Indigenous Ability

  When we talk old school blades of the American Frontier, the first blade that comes to mind is the storied Bowie Knife. Even non-blade fans have heard of this blade, a few more know the name Jim Bowie, and a few more have a legend or two to spout as fact [which it likely ain’t.] Yes, indeed, most know of the Bowie Knife even if they don’t know the actual history of the blade. Whereas, the Green River Knife? Well, often left out in the cold in our mythologizing memory banks. Let’s delve into a bit of Green River History. Before the Bowie Brothers made their namesake famous [as the legend states] the Green River Knife was equally well-known. T’was the blade of the audacious and intrepid mountain men [“beaver men” to some.] Many a tale followed the Green River Knife, and like many of the Bowie Knife tales, most of them are not quite true. Some say the knife earned its name because the Green River, one of the great waterways of the west, was a popular haven for the kn...

  “ But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident… of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never had been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort .”—Captain E.J. Smith, 1907. Able and esteemed Captain Smith was to go on to be awarded, five years, later the command of the RMS Titanic , of which we all know what happened. Walter Lord’s masterly volume A Night to Remember [1955] breaks down minute by minute the catalog of small errors that led to large-scale catastrophe. Captain Smith was no amateur, no weekend sailor, no bumbler; he was an experienced seaman, well-trained and more than equipped to handle a transatlantic voyage. Chance/Fate can and does always rear its head to render diligent preparation minuscule, but in the case of the RMS Titanic and many other incidences large and small, it is less an encounter with large chance ...

  [This offering can be consumed independently but a read of Frontier Fighting: Borders & No Borders and The Foreign Legion, Apaches, & Combat Migrations might allow a fuller picture. The wide view is always more valuable than a vista.] Let us look to early American grappling as a case-study to demonstrate how often assumed influences do not necessarily match probable realities. Before we get to grappling as a specific vehicle let’s look at the assumed causal arrow of all Frontier development writ large. The story of the United States’ success goes along these lines—and, yes, I am simplifying. ·         The American continent was a formless, cultureless land without its own web of applied technology, considered culture, and enlightened expertise. ·         Immigrants, pioneers, settlers from Great Britain and the European Continent arrive and whip a little democracy, a little culture, and a ...