Dear old Shatterhand and Winnetou, the noble savage

My father was a teacher who encouraged us children to read. Of course there was no television when I was young and so there was no distraction and at the age of twelve I had already accumulated quite a library. In those days we had books for boys and books for girls, and those for boys of my age were always full of suspense and daring adventures. Books for girls were all about sentimental adolescent girls with silent adoration for slightly older boys. No real boy in his right mind would read that stuff. My books were historical novels like the first Dutch voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, contemporary adventures and even science fiction, of which I still remember a paper-back edition of a story dealing with a time that (how typically Dutch) people were moving about on flying bicycles. Of course I had most of the works of Jules Verne as well.
One series on my book shelf I treasured were the (Dutch) translated works of Carl May, a nineteenth century German author who wrote tome after tome about the heroic adventures of a German with the rather peculiar nickname of Old Shatterhand. This extraordinary person – practically all the books were written in the first personal pronoun – roamed the vast expanse of the American Wild West, performing incredible feats of valour and virtue.
In the first book of the series, Old Shatterhand meets Winnetou, the Chieftain of the Apaches. At first, Winnetou and his tribe are most suspicious of Old Shatterhand and about to subject him to the most fiendish tortures, but after a while - when it is evident that he is the epitome of the perfect gentlemen and impervious to the most excruciating pains - they become “blood brothers”. After the weird ceremony at which the two drink each other’s blood, they remain staunch pals all through the first six volumes until, to my great grief, Winnetou dies of injures incurred during some glorious battle. I might be wrong but I do seem to remember that he was resurrected a few volumes later.
Other illustrious friends of Old Shatterhand were Old Firehand and Old Surehand, both Germans of impeccable moral standing and unquestionable character. In every volume there were always several opportunities for the trio to creep up on some campfire, were they invariably overheard conversations. During these chats, Old Shatterhand is either praised into the kingdom of heaven or spoken of in mortal fear, as it was obvious that there was no other white man on the continent who could match his prowess as a stalker, fighter, prowler, hunter, tracker, horseback rider and whatever else. His wisdom, righteousness and judgment were unequaled and his nickname came from the fact that he could bash somebody’s brains in with one mighty blow of his fist. That’s how great this man was and I recall that all of the Germans in the saga were equally of good and faultless character while the villains – and there were plenty of those – had mostly Anglo-Saxon names.
But Old Shatterhand and especially the noble savage Winnetou were my heroes. My mother made me moccasins to wear, I pulled the feathers out of the tails of our roosters in the chicken coop to make a genuine Indian head dress and erected a tent in the garden with a campfire to match. Unfortunately the children of our Dutch neighbours, colleagues of my father, were all girls who thought that I was pretty silly and so I was quite alone in acting out my Red Indian fantasies.
I have asked many of my American friends if they have ever read Carl May’s works but the answer was always negative. Much later, at an older age, I learned that Carl May was a pseudonym for a shady character who wrote the books in a German jail were he was incarcerated because of fraud or treason. I was also told that the man had never traveled outside of Germany. Consequently all his information about the Wild West must have been hearsay. In spite of the above revelations my esteem for this prolific writer did not falter.
While on their wild chases and hunts, Winnetou and Old Shatterhand always carried something in their saddlebags called “Pemmican” and whenever they stopped for lunch or dinner they would chew on a few pieces of this mysterious food in lieu of something more tasty. To find out what pemmican actually consisted of, I scrounged through my library and other sources and found the following.
The name “Pemmican” comes from the Cree Indian word for fat, “pemikkan”. It originated in the northern, colder regions of North America and Alexander Mackenzie took it with him as food on his historic expedition across the continent in 1793. It was made by drying thin slices of meat – usually venison or bison meat – in the cold wind or over a fire. Subsequently it was pounded to shreds and mixed with melted fat, bone marrow and wild cherries. It was then put into raw hide sacks and covered with tallow. This does not sound very attractive to me but it apparently sustained Indians as well as Europeans on their hikes and explorations.
Another dried meat serving the same purpose on long journeys was “Jerked Beef”. The word “Jerked” is derived from “Charque”, a salted dried meat from the Peruvian Indians. However, according to some old reports, “jerked beef” or “Beef Jerky” in North America was not salted at all and made from buffalo meat. The meat was again thinly sliced and dried over a smouldering fire on a grid made from branches and twigs. One traveller of the era remarked about it: “It looks like paste board and is just as easily masticated.”
Dried and salted meat as a means of preservation is made all over the world. Famous and delicious is Swiss’ “Air-dried Beef” and South Africa’s “Biltong”. The technique of making the latter is of Malay origin, introduced by the Malay slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. In Indonesia and Malaysia it is called “Dendeng”, best made with venison. In Thailand, where we have several kinds of dried meats called “Neue Wan” (sweet beef), “Neue Khem” (salt beef), “Neue Heng” (dried beef) or “Neue Det Deeau” (beef dried briefly – usually only one day).