The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

44 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
CHAPTER IV.
The Northern Picts called themselves Gael, spoke the Gaelic
Language, and were the real Ancestors of the modern
Highlanders.
In the preceding chapter it has been shewn that the revolution
ill 843. generally termed the Scottish conquest, made no altera-
tion whatever in the state of the inhabitants of the northern or
mountainous part of Scotland, but that its effects were confined
exclusively to the southern and lowland districts. This important
point being established, we come now more immediately
to the question of the origin of the modern Highlanders, or that
Gaelic race at present inhabiting these mountains. From the
remarks which have been previously made on the early history of
Scotland, it is plain the Highlanders must have been either the
descendants of the northern Picts, or of the Scots of Dalriada
who conquered the southern Picts, or else we must suppose them
to ha\'e been a different people from either of these nations, and
to have entered the country subsequently to the Scottish con-
quest ; for these three suppositions manifestly exhaust all the
theories which can be formed on the subject of their origin.
The second of these theories is the one which has generally
been maintained by historians, and the traditions at present
current among the Highlanders themselves would rather support
the latter. In another part of this work, the descent of the
m.odern Highland clans from the Gaelic race which inhabited
the Highlands of Scotland in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
will be fully shewn. But the present chapter will be devoted
to the proof of the simple fact, that the Gaelic race were the
descendants of the inhabitants of the same district in the ninth
centur\', and consequently of the northern Picts. It would be
inconsistent with the limits of this work to enter into any
examination of the other two hypotheses, and it would also