Life in the Old West

A cowboy shirt topped the list for awhile of all the things I wanted as a kid. Of course the childhood passion I had for a cowboy shirt was closely followed by cowboy boots (with a jangling pair of spurs, of course!) and a great six-gun cap gun and holster set.

A good cowboy shirt and comfortable boots would still rank highly on my list of gifts for any gift-receiving occasion, although I’ll admit I’m not that keen anymore on the cap gun and holster set. (A number of years ago when my teenage son discovered I was working on a Western novel, he gave me a toy six-gun and a plastic sheriff’s star. I kept them just for the fun of it; and, no, the novel never got finished.)

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The cowboy’s bedroll, unlike bedrolls or sleeping bags used by modern-day campers, was much, much more than a sleeping bag. The bedroll served as his “mini-home” on the range.

In its most elaborate form, a bedroll contained a whole host of personal possessions wrapped in canvas (when canvas could be found) or sometimes just in make-shift heavy grain sack cloth. Tied up or strapped within such a bedroll might be a “sugan” (also spelled “sougan” or “suggan” and several other very creative ways) or two and the cowboy’s “war bag” or “possibles sack.” In fact, a well-planned and well-stocked bedroll carefully wrapped and tied might be slung across a horse’s back behind the saddle, or if it was too large and burdensome and the cowboy was a working cowboy, his bedroll might be slung off the side of a chuck wagon or tucked down in the bed of the chuck wagon along with all the crew’s cooking utensils.

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Order rodeo gear, from saddles and ropes to rodeo wear of all sorts, then thank Buffalo Bill Cody for his role in “inventing” or at least popularizing modern rodeos.

Throughout America rodeo fans and participants from kids to old timers enjoy annual “Frontier Days” and high school or college rodeo contests. (I’m not a rodeo fan myself, although I’ve been to a few and had a cousin who was a bona fide professional rodeo clown.) I know there’s a professional rodeo circuit that’s been around for a long time, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (P.R.C.A.), and that cowboys and ranch hands from everywhere enjoy showing off their skills and rising to the challenge of serious rodeo competition all over America.

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As a writer, I enjoy words, their meanings and their origin. As someone who enjoys reading and writing about life in the Old West, I really enjoy the various Westernisms or “cowboy talk” that enriched the language of the Old West.

Take the word “paint,” for example. I ran onto several colorful (pardon the pun) uses of the word. (My source for most things regarding Western lingo is the wonderful book I’ve mentioned in several articles at this site: “Dictionary of the American West” by Winfred Blevins.)

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Today’s horse riding boots differ greatly from footwear in the Old West. Boot making and shoe making technology and materials are radically different today than they were on the Plains or prairies of the 1800s. Today’s boots offer comfort and fit unknown back then.

In the Old West, horse riding boots came in about one general selection — leather. Sure, depending on the skills and interests of an individual boot maker, they might be shaped a bit differently from pair to pair, and some boot craftsmen might vary the length of the boot on the leg and the height of the heel. But the one thing you could count on in a good pair of horse riding boots was that they would be made of leather.

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Cowboys’ spurs were both practical and dressy. They helped the working cowboy control his horse, and they often were made of beautiful combinations of silver and iron — showing off the cowboy’s dressy side and reflecting something of his material success.

According to his fascinating book “Cowboy Culture,” writer David Dary says spurs were first used in the Old West by Mexican vaqueros. Dary also says a primitive type of spur has been traced by some historians back to 700 B.C. By the 1400s A.D., he says, “spurs were a mark of rank for old World cavaliers, knights, and caballeros; the right to wear spurs was then awarded only by a feudal lord or king.”

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Ever wonder when, where, and why “cowboys” came from? (And why are they called “cowboys” and not “horse boys”?) I would highly recommend a very readable, classic Western history book that contains the answers for just about any questions you’ve got about cowboys and the West where they lived and thrived. The book is “Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries” by David Dary. (If you follow the link I’ve created to the book title, you’ll find copies available on eBay.)

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