Part One…The Rationale…
“ How’d he get away, Dad?” The theme song was beginning to drift into commercial as Fess Parker swung his Old Betsy furiously at the Mexicans tightening their attack on him.
“ He didn’t.”
Uh-oh… I didn’t like that tone and the fatherly impatience wasn’t there this time. Uh-oh….
It was like Dad already knew that the Poo-poo was about to pass through the blades. He was almost consoling, like he was a couple of weeks ago when the Million Dollar Movie TV show ( on WORTV in New York) had the monkey shot off the Empire State Building. None of us in Pine Avenue Grammar School could believe that Kong had to die or accept the nonsense about Beauty killing the beast in that one but this…
THIS…
THIS…
THIS was sacrilege!!! Davey Crockett dead…commies!! The black cloud that hung over all of us in our corduroy pants and polar shirts that Monday after Davy’s death was heavier than when Miss Donovan duked it out with our entire first grade class claiming that it was the William Tell Overture rather than the Lone Rangers Theme. My first heartbreak at love…
So, here’s the which and why of this post.
It’s the romance of Davy, the rugged individual and allure of the First Americans that got a lot of us into this hobby in the first place. You wanna do Marginal Man, Long Hunter, Ranger or Eastern Woodsman you’re gonna run into the need for something that looks First American. There are no pompous claims of what “They” did or did not use in their fashion statements except to stick to a simple idea….
You gotta accessorize.
So don’t make anything that makes you look fat, because onsite you also gotta pose a lot. That’s why you made or bought all that stuff. We all lose thirty, forty pounds in our minds eye before the project even starts…. Capeesh?
This bag won’t be historically correct because, for the purposes of this post, it is simply a platform to show some techniques. The techniques here were universal and ESPECIALLY simple.
We will color or paint the project.
We will bead the edge of a project
We will engage Deer Tail Cones
Whatever you elect to do or not do is a matter of taste, and over the years I have found that there are several guidelines that will probably help when we attack this project without mercy…
Part Two… Attack The Project Without Mercy…Keep it simple. Stay away from anything made in China or made of plastic. Die before you try to imitate something you saw via Hollywood. Glass beads and anything else you need can be found in any search, but for my stuff I go to vendors like Wandering Bull or Crazy Crow. Try to work with the more supple and softer leathers, such as Moose Belly, Deer or Elk splits if you can’t afford brain-tanned, where the rougher side is out. Suede is OK, but it generally implies a white guy going into the woods rather than a First American coming out of the woods.
The subjects we are going to butcher is this Elkhide split made from scraps. Splits are naturally irregular, constantly carried by vendors going to rendezvous, and so rough in their cut that they are the next best thing to brain tan or smoke tan in appearance. Close but no see-gar.
I cobbled it to square off the flap because a lot of the First American bags are squared off…either flapless altogether or with a squared flap. Convention helps a lot.
How To Paint Without Mercy
A Mohawk once told me that First Americans kinda sorta viewed paint the way the rest of us view clothing….they dressed themselves with it. There are also a lot of painted haversacks and gear laying around from themperiod. The trick is to make the paint in an historically consistent way so that it does not give a retail store look. Sort of like milk paint or oil paint or something gross because it is mixed with fat. Red Ochre is almost universal for that BUT unless paint reflects the way it was made it’ll look terrible every time.
In terms of a …”make or buy”… stay away from bright color and always thin an off the shelf Ochre to the point where it becomes more of a wash than a paint. You may not want it perfectly even, either. ELSE, make the color yourself…
Regardless of what you do, it is especially wise to limit the painted surface where the ochre shows up. The more you thin the paint, the more it will tend to lose itself and pale in the fibers. This gives you some control as in an aged look. More color…more coats.
How To Bead Without MercyIn this case, we will bead the edge of the flap with white beads. Beaded, white edges are a well accepted convention. I used pony beads here for clarity. I also tack with one needle, on the end of artificial sinew cut to about at least five times the length of the edge. Knot the sinew end and melt the tail as close to the knot as you can with a lighter. Lay out two beads side by side, not quite touching. The distance between the holes in the beads will equal the distance between your awl holes around the edge. The thickness of the bead will determine how far from the edge you punch your holes.
There is no way to do this other than with pictures…
String one bead. Go through the hole and back through the knot and the bead. Pull it tight. If you did it right the bead will have its hole filled and will lay flat on the edge of the flap.
String TWO beads.
Go in one side of the next hole you punch and COME BACK UP THROUGH THE BEAD.
Pull tight
String two more beads and repeat the process. You’ll see that the bead you go in and come back up through is pinned to the edge. The pattern is going to repeat all the way around the edge.
At the LAST HOLE, come back up through the last bead, put a knot there and melt the edge.
How To String Deer Tail Cones Without Mercy…
There’s something about those red, deer hair, tin or copper coned drops that is very appealing. As long as they are not in the way when accessing a shooting bag, they make a great statement. They are also a royal pain in the naughty bits to have to make.
I can’t do it any better than Linda in this video
If you can put up with the politics, the Wandering Bull folks offer them for sale, and this video is pretty good for showing how they’re made;
The trick with these cones is to place them where they won’t interfere with access to the bag. It is a good idea to do a search on something like “Iroquois hunting bags” or some such and view as many pieces as you can for ideas. In this case they are on the bottom of the bag
The white lines show where some beads will be added to the flap, because, as stated, a big painted panel by itself looks a little gawky. I just made the pattern by tracing out some manila folder as a template. I have no justification for the pattern as HC, but prefer it because I saw it up at Fort William Henry around the time that Davy and the Monkey bought it…
I should close by pointing out that the more you trek the greater the tendency to avoid fancy, stand-out decorations. They are generally clumsy, get in the way, and leave a trail for the bad guys to follow when they break off.
A decorated bag in this state will be subject to more work. Maybe some white beads in those zig-zag geometric on the lower, unpainted part, maybe some bordering beads on the flap itself and so on. Hope you know some lady who does quill work, because I ‘d rather die than try it. At the end of the day, The really decorated stuff is for posing onsite for the tourists to see and take pictures of…Yup…you gotta accessorize…
Don’t shoot yore eye out, kid
Greg Geiger
The Capgun Kid
