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Post by mcaryf on Mar 11, 2009 11:39:56 GMT -6
Hi DC
I think you are mistaking me for someone else as I have made no recent posts or indeed ancient posts relating to the Captain of the Far West.
Hi Steve
I am not sure why you are taking exception to Thompson's comments on the buffalo. I would guess a single buffalo would feed quite a large number of people (a lamb does around 55 and a buffalo would be much bigger) so the fact that a number appeared to have been killed for this camp would indicate it was of reasonable size.
I have since found that an average buffalo might yield 450lbs of meat so at half a pound per head that is feeding 900 people.
On this occasion the assessment of the age of the camp seems to be consistent with other information so wherever Thompson got it the information seems OK.
Regards
Mike
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 12, 2009 5:19:43 GMT -6
You don't? How odd. Well, no it's not. Here's the thread. lbha.proboards12.com/index.cgi?board=basics&action=display&thread=1177&page=4You questioned Marsh's knowledge of the river, and rather than admit error, pointed us to an incident which you claimed proved he made a mistake. It proved Baker made the error. Then, you try to cover it up by charges of prejudice and the usual. Questionable accounts - putting it kindly - do not reinforce each other, despite your inroads of applying 21st century portion control to 19th nomads lacking in side dishes. Thompson lied a lot, made stuff up.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Mar 12, 2009 6:40:27 GMT -6
I question his terminology of a buffalo roundup rather than a hunt. You think they only killed enough buffalo to feed everyone for one night? or they only had one person hunting? My thoughts are some days are better than others when hunting and you dry the rest of meat for the slimmer days.
My point was that Thompson used the term large camping place which may be indicative of the area available for camping. He does not say as he did in the first case that they looked around to see how many were actually camped in the large camping place.
If you knew you were close to the big camp and it was BYOB (buffalo) then why not have some extra meat.
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Post by mcaryf on Mar 13, 2009 12:42:13 GMT -6
Hi Steve I cannot really say that I fully understand what Thompson meant with his reference to buffalo. There is a sort of implication to me that they were killed at the site but that might not be correct. He used the expression "quite a number". Given that he could have said 2 or 3, or a few, or a number, the expression quite a number implies a reasonably substantial killing. If, say, the number were 6 - 10 then several thousand people could have been fed or alternatively quite a lot of meat readied for storage. In order to dry meat for storage I guess they might want to be in a place where they were not just passing through but I guess when you are a hunter gatherer you take what is on offer at the time.
Hi DC
I must admit I had forgotten our little dialogue of February, 2008, but you confused me by suggesting that I had got the information about Grant Marsh wrong. After all when a General tells you to go to the Little Big Horn and a Captain tells you that he thinks you are at the wrong place then, if you were confident of your knowledge, you should stay where the General told you to be.
If I had been reminded of the thread by someone saying it was the one where Darkcloud disparaged the ability of Native American's in the 1870's to understand the white man's idea of times and clocks then I would have remembered it better.
Regards
Mike
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 15, 2009 9:34:07 GMT -6
No, you don't get to rewrite it or shine it on. You claimed Custer's Luck said Marsh made a mistake. The book you referenced says the exact opposite. Then, rather than admit error, you try to vague it up with a false summation of what you claimed. Again. These are lies.
Yet again, rather than admit error and that you lied about it, you try to find refuge in a carefully constructed attempt to imply I don't think Indian's capable of understanding white man's time in the 1870's. Readers of the thread would immediately understand that I thought they were certainly capable, having need or interest, but your examples were absurd and questionable at best.
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Post by Diane Merkel on Mar 16, 2009 17:31:04 GMT -6
mcaryf and DC, I gently suggest that you ignore each other rather than continue the insults. There will be no winner here. I started ignoring Clair's posts many months ago, and my time on the boards has been infinitely more pleasant. I like and respect you both and hope you will continue to post peacefully. Diane
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Post by conz on Mar 17, 2009 9:09:13 GMT -6
mcaryf and DC, I gently suggest that you ignore each other rather than continue the insults. There will be no winner here. I started ignoring Clair's posts many months ago, and my time on the boards has been infinitely more pleasant. I like and respect you both and hope you will continue to post peacefully. Diane OH...that is SO not nice, Diane. I wish I could have ignored this one! I am ever the gentleman, and while my views may seem offensive to some sensitive souls, I certainly never stoop to insulting anyone. I would encourage others, as you do, to refrain from personal attacks and insults. But I would caveat that by advising forum members to not shy away from expressing their own opinions, in a respectful manner, even if they may offend some. Any group who's main intent is not to offend will not get much accomplished. Just make sure to remain civil while offending those deer in the headlights. <g> Respectfully, Clair
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jlt
New Member
Posts: 4
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Post by jlt on Mar 24, 2009 5:11:50 GMT -6
Mike this is a possibility when you consider Custers Washita experience when he nearly came to grief because of multiple villages in the valley. This would explain Benteens recon in force to the left as well as the Company F detachment which reconned the to the east of Custers right wing. I believe that Custer was planning on the fly in that until he actually got his first look at the village his movements were primarily moves of containment.
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Post by Melani on Mar 25, 2009 8:44:30 GMT -6
In regard to Peter Thompson's incorrect dates and comments about "rounding up" buffalo, it seems to me that he might have been having some major memory problems at that point, perhaps hazily confusing the idea of rounding up cattle with buffalo. Surely he knew better than that as a young man. I should add that I have not yet read Peter Thompson, and am speculating based on what I have read here.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Mar 25, 2009 17:56:39 GMT -6
Major memory problems is a polite way to put it. Doesn't matter since incorrect is does not change with an excuse. I think the young man may have done a lot of growing up from hiding along the river to going for water.
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Post by Melani on Mar 25, 2009 21:16:36 GMT -6
What I mean is that he may have actually been losing it to some degree, not prevaricating or bs-ing entirely on purpose. I am surrounded by a lot of that nowadays, with the aging of friends and family, and the possibility that he was remembering screwy crossed my mind. Of course, it seems rather as if he embroidered his own role as well, but it just seems so completely weird to say that the Indians "rounded up" buffalo.
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Post by biggordie on Mar 25, 2009 23:31:30 GMT -6
Actually, to borrow a word from my grandson, some of the NDNs did exactly that - round up buffalo, that is, although not in the way that we tend to think of cowboys rounding up or herding cattle, or horses [maybe something akin to herding horses].
They would sometimes either construct a holding pen, or utilize a box canyon, and drive a small herd of buffalo into it, close off the end left open, and then slaughter the poor beasts. We once did a class project on such an event, and our "artistic rendering" of it won a prize at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. 1951, I believe it was.
The experience, and the "research" into the practice stayed with me over the years, and I discovered that these roundups, or herdings, were almost as common as driving a herd over a "buffalo jump" like the famous "Head Bashed In." Well, famous if you've ever heard of it. Until the great herds were almost gone, such drives were very common, and only the choicest parts of the animal were used - tongues, humps, hearts, brains, livers, etc. And skins, of course.
None of which detracts in the slightest from the fact that Thompson spun a good yarn, and although he had a reputation as a tough hombre in his later years, it seems that when challenged as to the veracity of his details, he refused to be drawn into any argument and just split the scene.
From my viewpoint, his story just has way too many impossibilities, improbabilities and confabulations to be able to pan out any nuggets that might be hiding in there somewhere - but there are some who go to great lengths to argue for every minute point he makes in his tale.
To each his own, as I always say.
Gordie
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Post by AZ Ranger on Mar 26, 2009 7:20:27 GMT -6
Melani I think you may be correct and my disagreement is not with your statements. It with those that want to use his account and state he was there as if that makes his statements factual.
Gordie I have worked with buffalo at Fort Niobrara as a Fish and Wildlife Service employee and here in Arizona at Raymond Ranch and Houserock Ranch. I would agree that sometimes you can drive buffalo if they go along with it. At Fort Niobrara the buffalo decided they did not like the direction and changed. They killed the Refuge Manager's horse and broke his back.
Unlike cattle buffalo can outrun and out maneuverer a horse. The buffalo tend to stick together and do not need to be gathered as what happens here in Arizona with cattle at round up time. We drive them with vehicles when they let us. We do round up individuals that escape the ranch but it would not be efficient if the goal was food.
My difference in the terminology is that a round up is the bringing together of a scattered herd for whatever reason(branding, doctoring, counting, moving, sorting). If you just drive a herd I don't think I would use the term round up but I have never lost both of my spurs twice on the same day either.
Steve
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Post by AZ Ranger on Mar 26, 2009 7:27:26 GMT -6
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Post by biggordie on Mar 26, 2009 9:29:04 GMT -6
Nice chapeau, Ranger. You are a lot closer to those animals than I would ever care to be. I trust that you were standing by the open door of your truck.
Gordie
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