Tuesday, January 17, 2006
mmm...cutlasses
So far today, the big accomplishment has been a cutlass purchase. I feel so Pirateish! Not just one, but many. Well, two. I only needed one, but there was this other type of cutlass, with an irresistibly attractive shape - a broader blade, with a pronounced hook at the end - a flat surface, where the blade usually curves towards the tip, with a sharp point deriving, pointing in the opposite direction of the cutting edge. I asked the guy what this type of cutlass was used for, and he looked at me laughing, and said "You go buy dis ting, widdout knowing what its for?".
Hard to explain, to a local, that my appreciation for cutlasses is aesthetic. Actually, I thought that I was buying machetes. For the impending hike through Jamaica's highlands - Blue Mountain and John Crow National Parks. There may be a bit of bushwhacking involved. Not that I'm all that into hacking up tropical forests. But if the necessity presents itself, there is no better tool than the machete. And I never turn down a chance to add to my machete collection.
A remarkably functional device, a simple metal blade, 2-3 feet long, with a wooden handle. Highly effective at chopping things. And an array of designs has been developped, for specific purposes, around the tropical world. I'd be willing to bet that there are more people in this world who can recognize a machete, than a hammer. And more people who are effortlessly adept at wielding the former, than the latter. My casual machete collection consists of models from Fiji, Ecuador, Brazil, Jamaica, Mauritius, Bhutan, America, and now Britain. For whatever reason, Britain makes and sells machetes to Jamaica. Cutlasses (I have a receipt!). Not sure where that name came from - it's equally possible that that's what the Brits call them, as that the Jamaicans have held on to some historical archaism, a post-colonial term (what's the opposite of a neologism?).
And Jamaica was the starting point of my fascination with machetes. When I lived here as a kid, the most admirably heroic person in my world was our gardener, who in my memory used but one tool - his machete. My dad carried one too, kept it in the car. It was our access to fresh sugarcane, and sea almonds, and coconuts. The machete was an elegant solution, a powerful one, to essential needs.
In the end, the guy selling me the cutlasses relented, explained that I was buying a cane cutlass, for cutting sugarcane. "You use de point for digging, and uprooting", he said. Yah man. Tanks. Granted, no plans to get into sugar cane chopping on a serious scale, but now I've got the tool for it, if the accident happens...
Hard to explain, to a local, that my appreciation for cutlasses is aesthetic. Actually, I thought that I was buying machetes. For the impending hike through Jamaica's highlands - Blue Mountain and John Crow National Parks. There may be a bit of bushwhacking involved. Not that I'm all that into hacking up tropical forests. But if the necessity presents itself, there is no better tool than the machete. And I never turn down a chance to add to my machete collection.
A remarkably functional device, a simple metal blade, 2-3 feet long, with a wooden handle. Highly effective at chopping things. And an array of designs has been developped, for specific purposes, around the tropical world. I'd be willing to bet that there are more people in this world who can recognize a machete, than a hammer. And more people who are effortlessly adept at wielding the former, than the latter. My casual machete collection consists of models from Fiji, Ecuador, Brazil, Jamaica, Mauritius, Bhutan, America, and now Britain. For whatever reason, Britain makes and sells machetes to Jamaica. Cutlasses (I have a receipt!). Not sure where that name came from - it's equally possible that that's what the Brits call them, as that the Jamaicans have held on to some historical archaism, a post-colonial term (what's the opposite of a neologism?).
And Jamaica was the starting point of my fascination with machetes. When I lived here as a kid, the most admirably heroic person in my world was our gardener, who in my memory used but one tool - his machete. My dad carried one too, kept it in the car. It was our access to fresh sugarcane, and sea almonds, and coconuts. The machete was an elegant solution, a powerful one, to essential needs.
In the end, the guy selling me the cutlasses relented, explained that I was buying a cane cutlass, for cutting sugarcane. "You use de point for digging, and uprooting", he said. Yah man. Tanks. Granted, no plans to get into sugar cane chopping on a serious scale, but now I've got the tool for it, if the accident happens...
