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The Black Horse Western group airs western related issues, whether they be on writing, books, magazines, comics, tv series or films. Here is round-up of some recent items.

Review of The Early Lynching by Mark Bannerman

A very unusual book that begins with the hero Rice Sheridan fighting for his life after being shot in the thigh. During the opening chapters it is discovered that his parents were killed by a Kiowa raiding party and that baby Rice had managed to
crawl away and was found and brought up by the Commanches.In a flashback, that leads up to his current predicament, Rice who has difficulties with divided loyalties is hired by Seth and Able Early.

Seth Early is the subject of the lynching in the title and this occurs on the eve of his wedding to a mail order bride. The lynching is carried out by Vince Corby, a man that has just been released from prison after serving a ten year term - put there by the Early brothers.Loyal to the end Rice Sheridan survives to hunt down and kill Corby. The characters are well drawn and the story is quite good - but there are some drawbacks. The denouement halfway through the book rather spoils the ending - I say this as there are enough clues along the way to keep the reader interested.Despite this - it's a pretty good read.

When did the American accents become commonplace?

Considering the diverse origins (and languages) of the colonists of America, when did the American accent become commonplace? And the American spellings, like 'er' for our English 're'? Would they have been common in the Old West, or still developing?

The truth of the matter is, use of language and accents in the U.S. are very diverse and we don't really have a singular accent. Even here in the far West, we have differences in accent, word choice and word arrangement.

As one example, here in the North West, we speak what is commonly referred to as Cascadian English. This is the same accent that you'll hear out of most nationally syndicated newsreaders in the U.S., as all the major networks ship their rising star reporters to Seattle or Portland with the idea of re-educating their speech. Bill O'Reily on FOX, is one example, in that he was sent to Portland earlier in his career and if you compare older footage of him to recent footage, you'll hear a difference in the way he speaks.

That said, even here in the Far West, there is a difference between the NW and California. Here in Oregon we have a sort of love-hate relationship with California. We like Californians for neighbors, but don't like them too much when they move here and this sort of thing is reflected in basic regional folklore, mainly in the guise of jokes and funny stories, some of which go back for over 150 years. And believe me, those of us who are native to this region can detect a Californian by his/her speech and we can also tell the difference whether they come from Northern or Southern California, because we really do speak differently.

I also tend to find that a lot of younger Californians have a lot of trouble understanding me, while native speakers here don't have a problem. It's also apparently, not just me, either and I suspect that it's partially the speed at which we talk and also the fact that we sometimes rearrange words (a leftover from our original Chinook Jargon, apparently). As well, since the original language of settlement in this portion of the West was not English, but Chinook Jargon, we also have a tendency to use a lot of words that are not used anywhere else in the U.S. (and elsewhere, they are used only in British Columbia, because before the establishment of the so-called "Medicine Line", we were a single geographic area contested by several countries.

At the same time, a lot of the language that is common parlance in Westerns and typically identified as "Western" is really a melting pot from a lot of different sources, a blend of Cascadian English, Spanish (from the SW) and also the Deep South. Lots of Southerners came West after the Civil War to flee Reconstruction and you can still find pockets of families all over the West that definitely use that slower, Southern twang brought here by their ancestors.

At the same time, other regions of the U.S. also have their own dialects and accents, all very different. Southerners being the most obvious, but New Yorkers have a distinct accent, as do New Englanders and people from the Great Lakes. (The latter have a heavy Scandinavian influence). There are probably other areas with their own unique dialects, but they are possibly too local to be known much outside their locale.

In recent years, with mass media, easy travel, popular culture, etc., a lot of these regional differences (including regional folklore) are vanishing: a real pity, because these are the things that bind us to our past. It's REAL history, opposed to the selected history of textbooks?(which is typically very biased).

So far as the spelling differences: theater vs. theatre, color vs. colour, etc. that came about directly after the Revolutionary War and it was intentional. After the war, anti-British sentiment ran so high that the new government sought to completely re-educate their children. Newly published readers (ie. school textbooks) of the late 1770's and early 1780's, carried these new American spellings. If memory serves right, Aaron Burr was the man responsible and had a direct hand in the production of many of these primers (this was before he shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel). Some spellings were changed and children were educated from a very patriotic angle in that spelling lessons contained words like "American", "George Washington", "Thomas Jefferson", "Liberty", etc. and reading lessons contained little stories (most of them fictional) to instill patriotism/Americanism into these children such as the story of the Pilgrims and the First Thanksgiving, Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, Betsy Ross making the first flag and so on.

By time the Overlanders came West, these ideas and spellings were very much ingrained in them, but as there were also many Europeans here, in the early years, many Westerners used British spellings. Even now, you find that some Westerners use British spellings. For example, I learned to read and write at home and I learned and used British spellings, which the American Public School system had to work very hard to break me of.

So it's a matter of your individual background and region of upbringing, really. If you want a really good resource, check out the "Foxfire" series. These originally began as a school project in Georgia in the 1960's as an effort to record local folklore and was so successful that the project is still on the go today after a dozen books. In addition to a lot of practical old fashioned information (ie. Foxfire 1 features hog dressing, log cabin building, planting by the signs, faith healing, snake lore, moonshining and other topics), the text is composed mainly of interviews with local old timers and the dialects and word usages are kept intact. (In a few of the later books they did edit the dialects out, which they caught hell for). With the earlier books, most of the people interviewed were born in the two decades just following the Civil War. But overall, in addition to having a lot of very useful information, the depiction of language is so amazing that some recent Amazon reviewers actually criticize the series because they have no real idea what's being said.

Another really good source is Fred Lockley's "Voices of Oregon Territory: Conversations with Bullwhackers, Muleskinners, Pioneers, Prospectors, 49ers and Indian Fighters"

Also check out other titles by Lockley. Though Lockley's books are recent publications, Lockley himself was actually an early 20th century journalist. He worked for the Oregon Journal and wrote a column entitled "Impressions and Observations of the Journal Man". Basically, Lockley went out and hunted up old timers all over Oregon and he interviewed them, quite regardless of their importance. Lockley's subjects ranged from early regional leaders right down to humble working men, some of them being among the earliest settlers in this region. He did a relatively good job capturing not only the history, but also their speech.

Food

The place is Illinois, the year 1855, a bad winter - I've got an old woman making a stew to feed her family but I want to add some colour here by describing the food. Does anyone have any idea what would have been an easily and cheaply made dish for the less wealthy people during this period? I'm thinking vegetable based with perhaps some meat from any game they've managed to shoot - rabbit maybe.

I've heard of bad winters where the only "stew" was a handful of rice in a gallon of water, and the kids cheered every time a grain of rice boiled to the top. Unless the family raised truck, there will be no vegetables in the winter though carrots and potatoes will keep until March or so in a root cellar. In the far west (Colorado plateau or Salt Lake basin) the old woman might be able to find sego lily roots to go in the pot.

Don't know about Illinois, but wild onions are a possibility, too. Winter sees all the squirrels hibernate and the rabbits like to stay in their burrows. Might possibly get one if you're lucky and someone is a good shot. Poor folks, though, might not have money for lead and gunpowder. You'd better do some reading up on starvation subsistence. Don't know what books to direct you too, though.

Remember, too, that life expectancy was only about 50 years, less for women, so be careful how old you make your old woman. I remember in one of Louis L'Amour's books where one of the baddies was an "old" man of 55. Been a long time since I saw 55.

Review of Lawmen by Jack Giles

As you’d guess by the title, this novel is about more than one lawman. In those Old West days, these men were responsible for helping civilization spread; upholders of decency and honesty, they possessed a rough integrity and only used their guns as a last resort. This aspect shines through in Jack Giles’s latest tale.

Deputy Chris Ford is hunting a desperado when he learns that his father, Tom, the sheriff of Stanton, has been gunned down. Chris is working with Marshal Sam Ward, who’s getting a mite old in the tooth, but can still wield a weapon in a tight corner.

Torn between his friendship with Sam and his family duty, Chris heads for Stanton, where rumours are rife concerning Tom Ford’s murder. Tempers are simmering and a range war seems to be bubbling close to the surface. And the replacement lawman happens to be affiliated to one side of the conflicting factions.

Complications abound in the relationship between Chris and his two brothers, Charlie and Hal. Then there’s Fliss, the girl Chris left behind five years back…

This isn’t a shoot ‘em up western, but rather a measured consideration of character, an honest depiction of the men who didn’t flinch when they had to shoulder the burden of an entire town’s survival. Even the bad guys seemed to end up on the wrong side of the tracks by accident rather than by any evil notion or design.

I savoured the homespun philosophy peppered throughout; for example, ‘You can’t put things into boxes and open them when you need to.’ A woman’s observation about how men can compartmentalize life, where women can’t or won't. A wise woman; because she knows that the heart’s feelings can’t be pigeonholed.

The writing has style and the characters, complete with humorous interplay, come alive. The gunplay, when it happens, seems real and tragic. Though he has eight earlier westerns under his belt, Jack Giles hasn’t written a Black Horse Western for a while; well, now he’s back, and his return is most welcome.

Medicine

Yesterday I bought a book called "Bleed, Blister, and Purge: A History of Medicine on the American Frontier" by Volney Steele, MD. It was published in 2005 by Mountain Press, Missoula, MT; 365 pages, illustrations and photos and seemingly solid information. Looks like it will be a useful resource. And it has a great title! Another title that I've on order from the library is: "Frontier Medicine: from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1492-1941" by David Dary.

I have another book you may find of interest - "Texas Folk Medicine: 1,333 Cures, Remedies, Preventives & Health Practices" compiled and edited by John Q. Anderson. Published by The Encino Press of Austin in 1970. It's full of wacky and wonderful advice, great stuff to spice up your fiction.

For example:

To cure acne, wash your face with a wet diaper.
If you cut off your finger, bury it or it will pain you.
To cure baldness, smear your head with fresh cow manure.
To treat chickenpox, strip the patient and lead him around the chicken house three times.
To cure a cold, make a powder of dried frog skins, mix with fruit juice and drink.
If your baby has the colic, blow tobacco smoke into its face.
To ease the pain of sickness or death, place an axe, knife or other
sharp instrument under the bed or pillow of the afflicted.

With a book like this, who needs doctors?

Lance Howard's first BHW Vlog

Bad lighting makes me look a bit like a heroin addict (I'm not!) and I did it unscripted but have to jump into the pool with both feet sometime, I guess. Anyway, for anyone who wants to take a look and is not on my myspace of facebook page:

http://www.youtube.com

(I got the lighting and excessive chair fiddling down for the second vid!)

A Father's Prayer by Charles T. Whipple

Dear Lord,

You know I don't like to bother you much, but now and then a few things crop up and I need to talk with you some. The little white-faced heifer with the lop ear, the one down in the field by the creek, she's awful young and mighty big. And when her time comes, Lord, I'll be there to help out, but if you'd just give me a nudge or two in the right direction, I'd be much obliged.

There's not a lot of green around this year. Didn't get the rain that usually falls in early May. Maybe you could get some of those clouds over Mt. Baldy to open up. The last irrigation turn wasn't much more than a trickle, and a little rain on Baldy would put water in our reservoir.

Long Lake's gone, dried up and cracked, so the stock in the east section have to hike all the way to Show Low Creek for water. It's a long walk, and with the short grama grass this year, those beeves are not gaining weight. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, Lord. I see your handiwork every time I ride out to check the salt licks or the east fence where the brindle steer likes to push through.

Just the other day, I was riding Rowdy along the malpais ridge above Long Lake flat. We came around that juniper deadfall on top of the promontory and found a little patch of grass the cattle had missed. Right at the edge, under the shade of the deadfall, three Indian Paintbrushes bloomed just as orange and gold as any of your pretty sunsets. Lord, looking at those flowers was like looking at a brand new day.

I sat above the flat on the promontory for a while, hoping to see clouds coming over the Blues, but the sky was dead clear and so blue it hurt my eyes. Baldy and Ord stood blue-green to the south, and Escudilla Mountain poked up over by Alma. I figure if I'd have looked hard enough, I could have seen all the way into tomorrow, but then, tomorrow's up to you, Lord, just like today.

We don't have much extra, but you always see to it that we've got seeds for the garden and a handle for the hoe. The orchard's starting to bear, so we get York Imperials, Water Core, Jonathans, and the Golden Delicious that Martha wanted. And we get pears, plums, and currants.

Just the other day, it seems, Justin came scrambling into the house with a handful of bluebells for his Ma. Now, he says he's leaving. I can look after the hogs and the cattle, and Martha's Rhode Island Reds are doing fine. Len's the quiet sort; he'll stick around to help, and Alvin's just a squirt. But Justin thinks he needs to see the elephant, and I guess that's all right. But Lord, I'd take it as a personal favor if you'd watch over him while he's gone.

A new issue of Cowboy Bob's Trading Post will be available later in 2009
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