Boar Hunter Dan who was born and learned about life up in the backwoods’ mountains of the Ozarks. His whole life depended on his abilities to survive through all the seasons whether harsh or mild starting at the age of 14. His face alone shows the difficult life he’s had to endure from depending on his hard earn skills to be able provide for himself and for his family.
Dan learned to forge for food at a young age while he self taught himself the art of growing and preserving his own food. Yet Dan nearly starved through the early winters of his life if it wasn’t for his keen sense of smell to hunt the wild boars that roamed the heavily wooded areas that surrounded him.
At the age of 17, Dan took a liken to a young 16 yr old mountain missus who was named Fawn because of the white spots that appeared on her skin at birth. She was from the coon people just over the other side of Buck Ridge about 12 miles from where Dan resided. Dan traded a fully dressed back half end of a 300lb boar in exchange for this young darling. This was nothing less then a great deal for Fawn’s family, since most trades for the young-ins amongst the Coon People was by weight of corn or potatoes or both, depending on the weight and height of the missus. The more she weighed and the taller she was, brought more bounty to the family who bore her.
Fawn knew Dan was a good and fair man because of the great sacrifice of meat Dan did exchange for her, this was just unheard of and a first of such a trade for a young missus among the Coon People. This boar meat made her parents wealthy by their standards due to they could trade portions of the meat for labor and necessities such as bullets, moonshine and cooking fat. The bones of the boar were made into tools and jewelry for the Coon’s ladies.
Dan was more than happy to make this trade, it kept him from having to make the 12 mile journey each day to and from when courting Fawn. Never knowing how love worked or how it could even happen, Dan knew he wanted Fawn to be near him always. Why she was right up there with his two black mouth mountain cur hunting dogs.
What Dan like about his Cur’s is that they are quick starters, and much more aggressive than the other hounds. Also a might bit trashier, too. They have much more spunk to them, and they’re gonna run a little more junk than the other dogs will—a dog that could move a herds of boar and face a bayed-up bear in a tree. Dan raised his dogs to have some grit. Fawn knew that when a man gives equal time to his missus with his hunting dogs, she is very special.
Now listen, I know your feeling a bit appalled by the mannerisms of these mountain folk by the importance of trading the darlings for crops or where they are placed with the men’s hunting dogs. But don’t feel like these men disrespect their ladies by any means. These men which probably right about now are angering you for what you see as primitive and backwards in their thinking towards women. But hold on before you are quick to judge.
These mountain women are held up in the highest respect within their clans. If a man is ever caught beating or abusing his woman, her father and her brothers will find him and whoop the mountain smell right off him. He won’t be able to see or walk for days, his mercy will be at the hands of the one he abused to bring him back to proper working order again. There is no such thing as pedophiles amongst these clans either, human life to them is first and foremost after the care of their hounds. And they would never ever abuse their dogs. Their dogs is what brings them to their bounty of wild game meat even in the coldest of fallen snow days.
What about moonshine, was there such a eye stinging juice within the different clans, you bet there was. But rarely could you find any drunk folk, they used moonshine for cleaning off found dead meat, rinsing wounds of their hounds brought by boar gorging, bear bites as well as their own wounds from and snake and critter bites.
Maybe by now your wondering why was Dan caring for himself at the young age of 14. What happen to his folks and did he not have any siblings? Or how did he come across knowing who God was and how does he know scripture from the Bible? Dan’s soul is a fascinating adventure about a young boy who in order to preserve his life he had to learn to disguise his scent from predatory wild beast roaming the mountain side of the Ozarks. At the age of sixteen, Dan was caught off guard by a mountain lion following on the rocks above Dan as he trailed his dogs that were on the scent of a pack of boars. Dan was pretty tore up before his dogs could return from their chase to rescue Dan after sensing Dan was in their need of help.
As with most Ozark mountain folks, very few knew how to read and counting got no higher then their 10 fingers.
Follow Dan and Fawn in how the Ozark backwoods shaped their lives and characters, write to [email protected] to be put on Dan’s mailing list.
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