Navajas of the Galleons

[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.

[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 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

[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

[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.

[M ELEY]

Likewise, while not trying to split hairs, perhaps we need to more closely define who we are calling the 'crew'. I never meant to only concentrate attention on the common sailor on ships. We are in agreement that midshipmen and officers carried dirks in French/English/American crews. Who is to say what the officers of other navies carried (knives, navajas). When we see that some on these ships were likewise separate from the average sailor, such as the Royal Marine squads that served in the Tops and dispensed discipline on board, one can question what these soldier-types carried. On the Treasure Fleets, many of the Spaniards and Portuguese personnel on board were 'soldiers' and not crew. These men apparently always had their weapons at the ready to stave off pirate and enemy boarding. I will agree that knives on board ships was probably restrictive and not the rule, but I can't accept that they were non-existent in this setting-
Perhaps with more data in the future, I will feel confident to fully come aboard with the idea of "no knives, ever"-

[Chris Evans]

Gentlemen,

You all make observations that cannot be ignored, but we are moving away from the subject of this thread, namely the paper of Corey Malcolm.

He makes the following points re the folding knife which is the subject of his writing:

In line with such thinking, these items would have been useful not only for shaving but also as medical scalpels.

CE: As far as it goes, this is not contentious.

...But, in light of the many other needs aboard a ship at sea, and only a limited number of resources to cover them, did these knives really serve such specific purposes on the ships? Or were they much more versatile? The word navaja itself is certainly suggestive of this. The term is interchangeable for both folding knives and razors...... Just as today, sailors then would have found themselves relying heavily on an easily accessed, portable, personal “pocket” knife. Such a tool would serve any number of mundane uses throughout a typical day, such as cutting lines, peeling fruit, and cleaning fingernails.

CE: Here he makes a huge unwarranted leap of reasoning. Anybody who ever had to shave and sharpen a straight razor would know that this assertion is ridiculously impractical. Razors/scalpels are not all purpose tools and any attempt to press them into such service puts an and to their life as razors/scalpels. Their edges are extremely thin and delicate, fit for only the intended task. The claim that the term "navaja" was ambivalent does not change the physical realities.

The one blade, which was recovered as an epoxy cast from the marine concretion that formed around the original, is 13.2cm long, and 2.9cm at the widest point. The cutting edge has a slightly convex belly, and an examination of the sides shows a hollow grind...

CE: The blade is way too short for a weapon of any great consequence and the hollow grind is indicative of a razor. HGs were preferred for razors because they provided the thinnest edge possible. HG in the olden days was a difficult and time consuming process and was not found on utility knives until much later.

Though the point is not blunt, it is not particularly sharp. All of these characteristics suggest this knife was designed more for cutting than stabbing or piercing.... Holes for the hinge pin are barely 2mm in diameter.... The sheath was either broken or rotted over time, and is not quite complete....There is no evidence for a locking mechanism to hold the blade in place when it was opened....

CE: A frail construction and the absence of a lock! Hardly suggestive of anything but the lightest duties and certainly not the characteristics of a weapon grade or multi purpose clasp knife. And the case? Utilitarian/weapon grade folding knives were not carried in laboriously decorated cases/sheats, rather tucked in the belt. In any event, the brass work on the case shown is way too elaborate for an affordable sailor's knife.

....In the 16th century, navajas were carried regularly in the waistband.....


CE: Indeed, and the galleon in question was not wrecked in the 16th century, rather in the 17th!

In moments of anger, this handy tool could also become an easily accessed weapon.

CE: This is a most ridiculous leap in reasoning. To be sure, we know that barber's razors have been used as weapons of last resort, but so have blunt table knives, brooms and whatever, but does this make a case for these folders having found such generalized usage? Hardly.

....a significant number of folding-knife sheaths have been found..... The one blade, which was recovered.....

AND

The large number of navajas recovered from the 1622 galleons makes clear they were a common part of early 17thcentury shipboard life and because of this fact, as well as their versatility, were found well beyond just the surgeon’s tool kit.

CE: Am I missing something? A number of cases and one blade were recovered. No disputing that razors would have been common on a ship, but to conclude that these were all purpose tools and weapons is unjustifiable on the basis of the evidence presented.

Does anybody know if sailors shaved themselves or was this done by the barbers? Mirrors would have been very scarce....

A final comment: There is nothing in this paper that would suggest that these folders belonged to sailors, rather than officers/soldiers/barbers, OR that they simply formed part of the cargo.

Cheers
Chris

[Chris Evans]

Folks,

Went to the website of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum and found a number of similar and very interesting papers, similar to the one being discussed here.

http://www.melfisher.org/1622fleetresearch.htm

There is one by the same author and titled Crime And Punishment On A Galleon, which gives us a bit of an idea about on board discipline. After reading it, I tend to concur even more with Dmitry that violent behaviour by sailors would not have been tolerated on a Spanish galleon and that this article undermines the author's suggestions re navajas and sailors.

Cheers
Chris

[Chris Evans]

Folks,

Here is an very informative paper on Spanish galleons and ship life organization.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/60556803/O...0-Osprey-Nv-96

Cheers
Chris