Feileadh Mor tartan as camouflage?

[llyd]

Makes me.wonder at the etymology of "ghillie suit." brb

[llyd]

oh...

http://www.theghilliesuits.com/history.html

[jthk]

Thanks for this OCR! Knowing what I do about the Irish climate today -- not like it was back "then" -- but I wonder if these shaggy mantles were a reaction to the consistent moisture and rain?

Best,
Jonathan

Looking through Old Irish & Highland Dress just now I found this passage which relates to the topic of the OP somewhat.

In the summary of the section about traditional Irish dress:

Brat or Mantle.

The Dublin Museum example, which probably belonged to a peasant, was made of loose homespun... Some pictures, however, show a cloth with a long nap or pile; and phrases like "shagge rug" and Stanihurst's story of the man who was mistaken for a bear show that a very shaggy cloth indeed must have been used. "Shaggy" is a common epithet for a mantle in old Irish poems...

The manufacture of cloth with a shaggy surface is of great antiquity in Europe... a cloak shaped very like our Irish mantles was found in an internment of the earlier Bronze Age near Kolding in Jutland. This cloak or mantle has its outer side (to quote the handbook)

"hung with innumerable tags of wool, which completely cover it and make it look like a sort of coarse plush."

Cloth exactly answering this description is still made in Hungary and the Balkans where it is worn by shepherds in long capes or sleeveless cloaks very like the Irish mantles. When of a brown colour it quite resembles the coat of a large animal.

[lschwartz]

These shepherd's cloaks from Europe looks very similar to the description, but instead of being made of cloth it is a sheep skin.

[llyd]

Much like the native American buffalo robe....Been trying to get my hands on a December cowhide for awhile now. Not looking forward to straking a buffalo hide tho...

[OC Richard]

My question is, are those Eastern European shepherd's cloaks a rectangle of animal skin, or are they manufactured garments "hung with innumerable tags of wool"? Perhaps both styles exist.

In any case they do resemble the early Irish mantles

[lschwartz]

My question is, are those Eastern European shepherd's cloaks a rectangle of animal skin, or are they manufactured garments "hung with innumerable tags of wool"? Perhaps both styles exist.

In any case they do resemble the early Irish mantles

I think that they are sheepskins, which are naturally hung with innumerable tags of wool.

[OC Richard]

I ask because we modern people often assume that folk costumes, instruments, etc are simple or primitive but in actuality folk things are usually extremely complex, sophisticated, and time-consuming to make (so much so that we couldn't afford to make them in our modern world).

The early costumes found in peat bogs are very complicated garments, made of far more individual pieces than modern garments, with gussets and such, and sophisticated tailoring.

The fur collars of early Irish mantles weren't a piece of fur stuck on, but hundreds (thousands?) of individual strands each painstakingly attached.

Also the museum catalogue states that the fur-like surface was created from the separate attachment of "innumerable" pieces.

[Terry Searl]

No one seems to have mentioned that Deer and Elk are essentially red-green color blind. Their color vision is limited to the short blue and middle green wavelengths of colors. As a result, deer and elk can distinguish blue from red, but not green from red, or orange from red. You can hunt in blaze orange as deer and elk see this as gray or brown.

When I was a young lad hunting in the 60's we always wore a blaze orange hat and a blaze orange vest
........mostly so other hunters didn't mistake you for something you weren't ......the deer and elk seemed oblivious to the colours...... it was stealth and slow and careful movement that usually had the most bearing on success. I have had to sit as still as possible for 10 minutes or longer as an animal stared intently at me to decide if I was the reason for a quick dash into bush or to just keep on feeding and watching if I moved ............ I think all this "camo" gear is just a bit of marketing ......breaking up the body outline is the important issue regardless of colour....... just my opinion though...... and I gave up hunting a long time ago

[Jock Scot]

I am not sure when the boffins came up with the information that deer cannot see red/orange, but as far as I am aware its a fairly recent discovery. I am pretty sure it was not general knowledge two/three hundred years ago, so it was an obvious thought by those deer stalking and so on, to blend into the countryside and of course breaking up the silhouette was part of that thought process.

Thankfully our shooting sports are run in a different way in the UK and we do not encourage todays sportsmen to wear red or orange, actually its actively discouraged. In fact I was grouse shooting in a glen the other day where the game keepers were having seizures over a couple of visiting guns(shooters) wearing green! Green, particularly dark green and black are unusual colours on a grouse moor at this time of year and a combination of standing out, even in a grouse butt and movement would steer the grouse elsewhere.