has no known composer. If the song had a known composer than no matter how old it is, it's not a "traditional" song but a composed one.

...

I don't think the musical example is quite as clear cut as that. Songs like "Happy Birthday to You" and "Greensleeves" have composers, but have become traditional by dint of being around long enough that they have taken on a life of their own. In such cases, the composer isn't known to many (most?) of the people who sing these tunes. Such songs have passed down through the generations, in many cases orally, which is the dictionary definition of tradition.