North-Western American (IV/11)

Proposer: Larry Dunn

Proposal

Add the following:

Possibly only: If Haida, Tsimshian, or Tlingit:

Regrade generals as Irr Bd (O) Any

Regrade Warriors as 1/2 to 2/3 Irr Bd(O), remainder Irr Bw (O) All

Add Cedar log palisade for camp - TF @ lAP 0, or 1-2 per Bge (O)

Add BUA(f) as a DBMM terrain type.

Justification

The published DBM list contains masses of Bow(O) and essentially that's it. However, this does not seem to reflect the warfare conducted by at least some of the tribes represented, namely, the Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit. My suspicion is that all of the tribes covered by the list fought in an essentially similar fashion. If no one can confirm that, these revisions would apply to those three tribes.

These nations used bows to hunt, and employed them in warfare as well, but the focus of warfare was a charge to close combat with the spear, axe, dagger or club. In "Patterns of War and Peace among Complex Hunter Gatherers: The Case of the Northwest Coast of North America," an article in the collection Hunters and Gatherers in the Modern World," Leland Donald says "(p)rior to European contact, the principal weapons were dagger, spear, warclub, and the bow and arrow. [...] Although bows and arrows were used for war as well as hunting, most fighting was hand to hand rather than at bowshot range. This meant that the most important weapons were the dagger for stabbing and slashing and the club for inflicting the crushing blow."

The Osprey book American Indians of the Pacific Northwest says "The coastal warriors went to war heavily armed with bows and arrows, spears and pikes, which were not thrown but thrust. Clubs and daggers were carried for close fighting, the former were made of whalebone or stone and were called 'slave killers'."

Of the close combat weapons, the spear may have been the junior partner, Heidi Knecht in Projectile Technology saying of some tribes to the immediate south, in California and Oregon, that "the use of thrusting spears in general was clearly of little or secondary importance in war or hunting. The Maidu, for instance, are said to have only 'occasionally' used the spear in warfare ...". The problem was the easily shattered stone tip, which could leave the warrior in a lurch if it broke while his opponent was still active, leading to the spear often being used to deliver the coup de grace to a fatally wounded foe rather than in a hot melee. A Klamath chief is described as using his obsidian-tipped spear to stab the opposing Takelma chief through the throat after he had already shot him down with a musket.

This seems to require a revision to the list so that a substantial proportion is a close combat type -- probably at least 1/2 and up to 2/3.

The question is, what is the best classification for these close combat warriors? They wore fairly heavy armour of untanned moose hide, over which was worn extensive wood band armour and a complete closed-helmet of wood as well. Some authors even refer to the fully-equipped warrior as resembing a medieval knight. Some tribes carried a shield as well.

The best answer I can come up with is Irr Bd(O), as Wb does not seem right, as it suggests a moblike rush, and there is no indication of that. Rather, the warriors seemed to have had elaborate sparring techniques suggestive of Bd combat. As Colin Taylor in The American Indian writes, the little blade of the two-bladed combat dagger of the Tlingit was used to scratch the face of the opponent, to distract him and throw him off-base so that the longer blade could then be used to deliver the killing blow. Bd(I) is used for armored warriors in the Mound Builder list (IV/10) but this also seems wrong for the north-westerners, considering that their heavy protection was more extensive than the armour shown in Mound Builder sources and also considering their formidable combat reputation. These tribes had a pervasive warrior ethos in these cultures -- a warrior's standing in society was determined solely by war, as the more slaves he owned, the higher he was esteemed. It's not surprising that these warriors used clubs and other blades, spears and muskets to overrun a prepared Russian fortification in the 19th century, and were only defeated in the end by western disease.

I wish, as we all do, that there were more gradations, but Bd(O) seems the least wrong classification.

Second is the issue of TF. According to The Tlingit Indians in Russian America, 1741-1867, by AV Grinev, these tribes set up palisades of cedar logs around their camps and formed fortified refuges near their settlements as well, probably justifying TF around villages or baggage.