Points taken Boggy, tho I suspect those Comanches driving the massive stolen livestock trade from Mexico to points north and east and driving them 30,000 head of rustled beef in a single season from Texas to New Mexico may have moved on past the "trinket" stage in the popular sense of the word.

Which reminds me of another early 18th Century quote, this time from the guy in my sig line, the Onondaga spokesman, Canasatego...

"We know our lands have now become more valuable. The white people think we do not know their value; but we know that the land is everlasting, and the few goods we receive for it are soon worn out and gone."

Anyhoo... moving on...

More great info from Gregg, this time concerning a first buffalo hunt and the a meal after... cool

Note the mention of Mexicans armed with lances and bows. Ciboleros from New Mexico and the El Paso settlements prob'ly, a group pretty much entirely forgotten in popular history but also referenced elsewhere by Gregg and others.

http://www.kancoll.org/books/gregg/gr_ch03_1.htm

Our route lay through uninterrupted prairie for about forty miles � in fact I may say, for five hundred miles, excepting the very narrow fringes of timber along the borders of the streams. The antelope of the high prairies which we now occasionally saw, is sometimes found as far east as Council Grove; and as a few old buffaloes have sometimes been met with about Cottonwood, we now began to look out for this desirable game. Some scattering bulls are generally to be seen first, forming as it would appear the 'van' or 'piquet guards' of the main droves with their cows and calves.

The buffalo are usually found much further east early in the spring, than during the rest of the year, on account of the long grass, which shoots up earlier in the season than the short pasturage of the plains.

Our hopes of game were destined soon to be realized; for early on the second day after leaving Cottonwood (a few miles beyond the principal Turkey creek), our eyes were greeted with the sight of a herd amounting to nearly a hundred head of buffalo, quietly grazing in the distance before us.

Half of our company had probably never seen a buffalo before (at least in its wild state); and the excitement that the first sight of these 'prairie beeves' occasions among a party of novices, beggars all description. Every horseman was off in a scamper: and some of the wagoners, leaving their teams to take care of themselves, seized their guns and joined the race afoot.

Here went one with his rifle or yager � there another with his double-barrelled shot-gun � a third with his holster-pistols � a Mexican perhaps with his lance � another with his bow and arrows � and numbers joined without any arms whatever, merely for the 'pleasures of the chase' � all helter-skelter � a regular John Gilpin race, truly 'neck or naught.'

The fleetest of the pursuers were soon in the midst of the game, which scattered in all directions, like a flock of birds upon the descent of a hawk....

For the edification of the reader, who has no doubt some curiosity on the subject, I will briefly mention, that the kitchen and table ware of the trader usually consists of a skillet, a frying pan, a sheet-iron camp-kettle, a coffee pot, and each man with his tin cup and a butcher's knife. T

he culinary operations being finished, the pan and kettle are set upon the grassy turf, around which all take a 'lowly seat,' and crack their gleesome jokes, while from their greasy hands they swallow their savory viands all with a relish rarely experienced at the well-spread table of the most fashionable and wealthy citizen.

The insatiable appetite acquired by travellers upon the Prairies is almost incredible, and the quantity of coffee drank is still more so. It is an unfailing and apparently indispensable beverage, served at every meal � even under the broiling noon-day sun, the wagoner will rarely fail to replenish a second time, his huge tin cup.

..and sleeping arrangements, note what a production was popularly made about the essentially identical sleeping arrangements of Hays' Rangers earlier in this thread...

Upon encamping the wagons are formed into a 'hollow square' (each division to a side), constituting at once an enclosure (or corral) for the animals when needed, and a fortification against the Indians. Not to embarrass this cattle-pen, the camp fires are all lighted outside of the wagons.

Outside of the wagons, also, the travellers spread their beds, which consist, for the most part, of buffalo � rugs and blankets. Many content themselves with a single mackinaw; but a pair constitutes the most regular pallet; and he that is provided with a buffalo � rug into the bargain, is deemed luxuriously supplied.

It is most usual to sleep out in the open air, as well to be at hand in case of attack, as indeed for comfort; for the serene sky of the Prairies affords the most agreeable and wholesome canopy.

That deleterious attribute of night air and dews, so dangerous in other climates, is but little experienced upon the high plains: on the contrary, the serene evening air seems to affect the health rather favorably than otherwise.

Tents are so rare on these expeditions that, in a caravan of two hundred men, I have not seen a dozen. In time of rain the traveller resorts to his wagon, which affords a far more secure shelter than a tent; for if the latter is not beaten down by the storms which so often accompany rain upon the prairies, the ground underneath is at least apt to be flooded.

During dry weather, however, even the invalid prefers the open air.

"the serene sky of the Prairies affords the most agreeable and wholesome canopy.", and five hundred miles of virgin prairie. Oh my Lord, where do I go to sign up fer one of these things...?

Birdwatcher



"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744