# General > General Knives & Blades >  Native American and early frontier knife carrying methods

## randyt

I was wondering earlier how the Indians carried their knives. I have read that neck knife carry was rare. Then I got to wondering how Boone and folks of that time frame carried knives. 
any thoughts? as a side note I wonder about all kinds of things LOL

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

I guess it depends on the time period in question.  For lots of years "knives" of most primitive peoples were simply sharp flakes of flint, hand held and discarded when dull or after use.  On my desk I have one such piece of obviously "worked" flint.  It would appear that the workings were done to facilitate a grip in the hand.  Of course, I've been wrong before.

These knives were likely carried in a rolled up bundle or maybe a small pouch.  It is my understanding that Pre-Columbian "Indians" did not use nor conceptualized a hafted knife as we know it.  Scrapers, adzes and clubs were hafted but cutting tools were not. 

From early pictures, frontiersmen carried sheathed knives stuck in their waistband or belt, but I don't know for sure.  There is another History Teacher on these boards that will likely know though.  I look forward to reading his input on this subject.

Alan

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## Old Professor

From what I have read, once the natives acquired manufactured knives from traders , like the Hudson Bay fur traders, the emulated the waist band carry (in a sheath, of course) Some did carry smaller knives as neck knives. The basic trade knife was what we would call today a butcher knife.

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## kyratshooter

Knife sheaths, being a utensil used since prehistoric times, have a pretty good compilation of fact.

Starting with Ottzi the iceman ad his flint knife, his knife was a small flint tool about 2 inches long and kept in a woven fiber sheath.  That sheath was simply hung from a string on his belt.

From there it was "anything goes" with materials and styles differing from one region to another and by the late middle ages when the New world was being explored and settled every one of those styles was brought to North America.

The sheaths ran the entire spectrum from pouches laced on one side and only a small part of the handle showing to leather sewn in a single seam down the back and the European style of wood covered with leather and set with metal reflecting whatever the status of the owner could afford.

All through history the knife was considered an eating tool and each person had one handy for feeding themselves, so sheaths were necessary for transport.  Cooks even kept their kitchen knives hanging from their belts in sheaths.

Here in NA there was really no "rule" and knives were carried as the owner desired.  Sometimes the sheath was slipped in the belt and held in place by a clip made of metal, or sometimes by a tab of leather.  Sometimes there was a loop for the belt to run through and sometimes the cut slits for the belt as we knew on cheap sheath knives when we were kids.  I have seen all of those methods in museums and collections all over the South East.  

The Indian "neck knife" was done but it usually involved small knives with blades the size of our pocket knives, so most of those neck knives where everyday craft tools kept where they were easy to access.  The inspiration for most of those neck knives was paintings of Indians and most of those paintings were done by artists doing their work long after the events in question had ended.  I thin there is a sketch of an Indian wearing a neck knife in the painting "Death of Wolfe", and that particular painting was done 100 years after Wolfe died.

Much of the Indian concept depended on what knives were being traded locally.  Small knives with blades of 2"-3" and shaped like the blade of a boy scout knife were traded freely to the Indians.  They had a spike tang and were fitted with a handle by the owner or sometimes were fitted by the manufacturer with a simple wooden handle which was painted red.  They became known in the trade as the "red knives".  Louis and Clark carried hundreds to give as presents on their Expedition.  

Butcher knives were shipped by the millions into the frontier by every nation that had a trade post.  They were almost identical to what we use today with 6"/8"/10" blades.  They were packed in crates by the hundred dozen and shipped without handles to save shipping space. Every Indian had to install his own grips and make his own sheath, so pick a style and material.  Chances are you will not be far wrong. 

The Hudson Bay Company furnished the western Indians with a big knife with a double edged blade that could be used as a knife or as a spear point.  The handle was usually just a wrapping of leather or rawhide and the Blackfoot warriors carried them without a sheath, using a simple wrist strap to hang the open blade on their arm.

No sheath, or no method to hang the sheath at all has been a common carry method among primitive people all over the world.  The knife is the primary and sometimes only piece of gear, so just carry it in your hand.

I have seen one knife attributed to Boone.  It is a big sucker with an 8" blade, produced in Sheffield England and taken from the body of a dead Shawnee.  It has a sheath of folded leather, sewn with a whelt down the edge, and has two slits cut in an enlarged leather tab for hanging on the belt.  It is probably the same sheath shipped from England to the colonies for presentation to the Shawnee being paid to attack Boonesboro.

I have seen one knife attributed to Crockett.  It is a double edged dagger with blade about 6" long.  It had a sheath of leather with the seam down the center of the back and a more formal belt loop added to the back.  Keep in mind that Crockett lived until the 1830s and was a man of some wealth and property.  He traveled the eastern cities and had access to the best of his day.  In fact, his last "Old Betsy" was a half stock plains rifle by Derringer and presented to him by the citizens of Philadelphia for his opposition to Jackson in Congress.  

Jackson had an identical copy of the same rifle, so Crockett died at the Alamo with a rifle as good as the one owned by the President. 

Anyway, if you remove the presence of snap fasteners just about any sheath and any style of closure you can imagine has been used down through the ages.

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

This is the piece I referred to earlier.  It could have been used as a cutting tool or in some other capacity.  It is unusual though and is the only one of that configuration I've seen.  

On occasion, when cleaning an animal after hunting I have flaked off a chip of flint and tried it during the skinning or cleaning operation.  While I would not want to do the whole animal with a piece of flint, it certainly could be accomplished easily.  It is much easier to cut yourself with a piece of flint than with a knife.  

I don't have any representative samples of a knife blade flake here with me now.  They could be removed as a long slender flake from a core created for that purpose.  NAs in N. America used flint and the Indians of Central Mexico made them from obsidian, particularly for their gruesome religious ceremonies.

Alan

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## kyratshooter

Yep Allen, that kind of stuff was just dropped into a buckskin bag and tied to the belt, selected, touched up and used as needed.

Our own Crashdive is a knapper of some renown.  For a Squid he has numerous land based skills of merit.

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## hunter63

One just needs to ask themselves....

How many many way do you carry your cutting tools?
Different tools, different situations, different possibilities uses, different available materials......
Fun to think about, and speculate....

Strangely, have heard the 
The thread counter nazis do not say much about knives and carry....at rondy....

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

I, like many of you, am overly fascinated by knives.  Aside from the stick and the rock, knives are probably one of mankind's (much to the chagrin of the Canadian HSIC {Head Snowflake In Charge}) oldest tools.  An accidental byproduct of banging a rock too hard against another rock gave Mankind (there it is again) a tool he could really use and propelled him technologically from tearing at his food with his teeth like and animal to slicing off bite sized chunks to wolf down in refinement.  The knife then began a progression of literally thousands of further alterations to perform the multitude of cutting, poking, stabbing, ornamental and religious tasks.  Were you to present one of our distant ancestors with even a modest bubble pack knife of today he would likely consider it a gift from the gods.  

Over the ages mankind has used a variety of metals and alloys to make his knives finally arriving at steel sometime shortly before the birth of Christ.  I can't imagine trying to put a useful edge on a copper or bronze blade, but for some thousands of years mankind did just that, and happily too.

When Europeans invaded the Americas they found two whole continents that were to entirely skip the iron age.  Middle America had some metallurgy going on but nothing to rival even ancient Rome.  15th century Europeans walked into the middle of a Stone Age culture that had not existed to any extent across the Atlantic in almost 5,000 years.  No wonder they thought them to be savages.  They were technologically.

But, they adapted rapidly and in a very short time the old flint chip dropped into disuse in favor of the Iron and Steel which could be traded, stolen or pilfered from the Europeans.  I remember reading that one of the favored trade items for the early seaborne traders to the waters of the Northwest of North America was the simple ship nails.  They could be pounded into spear points (or knives) for fishing or hunting and, 1 for 1, were worth a sea otter skin.  The traders made a killing on those deals.

As indigenous peoples adopted the new steel and iron blades, they adopted the hafting techniques and sheath carry of the Europeans as well.  Although I have nothing to back my opinion with other than imagination, the Ulu presents an intermediate phase of hafting.  It incorporates a handle on a blank of steel.  However, ulu blades were made from a variety of other materials so that transition to hafting a blade in the Americas would not necessarily be because of the introduction of steel blades.  

Jeeze, I gotta cut this out. I feel like I'm back at work.

Alan

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## kyratshooter

We are not "back at work", we are just doing what comes naturally to us Allen.  

Teachers transfer information by compulsion and study these details "just in case" we run into someone that needs teaching.

My kids hated road trips.  "Are we there yet?" was never heard.  My kids repeated comment was "Dad you are teaching us to death!"

Vacation days were taken at reenactments for historic sites and museums from Atlantic to the Mississippi and from the Gulf to Lake Erie.  We did demonstrations and presentations from Lasalle to The Wild Bunch.

Some of it took too.   #1 son is an archaeologist.

And you are correct Hunter.  Most of the stitch counters do not mess with knife carry methods except for the use of neck knives by settlers.  They poo-poo that at the strict historic sites, but their rationale is mostly self induced as the old thing "there is no proof that settlers carried neck knives" and the always famous "that was an Indian thing and the white people would not have done it."

But there is also no proof that settlers did not carry neck knives.  And there is definite proof that many settlers collected Native America battlefield pick up gear and used it, such as Boones knife and the documented sale of loot from Indian villages sold and the proceeds divided among the militia. 

I personally find that carrying a small blade in a neck sheath is really handy, more so than constantly taking a knife from my belt and putting it back time after time.  I just want it to be real small and light so it does not pull at my neck or sling around and smack the crap out of me.

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

I know.  I get the "eye roll" every time someone around here lapses (or wants to change the subject) and asks a question...  But then I view no one asking questions as being that I have thus far done an excellent job of teaching and should continue! (eye roll).  

As far as carrying a knife, I suppose I fit into the pocket or belt class.  From other lives and working on vehicles on other heavy or light machinery, I got completely out of the habit of wearing any type of extraneous adornments.  Nothing around my neck that a fan or fan belt on a truck or tractor could grab (although for a lot of years I got up each morning and tied a noose around my neck and went off to work.  I always thought about that when breaking up fights.  I'm glad those guys fighting didn't think of it).  No rings that could get caught and clip off a finger.  Not even a wrist watch that could catch on a branch or tree limb.  Wellington boots with no laces, and tight fitting leather gloves.  I never even liked carrying a fixed blade knife belt knife because a horse could get tired of me on its back or a cow could decide I didn't need to stand int he gate waving my arms and I could find myself on the ground with no real control over how I landed.  A fixed blade knife, even sheathed could cause a wound that would require more than rubbing some dirt on it.  So, a neck knife would be out on two counts, the around the neck carry and a fixed blade.  Besides, I sat down wrong once on a fixed blade knife and bent the blade at the hilt.  It was a buck knife that I had had for a long time.  It bent back straight and I retire it.  I would have hated to break that one.  

But, for skinning, filleting, butchering, etc.. I use a fixed blade knife.  I just don't carry them.  My sons all carry fixed blade knives in a variety of sheaths including those horizontal belt sheaths with no strap.  I don't know how they keep from losing their knives, but they don't.

Alan

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## hunter63

It has been my habit to carry a neck "patch knife" for a few years now....on a leather lace.
Need to replace the leather lace...getting worn dirty and sweated up  ..cracks showing up......
Called looking good.

Was a gift from a friend that crafted scales by drilling out an antler tine...and epoxy it on....
Don't look close at the blade ...made in Taiwan...look like a paring knife blade.....LOL.....

Does come in handy...and allows me a blade in camp without walking around in full regalia....ropes cords (price tags) eating ......and actually cutting patches a the range.

Have wondered how "pocket knives were carried prior to having pockets.... especially folding knives with out a locking mechanism

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## randyt

thanks for the replies

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

Not having pockets was certainly a problem a long time. Google says the first came into general use in the 17th century.  For a short period of time I carried a "Solingen Sodbuster" I had it try to close up on me one day.  I put it away right then.  I have three of them.  They are relegated to non-working roles.  My dad gave #3 son one for his Graduation from High School.  He closed it on his forefinger that day and off we went to the ER to get his first knuckle sewed back on.  Took him about two years to get the feeling back in that finger tip.  Kinda hard to feel a trigger pull with no feeling in your trigger finger.

All my folding knives (that I use on a daily basis) have lock blades except of course the smaller pocket knives.

Alan

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## randyt

sometimes I think pockets are a curse. I have a small pail by my dresser. It is filled with screws, wire nuts, bolts, change, 22 lr ammo and just about everything else.

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## kyratshooter

> Have wondered how "pocket knives were carried prior to having pockets.... especially folding knives with out a locking mechanism


Pockets, before they were included in the pants, were simple bags tied to the belt.  The term "cutting the purse strings" comes from thieves robbing folks by simply cutting the strings and running.  And I suppose the pocket knives were carried in whatever purse or belt pouch was in use.

When I was reenacting I used to carry a folding knife in a simple envelope type pouch attached to the side of  whatever belt pouch I was using.  I always had a belt with a good sized pouch attached worn on the outside of all clothing and the knife on the outside of the pouch kept me from having to go into the pouch each time I needed the knife.

I know the French in North America had the habit of carrying their folding knives hung from their belts on a lace.  I would suppose they had a hole for the lanyard. 

Pocket knives go way back to before Roman times and they are one of the most common finds in most dig sites.  There have always been simple folding knives without a spring in each culture.  In the English culture they were called "Penny Knives", primarily because they cost a penny, and they were everywhere.  The common shape of the blade of the penny knife was carried down to the "Barlow knife", which has been with us since the 1600s.  

The French and Spanish also brought their simple folding knife to the New World and scattered them everywhere.  A wood handle was most common but some were a step up and had bone of horn scales.  The French and Spanish peasant knives were more graceful in form than the English styles.

They were very popular among the Native Americans too.  We do not generally think about Indians using pocket knives but they are very common items at many Native American village sites.

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## Antonyraison

I would like to think from when knives where more or less close to what we know knives to be today,
they likely carried them in sheaths tucked behind their pants/wasit band/belt.
Much like Matt Graham's Primitive Survival Knife Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum.

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## hunter63

Couple of styles on the buchskinne belt.....not worn all at once....my drawers would fall down.

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## Rick

Now that right there is funny I don't care who you are. 

Hunter, what the hey are you doin? 
Tryin to pull my drawers up?
What's the problem?
Every time I pull them up I cut the crap out of my legs.
You gotta get a sheath for those things

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## hunter63

Pssssst, the sheaths  are behind the knives....just saying.

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## randyt

on another note, what was the economic status of Boone? was he well off?

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## Rick

Yeah, I know. But it wasn't near as funny with the sheaths.

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## kyratshooter

> on another note, what was the economic status of Boone? was he well off?


Boone did not do as well as Crockett.

He had a problem with land titles since he was working as the land agent for Richard Hinderson, a man that was trying to establish a 14th colony west of the mountains.  That land was claimed by Virginia/North Carolina  and hunted by the Shawnee.  

Hinderson claimed the land by paying the Cherokee a few wagon loads of trade goods for it.  He though he was getting a bargain, and the Cherokee laughed all the way home since the and was normally hunted by the Shawnee.

After Boone surveyed and sold thousands of acres, and claimed thousands more for himself, lost two sons to Indians and fought the Shawnee for nearly 10 years, at the end of the Rev-War Virginia revoked all claim to any land sold by the Hinderson company, known as the Transylvania Company.  Every title Boone had issued was rendered illegal.

Boone tried to make things right but just did not have the resources and lost all his holdings.  

By the end of the Revolution all the game was shot out in Kentucky and Boone had never been a farmer.  At that time he was in his late 50s and found it difficult to "retrain".  He tried keeping several taverns and never made a go of it.  

At one point he wrote in his diary that he had reached the lowest point in his life, he had been forced to eat mutton.

As old age crept up on him he and Rebecca moved to Boonevlle, Missouri and lived with their kids.  He finally died of old age. He was around 82 if my memory is correct. 

100 years latter his bones were dug up and reburied in Lexington.  He had always claimed he never wanted to see Kentucky again, and some family members have always claimed that those present pointed out the wrong grave to dig when the exhumation took place and the bones in KY are those of a servant buried in the family plot.  

There were a half dozen or so real fine woodsmen in KY and TN that lived through all the Indian wars, got shot up cut up and treated pretty rough and still managed to die of old age.  Boone was one, Simon Kenton was another along with Kasper Mansker, James Robertson and Hugh Rogan down in TN. 

James Robertson had been Richard Hinderson's agent in middle TN.  He lost all his holdings also, but the Middle TN area had not been heavily settled at that time so not much land had been sold, and many of the purchasers had been wiped out by Indians.  They had a 50% death rate early in Nashville's history due to Native American drive by shootings.  

Robertson  managed to salvage about 600 acres from his Rev-War allotment as the family farm.  The plantation was named Belmont and it is now the location of Belmont College, a Baptist Seminary in Nashville, TN.

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## bigbob

Interesting about how primitives carry a knife. I have one somewhere from an African tribesman made of two carved pieces of wood tied together. This sheath at least would prevent him from blade cutting him and quick access.
Bob

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## hayshaker

most native americans of the period carried 10'in damascus hunters , mostly
with jigged buffalo horn scales, yeah that's the ticket.

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## DSJohnson

> most native americans of the period carried 10'in damascus hunters , mostly
> with jigged buffalo horn scales, yeah that's the ticket.


rabblerouser, pot stirrer, trouble maker.   :Online2long:  :Online2long:  :Online2long:

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## hayshaker

DSJ thank you so much for those kind words.
now for the OP i would really like to thank
for posting this thread, the history lesson
has been nothing less than great, so big rep
to all those history buffs.do any of the original
trade knives still exist? in collections or museums,
be something to see for sure,btw i have a knapped
knife made from kay county chert, by a friend of mine
whose cherokee from muskogee oklahoma,
the handle still has the outer stone surface so it is smooth
to the touch, it was made like native people would have used
during pre/post ice age.

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## Faiaoga

One method of carrying a large knife that has not been mentioned is to put in a basket with whatever is being brought home.  Samoans will put a machete in a coconut leaf basket along with taro or breadfruit. A sheath is never seen.

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## skypeace

Great history lesson, a lot of good information I have never known about Davey and Daniel.   I have been fascinated by knives and their utility since my first Cub Scout pocket folder.  I feel naked without at least a SAK on my person and have never understood the airline and airport ban of them.  I haven't flown a commercial airline since 9-11.

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## Old Professor

I relation to  Boone and other pioneers and what kind of knife did they carry. The Indians west of the Appalachian Mts.  referred to pioneers like Boone as "The Long Knives" because they carried what amounted to a short sword or an early version of a Bowe Knife with a blade over a foot in length. This is/was probably a carry over from militia equipment. Swords were  a piece of European military equipment of that era.

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## kyratshooter

One of the things you find with the original knives is that although some of them are long most are no more than 6"-8" long and they are not thick bladed like survival knives of today.  Most are no more than 1/8" thick and some thinner than that.

It is really amazing to see the gear used by those folks when we go to such extremes with out gear today.  They were conquering an uncharted wilderness with gear we would consider junk and no self respecting Youtube survival star would be caught holding in front of a camera. 

And once again, the most common blade found on the pioneers' belt was going to be that plain old butcher knife with a handle he had applied himself to the unfinished blade he bought at the trade post.

Those 6"-8" butcher knife blades were shipped to the posts by the thousands.  They have been found in the wells of excavated Jamestown and almost every other post contact archaeological dig site, along with the pocket knives.

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## Rick

You have to picture the poor guy that dropped the knife in the well. Standing there looking down the well thinking, "Dang. Some day someone is going to be posting on wilderness-survival.net about me dropping that."

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## kyratshooter

They also found one of the nicest early style flintlock pistols ever discovered in that same well.  All of it is on display at the Jamestown historic site.

BTW, the butcher knives they excavated are identical to what we use today with only one single major change.  The blade flows smoothly from handle to cutting edge with no transition or jump where the cutting edge is slightly wider than the handle.  The holes in the tang for mounting the handle are also usually smaller, about 1/8".  

French butcher knives, known as boucherons, were different having very thin swept blades and half tangs.

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## Rick

Half tang? Guys like Benjamin Bonneville might as well go right back to France then. They'd never make it in today's modern survival game where it's full tang or nothing.

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## Faiaoga

Thank you for mentioning General Bonneville as I was unfamiliar with his biography.  He seems to have been an interesting man.
I wonder what he would think of our modern "freedom fries".  :Devil:

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## Rick

We owe a pretty large debt to foreign born men who either rose to notable rank within our armed services or simply gave service to our country. Men such as Bonneville or Baron von Stueben. Not just men, either. Madeline Albright was born in Czechoslovakia.

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