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Author Topic: Warpaint  (Read 5000 times)

Offline Maenoferren

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 88
    • Triple Ace Games
Re: Warpaint
« Reply #15 on: July 23, 2008, 05:44:05 PM »
Wow--that's a cool link. Those reenactors look convcincing too. I was worried for a minute that it was going to be a bunch of middle aged fat guys running around in breechclouts!  lol

Speaking as an ex re-enactor... some people do push the limit a bit.. My favourite ever was the German Paratrooper re-enactor who was huge, at least 18 stone. It is in fact a problem with re-enacting... how can you politely tell somneone that they are stretching realism a bit far.  Being cavalry, we had a number of women riders which is pushing it a bit in historical terms.

But yes indeed they do look great....Think I would have to shave my beard off to join, or would trhey let me be a beardie warrior with hair?

Offline Aaron

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2350
Re: Warpaint
« Reply #16 on: July 23, 2008, 05:58:13 PM »
I have seen blond warriors so pale they were almost translucent. I hardly think a beard would make much difference!

Having said that, it does depend on the unit and their needs as you mentioned. I have known some to be more strict than the unit they portray ever was in all likelihood!

Offline axabrax

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1293
Re: Warpaint
« Reply #17 on: July 24, 2008, 02:49:18 PM »
Hey Spong

Thanks for that info--very interesting. Check out T. Mails's Mystic Warriors of the Plains for some other useful info on plains warpaint, including painting horses.

It's funny cause I think there's a mix of individual creative license and long-standing symbolic tradition. For instance, there was a very systematic regulation amongst some of the plains Indians for how to wear/mark feathers for achievements. I doubt that much allowance would be made for freedom in that regard as they were as anal as WWI German pilots counting kills when it came to counting coups.  I think some of the warpaint was also dictated by symbolic tradition even thought there was quite a bit of commerce in symbols amongst the tribes.

I think the stickling point here is that if a warrior wanted to get funky and make up his own face/body paint to look cool/terrifying he had full license, but if he wanted to use marks that indicated achievements--how many horses stolen, wounds received, etc.  he had to follow strict conventions--otherwise he'd be screwing up social norms. 

Obviously color has a lot of mythic and/or symbolic meaning for Native American cultures and using a color in a totally inappropriate context--say green to symbolize a successful revenge raid rather than the traditional black would just not make senese to anyone so the warrior would stick to the black.  In a way we're talking about a symbolic language here where the freestyle painting is akin to poetry and the codified colors/symbols akin to social contracts.

AX

Offline archangel1

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1394
Re: Warpaint
« Reply #18 on: July 24, 2008, 03:37:20 PM »
... Check out T. Mails's Mystic Warriors of the Plains for some other useful info on plains warpaint, including painting horses.
AX

That is a very dangerous book to surf! I should know, since I've got it, plus two more of his books - 'Dog Soldiers, Bear Men and Buffalo Women' and 'The People Called Apache'.  Ideas galore!
Why take Life seriously? You'll never get out of it alive!

 

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