Customs and habits of great britain introduction

The Clan
The Gaelic word "clan" means "children", and the central idea of a clan is kinship. Nowadays it refers, as a rule, only to Highland families, in Scotland. A clan is a family, and theoretically the chief is the father of it, although not every clansman can be a direct descendant of the founder.
Many people in Scotland today will be surprised to learn that those who founded the present clans were not themselves always Highlanders, but included Normans (Gordon, Eraser), Bretons (Stuart), Flemings (Murrey, Sutherland). Irish (MacNeil), and Norsemen (MacLeod), Mac meaning "son of". Concerning that early period of their settlement, which was between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, we must not be dogmatic on the subject of nationality; the important point is that all these were "incomers" to the Highlands.
When the incomers acquired their land they virtually took over a good many people who were living on it, and who, perhaps, were already formed into a family or clan unit. Gradually the old clan came to acknowledge the protection of their new leader, and at last built up a nominal kinship with him. In course of time intermarriage made it difficult to determine how far this kinship was nominal and how far real.
Under the patriarchal system of clanship, which reached its peak in the sixteenth century, order of precedence was strictly observed. First, after the chief himself, came members of his immediate family, his younger sons and grandsons, and then the clansmen. All of them, whether connected by blood or not, owned a common heritage of loyalty as clansmen. In return for the help and support of his clansmen, the chief was their leader in war and their arbiter in peace. Even in the early days the king was, in theory at least, the "chief of chiefs", and as the royal power spread through the Highlands the chiefs were made responsible for the good conduct of their clansmen. Among the most famous clans were: Campbell, Fraser, Munro, Cameron, Stewart, Murray, MacDonald, Maclean and Mackenzie.
The great period of the clans declined by the beginning of the eighteenth century and the failure of the Jacobite Risings in 1715 and 1745 completed the destruction. But today clan societies flourish in Scotland and, perhaps more ' bravely, elsewhere in the world. These societies are acquiring land and property in their respective clan countries, financing magazines, establishing museums to preserve the relics, founding educational trusts, and -- perhaps above all -- keeping alive the family spirit.