More on Septs

[MacSpadger]

I think that Thomas Innes describes the situation rather well and I have always thought this way.

I have been trying to find any examples of "septs" before the 1860's - 1870's with zero results. The whole thing appears to have been cooked up by Skene and another Aberdonian, James Logan, at the behest of the Highland Society of London.
Logan was a typical "romantic" Victorian writer, author of "The Scottish Gael", whose brief was to provide an "ancient" pedigree for the Highland Clans, or rather how the Victorians saw, or wanted to see, it, which was going back into the days of druids and prehistory.
Similarly there is no mention of septs in Irish history until their "Celtic Revival". I would think that the chief of your clan would have been your landlord, and "bonds of man-rent" were more important than surnames. Certainly papers at Huntly show my Gill ancestors to have been under bonds of man-rent to John Gordon, Laird of Glenbucket, which is probably why they ended up in the regiment. Other people who looked up to Gordon of Glenbucket had typical Aberdeenshire names such as Burnett, Innes and even a piper named Carr. (You can tell they were Aberdeenshire men from the writings of a Derby war correspondent: Their dialect seemed to me as if an herd of Hottentots, wild monkeys in a desart, or vagrant gypsies had been jabbering, screaming, and howling together ; and really this jargon of speech was very properly suited to such a sett of banditti.
)
Besides, Clan is taken from a Gaelic word, sept is decidedly English, why would the Gaels of Scotland or Ireland suddenly start using one English word to describe a vital part of their heritage?

I think it is one of the reasons that the Scots don't ask about other people's tartans, they know many of the replies will be nothing but boring hogwash.

Exactly!
I used to wear a Gordon kilt and it's different when people ask you if you have been in the regiment. I had a bit of an inferiority complex having only ever been a territorial, despite coming from a family with 5 generations of Gordon servicemen. Thinking about it now, I probably would have more claim to wearing a Gordon kilt than any sept association.

The older I get, the more I think just wear fit ye' bluddy well like, but dinnae' invent nae' spiel aboot honouring some lang deid' cheil' fah' widnae' ken ye onywie, and even if he did, he widnae' cross o'er the road tae' gie' ye' the time o' day.