Plimoth Plantation: Native from Canada points to his headdress of porcupine hair.
There they were, Marash Girl, Enila & Iffar, in the Crafts Center at Plimoth Plantation, watching a Native from Canada making a war lock using porcupine hair. When the Native craftsman held up a handful of the porcupine hair, Marash Girl gasped, "That sure looks like the old-time shaving brush that Grandpa Moses used to use on the third floor of 474/476 Lowell Avenue in Newtonville!" "Didn't you know?" the craftsman laughed. "It was porcupine hair, (not the quills, of course) that was used to make those old time shaving brushes." Marash Girl hadn't known. Her dad, Peter, was a proudly modern man who used ONLY electric shavers, and yes, shavers in the plural! He had two! Not a porcupine hair shaving brush to be found in his room!
|
Sorry, but it's not porcupine. Shaving brushes are made from horse, boar, or badger.
ReplyDeleteYou'd better check with the folks at Plimoth Plantation. I'm sure they've done their homework!
DeleteThat may be, today. But some folks say that shaving brushes WERE made from porcupine hair. The brush bristles on the shaving brush that Marash Girl's grandpa used (during the first half of the 20th century) sure looked like what the Native craftsman was holding up!
ReplyDeleteWere there telephones back in the days of plymouth plantation as well? Why is there one displayed prominently behind the person in the photo?
ReplyDeleteThe Crafts Center was set in the present day, showing visitors the manner in which sewing, cabinetry, pottery and Native items were made in the days of the Plimoth Plantation.
Delete