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Booshway
Picture of Iche Iia
posted
I would appreciate some opinions. We all know that an 1830's Mountain Man would have a possibles bag and a shooting bag. Do you think he would also still have had a Haversack along with or in place of a possibles? How about a woven basket type of back pack?


Iche Iia

"Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he's too old to fight, he'll just kill you."
 
Posts: 379 | Location: Prince George, Virginia | Registered: 04 April 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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I'm not sure that the term "possibles" bag isn't a reenactorism. A "haversack" is a really military item in the Eastern vernacular (where they all came from) up through the War of 1812. A single strap or double strap "pack" or "knapsack" may be better words...I think what folks have called a "possibles bag" was actually a pack to the fur traders and the civilian hunters 60 years prior....perhaps somebody with some source documents can chime in.

Yet a small pack, even of one strap in French was called by them a "Havresack"...and you have NOLA and St. Louis added to the mix for the western fur trade...so they may have called their "pack" a Havresack....but I don't think "possibles" bag.

The fur trappers west of the Mississippi seem to have been much more horse-centric than the hide hunters of the longhunter era from 1760-1775. While the pre-revolution hunters would move into an area, then hunt on foot, keeping the horses at a base camp where they stored the hides... the independent trappers moved around a lot more, and took their horses with them (if my memory is correct). So more than likely what wasn't the bare minimum in their small pack along with the shooting bag... would've been with the horse(s).

The pack basket I was taught was more for carrying traps when setting a trapline, or picking them up... it drained well.

So a pack for the bare minimum if the trapper gets parted from his animals, and a shooting bag, but not an extra pack (not a 3rd bag), whatever we call it...you can carry a lot more efficiently with a double strapped pack than two single strap bags and a shooting bag plus horn....

LD


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
<mtnmike>
posted
[IMG]http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s635/ncmtnmike/pack_zps42956510.jpg"> [/IMG]

Here is my choice,,,,,Mike
 
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Booshway
Picture of Iche Iia
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Not sure if I agree, with the Possible Bag theory but that’s the fun of conversation. Maybe I’ve just seen too many movies LOL but I’ve heard it called that because you carry everything possible in it. Or, carry your “possibles” in it. The vernacular of the day was, of course, different.

So, my question is still the same but I will word it different. “If I were to go to a juried event as an 1830’s mountain man, could I still wear a Haversack?


Iche Iia

"Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he's too old to fight, he'll just kill you."
 
Posts: 379 | Location: Prince George, Virginia | Registered: 04 April 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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The term "possibles bag" makes me shutter. I intensely dislike it! I doubt it is historically correct.

I call it a shot bag, but shot pouch, or shooting bag, or even a shot purse is okay with me, too.

Just my opinion. I can't explain why I dislike the term so much, but I do.

Mountain men were usually on horseback and had pack horses or mules, so they often didn't have a need for a haversack, but sure, why wouldn't they sometimes use one? They didn't have pockets in their breeches, so they needed something to carry their foofarah in. Farmers of that era used them to carry seed that they then sowed by hand.

But, would a jury of contempory people playing mountainmen approve of it - I don't know.


Know what you believe in. Fight for your beliefs. Never compromise away your rights.
 
Posts: 1296 | Location: Cherokee Land, Tenasi | Registered: 06 January 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Free Trapper
Picture of Montour
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"Possibles Bag" is in fact a period correct term for the rocky mountain fur trade. But it was used in the context of a saddlebag, not a shot pouch. Somehow the buckskinning hobby started using that term for the shot pouch and people started carrying everything including the kitchen sink in their shot pouches since they were in fact possibles bags. Yea Im cornfused now myself......

http://books.google.com/books?...sibles%20bag&f=false
 
Posts: 150 | Location: Right where Im standing | Registered: 07 September 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Iche Iia
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Boy, have I been so wrong for so long! Dave, I was wrong about the name “possible bag” and you were on the money.

At a Rendezvous, I have not been carrying a shooting bag (shot bag) I have been carrying my “Possibles Bag” over my shoulder. It is tanned hide with fringe but now, if I read all of this right; it is more of a Haversack and there is no such thing as a possible bag in the context that I have been calling it.

Man, this sure opens up a whole new can of peas.


Iche Iia

"Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he's too old to fight, he'll just kill you."
 
Posts: 379 | Location: Prince George, Virginia | Registered: 04 April 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Sage Rider
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For me, the shooting bag has all my shooting stuff in it. The shot bag is what I carry my "bird shot" in.....at least that how I was taught!


"Don't Retreat, just reload"
 
Posts: 411 | Location: Oregon Territory | Registered: 26 February 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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People have been using over the shoulder bags to carry necessities for all of recorded history, and probably long before that. Not likely they were called haversacks. Sometimes folds in robes or wide belts served the purpose. "possibles" bag is a fun term and currently used liberaly. Wassa fuss? Call it wat you wish.
 
Posts: 1487 | Location: Mountain Home, Arkansas | Registered: 08 October 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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quote:
possibles" bag is a fun term and currently used liberaly. Wassa fuss? Call it wat you wish.


Because if we aren't sure of what is being asked, wrong information may be given. For example, to me a "haversack" is a white, linen canvas, single strapped bag with three buttons, marked as government property, used to issue rations or horse feed, and not used by those not currently in the military or working under a military contract. So I'd tell the asker "no", which is probably wrong for what he means with his question.

I call my 18th century "vest" a waistcoat or weskit, because they didn't use the term, "vest". I call a single strap bag where I lug a bunch of belongings a "pack", and as we see by the previous link, it was specifically called a "possibles pack" not "bag" (but the French were present AND are also mentioned in the reference - and we know from Diderot they called such an item a "havresack")

Yeah he could call it a "purse"...

LD


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Iche Iia
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Ya know, the older I get in age and in this hobby, the more I want things to be as right as they should be and this is the perfect example of how things can get turned around. Apparently the term “possibles bag” has entered into the re-enactors vocabulary because sometimes little things are let to slip by without correcting them (or John Wayne said it in the movies) until, like me, I thought it was the correct wording.

It’s interesting Dave that you mentioned “purse”. I have joked from the beginning that when I put my bag over my shoulder that I was putting my “purse” on……………..

I’m getting to the point where I have run too far out of patience to do a lot of serious research anymore. And I was never good at it in the first place, so it’s good to know that there is a place that I can get good information from those of you that haven’t got to that point yet.

Thanks guys.


Iche Iia

"Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he's too old to fight, he'll just kill you."
 
Posts: 379 | Location: Prince George, Virginia | Registered: 04 April 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of GreyWolf
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quote:
I'm not sure that the term "possibles" bag isn't a reenactorism.

as Montour noted above possibles bag is definitely an historic term dating back at least to the 1830-40's. As also noted it was the trapper's suitcase/saddlebag and not his shot pouch.

The reference Montour linked to is by George Frederick Ruxton from 1848 publish date of "Life in the Far West", "...whars the dollars as ought to be in my possibles?". Ruxton also references a "possibles sack" describing it as a "wallet of dressed buffalo skin" for carrying "[extra] ammunition, a few pounds of tobacco, dressed deerskins for moccasins, etc."


In William Drummond Stewart's fictional book "Edward Warren", but based on his several years during the 1830's of Rocky mountain experience, "my gaudy cottons having confronted the glorious sun until sunk from the contest, were ready to be re-consigned to the possible sack."


aka Chuck Burrows
 
Posts: 616 | Location: Southern Rockies | Registered: 03 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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You guys are a wellspring of knowledge,thanks for sharing,I had it all wrong too...


Beer is proof that God loves us,and wants us to be happy-B. Franklin
 
Posts: 2014 | Location: Oreegun Territory | Registered: 24 March 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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Just another thought on this one. I think without a doubt we can all agree that the primary mode of transportation was horses and mules. Men just weren't hiking around. OK, that said most of us don't have a nice mule or horse at our beckoning call when it's time to hit the trail.

Bottom line is, my back is my mule. I've constructed by hand, a packframe that will carry what I need to get out in the mountains of the west for a period trek. I live at 8,000 feet and always go up from their. There is no one blanket stuff out here.

Two blankets, a small tarp, a little food and I'm good. Not going to carry this in a wallet type contraption. Tried it.

Is the pack frame period, most likely not. Should I just stay home then, most likely not.

Bottom line; get out on the ground.

Rio
 
Posts: 140 | Registered: 18 March 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of NWTF Longhunter
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Here's my "possibles/haversack" As you can see from the 12" ruler it pretty large. I wear it on the opposite side of my shooting bag.

 
Posts: 797 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 29 April 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Iche Iia
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Wouldn't that be a "Haversack"????


Iche Iia

"Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he's too old to fight, he'll just kill you."
 
Posts: 379 | Location: Prince George, Virginia | Registered: 04 April 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of NWTF Longhunter
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I love my haversack in which my possibles I pack. You can call it what you will, it's just a bag I try to fill

This message has been edited. Last edited by: NWTF Longhunter,
 
Posts: 797 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 29 April 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of NWTF Longhunter
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Don't see how a hunter could get by without another bag besides his shootin bag to tote his possibles.

 
Posts: 797 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 29 April 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Idaho Mountainneer
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I wear a haversack especially when trekking. I like to keep things in there that I would want to get to quicker than digging into my main pack.
In some versions of A.J. Millers "The Trappers Bride" the trapper is wearing a "haversack" like bag. Of course in other paintings of this scene it has a powder horn over it so I would assume it would be a shooting bag then.

By the way I like the picture Longhunter.
 
Posts: 330 | Location: Twin Falls ID | Registered: 29 January 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of MountainRanger
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I agree that a good haversack is great for a day's chow and some extras that you want fast access to. here's mine


Sua Sponte


 
Posts: 460 | Location: SW Virginia (New River Valley) | Registered: 13 August 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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