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His office had a hoarier
antiquity than that of kingship itself; he represented chieftaincy in
almost its most antique form. Indeed if chieftaincy underwent a change
after the break up of the larger tribes, the probability is that it was
a change towards the earlier and simpler form. Also the attempt at
feudalism was successful within but a very limited area of the
Highlands, and even here the success was more apparent than real. The
two systems could never properly commingle, for chieftaincy was
independent of material considerations. Besides, most clansmen were
simply hunters, or herds, or raiders, as their forefathers had been from
time immemorial. The circumstances and surroundings seemed to defy
change. Of the arts of civilised life they, less than two centuries ago,
knew practically nothing. Their social system pointed backwards to
primeval ages. To them the past alone was great; the future could be
great only in so far as it resembled the past. The reverence with which
the chief was regarded was neither official nor personal in the usual
sense. The clansman honoured the dead more than the living, and the
common ancestor above all his descendants. The chief was the
representative of this common ancestor, and of an uninterrupted
succession of ancestral chiefs whose achievements in war and whose
prowess in the chase were the perpetual theme of the bardic songs and
recitations which formed the true litany of the clan. The consideration
which determined succession was nearness of relationship to the common
ancestor. Hence the brother of the reigning chief was preferred to the
son in the case of mental and physical fitness the elder son by
concubinage or handfast marriage to the son of priestly marriage.
Failing brothers or sons, the choice was limited to the Gaeilfine, or
relations to the fifth degree. The successor was recognised during the
chief's lifetime. That an interloper should usurp the office was almost
beyond the bounds of possibility, for it was guarded as with a wall of
fire, by sacred tradition; and that it could not be degraded by one
unworthy or unfit was guaranteed by a privilege of veto vested in the
elders of the elan. No young chieftain who had failed in the test of
valour—generally the leadership of some desperate raid—was permitted to
rank in the succession ; and if, after attaining the dignity, he
approved himself incompetent or tyrannical, lie might be summarily
removed.
The goodliness of the
chieftain's heritage was truly remarkable. Does any worthier or more
genuine sphere for ambition now exist? Probably no human being ever
cherished a profounder sense of personal dignity—undoubtedly a most
important aid to happiness. Though rude might be his dwelling and
squalid his surroundings, no monarch ever received such noble homage.
"The ordinary
Highlanders," wrote Burt, esteem it the most sublime degree of virtue to
love their chief," for indeed " he is their idol ; and as they profess
to know no king but him (I was going further), so will they say they
ought to do whatever he commands without inquiry." In such circumstances
the chief's duties, if he was worthy to fulfil them, could not fail to
be pleasant and humanising. For the most part, also, he was untroubled
of serious care, for his feuds with his neighbours and his raids on the
Sassenach did but afford him a zest of excitement more exhilarating than
that obtainable from the safer pleasures of the chase. As a rule, he had
neither poverty nor riches, and his ambition was limited to providing
for the necessities of his clan (the complete conquest of a neighbour
was a very rare occurrence). The small inconveniences incident to his
ignorance of the modern amenities were undergone with unruffled
stoicism; they were merely external and superficial. From a long line of
ancestors inured to hardship and despising every form of excess, he
inherited such a, constitution as was almost a guarantee of perfect
health; and when at last he went to join their company, the coronach
sung by the women over his grave betokened eulogy and triumph even more
than regret. The clansman's thoughts were concentrated as much on the
dead as on the living; and by a more influential canonisation than that
of the saints, the chief continued to live in the "songs, the
conversation, the dreams and meditations" of succeeding generations.
The clan system of
government was in its way an ideally perfect one—probably the only
perfect one that has ever existed. Perhaps it was the very thoroughness
of its adaptation to early needs that made it so hard to adjust to new
necessities. lit its principles and motives it was essentially opposed
to the bent of modern influences. Its appeal was to sentiment rather
than to law or even reason: it was a system not of the letter but of the
spirit. The clansman was not the subject—a term implying some sort of
conquest—but the kinsman of his chief. The chief had no title to
indicate "a distant superiority." He was simply the Macleod or
Macpherson or Macshimei. But while the clansman cherished a keen sense
of independence, and expected to be treated by his chief with friendly
familiarity, the cold and degrading equality typified in the Parisian
citizenship—child and parent of revolutions—would have had for him no
charm. It was his peculiar pride to claim the relationship to a
superior; and in itself the very thought of kinship was thus inspiring
and ennobling. Obedience became rather a privilege than a task, and no
possible bribery or menace could shake his fidelity. rIlo\var(is the
Sassenach or the members of clans at feud with him he might act meanly,
treacherously, and cruelly without check and without compunction, for
there lie recognised no moral obligations whatever. But as a clansman to
his clan lie was courteous, truthful, virtuous, benevolent, with notions
of honour as punctilious as those of the ancient knight. Not only was
the standard of public morality a high one, but it was impossible to
evade or defy it. Most clans had a certain number of helots (descendants
of captives), but pauper or criminal class there was none, for the
crimes of the clansmen were committed only against his enemies, and it
was by stealing from them that he relieved the stress of poverty. No
code of laws—after all it may be a symptom of decay, and no proof of
advance in the art of government— stood between him and the personality
of his chief; and the chief's kindness, with the chief's justice and
wisdom, begat a far warmer esteem for law and order than the most
admirable set of rules could ever have inspired.
The difficulties were
that the clan system was efficient only within a narrow area; that it
gave rise to interminable feuds; and that it was inapplicable to the
circumstances created by the rise of modern industry and trade. But may
it not be that it was abrogated all too lightly, or at least with too
little anxiety to provide for it a proper substitute? At any rate, it
realised (in some degree) an ideal which, according to Carlyle, "is the
wish and prayer of all human [political] hearts, everywhere and at all
times": "give me a leader; a true leader, not a false, sham leader; a
true leader that he may guide me on the true way, that I may be loyal to
him, that I may swear fealty to him, and follow him and feel that it is
well with me." And that the political machinery of modern times is
adequate to, or suitable for, the attainment of this ideal is as yet by
no means clear. |
