In the 1992 version of Last of the Mohicans we see Wes Studi’s character, and I think Daniel Day-Lewis’, fighting with a tomahawk in one hand and a knife in the other. About a minute into this clip Magua draws his weapons.
I’m curious about the advantages of this fighting style, as it leaves neither hand available for grasping. Googling around I see some stuff about modern tomahawk martial arts, but not much detail. Not typically interested in this sort of thing, but I know Michael Mann went to some effort on the historical accuracy, so I wonder what’s known about this style of fighting.
Anyone here know enough to be dangerous in the 1750s?
I’m no expert, but it seems to me that holding a dagger in the off-hand was common in several fighting styles. Replace the tomohawk with a rapier and you’ve got classic “musketeer” sword-fighting. It’s tomohawk fighting with a knife, not knife fighting with a tomohawk.
I don’t think grappling is really that much of a factor when weapons larger than knives are involved, as the wielder won’t let their opponent get close enough.
Grappling is always an option, because there’s several ways to both deliberately and accidentally end up right next to your opponent.
However, in those cases, it’s trivially easy to just drop one weapon or the other in order to grapple. My style of Japanese swordsmanship even has one kata in which we specifically do just that.
It looks entirely dramatic to me. Since it was based on a book by James Fenimore Cooper one should readMark Twain’s commentary on Cooper’s literary style before considering the realism of a further dramatization of the original highly fictional account.
That is not to say that using two edged weapons in a fight makes no sense. A bare hand in a knife fight is not much use, one or the other weapon can serve as a shield when needed. However, the entire fight as depicted with men running and firing muskets one-handed showing no time for reloading, where the brave and decent white men and dumb injuns alike make open targets of themselves, and the injuns stand agape waiting to be shot, leading up to the conclusive fight where the dumb injun draws his knife in a grip he wouldn’t use in the fight, not to mention doesn’t even attempt to use it or the tomahawk, is just not credible.
Of course I wasn’t around in 1750 so maybe there’s something I’m unaware of about the fighting style of the time that eschewed common sense.
Oh come on… We all know that American Indians, when faced with a circle of waggons defended by men (and women) with rifles, would ride round in circles just in range so that they could get shot.
Magua’s fighting style looks appropriate to me. The tomahawk is the offensive weapon and the knife is more for defense and the icepick grip is more useful in defense. There is an indian guy who does a martial art he calls Shawnee San Soo and when he uses a tomahawk and knife, he holds the knife in an icepick grip and attacks with the tomahawk like Magua did in the scene.
I’m not sure if you mean that it’s not a grip that would be efficient/practical in a fight, or that he begins the fight this way, but later changes it. It’s been a while since I’ve watched the movie, which I will be rectifying soon, since it’s on of my favorite movies ever and I just realized I haven’t watched it in a bit.
Assuming you meant the former, this is actually how early daggers where used at least back to the middle ages.
It saddens me how underappreciated Twain’s humor is, and how many people miss the boat. The things which Twain criticizes in Cooper’s writing are exactly the things which Twain did himself in his own writing.
It’s been a little while since I read “Literary Crimes” but I remember thinking that Twain’s dissection of the logic of Cooper’s scene descriptions was itself illogical. Is the whole thing a meta-goof or was Twain serious?
Firing a musket one handed, from the hip, while running is ridiculous but at least some cuts of the film are careful to show the hero swapping the fired muskets for fresh ones off his fallen enemies.
I want a fixed bayonet, please. If the other guy has a fixed bayonet and I do not, then I’m going to forget all about my axe and small knife by running away. Apologies, gentlemen.