Navajas of the Galleons

[fernando]

Perhaps there are differences between the various (country) navies and also in time period. Pyrard de Laval (1575-1652) points out some, distinguishing determined habits aboard practiced by either Portuguese, Dutch, English French.
May also the logic of terminology be considered, aggravated by my poor english and translation difficulties.
Senior sailors and (cabin) boys would be a distinct thing, respectively in what touches their recruiting, capacities, attributions and behavior from command towards each of them.
Laval makers a thorough description of the navigation between Portugal and India, emphasizing distinctions of crew members in the diverse type of embarkations, namely carracks (Naus) for the (so called) India career, all built in Lisbon, destined to bring back spices (generally called pepper), or the galleons ready for combat, to transport big shots or other express purposes, these being also built in India ship yards and elsewhere. He states that such carracks reached much over 1000 tons, being therefore the largest ships out there, not able to navigate on less than ten braces depth. Concerning personnel, he describes a remarkable distinction between the well considered sailors of such large merchandise carracks and mid size ships, where sailors were of lower profile, those, yes (your’e right here) were caught by force … even superior rank, assuming that those ships do not come back. And if ever they return, their crew men might get a post in large ships, but no so high as in the galleons they have served; from what comes that is a higher honor be a sailor in a large carrack than counter master in a galleon.
Concerning knives aboard, i believe these were decidedly sailors gear, but naturally not that of boys, be them grumetes (aspiring to sailors) or pages which, after all, counted for a significant number of the garrison aboard. Laval mentions more than one boy per sailor; narrations from the Pedro Alvares Cabral period (1500’s) describe these boys with ages from 12, receiving a symbolic salary and, in both descriptions, performing the simplest jobs, like wetting the decks (would could not get too dry, risking the whole boat to crack), screaming the hours (live clocks) and other kind of “public” attentions, besides serving their master sailors in all services aboard.
… But i am digressing here .

[Chris Evans]

Dmitry,

But why did the locking knives blossom later on? Tradition?

I have serious doubts about locking navajas having been ever normative in Spain. Much more likely is that it they represented only a fraction of the total numbers of folders in use and then only in the regions where cutlery industry was a significant part of the economy, as in Albacete.

As to why a lock was needed: For a knife to become a serious weapon, it must allow for the thrust. The wielder of a folding knife that does not have some sort of blade fixation mechanism when open, runs the risk of finger amputation should the blade close, be it whilst thrusting or if the blade is parried with a jacket, as was the practice in the Spanish fight.

Forton gives examples of post Borbon legislation that prohibit locks and then tells us on Pg 108 that the authorities did not have a problem with with folding knives per se, given their general utilitarian necessity, but rather their violent usage, for which a blade fixation mechanism was a requirement and thus legislators focused on this feature.

On the same page Forton says that since the majority of navajas in use had some sort of lock, the adverse legislation had a devastating effect on the cutlery industry. I find this assertion very hard to accept because:

a) Non locking navajas were much easier to make and thus cheaper. Hence, anybody who needed a working knife would not have exposed themselves to the wrath of the law, nor (given the prevailing poverty) spent hard earned money needlessly and would have opted for a friction folder.

b) The bulk of the large French navajas imported into Spain during the XIX century had only what I call a demi-lock, which did not prevent the blade from closing if some force was exerted on it, much like a modern so called slip joint.

c) For work, to this day cheap friction folders are still extremely popular in Spain and not the locking navaja. These are typical examples:http://www.filofiel.com/tienda/index...=22_34_112_472

In any event, since fixed blades were prohibited, cutlers still could make a living from making legal friction folders as the boutique cutlers of today do. A much more likely cause behind the decline of Spanish cutlery was its uncompetitiveness in the face of industrialization in the rest of Europe, especially France.

Cheers
Chris

[Chris Evans]

Fernando,

Good post. Am learning a lot about naval matters!

Cheers
Chris

[M ELEY]

Very interesting material and points made-

Fernando, you bring up an excellent point and back it up concerning the class of ship and cargo, as well as nation. All of these facts would affect attitude and armament as you mention (I had hinted at it briefly concerning the merchant classes). Even apart from side-knives, we also have to take into account the use of dirks by midshipmen and officers. Unlike other boarding weapons that were accounted for, dirks were the personal property of the men coming aboard. They purchased them and often chose the style/design. If knives were banned, would it not have caused great derision to let the officers (including midshipmen as young as 10!) to carry such but ban the others? Not trying to put up a fight, but I think the jury is still out on the final answer to this one.

Chris, nice information on the evolution of clasp knives. I still am fascinated with these types and hope to obtain an earlier specimen some day. Think 'XVIII' type, which from what I can glean from this thread so far would lack the later rachet and be more of a friction type.

[Dmitry]

Derision?! A man would have been flogged if he even looked at an officer the wrong way, let alone expressed derision. In that case he would've been put in irons, and probably hanged. Dirks were patently officers weapons, like swordss, and part of uniform. Men had no uniforms. The divide between ratings and officers was astronomical. There is a wealth of information on life on board.
Certainly if knives were carried by men we should see some period accounts of their use on board.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Dmitry

Derision?! A man would have been flogged if he even looked at an officer the wrong way, let alone expressed derision. In that case he would've been put in irons, and probably hanged. Dirks were patently officers weapons, like swordss, and part of uniform. Men had no uniforms. The divide between ratings and officers was astronomical. There is a wealth of information on life on board.
Certainly if knives were carried by men we should see some period accounts of their use on board.

Maybe as often with this subject, some myth should be discounted and due context should be taken into account.
Hanging would be a practice exercised in piracy environments, where such was the lightest penalty among all imaginable practices of cruelty that reportedly took place. Would also be one of various anti piracy penalties. But not a current procedure in regular navy
Captains of the India route, for one, in their full authority could not condemn to death, even for crime, but could submit the offenders to torment, which the French called passer par sous le navire e caler (tying the man and pass him all the way under the ship's keel ... eventually full of sharp shells) and other body punishmernts, like hanging the man from under his arms. He could also keep any man locked by his feet with irons during the whole trip, for later delivery to justice.
I guess there are no emphasided accounts of knives being used on board because their possession was a natural thing, not worth so much to point out.
Besides, when we read period chronicles, we pay our attention to other more decisive particularities.
Also authors prefer to mention what the ships or soldiers are basicaly equiped with, giving account of their respective artillery, muskets and lances, not contemplating such basic thinks like sailors pocket gear.
But perhaps if we re-read those books and focus on this subject, now and then knives play their role; primary or secondary, whether in a fight or, more likely, as an utilitarian device.
Again, i can not imagine a sailor going to ask the guardian to lend him a knife every times he has to mend a sail, make a knot or fix the riggings.

[fernando]

Laval narrates that, contrary to the Dutch and French, who are provided with a cook and every six men eat ready food in one plate, the Portuguese are supplied once per month with raw goods: salted meat, olive oil, vinegar, salt, onions, fish; bread, as much as they can eat, whine and water are given daily. Other raw articles are sold aboard by those who bring them from land; he saw one chicken be sold for 20 reales.
Every one has to cook his own food, resulting that you can often see more than eighty or hundred pans simultaneously on the fire. And when these are cooked, a next lot is put on such fire. For this reason when some men are ill and can not compete with this strugle, are mistreated and sub nourished, eventually dying of such cause.
This to say that, if the men had to prepare and cook their food, they would naturally had to use knives; hardly they would toss entire fishes and hens on the pan, before cuting them in pieces.
But not a single mention of knives appear in the text !
I would however risk to say that such it is implicit.

[Dmitry]

Chris, thanks for the explanation.Looks like I have succumbed to the false notion that locking navajas were the norm. I guess the romantic sea novelsa re not a good source of credible information. :-)

[Chris Evans]

Originally Posted by Dmitry

Chris, thanks for the explanation.Looks like I have succumbed to the false notion that locking navajas were the norm. I guess the romantic sea novelsa re not a good source of credible information. :-)

Well, you are not alone as Forton himself tells us so, but I beg to differ as his assertion does not stand up to critical scrutiny.

The problem with navajas is that like the creole/gaucho knives, they became national cultural icons and all kinds of myths have been created about them. Now it is the devil's own job trying to sort out the facts from fiction.

A further problem is one that we as collectors have created for ourselves. We instinctively go for the glamour pieces and ignore the banal - With time this acts as a filter and only these items end up surviving in collections creating the impression that they were normative, rather than the exception.

Cheers
Chris

[Chris Evans]

Originally Posted by M ELEY

I still am fascinated with these types and hope to obtain an earlier specimen some day. Think 'XVIII' type, which from what I can glean from this thread so far would lack the later rachet and be more of a friction type.

There were a number of co-existing typologies, the ratcheting locker being just one of them. By the XVIII century locking navajas were indisputably in common usage. Many had a lock but no ratchet, or a rotating ferrule, like modern Opinels, a good many only had back springs like modern slip joint and probably far more were simple primitive friction folders.

Cheers
Chris