7.
It
doesn’t have to cost a lot of money….
If you choose what you purchase
carefully. Many things you will use are costly so this is a good reason to
follow the advice about joining a group and asking them for help. If you don’t,
when starting out, you will end up buying a ton of gear that you don’t need or
is inappropriate for your impression. Eventually you will get tired of hauling
it around and after that, it just gathers dust in your basement or storage shed
8.
Get
it right for your impression.
Most of the sutlers (vendors of
period equipment) that cater to the 18th century are honest, and
want you to be happy with your purchase so you will keep coming back. Even so,
you have to remember that they are not experts on what is or is not appropriate
for your particular impression and that they make their living selling things
to you. If you ask a sutler if something is “period correct” or correct for
your impression, most of them are going to try to answer you as best they can.
Remember however, that it is ultimately up to you, or your mentor, to evaluate
items in terms of your nationality, class, location, situation, date, and other
considerations before you can say it is appropriate for your impression. Just
because the sutler tells you something is “period correct” or “historically
correct” doesn’t mean it is correct for your impression.
9.
Discard
21st century priorities.
In order to live in the past, you
have to begin to try to think like a person of the past. Today, we
have a sense of privacy, personal space, comfort, and modesty that is quite
different from what existed in the 18th century. While you certainly
won’t give up your modern beliefs and desire for comfort, you need to try to
keep them from creeping into your interpretation as much as possible and try to
think like someone from the 18th century.
In reality, you can never think
exactly like someone from the 18th century because you have
knowledge and experiences that they couldn’t imagine. At the same time, they
had experiences, Indian attacks for example, that you can never experience. In
spite of all this, you just have to do the best job you can based upon your
research and your reading of period documents.
You may find yourself tempted to
argue that they must have done this or that because it is just “common sense.” The
problem is that “common sense” isn’t “common.” The
meaning of common sense changes over time. Prior to the American
Revolution, “common sense” told you that being ruled by Kings and Queens was
the proper order of things. Before the invention of the airplane, “common
sense” told you that the only way to cross the Atlantic Ocean was in a boat. At
the time of the Spanish Inquisition, “common sense” told you that you got sick
because someone had put a spell or curse on you. Be cautious of reasoning with
“common sense.”
10. Learn to do it yourself.
The more things you can learn to make
yourself the more enjoyable the hobby will be and the less it might cost. If
you can master the skills to make reenactment items well, you can also trade
for the things you can’t do yourself. At the same time, you have to learn to
understand what you can do a quality job with, and therefore should make, and
what you can’t, and therefore should buy.
11.
For
the men - You
don’t have to have a gun….. at least at first.
The first thing you want to do, as a
beginner in the hobby, is buy one of those “cool” guns. The thing is, the type
of gun you would have, and even if you have one is a function of your
impression. Rifles, in the 18th century, were very expensive and the
folks who had them were primarily frontier folk who made a living hunting.
As a farmer, most likely that you
would have had a smoothbore fowler; like a modern day shotgun. With a rifle,
you can only fire round ball and that pretty much limits you to hunting deer,
bear, and other large game. On the other hand, with a fowler, you could fire
either round ball for deer hunting, or shot, for hunting small game, birds, and
dealing with foxes and wolves.
If you were someone who lived in
town, say a merchant or an artisan, then you might own a fowler or possibly no
gun at all. While you may like to think of the minutemen at Lexington and
Concord hiding behind trees and rock wall while they used their rifles to pick
off the redcoats, the reality is that most of them, being farmers in the
militia, would have been carrying fowlers.
A final option is a soldier. If you
portray a soldier, then you would not be likely to be carrying either a rifle
or a fowler but rather a military smoothbore called a musket. While these are
similar to the fowlers, they are generally of larger caliber and built heavier
in order to stand up to the hard military use.
A good quality gun – one you will be
happy with for a long time – is not inexpensive. Since the type of gun you will
need is dependent on the impression you develop, you will do best to hold off
on your gun purchase until you have decided on your impression and have most of
your kit that you need for it.
12. HAVE FUN!
If it stops being fun, you are doing something wrong. This is
the number one rule of living history so let’s repeat it so you remember it. “If
it stops being fun, you are doing something wrong!”
Sure, when you first start out, it is
going to be new, maybe a bit confusing, or stressful, but if it doesn’t get better
after a couple of years then maybe you should talk to one of your friends about
it. A lot of us have been doing this for 20+ years and we still enjoy it and
have a great time every time we go out. There is no reason that you shouldn’t
have a great time as well if this is what you really want to do.
Chuck H.