What is the proper name for "possibles bag"?

[nagantino]

Great debate. I think the term “Possibles”, just sounds right and seems to be of a different time. It’s one of those words that fits. You can’t put your finger on it exactly but it just works. Excuse me but, “Where’s my sh**?”, “Get your s***” , impossible to pin down but everyone knows what your talking about. A similar term would be “The Makings”. The Makings of what? Whatever your talking about, is what you and you comrades understand it to be. When I smoked it was my tobacco, papers and filters. “ Where did I put the Makings”, “Did you lift my Makings?”. When I first became interested in muzzleloading I noticed the word “Possibles”. I thought it quaint but always understood it’s meaning, that is a general bag of stuff. I would not put bullet or powder in it.

 

[Tumbledown]

Sounding right doesn't mean it *is* right. Made up is made up.

 

[Bob McBride]

Interesting bit on buying a gun or smoothbore and accoutrements. c1822

A “birding pouch” is interesting. A game bag was often used as a possibles bag/hunting pouch and small game carrier with a net bottom or separate net bag attached or similar if small game/fowl were the usual quarry.

The common vernacular is interesting because an editor or typesetter would likely have changed any narrowly understood term into a commonly understood one before sending any biography or first hand account to the printer, as he would with any book.

https://books.google.com/books?id=W...TACegQIARAW#v=onepage&q=hunting pouch&f=false
Lots of terms were used but, as today, the clearest most widely understood terms stood the test of time, IME.

 

[Bob McBride]

“Possibles” was a quaint term (as evidenced by the parentheses) as late as 1858 but at the very least, it was still used, at least by a certain set. Sort of like “makings” and “leavings”: It wasn’t necessarily connected to the carrying of arms, but a “Hawken” was a “possibles” here, as it meant sort of “what you needed to have to do what you were doing in the moment”.

https://books.google.com/books?id=X...TAAegQIARAC#v=onepage&q=possibles bag&f=false

 

[tenngun]

I don’t speak any Indian language, and often you hear ‘that an old Indian word for ‘ such and such. Often a joke like vegetarian is old Indian word for ‘poor hunter’.
However I used to get every book and mag I could find on ml ( still do a bunch) and I recall from an unremembered source and an unidentified language that the translated name from some tribe for saddle bags or ‘tipi pockets’ was ‘bag for every possible thing’.
Honestly I don’t see how such a thing happened. An English speaker learning an Indian language already had a word for saddlebags,haversacks, knapsacks ect. An Indian learning English would have the English word for bag.
We don’t think of stimulus as the spike Roman soldiers put in trenches, or the little versions doctors used to check responsiveness on a comatose person.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

I've seen the term "shot bag" mostly

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Mr. Sears was a seaman, before he became a outdoor writer.
“ Possibly “ the reference too the ditty bag....

Well he may have been a sailor, but..., he was born in 1821. The earliest reference I've found for "ditty bag" is 1833. So he would've had to have penned his reference to the "ditty bag" at age twelve to be the one who first coined the label...

On each side of the berth-deck, termed “the wings,” are racks for the accommodation of canvass bags; each man has one in which he keeps his clothes, and a little bag or reticule called “a ditty bag,” containing all the implements of his housewifery, such as thimble, needles, tapes, thread, &c, for you must know that every genuine seaman is always his own tailor, hatter, and very frequently his own shoemaker.

The Journal of Belles Lettres, Philadelphia, 1833.


LD

 

[Mad Michael]

People get bent out of shape about anything. They like to feel superior and belittle other people. It's your bag, call it what you want, ignore the monkeys in the trees. That being said I have a separate bag for each of my long arms and are referred to as my shotgun bag, my 44 calibre bag, my trade gun bag, etc. Grant it this developed over time as it took me a while to make them all and acquire the 'STUFF' to put in them. The name of bags changes throughout time and by usage.

George Washington Sears (AKA Nessmuk) wrote: "And don't neglect to take what sailors call a "ditty-bag."This may be a little sack of chamois leather
about 4 inches wide by 6 inches in length. Mine is before me as I write. ... The ditty-bag weighs, with contents, 2~ ounces; and it goes in a small buckskin bullet pouch, which I wear almost as constantly as my hat. The pouch has a sheath strongly sewed on the back side of it, where the light hunting knife is always at hand, .... It is about as handy a piece of woods-kit as I carry." {pp 16 -17, Woodcraft, 1884 edition, edited by me} showing that his contender in this race is Bullet Pouch, and the engraving in the book incorrectly ascribes the term "ditty-bag" to it.

Name it Sue if you like.
MM

 

[Brokennock]

Great debate. I think the term “Possibles”, just sounds right and seems to be of a different time. It’s one of those words that fits. You can’t put your finger on it exactly but it just works. Excuse me but, “Where’s my sh**?”, “Get your s***” , impossible to pin down but everyone knows what your talking about. A similar term would be “The Makings”. The Makings of what? Whatever your talking about, is what you and you comrades understand it to be. When I smoked it was my tobacco, papers and filters. “ Where did I put the Makings”, “Did you lift my Makings?”. When I first became interested in muzzleloading I noticed the word “Possibles”. I thought it quaint but always understood it’s meaning, that is a general bag of stuff. I would not put bullet or powder in it.

The problem is that people aren't using as a term for a, "general bag of stuff," and that this attitude of, " it doesn't matter, it's yours, call it what you want," keeps perpetuating wrong information. A "shot pouch," "shot bag," "shooting bag/pouch," is not a "possibles bag," and vis versa. If someone takes a pillow case and fixes a rope to the closed end, fills it full of all their extra stuff that they lug around, 'cause they might possibly need this or that, ties the other end closed with the rope to form a strap, and calls it their "possibles bag," well, I guess it is that. Sounds old timey and quaint? Not really. And not a good enough reason.

 

[Brokennock]

Again, I guess it must be okay for me to run into members of the, "call anything whatever you like," crowd and call their hunting shirt a bathrobe or a toga.


Language matters. Our history, used to matter too.

 

[smo]

Well he may have been a sailor, but..., he was born in 1821. The earliest reference I've found for "ditty bag" is 1833. So he would've had to have penned his reference to the "ditty bag" at age twelve to be the one who first coined the label...

On each side of the berth-deck, termed “the wings,” are racks for the accommodation of canvass bags; each man has one in which he keeps his clothes, and a little bag or reticule called “a ditty bag,” containing all the implements of his housewifery, such as thimble, needles, tapes, thread, &c, for you must know that every genuine seaman is always his own tailor, hatter, and very frequently his own shoemaker.

The Journal of Belles Lettres, Philadelphia, 1833.


LD

Three paragraphs on down the page....

 

[tenngun]

Again, I guess it must be okay for me to run into members of the, "call anything whatever you like," crowd and call their hunting shirt a bathrobe or a toga.


Language matters. Our history, used to matter too.

I understand what your saying. We should use those terms that were historic. And just to be handy if I ask how to make or use such and such it is good that we use the same name for that product. It doesn’t help if I ask how to make a haversack sack if I’m thinking saddle bags and your thinking snap sack when you hear that word.
But.... why do we get our breechclots in a wad over one word misused but not another.
We best not call a Kentucky rifle that unless it was made in Kentucky. But SMR or Tennessee rifle was not a name used then. And certainly not Virgina or Maryland rifles.
Why does shooting pouch called possibles set us off?

 

[smo]

Breechclots in a wad, feathers ruffled , burr under my saddle, panties in a twist, spun up... just sayin’...
Sort of like Coke, pop, soda. Different locales, different verbiage.

That’s why I like having three bags, if it ain’t in one... possibly it’s in the other.

 

[nchawkeye]

I have read the journals of Lewis & Clark several times...They used the term shot pouch...They certainly did not use the term possibles bag...

 

[TNGhost]

Well he may have been a sailor, but..., he was born in 1821. The earliest reference I've found for "ditty bag" is 1833. So he would've had to have penned his reference to the "ditty bag" at age twelve to be the one who first coined the label...

On each side of the berth-deck, termed “the wings,” are racks for the accommodation of canvass bags; each man has one in which he keeps his clothes, and a little bag or reticule called “a ditty bag,” containing all the implements of his housewifery, such as thimble, needles, tapes, thread, &c, for you must know that every genuine seaman is always his own tailor, hatter, and very frequently his own shoemaker.

The Journal of Belles Lettres, Philadelphia, 1833.


LD

Here it says 1828 and as a shortening of "commodities" bag or box.:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/ditty bag

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I'm only objecting to the assertion the George Washington Sears aka Nessmuk was the first person to reference the term. Not to the term's true, and most likely nautical origin.

LD

 

[Jay Templin]

In the field notes for his sketch that became "Trappers Starting for the Beaver Hunt," Alfred Jacob Miller wrote:
“On starting for the hunt the trapper fits himself out with full equipment. In addition to his animals he procures 5 or 6 traps, ammunition, a few pounds of tobacco, a supply of moccasins, a wallet called a “possible sack” gun, bowie knife, and sometimes a tomahawk. Over his left shoulder and under his right arm hang his buffalo powder-horn, a bullet pouch in which he carries balls, flint, and steel, with other kick-knacks. Bound around his waist is a belt, in which is stuck his knife in a sheath of buffalo hide, made fast to the belt by a chain or guard of some kind and on his breast a pipe holder, usually a gauge d’ amour in the shape of a heart, worked in porcupine quills by some dusky charmer.”
So it looks from this like what y'all are calling a "possibles bag" is what they called a "bullet pouch," and what they called a "possible sack" is something different. Terribly useful, I know...
Jay

 

[smo]

I'm only objecting to the assertion the George Washington Sears aka Nessmuk was the first person to reference the term. Not to the term's true, and most likely nautical origin.

LD

I understand, I dont know why it says the 1st Ditty bag myself, then states the term goes back Centuries before his time....

 

[Leadball loader]

I understand, I dont know why it says the 1st Ditty bag myself, then states the term goes back Centuries before his time....

I have enjoyed the deluge of discussion about that necessary accessory I carry when enjoying the use of my firelock.
It all boils down to time, place and the form of language in use and I will henceforth make every effort to use words that reflect New England in 1745!!~
Keep the history coming.
LBL

 

[Bob McBride]

...... I will henceforth make every effort to use words that reflect New England in 1745!!~
Keep the history coming.
LBL

Aye, a likely way to proceed, says I.