Re: On gurds, pumpkins and calabashes

[jlrreed-at-ix.netcom.com]

Hi Christian,

In that we are still in our infancy with mid-late 15th c. living history on
this side of the Atlantic - this is a persistent problem for us. What do
you do for a canteen ? A gourd appears to be the natural solution, but it
presents a couple of problems (besides being fragile) - pictorial evidence
for them ?  When I peruse the dreaded manuscript illuminations, they shows
soldiers - even on the march, without anything describable as a water
carrier, which would obviously be insane to do - go on a long march with no
canteen. When I look at gourds in 15th c. paintings, they seem to be used
as powder bottles by handgonners. I know they have been used for the
purpose my many cultures, I speculate they were used for the purpose by
soldiers in the 15th c. - they certainly were in the 17th & 18th c., but as
they would have been a private purchase, I have seen no absolute proof of
their use. My thought is that  a soldier would keep his drinking bottle on
his person, but that they would have been of little importance for an
artist to portray.

The second problem would be the stopper for the gourd. I assume cork to be
wrong - in every Flemish painting I have looked at, bottles seem to be
stopped by rags - I know this was commonly done in the 17th c. .  This is
obviously a poor solution for a canteen. I assume a wooden stopper would be
more correct. I assume you might have a source in Europe for correct water
bottles. Any thoughts on alternate methods for 15th c. canteens?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Bob Reed

Company of the Wolfe Argent


At 15:45 03/08/99 +0200, you wrote:
>My new drinking bottle made out of a gurd or calabash
>was one of the running gags at our summer camp in Canova.
>For those beyond the know: You should turn to Martin
>Jungnickel to tell you the story, which he loves so much.
>
>Making it by hand was very easy, once I got a suitable piece at
>a local market. But then David asked me for references
>and I quickly ran out of sources. While I was sure I had
>seen them on multiple pictures (most likely Joseph leading Maria
>and Jesus to Aegypt) I could not find them anymore. But then
>I stumbled over an article on botanical finds from Swiss
>excavagations and I felt save. But this prooved false,
>as the article malcited other articles as Julian Wiethold,
>an archaeobotanic from Goettingen, showed me.
>
>In German you have the troublesome parallel that it is all
>called 'Kuerbis'. English and French are more diverse, as
>they make a difference between gurd and pumpkin. It is indeed
>true, that the pumpkin reached Europe only after 1500. But
>already the romans knew to cultivate the gurd. While they
>look similar, it should be noted, that gurd and pumpkin
>have not much in common. They are different species.
>
>So my new drinking bottle and I seem to be on save grounds.
>Thus no need to worry when I want to show it to the girls in future. :)
>
>cheers
>
>christian folini
>
>'Two plus two equals five for sufficiently large values of two.'
>mailto:christian.folini-at-unifr.ch      http://www.tikon.ch/folini
>Institute  for  Medieval Studies  at the University of  Fribourg
>
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