Red_Dawn

Thanks again, guys!

So this is for a fictional account?

[snip]

So I guess you have to decide where you want to rest on that continuum. If you're closer to the first idea, I would just assume artistic license and write what you need to move your story forward. The points earned in the public eye for being 100% accurate (which is pretty much impossible) are minuscule anyhow.

Sorry, I should've stated that more clearly in the OP. Yes, it's for fiction, though I do like to get the basics right at least.

On the one hand, I would think - as Hawkins hints - that behavior in bars would vary as widely as the people who populated them. As a modern day example, you're going to get one feeling walking into the local downtown hangout for executives leaving work and very different one at the local motorcycle gang hole-in-the-wall. Ditto period. Sailor's bars have long held a reputation for being more rough and tumble than the ones not quite so near the city port.

So as long as nothing became a police matter, the dockside taverns didn't care what you did.

This is something I was reminded of when I answered in the tavern post. I've asked about this over a year ago at Piratesinfo.com and a writers' forum. I got good advice from both place, but sometimes I wonder if I could use some more...

Most of my cheesy little tales take place roughly in the very early 1700s. I had been looking into the little things for my stories, and I completely missed the War of Spanish Succession. The two largest nationalities in my crew are English and French. Oh, and the religious make up of the crew about half Protestant and half Catholic, mostly along national lines. See a problem?

Not that my pirates care; if they had any pretentions of patriotism, they would've been privateers. Neither does their home base (a made-up island), unless you do something blatant, like yell "#$^% France!" in the French areas or "Je $%^ sur le roi d'Angleterre!*" in the English areas. However, there are other real life ports my pirates may need to got to. True, they're probably limited to pirate-friendly ports in the first place, but shore leave might still be awkward for pirates of the wrong nationality. Cheese does not give me free license to completely ignore history and logic.

Got any advice, observations, or insights on the subject? Thanks!

* Pardon my online-translator French.

P.S. As a side note, I still haven't found out much about the war and how much of it spilled into the Caribbean, but that's best left to another thread...

Paging Hurricane. Hurricane to the white courtesy phone.....

You are our Port Royal expert. Are there any primary source descriptions of the Port Royal taverns and the common behaviour? It's not my area, so my library is lacking.

It doesn't have to be Port Royal (unless Port Royal was typical). It doesn't necessarily have to be English/British, either, I've got French colonials in my fictional crew, too.

Red Dawn, thanks for asking. I have a related question of my own.

How would a proprietor of a working class inn/tavern/ordinary/public house look upon these things?

You're welcome. And that's a good question. I'd like to know that, too, for the sake of my long suffering port tavernkeepers.

Thanks, guys! This helps a bit.

No fighting, but some lewdness in the back left. Jan Steen, 1670

Oh my, naughty pictures!

So necking at least was tolerated. Would it have been a "just ignore it" thing or a "kick back and enjoy the show" thing? Or would that depend on the nationality of the tavern?

And of course, there's Hogarth. Tavern Scene from the Rake's Progress, 1735

If that's a tavern scene, I'd hate to see him do a brothel scene! Certainly not the place where the vicar gets a pint.

Unfortunately, most of the behaviour pictured, that which was common in the dockside taverns, would not be tolerated, even in our nonpublic, recreated taverns. Sad to say, many (most?) of our brothers and sisters bring their modern hangups and, yes, prudishness, with them when they enter the pirate realm.

Actually, those make out scenes in the Steen and Bega paintings look kind of tame compared to what happens on network TV.

I don't own a copy, but this might have a few answers to your question.

Thanks! I'll check it out.

Anything else I should know about tavern behavior?

I'd like to know about how to behave in a Caribbean tavern so I can get my characters in trouble. Specifically, I need to know the tolerance for fighting and necking, but any information on tavern behavior (good or bad) is welcome and wanted. Thanks!

A classic Baguette Beatdown! Love that video! I'd show it to my nephews if I could trust them not to whack each other with breadloaves.

I want the website to be great and unique and truly piraty - something people who are interested in the topic will visit and revisit. Not trying to compete with the forums here at all mind you. But appealing Visually and in terms of information/ creativity

Can't help you much on the content front, but as far as the look goes, your site should definitely be easy on the eyes. No neon-colored backgrounds, no seizure-inducing animations, etc. The main text of the site should be 10 points or larger and readable. Also, the navigation should be easy to find, figure out, and use.

A good site for learning what not to do is Web Pages That Suck. You might want to go to the bathroom before you read it, though, just in case.

So guitars were an option after all. Thanks! (Though a rebec/violin bow would come in handy for smacking away stray hands. )

No vihuelas, though. Too closely associated with mariachi music. >.<

Oh dear, sorry about the confusion. I've heard some people refer to their persona as their character in the past (usually those with theater backgrounds), so just thought that was what you meant.

No harm done. At least now I know I should let people know right off the bat if the question's for my stories.

Thanks, guys! This helps a lot.

A couple of notes about the rebec. By this period they were made from shaped strips like a lute instead of being carved from a single piece of wood. The earlier paintings show it played from the shoulder but I find it easier to play from the arm.

Thanks, MarkG. Good to know for descriptions.

Something I should warn you about. I've played both the rebec and the wipplestix (a good substitute for a dance master's fiddle) in public. No one listens to you playing. They want to ask about the instrument.

Sometimes historic accuracy can be distracting. A violin will be less distracting than a rebec even if it is less accurate.

So true! It would be easier to write "violin" than to explain what a rebec is. And I could technically get away with having her play a violin, since I'm writing cheese and she's not exactly lady-like. Still, I wanted to look at other options.

The West Indies were colonies of France, Britain, Spain and Holland. Therefore, what was in fashion in that time in the mother country, arrived to the colonies 1 year later too! Including musical instruments.

Good point, Elena. It wasn't exactly a new instrument at the time, either.

The why of certain instruments, as far as wether or not women were supposed to play them, basically comes down to what was deemed appropriate for a "lady". A violin distorts the woman's form, and was therefore considered unattractive. Any instrument that needed to be held between the legs to play it was considered suggestive. An instrument that was blown was also considered unattractive because one puffs out the cheeks and distorts the face (recorder, trumpet).

So some instruments would make her look "ugly" and others might get her labeled as a tramp. I'll have to keep that in mind, Mistress Dobyns.

You may want to email David and Ginger Hildebrand, who have done a lot of research on period music, and see what they say. They're nice folks.

Hmm, they mention guitars on their site. I almost gave here a guitar, but I didn't know if the lower classes could use or afford one. I may have to make a more generalize instrument thread.

Also, since you're a Black Haitian Creole, you have the perfect opportunity there to use a strum-strum/banjar (the early gourd banjo that developed in the caribbean, mixing African and European forms). It took 100 years for it to slowly seep into the white population, but I bust one out sometimes when doing an indentured servant or sailor from a slaver.

Actually, Adam C., it's not for re-enactment; it's for a story. I think people would object to me putting on dark makeup and dancing around with a banjo. Still, it's something to look into for my character.

Hope I'm asking this in the right section.

One of my pirate characters is a free black Haitian woman who was a street musician before she went to sea. I asked about suitable period instruments on another forum and one of the suggestions was a rebec. From what I could find out, it was fading in popularity, but still in use. In the right hands, it doesn't sound half bad. I'm kind of leaning toward it, since it fulfills most of my requirements (portable, cheap, gender/race-neutral, etc.). Problem is, while I know it was readily available in Europe, I have no idea if they were readily available in the Caribbean. Why not switch her to a violin, you ask? Because I've heard it wasn't consider a woman's instrument at the time.

Does anyone here know about rebec in the Caribbean? Thanks!

P.S. By the way, how'd they treat street musicians back then, male or female? Thanks again!

Who are ye? And What do you do?

For pirate forums and Talk Like a Pirate Day, I'm Red Dawn. Yes, Dawn is my real first name. Right now, I'm researching for cheesy pirate stories I'd like to write.

Are ye, the members of this forum, mostly re-enactors?

I'm just an aspiring writer.

How did you come up with your pirate name?

I needed a name for TLAPD, and Red Dawn just kept popping in my head. I was reluctant to use it at first, because it's the title of a crappy Commie invasion movie that I had the misfortune of seeing half of. Then I thought, Dawn, you can redeem this phrase. Use it! Not a very impress feat, I admit, but whatever makes the world a better place...

I see there are a few artisans here. Do you sell your goods online or at shows?

Hopefully, one day, you'll be able to buy my goods at Barnes & Noble, though at the rate I'm going, that's years in the future.

I've noticed that this forum seems spread out across the US. How does one find a crew or even start their own?

Seeing how I live in Southern Arizona, where there's lots of beach but no ocean, heck if I know.

Are you focused on being historically accurate or do you follow more of a modern view of Pirates?

I have a distinct tendency towards cheese, but I still need to research. It's one thing to have a crew full of eyepatched, parrot-toting pirates. It's another thing to have Golden Age-style pirates armed with rapiers and revolvers.

I know, he looks kind of evil in that picture, but that's the one on my hard drive right now. More often, he'd have the same expression as that rabbit being petted by C3PO. He was grumpy, but mostly harmless. He did bite a few fingers and drew blood, though. (He did that in front of the secretaries at the vet, and was still considered the darling of the vet's office!)

Awww, a bunny thread! Mind if I post a picture of my late lamented rabbit, Steve?

He used to be a magic show rabbit at a theme park that one of my sisters worked at until the park burned down. Sis brought him home after the fire, and he became the most spoiled bunny in town.

Would it be safe to assume then that her part in nursing him back to health would involve bringing him food and water, changing the bedclothes, burning his clothing (if economically feasable), or things of that nature?

Her who? If you're talking about a wife or someone, I suppose so.

Sorry I wasn't clearer. "Her" would be my character's mother.

My notes are concerned with what the surgeon did, not the patient's family, so I couldn't say with any certainty.

Ahh. So basically your notes say what to pour down the patient's throat, but not what the surgeon advised the family to do after he left (except maybe "give him this purge 3 times a day, and if he gets worse, I'll come back and bleed him").

I don't know if they diagnosed any other diseases by tasting urine, but the study of urine is a whole separate medical art. It was something usually done by the physicians, not the surgeons. (The physicians were much higher on the medical totem pole than the surgeons.)

And considering the family's socio-economic level, they probably couldn't afford a physcian even if there was one in their village. Better stick with his mother dying of TB then; might easer for the surgeon to detect. Thanks!

I know the feces of a paitent would be examined for distinct odors to help with diagnosis depending on the systems presenting

Thanks! Good to know.

Thanks, Mission!

None of the period sources I have read so far have anything to say about curing smallpox, so I imagine they used bleeding and purging (which were useless in this case). This may be why the diseases was so feared.

Would it be safe to assume then that her part in nursing him back to health would involve bringing him food and water, changing the bedclothes, burning his clothing (if economically feasable), or things of that nature?

Diabetes was diagnosed by tasting the patient's urine to see if it was sweet. (Because there is no (or not enough) insulin to handle sugar, some of it is removed from the body via the urine - thus making it sweet to the taste.)

Poor surgeons. Now I'm wondering what other diseases they diagnosed by taste, and I know I'll regret asking!

Looks like my first questions on the forum are going to be pretty grim.

What was the treatment for smallpox back then? One of my pirates has memories of his mother nursing him back to health from it. The CDC has some, erm, interesting pictures of smallpox victims on their site, but not much info on old treatments.

Some years after, his mother died, and I've narrowed down multiple disease suggestion to death by tuberculosis or diabetes. Any info on how those were diagnosed, treated, etc. back then?

Thanks!

You guys sure are a friendly lot. Thanks again.

Thanks again!

I'm a teacher IRL, so I'm used to stupid questions. Fire away!

Good point.

Thanks for the welcome, everyone! I'll warn you now, though; I can ask some pretty stupid-seeming questions.

Now herein is a plot for a cheesy story... pirate named Daniel make good of promise made to his uncle who raised him to give up the sweet trade and go to law school, he then becomes a pirate prosecutor for the crown, he accidentally hangs a childhood friend/pirate and full of remorse returns to piracy.

Jas. Hook

Strangely enough, I already have pirate name Daniel and a reformed pirate (2 different people, by the way).

I'm new on this forum, though a few of you may know me from Piratesinfo.com. I'm in the research stage of writing cheesy pirate stories (and boy, do I need to work on my research). I've lurked for a few years and this looked like a good place to learn things, so I figured I should probably join so I could ask questions. The more sources, the better! (That, and I might need to ask less family-friendly questions than Piratesinfo.com allows.)