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More Wild & Wooly Fun for My Rough ‘n’ Tumblers by Mark Hatmaker


How’s this for a full life?

·        Hugh Glass, if you saw the film The Revenant, or read the book by Michael Punke or were already familiar with this mountain man who survived a tussle with a bear to crawl an injured 300 miles through hostile territory and still put more years in front of him.

·        Pre-Legendary Bear Attack he…

·        Was a sailor who was captured by Jean the “Gentleman Pirate of Barataria” Lafitte and forced to become a pirate for a spell.

·        He and a shipmate eventually jumped ship off the coast of Texas and swam to shore.

·        End of the adventure? Not quite.

·        The two ex-pirates were then captured by the Pawnee. They endured well enough to be adopted by the tribe where Glass accrued much of his survival prowess including crossing swollen rivers, navigation without compass, know what plants were and were not edible, stone age hunting etc.

·        Once he escaped the Pawnee, Glass embarked upon the expedition that led to the bear attack, I’ll skip all those adventures as they have been covered often.

·        Post Bear attack life was no less colorful.

·        Glass endured a fight with a band of Utes and recived an arrowhead in the spine. He travelled roughly 700 miles before having another mountain man remove the projectile from his backbone.

·        Was Glass done with adventure?

·        Nope.

·        In the winter of 1832, a running fight with the Arikara [the same tribe he had tussled with during the Ashley Expedition] commenced on the Yellowstone River.

·        Glass and two other companions did not survive this encounter, but it seems safe to say that this was one hard to kill hombre.

Mountain Man, Plainsman, add Waterman to the Triumvirate.

·        Most of us know that mountain men were legendary for their survival prowess in the elevated fastnesses of the North American continent.
·        Plainsmen were known for similar know-how and skill on the vast American Plains [formerly “The Great American Desert”] and the actual deserts of the US and Mexico.
·        An equally common phrase at the time was Waterman. A Waterman was an expert at fording rivers, running rapids, river navigation, swimming, survival fishing, seine trapping, canoeing, kayaking, keel boating, river-reading, and generally all things aquatic.
·        The phrase “He’ll do to ride the river with” was high praise, meaning you knew your stuff.

The Frontier-Sailing Connection

·        It seems knowledge of sailing and its value was not something limited to the Coasts. As we saw in the Hugh Glass example, he began as a lawful sailor before his sojourn as a pirate.

·        Historian and actual Westward traveler, Francis Parkman makes technical remarks regarding sailing in his opus The Oregon Trail; he offers these remarks as if “We all know this, right?”

·        I find again and again references to sailing knowledge in old journals and letters, not mere use of the lingo but phrases and uses that prove the authors of said pieces knew the ropes. One from an actual Mississippi riverboat gambler [more on this colorful character another day as he’s got a lot to offer regarding armed and unarmed combat.] This wild personage offers how often he and other sharpers would take “yachts” [sailing vessels] out for speed cruises and drinking sessions.

·        And this knowledge was not limited to the “White Settlers.”

·        We often think of the American Indian tribes as either landlocked or using canoes in the Eastern woodlands and perhaps kayaks in the Northern climes but there is a superlative volume from 1959 by Horace P. Beck titled “The American Indian as a Sea-Fighter in Colonial Times” that details just how common and impressive this knowledge of wind, wave, tide, current, tack, jibe, beats, runs, martial maneuvering etc. was.

Comparisons.

·        It is hard not to ponder the CV of individuals like Hugh Glass, or the fluid and wide knowledge and abilities of mountain men, plainsmen, watermen, rough ‘n’ tumble sailors and not make comparisons to our own selves today.

·        Are we as widely knowledgeable as these folks?

·        As widely experienced?

·        Do we seek even a tenth of the adventure?

Choices

·        I am well aware that not all from days of yore were such hard-chargers. The cities and towns were full to the brim with those who stayed put…

·        But there was an astoundingly remarkable number of folks who chose not to stay put and it is always of these folks that admiring remarks are made.

Two Quotes





·        “To the hard-shelled men who built with nerve and hand that which the soft-bellied latecomers call the ‘western myth.’”-Louis L ’Amour in his dedication to the novel Bendigo Shafter

·        And the next is from anthropologist Jean Malaurie writing in The Last Kings of Thule: A Year Among the Polar Eskimos of Greenland [1956].

·        “When adventure does not come to him, the Eskimo goes in search of it.”

May we all be a bit more nervy as we gain able hands, harden our shells and search for a bit more adventure!

[For techniques, tactics, and strategies of Rough and Tumble Combat, Old-School Boxing, Mean-Ass Wrestling, Street-Ready Frontier Scrapping & Indigenous Ability culled from the historical record see the RAW Subscription Service, or stay on the corral fence with the other dandified dudes and city-slickers. http://www.extremeselfprotection.com

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