The pocket knife
by
Julie Carter
Long ago the “look” of the
cowboy was warped and morphed by images on the silver screen along with western
wear catalogs and the new age of “country” music singers.
No Virginia, cowboys don’t dress like Buffalo
Bill.
In lives dictated by work, wind
and other forms of inclement weather, function trumps fashion every time. Cowboys
and their female counterparts dress to get the work done including wearing as
many of the necessary tools of the trade as possible.
One of those necessary tools is
a knife. There is even a statement among cowboys that claims you can’t be a
cowboy unless you carry a pocket knife. These are used daily to cut hay
strings, change the minds and attitudes of bulls, cut the rattles off a dead
snake, perform tack repairs and traditionally, give the fingernails a trim.
For decades, the pocket knife, sleek
and in folding form, was transported by simply slipping it into a front jean
pocket for safekeeping. As it became
more of tool than just a blade for cutting, knives were worn in a scabbard or
sheath in a surprising variety of places: attached to the belt, vertical above
their back pocket, horizontally on the belt, in a cross draw position in the front
or simply in the pocket of their leggings.
Scabbards can be a personal
fashion statement. Often adept at leather work, rawhide stitching, knot tying
and tooling, cowboys’ workday knives are usually cased in sturdy proof of their
skill. Their Sunday-go-to--meeting knife scabbards may even have tooling to
match their saddles and gear.
Knives come in a variety of
personal choice brands. We’re not talking Swiss Army here -- these knives are
as practical as the cowboys who wear them. You see everything from working
knives to seasonal hunting knives to the finest Damascus steel, fancy inlaid-handled
knife for church.
Special folding knives made
popular by the ropers come with a clip to hold them in a back pocket for quick
access in the case of a tangled endangerment. Sometimes it is necessary to cut
a perfectly good rope to save the life of a roper or the leg of a horse.
Panhandle punchers who receive
load after load of 400-weight steers and bulls swear that in Louisiana knives are used exclusively for
peeling pecans because 99 percent of the cattle that come from that area are
still bulls. “Steer” is apparently not a Cajun word.
Ranch cowboys are forever using
their knives at cattle working time and a measure of pride is taken in just how
sharp their knife is, frequently drawing blood just to prove the point as they
lightly graze it across their forearm shaving a few hairs as it goes.
However, clean and sanitary is
optional. It’s not unusual for cowboys to castrate calves all morning and use
the same knife to cut their meat at the meal afterward. Cautious ranch wives
make sure there is a clean knife strategically placed by the cake plate.
Not often thought of but
definitely one historical use of a knife is in horse trading. Those traders will
sometimes whittle during the ensuing lengthy discussions involved in the
bartering.
I’m told that if the trade is
going the trader’s way, his knife will pull the whittle toward him. If the
trade is going the other way, slivers are driven off the piece of wood toward
the buyer.
That’s a good point to know.
Probably Buffalo Bill first established this principle.
No comments:
Post a Comment