Below is a nice clip from National Geographic on the American Mountain Men. AMM is an elite among reenactors — they take it beyond the weekend Rendezvous deal.
Here’s how they describe themeslves:
The American Mountain Men’s primary characteristic is, first and foremost, to be a Brotherhood of Men. In this fraternal concept is embedded the desire of all its members to teach, share, and learn the arts and skills of the original American mountain men, but deeper still, is the desire to be upon the trail, on lake or river, in mountains, plains or woods, as brothers, sharing this great experience. The sense of camaraderie and the shared endeavor are more important, always, than individual gain. These are the goals and the founding wisdom of A.M.M. To keep alive the skills of the freest men our great nation ever birthed; to preserve his abilities and emulate his way of life as historically accurately as possible.
Though reenactment is not my own personal path in the noble endeavor of Chasing Buffalo, I have a lot of respect for the folks who have done the applied research into the original source material to recreate the life as it was lived. We’ve learned a whole lot about frontier material culture from folks like these fellers.
Hats off to ’em.
deuce says
My neighbour down the road goes to rendevous every spring. Tans hides with brains and the whole nine yards. He’s a damn good shot with his blackpowder gun, but his wife is a deadeye. She wins basically every time.
JimC says
Cool stuff. Those charcoal burners can be deadly accurate within their ballistic capabilities. And man do those big lead balls hit hard. Brain tanning — impressive.