Process of Receiving Arms from South Africa

[WVHighlander]

how/why did you come up with the holly?

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Virtually all Clans have a "plant badge" some of which, like the Holly badge of Clan MacMillan, are officially recorded in Lyon Court. Although lists of these badges can be found in most clan or tartan books, the reason for their use as a means of tribal distinction is somewhat unclear. Many of these plant badges would have been hard to identify at a gathering, never mind in the heat of battle, while some are only available at a certain time of the year. They evidently have some far more subtle origin, and it has been suggested that they may represent the land from which these clans/tribes first sprung up; perhaps something growing on the moot hill where tribal/clan chiefs were inaugurated. The truth of the matter is that we just don't know for certain.

What we do know from the oldest Gaelic poems is that the gathering symbols of the clans were "heraldic" flags -- the banner, standard, and pennon. If one is willing to accept the notion that plant badges really represent the "well-spring" of the clan, their use on standards and pennons is all the more understandable.

I hope that explains the almost unexplainable.

[Tam Piperson]

Unless I am mistaken, heraldry was brought to Britain by the Normans with their conquest of England in 1066. I'm not really sure if there was already a similar sort of tradition of using distinctive markings for the purpose of identification already in use in Britain before the arrival of the Normans; but it seems far from unlikely.

The Picts, who were actually Britons themselves (albeit non-Romanized ones), were the original inhabitants of what later came to be called Scotland, and there are a few surviving references from the period contemporary to the existence of their culture that speak of the Picts tattooing designs in the form of animals on their bodies; so their appearance was likely very close to that of some of the red-haired Scythian mummies that have been uncovered in the Ukraine in eastern Europe:





So we see that there may have possibly been some sort of indigenous use of decorative designs for either ornament or maybe even for personal identification, at a very early period in Britain dating back to the time of the Roman occupation which finally ended around 443 AD, as the Romans referred to the Britons living north of Hadrian's Wall as "Picti" meaning "painted."

The text known as Chronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum (The Pictish Chronicle), which is based on an earlier work, dating to the 7th century, entitled Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville, relates:

“The race of the Picts has a name derived from the appearance of their bodies. These are played upon by a needle working with small pricks and by the squeezed-out sap of a native plant, so that they bear the resultant marks according to the personal rank of the individual, their painted limbs being tattooed to show their high birth. The Scots, now incorrectly referred to as Irishmen, are really Scotti, because they originated from the land of the Scythians…..It is a well known fact that the Britons arrived in Britain during the third Age of Man (the time between Abraham and David), while the Scotti, that is the Scots, migrated into Scotia or Ireland during the fourth Age of Man (the time between David and Daniel). The Scythian people are born with white hair due to the everlasting snow; and the colour of their hair gives name to the people, and thus they are called Albani: From this people both Scots and Picts descend. Their eyes are so brightly coloured that they are able to see better by night than by day. The Albani people were also neighbours with the Amazones. The Scythian territory was once so large that it reached from India in the east, through the marshland of Meotidas (the Sea of Azov), till the borders of Germania.”

Similarly, Herod of Antioch described them in the 3rd century A.D., saying:

"The Britons incise on their bodies coloured pictures of animals, of which they are very proud."

While in 416 A.D. the Roman poet Claudian wrote:

"This legion, set to guard the furthest Britons, curbs the savage Scot and studies the designs marked with iron on the face of the dying Pict".

[WVHighlander]

Interesting.....Clan Cochrane doesn't have a Clan Plant Badge

[Gael Ridire]

I think the key word is "heraldic." Meaning a symbol that becomes hereditary. In reading the ancient annals of Ireland various symbols and beasts were used along with colors on banners. They were not heraldic. Each man or king (and their tanist, or son) had a completely different symbol. As far as bringing "heraldry" to the British Isles, then yes, I'd say that the Normans are responsible. It has been suggested that the Gaels (Irish & Scottish) anciently had tribal totems. Some clans are recorded with such, but many are not.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Hi all-- in post #92 I used the term "heraldic" as an identifier for the shapes of flags mentioned in early Gaelic poetry, and not to suggest that the devices on the flags were in anyway the heraldic (ie: hereditary cognizances of tribal/clan leaders) which clearly they were not.

Heraldry, as we would think of it today, really only begins to take hold in the Gaelic polity in the 13th century as the perceived social-administrative benefits of feudalism begin to slowly replace the uncertainties of the tribalism of race/clan in the Gaelic world.

[creagdhubh]

Virtually all Clans have a "plant badge" some of which, like the Holly badge of Clan MacMillan, are officially recorded in Lyon Court. Although lists of these badges can be found in most clan or tartan books, the reason for their use as a means of tribal distinction is somewhat unclear. Many of these plant badges would have been hard to identify at a gathering, never mind in the heat of battle, while some are only available at a certain time of the year. They evidently have some far more subtle origin, and it has been suggested that they may represent the land from which these clans/tribes first sprung up; perhaps something growing on the moot hill where tribal/clan chiefs were inaugurated. The truth of the matter is that we just don't know for certain.

What we do know from the oldest Gaelic poems is that the gathering symbols of the clans were "heraldic" flags -- the banner, standard, and pennon. If one is willing to accept the notion that plant badges really represent the "well-spring" of the clan, their use on standards and pennons is all the more understandable.

I hope that explains the almost unexplainable.

***