The History of Tartans
Tartan has been worn in Scotland since very early times. The earliest archaeological evidence we have for the wearing of tartan in Scotland is the Falkirk tartan, so named for the town it was unearthed near. This small piece of tartan is a simple light brown and dark brown check, found in a jar of Roman coins and dated to c. 325 AD. Medieval and Renaissance references to Highland Dress make note of varied colours and stripes. By the seventeenth century, the Gaelic Highlanders were so known for their tartans that it was considered characteristic of Highland Dress. By this time, the tartan was being worn by the men in large garments called feilidh-mór in Gaelic, meaning "great wrap," also called the belted plaid, or great kilt. This was the earliest form of our modern kilt. The belted plaid consisted of a length of tartan approximately 60" wide and 4 or 5 yards long, gathered into folds and belted around the waist, the lower part covering the thighs, and the upper portion draped around the shoulders for fashion, or protection from the elements. It was the lower part of this garment that would, over the centuries, evolve into the modern kilt. Some time between the very late 17th century and the middle of the 18th, the bottom half of the belted plaid was first worn by itself. This garment, consisting of a length of about 4 yards of material, 25" to 30" wide, gathered into pleats and belted around the waist, was called the feilidh-beag, Gaelic for "little wrap," often Anglicized as "phillabeg." At the end of the 18th century, the pleats of the phillabeg were stitched in, and thus the first true tailored kilt was born.
The picture of the MacQuarrie on the main page was painted by Robert MacIan c. 1845 and depicts a 4-yard box-pleated kilt, common from 1790 to about the middle of the 1800s. Today, kilts are knife pleated and typically have around 8 yards of single-width material in them.
Prior to the advent of industrialization in
the Scottish woolen industry, there was no such thing as a "clan tartan."
All tartan was woven by hand on small looms, and individual weavers would
create unique designs from the dyes they had available to them (either
from plants growing naturally in the area or that they could afford to
import from abroad). Tartan fashion was wide and varied. People
would wear patterns and colours that were pleasing to them, and that they
could afford. Typically outfits would consist of more than one tartan.
Red and green were rather expensive dyes, so were typically seen being
worn by the nobility. The more common class would wear browns and
earth tones that would blend in to the environment, providing the wearer
with camouflage. They wore tartan to be hidden--not to be identified
as we wear it today!
Once industrial mills began to weave tartan on a large scale, commercial basis, it became possible to produce large quantities of material of the same design (sett). The first commercial weaver of tartan material was William Wilson and Sons of Bannockburn who wove in the latter 18th and 19th centuries. Wilson at first assigned his tartans numbers, but eventually they were given names, usually names of clans or powerful families. Over the course of the 19th century, the link between the clan and the tartan that bore its name grew in the minds and hearts of the wearers of the kilt. In the year 1800, there were about 90 named tartans. Today tartans are counted in the thousands. Tartan is one of the most easily identified symbols of Scottish heritage, recognized the world over. While there is no law preventing someone from wearing any tartan they chose (as our ancestors hundreds of years ago would have), today tartans do have a symbolic meaning, and most people prefer to wear a tartan that represents a part of their heritage and has personal meaning to them.
Unlike the MacQuarrie Arms, which are only to
be born by the chief, the tartan can be worn by anyone wishing to show
their ties to the clan. Tartan is not heraldic at all, and is not
regulated by the Court of Lord Lyon, although Lyon will record a tartan at the
request of a clan chief. The
Scottish Tartans Authority today maintains the International Tartan Index, which
is a database of all tartan, weather clan, family, trade, business,
commemorative, personal, etc. It currently contains over 7000 tartans. There are eight MacQuarrie tartans in the
Index.
The only authority as to what is and what is not a clan tartan is the clan chief. Since the MacQuarries are without a chief, we have no such authority and must rely on tradition, the recommendation of organizations such as the Scottish Tartans Authority, and the tartan manufacturers themselves. What is most recognized as the MacQuarrie tartan today is number 892. This simple red and dark green pattern is very similar to the red MacDonald of the Isles tartan and the MacDonald of Sleat tartan, and illustrates our ties with that clan. This tartan is available from most tartan weaving mills. The only other tartan that is currently commercially woven is number 858, which is included in the House of Edgar's "Old & Rare" range of tartans (click here for a picture of a cutting of that tartan). If you are interested in acquiring items in the MacQuarrie tartan, please contact clan member and kilt maker (and curator of the Scottish Tartans Museum) Matt Newsome at eogan@albanach.org for guidance and information.
The Scottish Tartans Museum is located in Franklin, NC,
and is on line at
http://www.scottishtartans.org/
The Museum has a very well stocked gift shop
for Highland Dress and other Scottish items, and anything purchased from
the gift shop supports the operation of the Museum, so your money will
go back into supporting Scottish heritage.