Neck knives

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

I have been wondering how long the concept of neck knives as we now know, has been around. Is this a recent developement ? It doesn't seem to make much sense to me to carry something sharp dangling :hmm: around your neck. Or is it something that just looks cool,and not really practical ? You sure could not get to it in a hurry if you really needed it I don't think unless it was tied down or secured somehow. If you take a fall, you might get that pokey thing stuck in your gizzard.

 

[smokehouseman]

I don't know about the background of knives dangling around the neck but it seems I have everything else hanging around my neck, why not dangle a knife there as well?? Trip, strangle, and dangle......and now stab. I met a bush pilot in Alaska who carried a fairly large leather bag around his neck, he said he carried everything in there that would sustain him for two weeks in an emergency. He also said the reason the bag was leather was so that he could eat it if food was scarce. Now you know he had a knife in that bag. His theory was that in a crash everything else would probably end up a long ways from where he was, but he could count on that bag being close by, I'm sure that same concept was applied 200 years ago and they didn't even have planes then. My 2 cents worth.

 

[Many Klatch]

I find a neck knife to be really handy when camping, whether primitive or modern. The knife is always where you can get at it. I usually carry a smaller neck knife the blades are typically 2 inches long, but they are sharp and useful for a lot of around camp duties as well as eating.

Many Klatch

 

[shmrck1]

Many,
What I like about the neck knife is
that when using it, it is right where you need
it. When not, it is very easy to move off the right or left shoulder.Just my opinion.
snake-eyes:hmm:

 

[LRB]

When you are bent over, and trying to work at something, they seem to swing out and get in the way. Historically, they seem more at home with the NDNs, and the French woodsmen, rather than the English colonials. Although I am sure there were exceptions.

 

[LFC]

Wick's right. Neck rigs, however cool they may look, have always struck me as a bad idea. First, anytime you've got a strong cord around your neck, you're running a greater risk of its getting caught or snagged or hung up on something than you really need to run. Furthermore, when you're outdoors (or, more, in a survival situation), that is exactly when you're likeliest to find yourself in an unusual position--sliding down from a tree (past any number of snags or branches that could suddenly grab your neck-lanyard), leaning over a ledge (in which case that neck sheath that used to keep your knife predictably in front of your stomach when you were vertical now requires you to flail around and catch it because gravity has shifted it to a varying position somewhere in front of your face), etc. If you keep your knife on your belt, it's always there--within a few inches. Put that knife on a neck cord and suddenly the number of places it can be expands to a sphere, the radius of which is the length of the cord, and the center of which is your neck.

When I am tempted to rig a neck lanyard for anything, I often compromise by arranging it as an over-one-shoulder, under-the-other-arm rig. That way, if the cord gets hung up, it won't break my neck--and it also keeps whatever is hanging from the cord much more restricted in its motion.

 

[paulvallandigham]

WADR to both you and Wick, I think you overstate your case.

When I wear a neck sheath and small knife, I am also wearing a wool undershirt that is close fitting, and buttons up. I also have on an outer shirt with collar, and that keeps most any thing from grabbing at any necklace, string, thong, chain, etc. I might have around my neck. I don't start hanging upside down or even bending over low to do work without first removing thing that won't remain " put " when I am upside down. That includes my belt knife, axe, powder horn, possibles bag, hunting bag, glasses, pocket change, and knife, keys, and anything I have around my neck. I will remove my hat, too, and sometimes an overcoat, all of which will restrict my vision, or my arms in one way or another.

I have run with my patch knife in its sheath under my shirt with no trouble keeping it in place. You do have to think about all this, and not use one of those silly sheaths that only cover the blade of the knife. Mine covers about 7/8 of the length of the knife, including the handle. My sheath is tough enough to keep the blade from piercing it, unless a fall is hard enough to pierce my body with the blade, and sheath altogether. With that kind of impact, the least of my worries is being cut by my patch knife.

 

[LRB]

COMUS, I don't know what WADR means, but I get the feeling we've just been dissed!
Paul, I don't care where you, or anyone else carries their knife, but I could possibly come up with a real out of the way, but not a "Never been suggested", I would have to assume, location. A neck knife gets in my way. Been there, done that. If it works for you, fine. It does not work for me, and Comus has brought up a number of better reasons for not doing it, than I had considered. To each his own!

 

Ancient American Indian idea. Mostly Great Lakes area and northeast. Keeps it real handy without having to move it around to sit, squat, roll over or whatever as in belt knives,holstered pistols, etc...
I keep mine inside my shirt.No swinging and it doesn't look cool there. Mine is beautifully quilled and I am the only one who knows it unless I pull it out to show it off to a buddy. Sometimes I tuck it between the buttons on my weskit. THAT looks cool. :grin:

As stated above by other members, your mileage and experience may vary.

 

[Coot]

Thanks for replying to the actual topic question of neck knife history. I for one tend to think of them mostly as a "reenactorism" but welcome info to the contrary.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Wick: WADR means, " With All Due Respect", because I do happen to like both of you. :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Coot : Its too easy to think something is just a mondern innovation that has no history behind it. One needs to remember that until the arrival of Europeans, knives were made either of shells, or of flint, and obsidian. All these sources are fragile, and carrying a precious impliment like a knife on a thong around your neck, and tucked inside your clothes was the best way to protect it from damage. I did not respond to your question about the history of the practice, because I frankly never asked. Cooner54 is the guy that would know, however, and I have learned something from him that I probably should have known years ago. Today, you can buy knife blades, and knifes made from obsidian, or flint, and they are very susectible to breakage. I would never carry such a blade in a belt sheath, knowing how often I seem to bump into things with one hip or the other. It would, however, make the right kind of blade to carry in a sheath hung from a thong around my neck. I think the comment about the blades being short- 2" max. is also appropriate, as if you have ever tried to knapp flint, you understand quickly just how much training and practice it would take most of us to make a blade longer than 2 inches. :thumbsup:

 

They go way back even in Europe - stone bladed neck sheaths with knives have been found in conjunction with Northern European human remains from at least as far back as the Neo-lithic era.

Me I don't care for them, but then I don't like anything hanging around my neck (especially those blankety blank ties! :cursing: )
Dependent on size, etcm and built properly the sheath can make them as safe as just about any other on carry, but I like best of all a MOB carry myself..

 

[Coot]

Paul - I am thinking of steel neck knives, not flint. The original question asked about neck knives "as we now know them" and the vast majority that I see at events and with vendors are steel, not flint. A flint knife is of course more fragile and flint does not lend itself to long blades. There is a reason that the term "longknives" was used by NAs to refer to certain europeans!

 

The one on the right is one of my neck knife cases that is copied from an original.
The one in the middle is made like a neck knife case but is too big so I tuck it in my sash.
The one on the left is a belt carry.

For more pix of eastern native neck knife cases look at Orchards book on Quillworking Techniques. There are about 5 of them in there. Almost any museum exhibit catalog on northeastern woodland Great Lakes style accoutrements will have a few of these in there. They are quite common among the tribal people in the east US.

Here is another one that is copied from an original that was collected Delaware in Orchard's book:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Coot: We are communicating, but not very well. The man was asking about the history and authenticity of the neck knife, and my comment about the history, as explained by Cooner54, was to the extent that the practice of wearing the knives in a neck sheath predates the introduction of metal blades. That is why my comment about flint, obsidian, and shell knives was made. I think its much easier to understand how a certain practice would evolve when you understand how fragile the pre-European knives would have been, and how valuable they were to the owners. That they would treat metal knife blades as equally valuable, if not as " fragile", probably is related to how many pelts they needed to trade for such a knife blade. When you have to barter with foreigners to get supplies that are superior to what you have been using, you tend to take care of the gear you receive in trade. Particular when you don't know when or IF the traders are going to return with more such gear to sell.

 

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

Gray Wolf, please forgive me, but I didn't understand your "MOB" referrence for carrying items. I just figured out what my daughter means when she says "BFF... best friends forever." When I see or hear the word mob, I think of gansters hanging from the running boards of Packards, hosing down some store front on the East side with their tommyguns. I really didn't understand what you meant. Could you shed a little light on this humble dimwit?

 

Sorry about that - MOB = Middle Of the Back...
See Alfred Jacob Miller's prints of Mtn Men in 1837 and you'll see what I mean.
Easy to hand yet out of the way.....

 

Good point Gray Wolf. The eastern woodland indians used to sling these neck knives around to their backs when running in the woods to keep it from swinging back and forth. They also tied their ear lobes to the back of their necks to keep them from getting hung up on twigs and such when on the chase or at war. FYI.
FYI=For your information :grin:

 

[Nifeman]

Good point Gray Wolf. The eastern woodland indians used to sling these neck knives around to their backs when running in the woods to keep it from swinging back and forth. They also tied their ear lobes to the back of their necks to keep them from getting hung up on twigs and such when on the chase or at war. FYI.
FYI=For your information :grin:

Ha, my dad said he had a horse that ran so fast that he had to pin his hat to his ear to keep it from blowin' off and had the scar to prove it!!! :grin: Bud