The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. IX] OF SCOTLAND 151
common people the shirt was of tartan, and sewed in plaits,
and they wore a jacket, and the plaid over the shoulder ; this
shirt was probably termed filleadh, and if divided in the middle
would form exactly the present dress with the shoulder plaid ;
the lower part of the shirt would be the filleadh-beg or kilt,
the upper part the waistcoat, and the jacket and shoulder-plaid
would remain. It has likewise been doubted whether the
distinction of clan tartans was known at that period ; but
Martin seems to set that question at rest, for in his valuable
account of the Western Isles he says,
"
Every isle differs from
each other in their fancy of making plaids, as to the stripes,
or breadth, or colours. This humour is as different through
the mainland of the Highlands, in so far that they who have
seen those -places, are able, at the first view of a man's plaid,
to guess the place of his residence." Among the common
people, the jacket was of deer-skin. But the cuaran or buskin,
and afterwards the hose, were common to both.
The dress of the Highland women is thus described by
Lesley in 1578— " Mulierum autem habitus apud illos decentissimus
erat. Nam talari tunicae arte Phrygia ut plurimum
confect?e amplas chlamydes, quas jam diximus, atque illas
quidem polymitas superinduerunt. Illarum brachia armillis,
ac colla monilibus elegantius ornata maximam habent decoris
speciem."! And by Martin in 17 16—"The ancient dress wore
by the women, and which is yet wore by some of the vulgar,
called Arisad^ is a white plad, having a few small stripes of
black, blue, and red. It reached from the neck to the heels, and
was tied before on the breast with a buckle of silver or brass,
according to the quality of the person. I have seen some of
the former of a hundred marks value ; it was broad as an
ordinary pewter plate, the whole curiously engraven with various
animals, &c. There was a lesser buckle, which was wore in
the middle of the larger, and above two ounces' weight ; it
had in the centre a large piece of chrystal, or some finer stone,
'"Their women's attire was very ferent colours. Their chief ornaments
becoming. Over a gown reaching to were the bracelets and necklaces with
the ancles, and generally embroidered, which they decorated their arms and
they wore large mantles of the kind necks."
already described, and woven of dif-