Mission

Was Hook barefoot or in sandals? Either way, it sounds sort of humorous since he is usually shown all gussied up and wearing bucket boots. (Probably because the first thing I saw as a kid - the Disney version - so altered my concept of him that anything else seems odd.)

They had a discussion going over at the Authentic Pirate Living History group on Facebook concerning the origin of the term Jolly Roger that produced some information that was too good not to share for those who don't follow the group. (This information is via our own Foxe with David Fictum (Brit.Privateer) providing information and commentary to the mix. I will link inline to their actual FB posts for reference.) It started when Foxe said he had information from period, which I asked him about. Ed responded: "I'm sure I've posted the jolly roger thing before. There's a newspaper printed in 1719 containing an article about Davis' company, in which their black flag is called "Johnny Rogers". The same article mentions the pirates using "Johnny Rogers" as a colloquial nickname for Woodes Rogers, governor of the Bahamas. Incidentally, it is also the earliest reference to the term for the flag in print - five years earlier than the OED's current oldest version (which I gave them)." David found the actual article, which he quoted: "From the Weekly Packet, December 5, 1719 - December 12, 1719; Issue 388. After taking and destroying some vessels of the Whydah coast in Africa, the Davis gang said, "...for they wanted Men and large Ships, to be stronger, to go on the Coast of Brazil, and then to the South Sea; they said they would do all the Mischief they could, for they should have another Pardon sent to call them in, and then they would go into Providence, to their old Friend Johnny Rogers; and lay down their Standard, which they hoisted at Main-topmast-head, with a Gun and Sword, which they call'd Johnny Rogers, and when all was spent, take it up and begin again; they said they knew of 8 or 10 Sail more, besides themselves, that were out upon the same Account, and they reckon'd among their Ships to have above 500 Men, and increasing. After reading that - could someone explain what they are trying to say? Because initially it reads like they call "the Gun and Sword" the Johnny Rodgers. They definitely didn't punctuate and structure written sentences like we do today." Ed commented: "The punctuation is difficult: I take this to mean that Davis' flag featured a gun and a sword, and was called Johnny Rogers. It could also mean that the flag, gun, and sword were separate items, but in that case the next part should run "...spent, take *them* up and begin again", not *it*, and the sword would be called "Johnny Rogers" which doesn't seem as likely as the flag having the name." At first I thought it was all just sort of interesting and not of much consequence. (Note that the link between Davis' crew's 'Johnny Rogers' and 'Jolly Roger' looks likely, but cannot be proven by this alone.) But thinking more on it, I agreed with David's assessment (particularly the second point): "I would put why this is important in two ways. One, it dispels a pirate myth, nay, one of those "pirate facts" that floats around so long it becomes "fact". The origins of a pirate flag name "Jolly Roger" has been pretty dominated by what amounts to unsupported conjecture. For the first time, there is actually a document from the period that provides a potential explanation, which is miles ahead of conjecture without documents to back it up. People who study history often try to dispel myths for the documented history. Two, knowing about the origins of the name of the flag helps us understand the society/culture pirates developed. Flags are a significant symbol to pirates considering their use (see my reddit post on flags that starts this thread). Knowing about the origins of that flags given nickname is a significant insight into a pirate's world view. In this case, they used their flag to make reference to an authority figure in a way that isn't necessarily flattering. Doesn't that seem significant?"

At the request of the Surgeon's Journal readers on Facebook, I added an article on how to treat fractures during the golden age of piracy. It looks at how fractures occurred shipboard, the different types of fracture, the theory and practice of repairing them and how they healed using period resources. Artist: Jan Luyken - Surgeon Examining a Leg, From Het Menselyk (1694)

I'm not sure how to respond to the crew question. I'm sure something could be arranged on that one. There are a very limited number of cooking fires (I'm thinking there were 2 or 3 of them last year), although there were two very reasonably-priced, good food vendors there last year. You won't need your kit pre-approved. The event doesn't have strict garb standards, although you want to at least look whatever part you're striving for. Are you going for period correct garb or more movie/fantasy-style garb? There are both types of participants at this event. We tend to focus here on the forum on period correct garb because most of the folks who discuss things in the FTPI Forum (primarily from the Mercury and Arch-Angel crews) are oriented towards achieving period correctness. For reference, you can look at photos and information from last year on the Event Website. The Participants Page can give you some insight into how things work, although the documents linked to there are from 2013 and will almost certainly change somewhat for this year. (The site won't be updated for the 2014 event until September or so.) You can also read through my 2013 event journal or the Presenting the Past Blog to get a (slightly skewed) idea of how things go. Both contain photos.

Happy Birthday, Patrick! When ya' coming back to Key West?

That's an interesting compare and contrast with the other pieces of seminal pirate fiction. I've never even thought about it. (Then again, I don't think I've seen Peter Pan since I was a young 'un.)

Thanks, Greg. That article was originally supposed to have a medical component to it, but I got all involved in the details of salt pork and the food part of it ended up being twice as long as I expected. I will probably add the medical portion some time in the future.

So I was entering Raymund Minderer's fascating suggestions from his book Treatise of diseases that for the most part attend camps and fleets into my notes and it occured to me that they would make wonderful internet memes for my FB Fan page. (Albeit a bit longer than most such memes, but what the heck.) Then I thought they'd be the perfect companion piece to William's excellent thread/Pyracy Pub FB Fan page piece "On this day in history..." So here you go.

I decided to write an article for Easter on pork as food during the GAoP (thinking of the Easter - ham connection). You can read it via this link. It talks about what they ate (and why what we call ham and bacon today was not the same as what period sailors ate), where and how they got the pork and includes some information different kinds of pigs and hogs that were used. I used some of the material provided in this post, with recognition to those who provided it.

Ha ha ha. I must have missed this one. Abdikarim Mohamed from Merka, Afrika via an Oklahoma City IP address. Good stuff.

Interesting. A lot of those cookbooks listed in my link aren't first editions, so you know they date back even further than is listed. Oh neat! I didn't know U of M put the text versions of ECCO material on-line. That might save me some trips to MSU to download material in the future...

Here is a page chock-a-block full of references to 18th century cookbooks online. Most of them are later than GAoP, but it's one of the more comprehensive lists I've seen. Note: The hot-links to upenn.com do NOT work as shown, but if you really, really want to see them, you can find them by using the UPenn online books search page. It's a bit more work, but if you really want to see them...

I can't remember a song unless I hear 50 times in succession, so I am practically useless when it comes to shanties, but I stumbled across this which I thought was fun. http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/21846/image

Caring for the sick, too. They would often set up tents on shore for this purpose. (Although it was not the only reason for doing this, some period surgeons believed scurvy could be cured by being on land.) See the discussion Location of the Sick During Landfall on this page for more: http://www.piratesurgeon.com/pages/surgeon_pages/quarters9.html

It's kind of like recipes today - everyone has their own twist. In fact, the more info I find on various specific aspects of daily life at this time, the more varied and creative GAoP folks seem to be n their daily lives. I guess people are people....

Just found this while looking for something else. It's from Robert Smith's Court cookery: or, The compleat English cook. London: 1725: "Salamongundy. Take some of the Flesh-part of a Turkey, and the like Quantity of a Chicken minced very small; a few hard Eggs, and half the whites; some Anchovies, Capers, Mushrooms and Lemon-peel, minc'd very small; a little Sorrel, Cives [Chives?], and Spinage: Mix and mince all these well together, and pour over it the Juice of Orange, Lemon, Oil and vinegar, and servit: Garnish with Barberries." (Smith, p. 42)

You would think so, but there were several period reports of wormy ['measeled'] pork.

Just to do clear, I am a huge fan of the Pub and its database-like content. (Something I told Stynky years ago.) I have always been a proponent of sharing info here and do so regularly. I highly suspect that FB will be replaced by something else, the same way that Yahoo groups and mail lists got replaced. I often bring up the Pub threads at APLH because it seems silly to have to repost things we've spent years discussing and collecting material about here. I encourage everyone to do likewise. (While slow and sometimes tetchy, the search function can be invaluable.) Keep adding new info too. I personally think this forum will be around a lot longer than the free sites based on web history to date. (So long as Stynky is willing to back it.) Plus this site is (fairly) easy to search, unlike a lot of the free sites.

Given the (obviously non-period) use of Ham in The Pirates!, I was sort of fascinated to discover that there are no period references in my file of medicine and diet-related quotes to the word "ham," other than referring to the back of a man's thigh in medicine. It is used once in Père Labat's English account of a sea voyage he made, but since that was translated from the original French in the 20th century, I don't know if that qualifies as proof of use on a ship. The term appears to be period. From the Online Etymology Dictionary: ham (n.1) "meat of a hog's hind leg used for food," 1630s, from Old English hamm "hollow or bend of the knee," from Proto-Germanic *hamma- (cf. Old Norse höm, Middle Low German, Middle Dutch hamme, Old High German hamma), from PIE *konemo- "shin bone" (cf. Greek kneme "calf of the leg," Old Irish cnaim "bone"). It makes me wonder if this cut of meat was either not used or if it was just packed in with other cuts of pork and so not differentiated when salted and packed for ship travel. Anyone know differently?