...but I do get the sentiment behind such threads.
Let's face it, most of us are collectors, afficianados, weekend warriors if you will. Of course many of us hunt, camp, fish, or work and really need that knife. But we have the luxury (many of us) of having many knives that we rotate.
A thread over in Bernard Levine got me thinking about something I saw on television. Michael Palin's Sahara. He travels basically around and partway through the Saraha desert. In one sequence he traveled in a salt caravan with some Tuaregs in Mali and Niger. For the trip they had a little herd of goats to eat along the way. Mealtime comes and one of the goats was dispatched with a knife that kind of surprised me. It looked for all the world like a long boning knife like an Old Hickory or Chicago Cutlery or any other sort of knife one sees in American kitchens or buckskinner re-enactments. It may well have been similar to the one pictured below which is a French African Trade knife. Both Mali and Niger were French colonies. I was surprised because, I guess, one expects somebody riding a camel to have the Jambiya type of knife. Of course Tuaregs are not Arabs (although they picked up the camel culture from them as well as Islam) and Mali and Niger are about 3,000 miles from Arabia...so my surprise was unwarrented.
Where I was going was here is a guy, a nomad, that lives in the outdoors. He's a nomad, he's got to travel light, if he can't carry it, he can't own it. This guy really did have just the one knife presumably. I think many of these threads are we "modern" people longing for a simple life and, liking knives like we do, we probably long to live a simple life where maybe ones daily life depended on that one knife. Like this Tuareg and his long bladed knife...the Saxon and his seax...the mountain man and his Green River or Sheffield.
Just an observation. Watch "Sahara" if you can. The part with the Tuaregs was my favorite segment but they're all good.
Let's face it, most of us are collectors, afficianados, weekend warriors if you will. Of course many of us hunt, camp, fish, or work and really need that knife. But we have the luxury (many of us) of having many knives that we rotate.
A thread over in Bernard Levine got me thinking about something I saw on television. Michael Palin's Sahara. He travels basically around and partway through the Saraha desert. In one sequence he traveled in a salt caravan with some Tuaregs in Mali and Niger. For the trip they had a little herd of goats to eat along the way. Mealtime comes and one of the goats was dispatched with a knife that kind of surprised me. It looked for all the world like a long boning knife like an Old Hickory or Chicago Cutlery or any other sort of knife one sees in American kitchens or buckskinner re-enactments. It may well have been similar to the one pictured below which is a French African Trade knife. Both Mali and Niger were French colonies. I was surprised because, I guess, one expects somebody riding a camel to have the Jambiya type of knife. Of course Tuaregs are not Arabs (although they picked up the camel culture from them as well as Islam) and Mali and Niger are about 3,000 miles from Arabia...so my surprise was unwarrented.
Where I was going was here is a guy, a nomad, that lives in the outdoors. He's a nomad, he's got to travel light, if he can't carry it, he can't own it. This guy really did have just the one knife presumably. I think many of these threads are we "modern" people longing for a simple life and, liking knives like we do, we probably long to live a simple life where maybe ones daily life depended on that one knife. Like this Tuareg and his long bladed knife...the Saxon and his seax...the mountain man and his Green River or Sheffield.
Just an observation. Watch "Sahara" if you can. The part with the Tuaregs was my favorite segment but they're all good.