The clan is in it's essence a Celtic and Highland concept.
At various times during the thousand years which preceeded the Christian era and in particular during the seventh century before Christ, the British Isles were overrun by a succession of warlike Celtic tribes, who in due course replaced or assimilated that country's earlier Stone and Bronze age inhabitants.
Several centuries later Angles and Saxsons, invaders from across the North Sea, took over what is now England and drove the native Celtic population back against the western coast and northwards into Scotland and in particular into the Western Highlands and islands. Thus driven against the western shores these Celts were known, down to the Norman Conquest, as the Britons or Welsh of Strathclyde.
About the year 500 a fresh migration from Northern Ireland established a new Scottish dynasty. True to their tribal system that they brought with them from Ireland these imigrants divided the Kingdom between families and groups of families. In time, these Scots gained possession of the entire western seaboard.
A later missionary, Columba crossed from Ireland in the year 563, and very soon, with his followers, began a great campaign of Christian conversion among the Northern Picts. By the end of the seventh century all kingdoms had been converted to Christianity. The early Celtic Church, however, was not always at one with Rome and particularly in the Highlands divergencies with pagan undertones were to persist for many hundreds of years.
Towards the end of the eighth century came the first seaborne incursions of the dreaded pagan Norsemen or Vikings, who descending on Scotland in their longships from Scandinavia, raped, burned and massacred and soon were able to gain a foothold on the islands and coastal areas of the mainland.
Following the Norman Conquest in 1071, William the Norman invaded Scotland in strength and for the next thirty years, Scotland was in turmoil. In 1124 David Mor rose to the throne as King of Scots. Having been educated in England, he proceeded to distribute large estates among his Anglo-Norman friends and associates. Among these were the progenitor of the Stewarts, de Bruces, Balliol and Comyn. Thanks to cleverly planned marriages with Celtic Heiresses each of these families could claim links of kinship with the Royal House, as well as with each other. It was thus that in the lowlands a new feudal system, founded on a French speaking, Anglo-Norman aristocracy soon took the place of the older, more patriarchal Celtic traditions and way of life. In the Highlands, however, the old system still persisted, virtually independent of the Kingdom of Scotland.
In the second half of the thirteenth century there emerged in the Western Highlands a number of other clans, descended from the Scots or, in some cases from the Norse invaders. By the end of the thirteenth century the Norse threat to Scotland had receded. However, the English menance became of paramount importance. With the death of the Scottish King Alexander III, Scotland was plunged into sudden turmoil and the old celtic line of Kings came to an end, leaving the succession open to a half dozen possible candidates, all connected by kinship or marriage with the Royal House. The strongest claimants were Robert Bruce and John Balloil, both nobles of Anglo-Norman origin, whose forebears had come to Scotland a century or two earlier. Although King Edward I of England awarded the crown to Balliol, Balliol repudiated his alegiance to the English crown and entered into an allegience with France.
In 1306, Robert Bruce's grandson, also Robert, soon emerged as the main Scottish leader and had himself crowned King of Scots. Upon his death Edwar Balliol was crowned King of Scots and he readily recognized the English King as Lord Paramount.
In the Central and Eastern Highlands the old Celtic earldoms had largely disappeared over the centuries. New clans now emerged, groups of families held together by community of descent or interest or by the simple fact that they lived in the same general area. Unlike the older-established Celtic clans of the West, whose traditions were largely of a patriarchalsystem and whose clansmen could with some justification slaim to be of the same kin as their chiefs, these clans possessed a quasi-feudal character.
The clan system no doubt took its origin largely from the mountainous nature of the country in which the people found themselves, each family or tribe living in its own glen, separate from the rest of the world. In these circumstances, the father of the family naturally became the ruler, and when the family grew into a tribe he became its chief. In later days, when great combinations of related clans were formed, the chief of the strongest branch might become captain of the confederacy. The chiefship was inherited by the eldest legitimate son, but it must be remembered that in the Highlands the son of a union was considered legitimate, whether his parents were married or not. The system arose from the urgent desirability of carrying on the direct line of the chiefs.
Another outcome of a state of society in which the rights and property of the tribe had constantly to be defended was the custom of tanistry. If the heir of a chief happened to be too young to rule the clan or lead it in battle, then the closest able-bodied relative would properly succeed as the chief. This individual was known as the tanist.
Under the 'law of gavel' the property of a chief was divided among his family at his death. Under this law a chief portioned out his lands to his sons as tenants and when his eldest son succeeded him as chief, he portioned out the lands in turn to his own sons in the same way.
Thus the nearest relatives of the chief were always the men of highest rank and most influence in the clan, while the oldest cadets, unless they had secured their position in time by their own exertions, were apt to find their way to the ranks of the ordinary clansmen. As all, however, claimed descent from the house of the chief, all prided themselves upon the rank of gentlemen, and behaved accordingly. To this fact are owed the high and chivalrous ideas of personal honour which have always characterised the Scottish Highlander.
As an acknowledgment of his authority all the clansmen paid tribute to the chief, and when outsiders; sometimes inhabitants of a conquered district, or members of a "broken" clan, a clan without a head-attached themselves to a tribe. The fundamental difference between the clan system of society and the feudal system which was destined to supersede it, was that the authority of the clan chief was based on personal and blood relationship, while that of the feudal superior is based upon tenure of land.
Of the origin of the kilt, the Highland costume, not much is known. The kilt is one of the primitive garments of the world; it is one of the healthiest and probably the handsomest, and there can be no question that for the active pursuits of the mountaineer it is without a rival. In its original form, as the belted plaid, it afforded ample protection in all weathers, while leaving the limbs absolutely free for the most arduous exertions. The earliest authenticated mention of the kilt appears to be that in the Norse history of Magnus Barefoot, with whom Malcolm Canmore made his famous treaty. According to that document, written about the year 1097, Magnus, on returning from his conquest of the Hebrides, adopted the dress in use there, and went about bare-legged, having a short tunic and also an upper garment, "and so men called him "Barefoot." Later in the fifteenth century is the notice by John Major, the historian, who mentions that the Highland gentlemen of his day "wore no covering from the middle of the thigh to the foot, clothing themselves with a mantle instead of an upper garment, and a shirt dyed with saffron."
The earliest costumes of the clansmen appear not to have been of tartan at all, but of plain color, preferably saffron. As variety came to be desired, each clan would use the natural dyes most easily procured in its district, and the easiest pattern to weave was one of simple warp and woof. In time a clansman would come to be identified by the local pattern he wore, and before long that pattern would come to be known as the tartan of his clan. Whether or not this describes the actual origin of the Highland tartans, there can be no question as to their suitability for the purposes of the hunter and the warrior, to whom it was important to be as little conspicuous as possible on a moor or mountain-side. It was also of value to the clansmen in battle, who required readily to distinguish between friend and foe. After the last great Highland conflict at Culloden, it is said, the dead were identified by their tartans, the clansmen being buried, each with his own tribe, in the long sad trenches among the heather. To the Highlander the garb of his forefathers has always justly counted for much.
Following the Uprising of 1745, the Government in London had its opportunity for a final reckoning with the Highlanders. In 1746 the Disarming Act was enacted which proscribed the Wearing of Highland dress and the playing of the pipes. Severe penalties were imposed for carrying or possessing arms, for wearing the kilt, plaid or any other tartan garment. The pipes were prohibted as "an instrument of war". The heritable jurisdiction of the chief's were abolished and a number of other measures taken to break their power and destroy their old patriarchal relationship with the clans.
The Battle of Culloden is often said to have marked the end of the clan system.
However, the clan system was patriarchal and therefore in it's essence enduring. The Chief was father of his people. The Highlanders possessed a keen sense of history and the knowledge that they can trace their ancestry back through countless generations of Norse or Celtic Kings, they realize that they are at least as well born as the next man.
"For that is the mark of the Scot of all classes; that he stands in an attitude towards the past unthinkable to Englishmen, and remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation."
CARR / LEITH FAMILY HISTORY
At various times during the thousand years which preceeded the Christian era and in particular during the seventh century before Christ, the British Isles were overrun by a succession of warlike Celtic tribes, who in due course replaced or assimilated that country's earlier Stone and Bronze age inhabitants.
Several centuries later Angles and Saxsons, invaders from across the North Sea, took over what is now England and drove the native Celtic population back against the western coast and northwards into Scotland and in particular into the Western Highlands and islands. Thus driven against the western shores these Celts were known, down to the Norman Conquest, as the Britons or Welsh of Strathclyde.
About the year 500 a fresh migration from Northern Ireland established a new Scottish dynasty. True to their tribal system that they brought with them from Ireland these imigrants divided the Kingdom between families and groups of families. In time, these Scots gained possession of the entire western seaboard.
A later missionary, Columba crossed from Ireland in the year 563, and very soon, with his followers, began a great campaign of Christian conversion among the Northern Picts. By the end of the seventh century all kingdoms had been converted to Christianity. The early Celtic Church, however, was not always at one with Rome and particularly in the Highlands divergencies with pagan undertones were to persist for many hundreds of years.
Following the Norman Conquest in 1071, William the Norman invaded Scotland in strength and for the next thirty years, Scotland was in turmoil. In 1124 David Mor rose to the throne as King of Scots. Having been educated in England, he proceeded to distribute large estates among his Anglo-Norman friends and associates. Among these were the progenitor of the Stewarts, de Bruces, Balliol and Comyn. Thanks to cleverly planned marriages with Celtic Heiresses each of these families could claim links of kinship with the Royal House, as well as with each other. It was thus that in the lowlands a new feudal system, founded on a French speaking, Anglo-Norman aristocracy soon took the place of the older, more patriarchal Celtic traditions and way of life. In the Highlands, however, the old system still persisted, virtually independent of the Kingdom of Scotland.
In the second half of the thirteenth century there emerged in the Western Highlands a number of other clans, descended from the Scots or, in some cases from the Norse invaders. By the end of the thirteenth century the Norse threat to Scotland had receded. However, the English menance became of paramount importance. With the death of the Scottish King Alexander III, Scotland was plunged into sudden turmoil and the old celtic line of Kings came to an end, leaving the succession open to a half dozen possible candidates, all connected by kinship or marriage with the Royal House. The strongest claimants were Robert Bruce and John Balloil, both nobles of Anglo-Norman origin, whose forebears had come to Scotland a century or two earlier. Although King Edward I of England awarded the crown to Balliol, Balliol repudiated his alegiance to the English crown and entered into an allegience with France.
In 1306, Robert Bruce's grandson, also Robert, soon emerged as the main Scottish leader and had himself crowned King of Scots. Upon his death Edwar Balliol was crowned King of Scots and he readily recognized the English King as Lord Paramount.
In the Central and Eastern Highlands the old Celtic earldoms had largely disappeared over the centuries. New clans now emerged, groups of families held together by community of descent or interest or by the simple fact that they lived in the same general area. Unlike the older-established Celtic clans of the West, whose traditions were largely of a patriarchalsystem and whose clansmen could with some justification slaim to be of the same kin as their chiefs, these clans possessed a quasi-feudal character.
The clan system no doubt took its origin largely from the mountainous nature of the country in which the people found themselves, each family or tribe living in its own glen, separate from the rest of the world. In these circumstances, the father of the family naturally became the ruler, and when the family grew into a tribe he became its chief. In later days, when great combinations of related clans were formed, the chief of the strongest branch might become captain of the confederacy. The chiefship was inherited by the eldest legitimate son, but it must be remembered that in the Highlands the son of a union was considered legitimate, whether his parents were married or not. The system arose from the urgent desirability of carrying on the direct line of the chiefs.
Under the 'law of gavel' the property of a chief was divided among his family at his death. Under this law a chief portioned out his lands to his sons as tenants and when his eldest son succeeded him as chief, he portioned out the lands in turn to his own sons in the same way.
Thus the nearest relatives of the chief were always the men of highest rank and most influence in the clan, while the oldest cadets, unless they had secured their position in time by their own exertions, were apt to find their way to the ranks of the ordinary clansmen. As all, however, claimed descent from the house of the chief, all prided themselves upon the rank of gentlemen, and behaved accordingly. To this fact are owed the high and chivalrous ideas of personal honour which have always characterised the Scottish Highlander.
Of the origin of the kilt, the Highland costume, not much is known. The kilt is one of the primitive garments of the world; it is one of the healthiest and probably the handsomest, and there can be no question that for the active pursuits of the mountaineer it is without a rival. In its original form, as the belted plaid, it afforded ample protection in all weathers, while leaving the limbs absolutely free for the most arduous exertions.
The earliest authenticated mention of the kilt appears to be that in the Norse history of Magnus Barefoot, with whom Malcolm Canmore made his famous treaty. According to that document, written about the year 1097, Magnus, on returning from his conquest of the Hebrides, adopted the dress in use there, and went about bare-legged, having a short tunic and also an upper garment, "and so men called him "Barefoot." Later in the fifteenth century is the notice by John Major, the historian, who mentions that the Highland gentlemen of his day "wore no covering from the middle of the thigh to the foot, clothing themselves with a mantle instead of an upper garment, and a shirt dyed with saffron."
The earliest costumes of the clansmen appear not to have been of tartan at all, but of plain color, preferably saffron. As variety came to be desired, each clan would use the natural dyes most easily procured in its district, and the easiest pattern to weave was one of simple warp and woof. In time a clansman would come to be identified by the local pattern he wore, and before long that pattern would come to be known as the tartan of his clan. 
Whether or not this describes the actual origin of the Highland tartans, there can be no question as to their suitability for the purposes of the hunter and the warrior, to whom it was important to be as little conspicuous as possible on a moor or mountain-side. It was also of value to the clansmen in battle, who required readily to distinguish between friend and foe. After the last great Highland conflict at Culloden, it is said, the dead were identified by their tartans, the clansmen being buried, each with his own tribe, in the long sad trenches among the heather. To the Highlander the garb of his forefathers has always justly counted for much.
Following the Uprising of 1745, the Government in London had its opportunity for a final reckoning with the Highlanders. In 1746 the Disarming Act was enacted which proscribed the Wearing of Highland dress and the playing of the pipes.
Severe penalties were imposed for carrying or possessing arms, for wearing the kilt, plaid or any other tartan garment. The pipes were prohibted as "an instrument of war". The heritable jurisdiction of the chief's were abolished and a number of other measures taken to break their power and destroy their old patriarchal relationship with the clans.