We continue with the lessons we can reap from master
scout of the Southwest American Frontier & Africa, Mr. Burnham. See Part
1,
and Part
2 for full immersion.]
“At this time, I used to practise incessantly with
the pistol, with both right and left hands, and especially from a galloping
horse.”
·
How you train is how you will fight.
·
Static range time was not the way of these
early Hosses.
·
Movement and chaotic movement at that.
Mr. Burnham advises that we learn more from rough
times than we do the every day nice and easy times we wallow in, day in, day
out.
“In order to know life as it really is, it is
necessary once in a while to be the under dog.”
Ask yourself, who is the wiser, the man in the field
doing it or the man on the couch viewing the how-to video?
“As compared to Arizona, California seemed a free
and happy country where Law reigned but, at that time, was not carried to the
point of prescribing what one should say, write, think, eat, drink, love, or
hate. The Reformers had not arrived, but if a crime was committed, the offender
was usually captured and punished.”
·
Proscriptive laws/mores were hard and fast
for the Universal Ethical Standards.
·
The hewing to party creed and punctilios
of this or that fashion, not so much.
·
Freedom, responsibility and disdain of
lockstep were of higher value.
On lessons learned from the stark Apache Ways.
“Most amateur sleuths and scouts would quit the
vigil after three days, and many after one day, but an Apache will lie on a
rocky point for many days and make no trail or sign. His whole equipment
consists of a gourd of water, a piece of dried meat or jerky, and a little
mescal, mesquite beans, or a handful of parched corn meal. Every film of smoke,
dust cloud, or glint of light on the desert below will be noted, as well as the
flight of every bird and the movements of the few desert animals. Patience, patience,
and then more patience! The Indian scout will make a little buried fire of
smokeless dry twigs, warm up the ground all the afternoon, bury the embers
under the earth, and then lie on the warm spot until toward morning, when it
will have cooled again. Then he will make a tiny fire of two crossed sticks,
wrap his blanket around him, if he has one, and doze and freeze by turns until
the sun once more brings warmth and another day of silence and watching.”
Ask yourself, many of us think of ourselves as Hombres/Hombrettes
with grit for a core, how do you stack up against this standard?
On the Apache and like cultures he admires.
“What the white scout has to learn from the Indian
is the power to endure loneliness, as well as stoical indifference to physical
pain. The Boers of the high veldt, the Tauregs and Bedouins of the desert, and
the Apaches, have this power in a superlative degree.”
On making gear choices based on Indigenous experience.
“You keep with you your light shoes or Mexican tawas
(a kind of moccasin and legging combined, and very useful in a thorny country.)”
·
I can vouch—I have tested top-rated desert
hiking boots in desert and cactus country and moccasins.
·
The moccasins won hands down for contact,
comfort and raising the attention game.
A trail-running hack from Mr. Burnham. [Hundreds upon
hundreds of such tips and tactics in our upcoming book on El Camino del Hombre del País [Way of the Man of the
Country.]
“Again my legs took command — and no Apache could
compete. I ran with a strange sense of strength, clinging to the trail, and at
dark I reached a sandy arroyo where I doubled on my trail for a hundred yards
and then threw myself flat on my back and put my heels on a bit of driftwood a
few inches higher than my head. This relieves blood pressure better than
anything else I know, and eases the breathing.”
[On the lost art of Indian Running—we revive this
skill in the aforementioned book El Camino
del Hombre del País [Way of the Man of the Country.]
“It was my good fortune to find service, at one
time or another, under such remarkable men as Al Sieber, Archie McIntosh, and
Fred Sterling. Every commanding officer in the Apache wars suffered from lack
of information as to where the Indians were and from the difficulty of getting
in touch with them. It was for this reason that Crook, Miles, Chaffee, and
Lawton made frequent use of fast-running Indian scouts. It is a mistake to
suppose that a cowboy is a fleet man in the mountains. He is a superb horseman,
but he will trudge miles to catch a horse so that he may ride a mile. There are
very few white men who can or will make long runs on foot, and no horseman can
overtake an Apache on foot in rough mountains such as those of Arizona. Through
the Indian games of my childhood and my hunting afoot in the mountains of
California, I had developed a swift and silent pace which enabled me to scout
in the Apache, country without fear of being caught, even if sighted. For an
untrained white man to be seen in an Indian country is to be caught if the
Indians so mind. There were a few old-time trappers who could out-foot the
Apaches, but they were already old men when I was on the frontier.”
[See our article on Apache
Running for more insight.]
Much more to be learned from Mr. Burnham and others of
his ilk…another day.
Resources for Livin’ the Warrior Life, Historically
Accurate & Viciously Verified.
The Black Box Store
https://www.extremeselfprotection.com/
The Indigenous Ability Blog
https://indigenousability.blogspot.com/
The Rough ‘n’ Tumble Raconteur Podcast
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