This is a continuation of the chapter, “Shawnee Culture and the Ceremonialism of Violence” from the Ph.D dissertation of John M. Boback: Indian Warfare, Household Competency, and the Settlement of the Western Virginia Frontier, 1749 to 1794. The first portion of that chapter, “The Shawnee: their septs, their chiefs and their women”, can be read [...]
Archive for the ‘pumpkins’ Category
The Shawnee: seasonal cycles of village labor, hunting, fishing, trapping & trading
Posted in beans, corn, fur trapping, Green Corn Ceremony, Huron, intertribal trade, Kanawha Valley, maple syrup, Mary Draper Ingles, pumpkins, salt, Shawnee, slash-and-burn agriculture, squash, tobacco, white-tailed deer on February 23, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Fall comes to the old frontier
Posted in autumn, beans, corn, Indian Summer, pumpkins, Shawnee, squash on October 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Fall on the old Virginia frontier was, above all, a season of preparation against the coming Winter. The foundation of the cabin would be banked against the cold wind with a thick matting of cornstalks and pumpkin vines, or straw if they had it, or even banked with earth. And naturally a substantial stockpile of [...]
From a local artist, a brief look back to last autumn . . .
Posted in Fall Festival, Okey Simmons, pumpkins on January 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »
If I may leave the subject of “Virginia frontier winters” temporarily, I think readers of this blog will find the following of interest . . . For one of my posts from last autumn’s Fall Festival, I took some photos of Okey Simmons and a young re-enactor lighting jack-o-lanterns inside the trading post. One photograph [...]
The legend of Stingy Jack . . .
Posted in Fall Rendezvous, Okey Simmons, pumpkins on October 29, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Our present-day custom of carving pumpkins and lighting them with candles originated with the Irish folktale of “Stingy Jack” who, because of his mean-spiritedness and general knavery, was banished from Heaven and, because he had tricked the Devil, was not even permitted to make his home in Hell, but was doomed to wander the benighted regions [...]
Frontier pest control
Posted in chickens, frontier farming, Okey Simmons, pumpkins on September 4, 2008 | 1 Comment »
As mentioned in several previous posts, it has been a very bad year for beetles. Recently we noticed an infestation of several hundred squash bugs on one of the pumpkin plants inside the fort. We discussed several possibilities for destroying them, as they had already destroyed one of the pumpkin plants by the time they [...]
The harvest begins . . .
Posted in Aaron Bosnick, corn, frontier farming, Greg Bray, harvest, Judy Wilson, Mary Rose Mustachio, pumpkins on August 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It is now mid-August, but these so-called dog-days have been the pleasantest I can remember: more like seasonable late September than sultry mid-August. I’m sure the heat will hit us yet, but for now it has been exceptionally nice. In the garden everything is coming rapidly into its own. Many ears of corn are ripe [...]
Forthcoming Events
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Recent Posts
- Fairmont State students write original production about Prickett Cemetery
- 2012 School of the Longhunter comes to Pricketts Fort, April 12-15
- Settling the Western Virginia Backcountry, Part Two
- Scenes from the 18th-century Muzzleloading & Accoutrements Trade Show
- Settling the western Virginia backcountry: part 1
- 18th century Muzzleloading & Accoutrements Trade Show coming to Pricketts Fort, Feb 24-26
- Annual 18th century Christmas Market to run from Fri, Dec 9 to Sun, Dec 11
- Fall Festival & Antiques Fair this weekend at Pricketts Fort, Oct 8 & 9
- A paragon of the old frontier work ethic
- A tale of two cats
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- bj omanson on Recruiter for General Hand to be at Pricketts Fort, July 4
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