ABSAROKA:
Crow Territory. The Crow word means "Land of the Sparrow-Hawk
People."
ABSINTHE:
Wormwood. In the Western US wormwoods are generally called
sagebrush.
a la facon du
pays:
After the custom of the country, a term applied to taking an Indian
wife without the benefit of a church ceremony.
APISHEMORE:
Saddle Pad or coarse saddle blanket.
ARWERDENTY:
Liquor. A corruption of the Spanish.
BEEVE
or BEEVES: Beef. Mountain men often described buffalo and
buffalo meat as beef or beeves. "A few beeves were killed
during the chase" (Rufus Sage)
BIG 50:
Fifty caliber rifle
Biscoche:
A kind of hard Mexican bread. The favorite way to serve and eat
biscoche was to soak it in coffee.
BLACK YOUR
FACE AGAINST (TO): To be at war with. From the Indian custom of blacking
the face to show the tribe is on the warpath.
BOIS DE
BACHE: Buffalo Chips, fuel used for cooking and heating on the prairies
where wood was not available.
BOUDINS:
Buffalo intestines, a treat for the mountain gourmet.
BUCK:
From the prevalent exchange rate equating one buckskin to one
dollar.
BUG'S
BOYS: Children of Satan; the familiar name for the Blackfeet.
BULLTHROWER:
Rifle, usually of Hawken make.
BOURGEOIS:
Voyageur term for the Wintering Partners or Clerks. The word came
from the French and described a "new middle class people" in
Europe. Bourgeois were usually educated men of various
nationalities. Many were Scottish, French, or American. Clerks
were almost always French until the end of the era when more Americans and
English held Clerk Positions.
BURY THE
HATCHET: Comes from the use of
the Pipe-Hawk, which contains symbols both for peace (pipe) and war
(tomahawk) at peace conferences. If
peace was the outcome of the conference, the Pipe-Hawk would be thrown to
the ground so that it’s blade would penetrate the soil, thus burying the
hatchet, and leaving only the symbol for peace exposed.
CACHE: To
hide or conceal; applicable either to one's self or one's goods. Also used
as a noun: the hidden goods; from the French. (To link to another site
showing how a cache was constructed click
here.)
CAPOTE:
A long coat of simple design with a hood.
It was made from wool blankets and could be cut and assembled in
the mountains, or Capotes were available for trade at rendezvous.
CARCAJOU:
Wolverine
CARTOUCHE
KNIVES: were a type of table knife, they were equivalent to today's
steak knives.
CASSINETTE:
A cloth with a cotton warp, and a weft of very fine wool, or wool and
silk.
CAVENDISH
TOBACCO originated in England in the late 16th century, when
Sir Thomas Cavendish, an admiral in Queen Elizabeth's fleet, discovered
that by dipping tobacco leaves in sugar it produced a milder and more
mellow smoke. Subsequently the name Cavendish has been used to
identify any tobacco treated with sweetners such as maple syrup, figs, rum,
molasses and honey.
CHILD,
COON, CRITTUR, BEAVER, NIGGUR: Interchangeable terms for person, either
one's self or someone else. They did not necessarily carry a charge of
denigration; the term niggur was applied freely to white, red, and black
men.
CHINTZ:
A brightly colored and glazed cotton fabric, used as a trade item.
COCHINEAL:
A red dye made of the dried and pulverized bodies of female
cochineal insects.
COME (TO
MAKE SOMEONE); To kill a person or animal, as in "I made two of the
varmints come that day."
COUNT COUP
(TO): To execute a coup (to do a brave deed such as killing someone,
scalping him, or striking him with a coup-stick):or to relate one's brave
deeds in a formal manner.
Coureur
de Bois: French for bush loper
or woods runner. These were
the French-Canadian equivalent of the Free Trapper.
Generally operating without a license or official sanction, these
men lived and traded out among the Indians, often for years at a time.
They would sell their furs to whoever offered the best prices,
whether they be French or English.
DEARBORN:
A four-wheeled country carriage.
DROPSY:
An abnormal accumulation of watery fluid in certain tissues of the
body.
Dudeen:
A short clay tobacco pipe
DUPONT:
Gunpowder. From the name of the manufacturer.
Click here to see a can of "DuPont."
Dutch
Nightingales: Croaking bullfrogs in William Marshall Anderson
1834.
ENGAGEÉ:
A hired hand, sometimes French-Canadian. Of lower social status than a
free trapper or a trapper contracted for part of his take; from the
French.
EPISHAMORE:
See APISHEMORE
FACTORY:
A major trading post or fort under the management of a Factor. A
Factor was a senior field manager.
FALL
TO THE KETTLE: Being made into meat. For example "During
starving times our horse were made to fall to the
kettle."
FIRE
WATER: Whiskey with such a
high alcohol content that it would cause a fire to flame-up when thrown on.
Whiskey which had been substantially diluted with water would douse
the fire when thrown on.
FLEECE:
A layer of fat between the backbone and the ribs on a buffalo.
Considered to be a delicacy by the mountain men. It was often
rendered in a fry pan or kettle until liquid and then quaffed. Rufus
Sage describes preparing and consuming fleece
here.
FOOFOORAW:
Trinkets, doodads, decorative trivia fancied by women, especially Indian
women. By extension, the quality of having a fancy for the same, as in,
"She was a deal too foofuraw to suit me."
FOOLSCAP:
A sheet of writing or printing paper measuring approximately 13 by 16
inches
GALENA:
Lead for casting balls.
GILL:
Approximately one-quarter pint. Typically voyageurs and engageés
were allotted one gill of whiskey or rum at the end of a days work.
GIMLET:
An inexpensive hand drill used as a trade item.
GO UNDER
(TO): To die or be killed, usually the latter. GONE BEAVER was used in the
same sense, but only in that past participle form.
GREEN
RIVER: A knife. From the name of the manufacturer, not the name of the
river. To shove it in "To the Green River" meant to shove the knife in to
the hilt, where the trademark of the manufacturer was stamped. By
extension, to do anything "Up to the Green River" meant to do it to the
fullest extent.
For more information regarding the "Green
River Knife."
HARD
PULLING (cordeling) to get a keelboat upriver.
HA'R OF
THE B'AR: To say that a man had the ha'r of the b'ar in him was a supreme
form of praise. The expression probably came from the Indian belief that a
man could become more brave by eating the hair of the grizzly bear.
HAWKEN: A
rifle. A high quality rifle produced by the Hawken brothers in Saint
Louis.
HIVERNANT:
An Experienced Voyageur. Older men with more experience than the
"Summer Men". They were also called "Winterers"
because they spent the winter months trading with the various tribes.
HOLE:
Sheltered location, such as a valley which has the four requisite
necessities: food, fodder, wood and water, where a brigade or party of men
would "hole up" for the winter. A hole was generally named
after some individual of distinction associated with the location.
Notable "Holes" include Pierre's Hole, Brown's Hole, Jackson's
Hole and Jackson's Big Hole.
HUMPRIBS:
The small ribs that support the hump of the buffalo. See also meatbag.
JUDY or
JUDY FITZSIMMONS: To make a "Judy" or
"Judy Fitzsimmons" of oneself was to be a fool or
simpleton. The term was common American slang by the mid 1820's.
LEVÉ,
LECHÉ LEGO; wake up, turn out. Usually used in combination (Possibly a
corruption of the French.)
LIGHTS:
Lungs. To have the lights shot out was a lung shot.
LOCOFOCO:
A self lighting cigar, with a match composition at the end,
invented in 1834. It then
became applied to the Lucifer match. Later the term was applied to a
radical wing of the Democrats, after an incident at a party meeting in
1835 at which opponents of the radical element within the party turned out
the gas lights, but the radicals promptly produced candles which they lit
with loco-focos.
LUCIFER
MATCH:
A match made of a sliver of wood tipped with a combustible
substance, and ignited by friction. Lucifer matches were invented in
England in 1827. For a history of Lucifer Matches click
here.
MANGEUR DE
LARD: Literally, eater of pork in French. Figuratively, an inexperienced
man. Said of a man who is used to the diet of the settlements (which would
include pork) and not of the mountains (almost exclusively buffalo meat)
Always a term of denigration and often applied to the least experienced
engageés who were responsible for camp chores, butchering and cooking,
tending the animals, etc.
MARTINGALES:
The strap of a horse's harness that connects the girth to the
noseband and is designed to prevent the horse from throwing back its head.
MEATBAG:
Stomach, of an animal or human being. The trappers frequently applied the
terms they used for buffalo anatomy (fleece, humpribs, boudins) to human
beings.
MEDICINE
DOG: (Also Big Dog) Many western Indian tribes referred to horses as
"medicine dogs".
MEDICINE
WOLF: Many western Indian tribes referred to coyotes as "medicine
wolf."
MELTON (Molton):
A heavy woolen cloth used chiefly for making capotes and hunting
jackets.
NED:
Farmers in the early 1800's commonly referred to pork as
"Ned." Because pork and salt pork formed a principal
portion of government rations, especially to the military, mountain men by
extension often also referred to the soldiers as "Ned"
NIMROD:
An experienced hunter.
OLD
EPHRAIM: Grizzly bear.
ON THE
PRAIRIE. Something freely given with nothing expected in
return.
OSNABURGH:
A heavy plain weave cloth very popular in the Indian Trade. In
colonial times it was woven from flax. By the 1800's osnaburgh was
made primarily from cotton.
PACK:
A bundle of skins pressed and bound to facilitate loading and unloading of
the pack animals. A pack of beaver skins generally consisted of
approximately 60 beaver skins and weighed about 100 pounds.
According to Rufus Sage (reference)
a pack of buffalo robes generally contained 10 robes and weighed about 80
pounds.
PALETOT
(pal´ê tow): A loose outer garment, as a coat or cloak, for men or
women.
PANTALOON:
Tight trousers extending from waist to ankle with straps passing
under the instep, worn especially in the 19th century. Often used in
the plural.
PLEW:
Beaver pelt. A corruption of the French "plus".
PONGIE:
A soft thin cloth woven from Chinese or Indian raw silk or an
imitation thereof. Used as a Trade Item.
POOR BULL,
FAT COW: Figuratively, poor eating, living, or times, as opposed to good
eating, living or times. A trapper might mention that he was forced to eat
crickets and comment, "That was poor bull, sure." To know poor
bull from fat cow was to know what was what, what was bad and what was
good, to understand mountain ways. Derived from the fact that, except at
calving time, the meat of the bull would be more muscular and less fatty
than the meat of a cow, therefore tougher and less enjoyable.
POSSIBLES,
POSSIBLE BAG: sack for carrying equipment, usually small
necessities such as fire steel and flint, balls, caps, etc.
QUIRES:
A set of 24 or sometimes 25 sheets of paper of the same size and
stock; one twentieth of a ream.
RIBAND:
A brightly colored ribbon used for decoration. Used as a trade
item.
RUSSIAN
SHEETING: A light, but very strong linen fabric, often used similarly
to canvas
SATINET
was a cheap trouser fabric with a cotton warp and a wool weft or
filling. It was woven so that it had a close, smooth wool surface,
with none of the the cotton warp exposed.
SHINE
(TO): To suffice, to be suitable or good. As in, "Red blood don't
shine." Shinin' suggested fine or splendid, as in, "Them was
shinin' times."
SHOT IN
THE LIGHTS (TO BE): To be shot in the lungs.
SNAFFLE:
A bit for a horse, consisting of two bars joined at the center, as
by a joint.
SPECIE:
Money in the form of coins, especially gold or silver. The value was
determined by the weight of the metal in the coinage, and thus the coins
of any nation were acceptable in trade. Specie was especially
important in trade with New and Old Mexico.
SOME:
Remarkable, admirable. "That Jed was some, now. He had the ha'r of
the b'ar in him. Wagh!"
STROUD:
A large coarse blanket intended for trade with the Indians.
During the 1600’s British stroud was considered superior and
generally less costly than the blankets available from the French traders.
SURSINGLES:
A type of quick disconnect buckle for horse gear.
TAOS
LIGHTNING: Mexican whiskey produced and shipped from Taos.
VARA:
Spanish yard, thirty-three inches.
VIDE-POCHE:
Literally, empty-pocket. Usually said of French-Canadians, French speakers
of Indian-white descent, etc. Figuratively, the equivalent of worthless
no-good.
WATER
CRACKERS: A
thin, dry, crispy-textured cracker that is made with flour, water and
little or no salt. It is a common cracker in
Europe
and throughout the
U.S.
noted for its bland flavor.
WAUGH: An
exclamation of surprise, greeting, admiration, etc. Sounded like a grunt.
THE WAY
THE STICK FLOATS: To know which way the stick floats was to know what's
up, what's what. Only an experienced mountain man would be said to know
the way the stick floats. The expression came from the use of a float
stick attached to a beaver trap to indicate where the trap was if the
beaver swam away with it. Its meaning was extended to suggest knowing the
ways of the mountain.
