The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

164 THE HIGHLANDERS [part I
fourteen tribes, the chiefs of seven of which were considered
of superior rank to the others, and that these fourteen tribes
were grouped into seven provinces, in each of which one of
the seven superior chiefs ruled, lliis exhibits a system exactly
analogous to that which existed, as appears from Caesar and
others, in Gaul, where several of the tribes were dependent
upon others more powerful than themselves. It has been fully
shewn in this Work, that the northern tribes remained in very
much the same state, down to the introduction of the Saxon
la\\'s, in the reign of Edgar ;
that the maormors or chiefs of
these tribes assumed the title of earl, and that the territories
of the tribes are exactly the same with the earldoms into which
the north of Scotland was afterwards divided. We are thus
enabled, by comparing the tribes as given by Ptolemy with
the subsequent earldoms and the seven provinces contained in
Giraldus, to ascertain the exact local system of the Pictish
kingdom. This will appear from the following table :—
Nations.