Extra containers for carrying stuff?? Lets see what I have in the files?
:hmm: :hmm: :hmm:
Looks like people been needing a place to stash their plunder for a while! Espically when they had no pockets, such as when running around near naked or wearing breechcloths. Pants are a sort of recient addition to the wardrobe, and having pockets in them is an even newer concept. They were around (pockets) but not really commmon except on outer garments. (did you know that really, really good dress shirts are not suposed to have pockets?)
The bags have come in all shapes and sizes. We see them drawn on the walls of Egyptian ruins, in the caves of France and Spain, and sometines we get lucky and dig them up with people that were frozen thousands of years back! We see them in Medieval art and in paintings of the masters of the rennasiance. I saw kids at the bus stop this morning with some really neat copies (in modern materials) of bags that date to the stone age!
As long as people have had more to carry than their pockets (if they had pockets) would hold they have made use of scatchels, bags, pouches, shoulder bags and rucksacks.
What you wore was detirmined by the area you grew up in, what was popular and the materials you had at hand.
A rich man would have had a nice one, a poor man a plain and sturdy one, a really poor man a ragged one made from cheap stuff. Due to their long history they can be simple of very fancy in style.
This allows you to pick a bag that fits your persona and budget, made from whatever you have available that is PC. If the bag blends in with the quality, construction and craftsmanship of the rest of your gear you will probably be OK.
An acceptable bag can be a big circle of leather with holes punched around the outside and a drawstring threaded through, a folded over envlope sewn on each side with a flap and button, or a well crafted multicompartment piece of leather artwork.
If you get out of character you might catch some strange glances, (like Native AM finger woven or beaded bags on an English settler or a long fringed bag at an eastern site) but this is mostly a matter of their speculation against your speculation.
There is also a difference between a "possibles bag" and a "shooting bag". I keep plunder in one and shooting gear in the other, don't mix them up it gets way too confusing.
Us eastern types do not have possibles bags. We tend to use haversacks, snapsacks, rucksacks longhunter bags and market wallets (which are really possibles bags using an alias).
You can buy a couple of hundred dollars worth of books that have really neat pictures of shooting bags and after the first dozen pages you will find that in each era they used what they had and made them from the materials that were available. (cut down boot tops, dismembered saddle bags, salvaged sporans and various unusual body parts from both man and animal!)
I see that you are from the PA area so I would suggest that you call a historic site, museum, reenactment club or group and work through the group that can give you the most options for camping and participation. Build your gear to match what is historically accepted in your area or you will have nothing but nice decorator items to hang on the wall of the den.
Not being picky, just offering money and time saving advice.
