Plains Warrior Knife Prowess by Mark Hatmaker

 

Let’s talk subsistence living for a moment. A People. A Culture that squeezes every bit of nourishment from resources, be they organic or inorganic.

Object #1: The Organic Example--The Buffalo

A food source? Of course.

A clothing source? Indeed.

Shelter source? Yep.

Tool source? Again, yes.

Ceremonial source [Spiritual anchoring]? Again, affirmative.

A brief inventory [very brief] of the uses of a single buffalo would include…

·        The obvious, meat/protein source.

·        Other aspects of the animal were not ignored for sustenance: heart, liver, intestines, kidneys, bone marrow, tongue.

·        Some drank the liquid squeezed from the gallbladder.

·        Amongst Comanche, it was considered a “treat” to open the stomach of a buffalo calf and drink the curdled milk contents found within.

·        The skin could be tanned into rawhide or parfleche—this could be hair on for warm clothing or scraped free of hair for shelter covers and other uses.

·        The brains were used to aid in tanning the rawhide or parfleche.

·        Bones were used for a staggering variety of tools. Leg bones broken into scrapers, shoulders into hoes, other bones splintered to make needles and awls for working the rawhide and parfleche.

·        Sinew was an ample fund of rope.

·        Various parts of the animal could be boiled into a glue.

·        Horns could be used decoratively, for ceremony, or to make bowls, cups, ladles, or powder horns.

·        The stomach was used as a water carrier and was hearty enough for a method of boiling water.

·        As the stomach of ruminants is four-chambered it could also be sectioned into other tool uses such as cups, pots and other “water-proof” transporting tools.

·        The tail could be used as a fly swatter, the teeth and small bones of the hoof could be carved into “knuckle-bones,” a form of die or gaming objects.

There are many many more applications that these resourceful people found within this single organic source.

Creativity and necessity pushed the boundaries of assumed utility.

Let us now look to an eyewitness account of a Lakota buffalo hunt witnessed by Francis Parkman during his tour across the Plains.

[Trust me, we’ll get to the staggeringly creative Plains Knife ways in a moment, oh, and be advised, the extract is of its time as is his use of descriptors no longer palatable.]

“Many of the Indians rode at full gallop toward the spot. We followed at a more moderate pace, and soon saw the bull lying dead on the side of the hill. The Indians were gathered around him, and several knives were already at work. These little instruments were plied with such wonderful address that the twisted sinews were cut apart, the ponderous bones fell asunder as if by magic, and in a moment the vast carcass was reduced to a heap of bloody ruins. The surrounding group of savages offered no very attractive spectacle to a civilized eye. Some were cracking the huge thigh-bones and devouring the marrow within; others were cutting away pieces of the liver and other approved morsels, and swallowing them on the spot with the appetite of wolves. The faces of most of them, besmeared with blood from ear to ear, looked grim and horrible enough. My friend the White Shield proffered me a marrowbone, so skillfully laid open that all the rich substance within was exposed to view at once.”

I call your attention to the phrase “several knives were already at work. These little instruments were plied with such wonderful address that the twisted sinews were cut apart, the ponderous bones fell asunder as if by magic, and in a moment the vast carcass was reduced to a heap of bloody ruins.”

This telling observation of facile use of “little instruments” calls attention to the fact that often Plains inhabitants used either “made knives” [that is, blades of stone or bone] or “trade knives” that is knives bartered for from Anglos going west.

These blades were considered subpar and only suitable for trade with, again Parkman’s words, “savages.”

Parkman’s account, and many many others echo his observation, that much facile ability is made with blades considered “not up to snuff.

Parkman had seen able long hunters with their usual three-knife rig, that is belt knife, leg-knife and patch knife.

He had seen skilled men perform the same field dressing of buffalo with so-called better tools.

Those of what some would later call the “Chicago way” of skilled butchery still tout the ability and speed of these tribes with lesser tools.

What we witness with Plains Knife Work is akin to the complete and utter creativity and utility that was put into the buffalo itself.

You take the resource you have [the plains knife] and find every possible manifestation of use, even with what in many cases would be considered a “lesser tool.”

Plains knife use is less about the tool itself, than it is about the pragmatic know-how of just where to insert, slice, hack, tear, approach, grip-flip, heel-back, thumb-down, twist, tuck, and all the other subtle ways of making full and complete use of a single knife.

And so little of that use is reflective of the mano y mano dueling approach transported with a Toledo steel mindset.

Necessity, creativity and survival forged this approach.

Necessity, creativity and survival created an astonishing fount of bladed wisdom.

These tactics were designed to work with lesser blades, and thusly work beautifully with our modern cutlery.

It calls to mind Seneca’s observation:

“He is the great man who uses the earthenware dishes as if they were silver and he is equally great if uses silver as if it were earthenware.”

Plains knifework is silver-plated earthenware and well worth resurrecting.

[We breakdown Comanche Knife ambush on RAW 232/Black Box 20. We delve into “Above the Bone-Shield” attacks in the April 2022 Black Box volume.]

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