" How about nonmilitary Henry? Not everyone in New France was in a line unit! "
Actually ... yes , everyone WAS expected
to serve in the Parish Militia , from 16 to 60 years old ( 6 years to go for me ) like modern day
Israël ,Switzerland or Finland . Younger guys
fought along the Marines and the Indians , the older ones merely carried the goods from one fort to another by boats or canoe or worked as craftmen
building forts , boats etc.
Everybody was expected to bring his own gun .
All blades are supposed to stay in the sheath , this in a New York State Park and Parc Canada regulation , those young guys who are doing the hand to hand combat and scalping demo use really blunt edges , but still made of steel .
I am to old for that . :nono:
With a wool cloth belt , the belt knife is much
more inconveniant than the neck knife .
My belt knives are 14 " long , much longer than any modern belt knife I ever used . It really is a weapon . In camp there is nobody to kill and the park/Parc regulation forbids to cut tree branches . The US custom already managed that we could not bring meat from Canada :bull:
( Some pork and horse meat is allowed , under
strick conditions )
Coureur des bois did not scalp their customers :rotf:
Those Indians who did , left the scalping knives
out of the village for the same reason they never touched the scalps with bare hands . Not to bring evil spirits on them . Obviously other nation
like the Abénaki , did not care much about those spirits :blah: and décorated their houses with scalps , one of the very few thing in " North West Passage " that is well documented :v
Breech cloth .... again... I am quite proud that
it is my unit , la Milice de Chambly ( Société de reconstitution historique du Québec ) who brought
that on the the enactment sites . It was a bit weird at first , but well documented . ( I have a nice picture , on the cover of a 1977 copy of Black Powder Illustrated , of a gentleman with breech cloth OVER his breeches :rotf: he also have eyeglasses and a beard for good mesure .)
Breech cloth is an Indian custom , you already knew that , the British took years ( centuries ?) to adopt it .
In Canada it was common for milice and for hunting , even for field work in summer since the
XVII th cent. The clergy was always against it .
There are numérous letters from the bishop to the parish priest to try all they could to stop
those " immoral " practices ( including the habit of women to wear their shirt only , no bodice or skirt , in the fields or at the farm )
After the conquest , the British authorities were so happy to help the french clergy in their work ,forbidding men to wear " small war clothes "
( small war ... in spanish : guérilla )
and carry firearm to hunt on sunday ... or any other day for that matter .
For those in the fur trade , they stayed free for a while , until the Scots came....