What is a Clan By Dr Bruce Durie. Some time ago Dr Bruce Durie, former professor of Genealogy at Strathclyde University and a very good friend sent me this article. Enjoy: The Gaelic word clan is derived from the Gaelic word clanna, meaning “children” or “progeny”, but this does not convey the same meaning in Scotland as it originally did in Ireland (see below). Clans were territorial, accepting the authority of the dominant local grouping and looking to that chief as the patriarch, head, principal landowner, defender, military commander and dispenser of justice. Dependent families and individuals would often adopt the clan name as an indicator of affiliation and fealty to the Chief, so very often there is no genetic descent from a common ancestor or from the chiefly house – a vexed issue in the modern day of DNA test and genetic genealogy. There is a much- quoted definition, attributed to Nisbet and his System of Heraldry (1.
However, the actual source is Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, Lord Lyon 1. Frank Adam’s Clans, Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands. The current Lord Lyon is reviewing the contents of the Clan portion of the official Lyon Court website, so there may soon be a more up- to- date definition. There is more on clans and heraldry below. It is, perhaps, natural to look back to an Irish origin for the Clan system, given the influx of Gaels (the “Scotii”) from Dalriata before and during the 5th Century AD into Dalriada or Argyll (Ard- Gael) and the importation of Gaelic language and culture into the West and later the Highlands of Scotland. However, much in the same way that many Scottish emigrants have moulded a half- historical, half- imagined “Scottish culture” from that left behind, and fitted it to the needs of modern- day America, Canada, Australia etc., the Gaelic culture of Scotland was not identical to that of Ireland but adapted to the new circumstance. For one thing, the difference in landscape did not permit the same farming practices, which in turn influenced kinship and other social groupings. It is a convenient fiction in heraldry – and accepted as no more than that – that everyone of the same surname as a chief is heraldically related, and if granted arms, these will be clearly derived from the chief’s. The best- known example is that of Fraser, Lord Lovat offering a boll of meal (six bushels in Scotland, or about 1. Fraser as their own. Thus, Scottish clans could consist of “native men” (some kin relationship to the chief and each other), and “broken men” (individuals, or from other clans, who sought the protection of and offered fealty to the chief). The idea of smaller groupings linking themselves to more powerful neighbours is also what led to the concept of “septs” – unrelated surnames allied to a particular clan or family – but there is no official list of these and it is a matter of tradition, for each chief to agree or not. Clan Ross (Scottish Gaelic: Clann Anndrais . The original chiefs of the clan were the original. Relcom.* is the hierarchy of Russian-language newsgroups distributed alt.0d Yet another attempt. Most Common Surnames in Scotland and USA, Scottish surname organizations. Clan Registration Information. It is all about the clans after all. Seriously, the Stone Mountain Highland Games would not exist if it were not for the Clans. Largely, septs were a Victorian invention, promulgated by or for the benefit of those who could stake no claim to a clan but wished to be associated with one or other. The early period. The first known divisions of Scotland (other than the “tribes” identified second- hand in Ptolemy’s Geography and Tacitus’s Agricola) were territorial, but with some reference to kinship. The settlement of Dalriada in the early 6th Century was said to have been established ca. AD by Fergus, Lorn and Angus, sons of Erc, and subsequently territory was divided among four groupings: the Cinel Gabran and Cinel Comgall (descended from grandsons of Fergus) and the Cinel Lorn and Cinel Angus (descended from his brothers). Notice the use of the term cinel (originally cineal in Irish Gaelic), indicating “people of” rather than clann (“children of”). Picts: Re- imagined by Victorian Artists. Whatever the historical reality of that, what the Gaels found, as they penetrated deeper into Pictish “Caledonia” north of Forth and Clyde rivers, was a pre- existing political geography of large tribal districts, sensibly determined by the topography – based around islands, the straths along great rivers and sea lochs, inland glens etc. Some of these were much later mythically named for seven sons of a Pict king named Cruithne (the Gaelic word for Pict), son of Cing. Cruithne, it is told, reigned for a hundred years and had seven sons named Caitt (or Cat), Ce, Circenn (or Circind), Fib, Fidach, Foclaid (or Fotla) and Fortrenn (Fortriu), with Fortriu (present- day Moray and perhaps as far south as Strathearn) dominant. ![]() Should you have any questions please contact the Clans & Society Coordinator, Bryan Stewart at [email protected]. All Clans and Societies must register and must be. ![]() These names are still in use today as Caithness, Keith, Fife etc. Of course, the “Picts” never called themselves that, any more than the Britons of what is now Wales called themselves “Welsh” (and English word indicating “foreigner”. Pict it is probably a corruption of Old Norse Pettr, Old English Peohta and Old Scots Pecht which may or may not be cognate with Pritani (“Briton”). The point is, there was a pre- existing territorial grouping principle at work. When the Kingdom of Alba was forged from Gaeldom and Pictland in the 9th Century by the House of Alpin, that would have been the natural next tier of administration. This differs from the Irish concept of clanship in a number of ways, but the main one is a matter of climate. The economy of the Irish clans was pastoral – lush, green pastures and arable land, in a countryside that was both flatter and more temperate than the sparse Highland moors and hillsides away from the coasts. It also offered far less by way of natural defences. This meant that the “kindred” was a more natural form of organisation in Ireland, as had been the case on the European plains that gave rise to the Celts originally. In Scotland (except for the Central Lowlands and the coastal areas of the North and East) the staple was whatever grains would grow on the marginal hillsides, and seasonal common grazing of livestock. Raiding the neighbours’ livestock was the national sport, which led to defended glens acting as natural stock- pens and thus homelands. The chief and his military fine kept order and provided defence in return for tribute, and the individual glens, straths and lochsides were looked after by lesser “gentry”. This was a system that took naturally to feudalism. Actual kinship was not the issue so much a geographical co- locality. The original concept of heritage bound up with the clan was not surname. At this point, and well into the 1. Century, surnames (in the sense of passing unchanged from fathers to sons) were a rarity. Fergus, Iain’s son (Mac. Iain or Johnson) would have sons all called Fergus’s son (Mac. Fergus or Fergusson). The important concept was that of duthchas – the right to inhabit and control the territories over which the chiefs and senior members of the clan held sway and habitually provided protection. In exchange, all clansmen recognised the personal authority of the chiefs and his captains as the clan’s trustees – for the lands, honour and patrimony. However, the growing power of the Sovereign was expressed in the granting of charters to the chiefs and lairds which defined the lands held – known as their oighreachd (or eiraght, meaning “heritage” in the sense of stewardship and inheritance, over and above mere ancestry). This was a natural correlate of the imposition of Anglo- Norman concepts of feudalism which David I (r. Scotland when he took the throne in the early 1. Century. Well used to the English system, where he had spent years at the court of his brother- in- law, Henry I, David saw the power of feudalism to harness but also reward the powerful mormaers (“Earls”) and other large landowners, including chiefs. The basic feudal concept is of a hierarchy of heritable possession – all land ultimately belonged to the Crown, but was granted in feu to tenants- in- chief, termed Barons. The payback (reddendo) was originally a stated amount of military service by so many armed men, but eventually collapsed into payment in cash or kind – farm produce etc. Barons could sub- infeudate (parcel out, heritably) parts of their estate to others, whether family or not, again in return for service or payment of some kind, even if only nominal (“peppercorn”). As chiefs would naturally wish to bind their relatives and supporters to them, and because the clan’s warrior elite (the “fine”) would naturally wish to become landowners and thereby territorial warlords, the system suited the Highlands and Borders well. David also used this system to reward Anglo- Norman, Flemish and French supporters who came to Scotland with him, by inserting them into the landed society. In such a way did the ancestors of Robert Bruce – already transplanted from Cherbourg into Yorkshire after following Henry I after his victory at Tinchebray in 1. Lords of Annandale. The old Celtic clans and families now rubbed shoulders with (and intermarried) Anglo- Normans, particularly where the Highlands and Borders met the Lowlands – as witness the Earls of Strathearn and the Cheyne (Le Chene) family in Perthshire in the 1. Centuries. Gaelic was by no means the predominant culture or language in Scotland by the 1. Century. The Normanisation – a process actually started by the parents of David I, Malcolm III Canmore and Margaret – meant that the landed classes spoke Norman French and the clergy and scribes necessarily knew Latin, but the native language was more similar to Northumbrian English influenced by Angles and Danes and the earlier Pictish/Cumbric, similar to Welsh. The Strathclyde area was originally Brythonic and “Welsh”- speaking, albeit with more influence from the Gaelic- speaking neighbours. The speech of the Burghs developed into Scots. There is no evidence of clan- like structures in the Lowlands – in fact, the Highlands came to resemble the Lowlands as feudalism took hold. Bruce and Bannockburn. With 2. 01. 4 and the 7. Bannockburn looming, many “clans” are keen to assert their presence at the Battle of Bannockburn, alongside Robert I (“The Bruce”). Clans & Societies. Should you have any questions please contact the Clans & Society Coordinator, Bryan Stewart at clans@flascot. All Clans and Societies must register and must be approved by the Clans & Societies. No walk up Organizations will be allowed to participate). If you would be. interested in showcasing your Clan or Group at the Central Florida Scottish Highland. Games please contact our Clans Coordinator. Please be advised that Clans & Societies. Games Vendors Coordinator (see Vendors Page). Participant Registration $9. Passes (Saturday and Sunday Games entry). Event Programs. 1 Guest Parking Pass. Listing in Event Program & on our Website. Tent package (Tent, Table and 2 chairs). Registered Clans & Societies. Stone Mountain Highland Games - Clans. Armstrong. Anderson. Arthur. Baird. Bell. Blackstock. Boyd. Bruce. Buchanan. Burnett. Cameron. Campbell. Carmichael. Cochrane. Colquhoun. Cumming. Cunningham. Davidson. Donald. Donnachaidh. Douglas. Elliot. Ewen. Fergusson. Forrester. Fraser. Galbraith. Gordon. Graham. Grant. Gregor - SEGunn. Hamilton. Hay. Henderson. Home. Hope. Hunter. Innes. Irwin. Johnston/e. Keith. Kennedy. Kerr. Lamont. Lindsay. Mac. Callum/Malcolm. Mac. Dougall. Mac. Duff. Mac. Farlane. Mac. Fie. Mac. Intyre. Mac. Kay. Mac. Kenzie. Mac. Kinnon. Mac. Kintosh. Mac. Lachlan. Mac. Laren. Mac. Lean of Duart. Mac. Lellan. Mac. Lennan. Mac. Leod. Mac. Millan. Mac. Nab. Macneil. Mac. Nicol. Mac. Pherson. Mac. Rae. Mac. Tavish. Mac. Thomas. Maxwell. Mc. Aister. Moncreiffe. Montgomery. Morrison. Muir. Munro. Nesbit/Nisbet. Ramsay. Rose. Ross. Scott. Sinclair. Skene. Stewart. Sutherland. Thom(p)son. Urquart.
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