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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 2 (May 1, 1935)

The Bowie Knife

The Bowie Knife.

One of my old-soldier acquaintances in the Waikato had been a corporal in Jackson's and Von Tempsky's Forest Rangers. He had a farm near Te Awamutu. Customarily, out on the farm and in the bush, he wore a sheath-knife on his belt. The knife was a veteran like himself. It had been nine or ten inches long of blade, but the point had been broken off, and he had reground and pointed it; even then it was like a young bayonet. He told me its story.

“That's one of old Von's bowie-knives,” he said. “He had a lot made for us at a blacksmith's in Auckland when the Forest Rangers were divided into two companies and he had command of one. You know, old Von was a terror with the bowie-knife. He had learned to use it in Mexico and Central America. Certainly it came in handy in the bush, and as we had no bayonets it was comforting to know you had a good sticker on your hip for a scrimmage. I've had that knife more than thirty years. See how it's worn down.

“I've used it for all sorts of jobs, hacking bush tracks, pig-sticking, skinning sheep, cutting up my tobacco and my loaf of bread. It'll last my day, my boy!”

Old John the Ranger told of one of his warpath mates, a Jamaica negro who had been sailor and gold-digger, like himself before he became a Ranger. At meal-times he used to apostrophise his bowie-knife thus: “You old son of a gun, you've dug into a Maori's vitals, you have, at Waiari, you know you have! Come on now, you're going to cut up me vittles!”

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