Does a castle make a clan? The Drummonds' seats over time

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Dictionary already draws a line between a Clan and a Family. A Clan is a surname-and-territory grouping — Drummond; a Family is a set of tartans carried by one branch over more than a couple of generations — Drummond of Megginch, Drummond of Perth. That second name is the interesting part. "of Megginch", "of Perth" is a territorial designation: it names land. And land, in the Scottish tradition, usually means a seat — a castle.

What is Tartan?

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Tartan or checked weaving pattern has ancient origins. Perhaps it came with the spread of the ancient Bronze age Celts from Austria and Turkey. To the East there may be a link to the Tarim Mummies as was popularised by Elizabeth Barber¹. This currently has got caught up in origin stories of the Han. Notable mummies are the tall, red-haired "Chärchän man" or the "Ur-David" (1000 BCE); who wore a red twill tunic and tartan leggings. Elizabeth Barber highlights the similarities between this and fragments recovered from salt mines associated with the Hallstatt culture.

Clans on Tartan Dictionary

Does a castle make a clan? The Drummonds' seats over time

What is Tartan?