Episode 39 Varmints - Eating the Wild

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Listen to "039 Varmints - Eating the Wild" on Spreaker.

Link to the Episode:

Sure - the colonists got over themselves, and eventually realized they could eat the wildlife - even the ones they didn't have at home.  Not much more than mentions of these consumed varmints linger - especially if they weren't that tasty.

But its the art and dress that lingers on - so we can see that many an animal was part of daily life for the 17th Century Native American and Colonist alike.

Photo by Uyvsdi - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12647084

Loomed Quill Work collected from an Upper Missouri Tribe by the Lewis & Clark expedition pre-1804 - all natural dyes.  Currently held in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania


Photo by Squirrelwhisperer - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43154516

An example of contemporary Quillwork - the art continues

The tall black felted beaver fur hats - The Capotain - that were the mark of the upright Puritan.
(pssst.... the buckle was a later addition.  They had bands, beads and ribbons, but never a buckle in sight)
Incidentally - these were worn by women and men alike.  And it appears that Quaker women wearing these long after they had stopped being fashionable seems to be at the base of the uniquely American Witches Hat.

Ester Tradescant
attr. Thomas de Critz 1645


Now - Don't tell me these aren't Bear-Fish Hybrids!

Bull Sea Lions - The Salish Sea off the coast of Washington State
- the little one is an approximately 5 ft/1,7m harbor seal






Ermine Fur - and Ermine Fur Borders - the essential for that Royal Portrait

Charles I - Coronation Robes
From the Studio of Anthony van Dyck painted ~1636 - 1640
Available for sale at Weissgallery.com if you are in the market!
(Also - those shoe buckles must have required practice to walk in!)


Charles II - Coronation Robes
by John Michael Wright 1661-2
(Everyone fashionable was doing Cavalier Hair)


And not to be outdone - Louis XIV of France in 1701


You get the idea...

And now - the tall floofy Beaf Fur Hats:
It was actually the French Grenadiers who wore bear fur trimmed cloth caps first.  Which evolved pretty quickly into the tall Grenadier Hat familiar from the Grande Armeé.  


By Hippolyte Bellangé 


And then somewhere in there - possibly with the availability of bear skins to the crown - from the New World colonies - and also possibly a fair bit of Fur-Dress-Up Oneupmanship between troops serving in India - with tiger and other big cat skins - the bear skin cap entered the British Uniform universe.

The Queen's Guard outside Buckingham Palace




And this article unwinds it all pretty well.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/headdress-guards-history-bearskin-caps-170965











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