Long before there was such a thing as an OfficialRedRyderCarbineAction200-ShotRangeModelAirRifle —long, long before, as in millennia before there was any kind of air rifle, or any other kind of rifle, for that matter — parents were issuing this same warning to their children. Kids have been launching projectiles of one sort or another at objects, and each other, probably from the moment the first young person picked up a stick and tied a piece of hide around it.
Probably more than a few eyes shot out, or at least blackened a bit, over tens of thousands of years, too.
To be clear, I’ve never actually seen the entire movie. It’s a holiday artifact of a generation younger than my own, and it wouldn’t have been part of my childhood cultural framework anyway. But some of the lines and scenes from it are now solidly a part of popular culture across generations, perhaps not least because we all had (or at least wanted) toys that could be turned to similar use and we all had parents who shook their heads and muttered dire imprecations about how “you’ll put your eye out with that thing.”
I never had an air rifle, nor even a Red Ryder BB gun, the inspiration for the air rifle in the story. Those were “boy’s toys,” and in our household, not even for the boys; if memory serves, my brother had one briefly, shot something he shouldn’t have and broke it, and promptly had it taken away. It wouldn’t have been a Red Ryder, in any event, and we girls would have been assumed to want dolls. Which is odd, since I was allowed to have a broomstick horse, a cowboy hat, and a toy six-shooter, and galloped around playing “Indian cowboy,” because at age four, I really wasn’t about to accept that I, a girl, couldn’t be cowboy (because everybody knew cowgirls weren’t the real thing, you know), and an Indian one besides, one of those who would beat the other cowboys in the movies and win it for our people. Wearing my red cowboy hat, of course.
Those old movies really screwed us all up.
At any rate, Wings fared better on the BB gun front; he had one by age seven, and knew how to use it and use it well. He was a good enough shot that by the time he graduated in another year or so to something more powerful, it was to a real version: a .22. Of course, he was taught how to hunt at a young age, and proper handling of weapons of all sorts, ancient and modern, was simply one more part of growing up.
He now has my late father’s ancient .22, one that dates back to the mid-1940s. It sat behind our front door all the years I was growing up, one remnant of security that my father hung onto from his own formative years in the 1920s and 1930s. Exept for a few incidents of shooting badgers and woodchucks attacking our animals, I never saw him actually use it. When it passed to Wings, now nearly a decade ago, he promptly cleaned it thoroughly, studded the stock in the old Indian way (my father could never bring himself to do that, but I think now he would be happy to see it done). It finally sees occasional use again — mostly a safe shot into the air to scare off the excessively well-fed (and excessively brazen) coyote that has taken to loitering openly in the fields and has succeeded in swiping a few chickens. I came home from an errand a few days ago to find him a few yards from the coop, and when I chased him off, he actually turned to leer at me, as if to say, “Yeah? Make me.”
There’s a reason we call them Tricksters.
Under ordinary circumstances, they’e always been welcome here. After all, Coyote’s habitat is shrinking by the day, first to encroachment by invading developers, and now increasingly to the ravages of climate change. They were here first, even before the people, and this is their land, too. They also play a necessary role in the local ecosystem, besides being simply beautiful in their own right. A few years ago, Hunter and Griffin cornered a young one by the east-side ditch, and the three promptly began to play together. But when the chickens are out beyond their fenced range area, they need to be kept safe, so Coyote needs to be kept at a distance during the daytime now.
Sometimes, though, firepower is excessive, and that’s when these little things come in handy. Wings has a few slingshots, old and new, in his own collection, and he uses them occasionally to scare off a predator without frightening the other animals. Soundless, but when a stone launched from one hits a few feet away from the unwelcome visitor, he notices.
Once in a while, we get a few of these from local Native artisans. The last group of them we had were much like this, but unpainted, and they’ve long since sold. No surprise: In the brick-and-mortar gallery, whenever tourists enter at a time when we have these in stock, the boys (and I mean “boys” from 3 to 93) make a beeline for them. For the little ones, they strike a chord immediately, something deep within that appeals to whatever atavistic hunter and warrior spirit resides deep within. For the not-so-little ones, they’re perhaps mostly an artifact of childhood, a simpler and more carefree time in the lives, but their faces light up exactly the same as those of the three-year-olds.
The ones we have this year were made by Wings’s brother-in-law and nephew. I’m not sure who did what part, but I suspect the former did the carving and the latter did the artwork. Daniel is, after all, known for his weapon-making skills; his son, Estevan, is a talented artist and leatherworker who is making my latest pair of moccasins.
All three are available in the Other Artists: Traditional Weapons Gallery here on the site, but I’m only going to include the description from one of them here, the one pictured immediately above:
Be a kid again, or give a little bit of childhood history to a young friend, with this traditional slingshot. Made by hand in the old way by Daniel and Estevan Marcus (Taos Pueblo), it’s fully functional: whittled by hand from a a natural Y-frame branch of local wood, with a soft white deerhide pocket tied on via two rubberized bands. The frame itself is accented vintage-style, with traditional patterns hand-painted in the turquoise and violet, the colors of the stormclouds over the Pueblo at sunset.
Wood, rubber, deerhide, paint
$35 + shipping, handling, and insurance
The holidays are coming (way too fast). Who wouldn’t want to see one of these sticking out of the top of a stocking? And used properly, you won’t put your eye out, or anybody else’s, for that matter.
Just don’t stick your tongue on the ice-cold flagpole.
~ Aji
