This long-powerful group of clans comprised two main divisions, respectively under Macintosh and MacPherson leadership, with some subsidiary septs and family groups joining for protection. Dissension arose among the sections from various causes, not least from their encroaching neighbours, the Gordons, enticing them into opposing camps.

Accounts of the Clan Chattan’s origin vary. The Macintoshes, holding to their own Maduff origin, regard it as a confederacy, with the MacPhersons just a branch from Macintosh stock. MacPhersons, putting reliance on a written genealogy of 1450, favour the Chattan sections as having branched from an ancestor, Gillechattan Mor, a Moray chief of the early 11th century, his elder son Nechtan founding the MacPhersons and the younger, Neil, the Macintoshes, which surname only appears two centuries later. Either way of it, the Clunie MacPhersons retained the old Chattan chiefship, although in 1291 the Macintoshes, through marriage of their chief Angus to Eva, the MacPherson heiress, achieved the greater share of land and followers and also their chief’s right to be styled "Captain of the Clan Chattan" leaving their claim to full chiefship a good-going dispute scarcely yet settled.

MacPherson Group:   MACPHERSON, DAVIDSON, GILLESPIE, KEITH, SMITH

Macintosh Group:  MACINTOSH, FARQUHARSON, MACBEAN, MACGILLIVRAY, MACGLASHAN, MACHARDIE, MACQUEEN, NOBLE, MATAVISH, SHAW

Also:  CAMERON, CATTANACH, CLARK, MACPHAIL