The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

I04 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
succession were so loose in the Highlands that brothers were
often preferred to grandsons and eveti to sons." But nothing
can be more erroneous than this opinion, or more inconsistent
with the character of the Highlanders than to suppose that they
ever, in any degree, admitted of election. For an attentive
examination of the succession of their chiefs when influenced
by the feudal law will show, that they adhered strictly to a
system of hereditary succession, although that system was very
different from the feudal one. The Highland law of succession
requires to be considered in reference to two subjects :— first,
as to the succession to the chiefship and to the superiority of
the lands belonging to the clan ;
and secondly, as to succession
ro property or to the land itself The former is generally
termed the law of Tanistry, and the latter that of
Tanistry.
Gavel. The first of these is the most important to
be ascertained, for when the feudal law was introduced, it
became in fact the succession to the property also, while the
last was too much opposed to feudal principles to be allowed
to exist at all, even in a modified state. The oldest and most
complete specimen of the Highland law of Tanistry which
remains, is to be found in the case of the succession of the
Maormors of Moray, and the peculiarities of this system will
appear from a consideration of the history of that family. In
the first place, the Highlanders adhered strictly to succession
in the male line, which is proved by the fact, that although
Malcolm, Maormor of Moray, and afterwards King of Scotland,
had a daughter who was married to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney,
and Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, Sigurd's son, was consequently
his feudal representati\e, yet he was succeeded in his possessions
by his brother Gillcomgain. In the second place, the
great peculiarity which distinguished the Highland from the
feudal laws of succession was that, in the former, the brothers
invariably succeeded before the sons. This arose partly from
an anxiet}' to avoid minorities in a nation dependent upon a
competent leader in war, but principally from the difference in
principle between the two systems. In the feudal system it
was succession to property, and the nearest relation to the last
feudal proprietor was naturally considered feudal heir, while in
the Highland s\'stem, on the other hand,
it was succession to