Life in the Old West

You can’t watch too many old Westerns or read a few Western novels without running into these two words somewhere — “grub” and “grubstake.”

The first was used most commonly as sling for food, “grub” — but it didn’t get that meaning from the Old West. According to Winfred Blevins’ “Dictionary of the American West” (which I reference a lot around these parts), “grub” started as a cattle term. It was “an earmark that consisted of cutting off the whole ear of the critter.” The use of it for food came form slang dating from mid-17th century Britain, according to Blevins.

Read more on Prospectors needed grub, they looked for grubstakers…

I have been a big fan of “Westerns” and legitimate Western history since my 1950s childhood back in southeastern Nebraska, and I’ve never gotten a good answer to this question: How did settlers and soldiers who moved across the Plains and into the West learn to identify the various Indian tribal groups they encountered?

Think about it. We’ve all seen the movies where the wagon train circles up and prepares to defend against the hostile Indians. Invariably someone shouts something like, “Them’s Apaches. Watch ‘em. And here come some o’ them Comanches!”

Read more on How did settlers identify distinct Indian tribal groups?…