The Apachee throwing star

[Chris Johnson]

Call them Islams

Only about 13% of people in India itself are Muslims, The majority are Hindu's a totally different religion. So why call them that ? . I doubt Canada's population of indian extraction is significantly different in their beliefs, than those in India.

[Schme]

Call them Islams

In addition to, as was said, most Indians not being muslim (and "Islams" not being a word), that idea makes no godamn sense.

How the hell would that work?

Should I call Haitian's "Vooduns"? That doesn't convey that they are Haitians, which is the point of saying Haitians, and furthermore, what about the Haitians that are Catholics? And what about the practicers of Voodun who are not Haitian?


Jesus Christ, man.

[Schme]

No offence intended.

[Blackdeath]

*shrugs* then call them something different

[Lumin]

I'm sure there might have been some unscrupulous traders around, but in most cases it's not like Indians were allowed to just walk up to a fort and buy rifles.

What the hell are you talking about? Everyone sold rifles except too their enemies. The natives had what the white guys wanted and the white guys had what the natives wanted, and one of those things were rifles.

That's exactly what they did, Lumin. You should have stayed awake in history class.

I'm sure there were exceptions, but in most cases it was illegal for traders to sell guns and ammunition to Indians. Not even to "friendlies", since even when you don't take into account the way the military was often ignorant of the differences between the tribes, alliances were known to change. (Sometimes they changed because of that ignorance, leading to innocent people being killed on both sides.)

Indians weren't citizens - by some they were barely considered human beings, and the military wanted to keep them under control. Understandably enough, they didn't do this by handing them weapons to defend their homes with.

BTW, comments like "What the hell are you talking about?" and "You should have stayed awake in history class," are completely uncalled for. I assumed we were having a civil discussion here. If you'd rather forgo discussing in favor of insulting the intelligence of people who disagree with you, then I've got better things to do than waste my time with childish flamebait.

[El_Skwidd]

In the case of the French and Indian War in colonial America, the French did sell rifles to the Indians so that they could get an extra leg up on the British colonists. Just because England says it's illegal doesn't mean France can't do it.

If I'm not mistaken, England did the same thing to the United States in the War of 1812.

[Lumin]

I'm sure plenty of underhanded stuff went on in the early days, especially with all the wars going on and no real way to regulate trade, but I'm referring to the period when America belonged to the Americans. Early to mid-1800s, mainly, when the western migration and ideas like manifest destiny were in full force.

[El_Skwidd]

Oh, well you never specified when

That's the period we're studying right now, and the book hasn't mentioned anything about selling weapons to the Native Americans. Maybe Schme knows.

[Lumin]

If you're interested in the subject I suggest doing some outside reading. There's only so much they can cram in a textbook, and half the time the really interesting stuff doesn't make the cut.

[west]

Every time this has come up I have made the same suggestion: Call them "throwing sticks" to distinguish them from shuriken or other 'throwing stars'. Too bad RKL vanished. It was his baby.

[Wolf]

On a side note, about them being of real origins (the Apache throwingstars):
I've seen several sites where they got mentioned, including sites dealing with archaeology.
So I'd say, yup, they are based on real items.
And used by other tribes as well, not only Apaches.

As for the suggestion of what a "standard" Indian/Native American's gear consisted of:
Tomahawks, well, that depends.
There are several weapons utilized by several tribes, ranging from the crude wooden or bone club (yup, looks familiar eh) to the kind of axe-like club which I've only seen in one or two movies, which made the tomahawk look like a toy.
This "axe-club", as I call it here just because that seems the simpelest name to me, could range in length from about half a man's leg's length to roughly a length where it would stand at shoulder-height from the ground up.
Another similar weapon, but which seems to stick to certain measurements, is the weapon which could be seen in that movie, "Last of the Mohicans", and in a few other movies that I can't recall right now.

But if we're on the topic of items with ethnical/geologically-based irl names, well, the bagh-nakh (or "tigerclaw") would also fit that pattern, as there are places in Cantr where the language from which bagh-nakh was borrowed is not spoken, and none of my chars have seen a tiger yet, or even know what a tiger is.
One or two have seen lions, so those would probably call that weapon a "lion's claw", while those who met bears would likely call it a "bearclaw", for lack of other sources of inspiration.
Let's see that diversity in names get programmed into the game, would make it fun to go into the manufacturing list

** Edit:
As for the suggestion of calling them stars "throwing sticks", well, a throwing stick is another thing.
from what I see, the throwing-stick is what both the boomerang and the star were derived from, along with loads of other weapons.
(that was also brought up on some of those sites I mentioned earlier)
But maybe "throwing cross" might be an idea... heck, I dunno, that just came up when I watched a picture of an Apache throwingstar.
Of course, now we'll get people thinking that there's a bunch of Christians throwing crucifixes.
Hm.... now there's an idea....
"You see a man in his thirties smite a man in his twenties with a crucifix"

[Rustoleum]

In any case, back to the topic.

It's been said before that we don't hav scotish claymores or austrailian boomerangs or anything else like that, I just don't know why this hasn't been changed except for lazyness.

Claymores are roughly translated to "scottish swords" in the French area.

Probably could have gotten away with just calling these great swords to begin with.

I have no idea what an alternate name to the Apache Throwing Star could be, but I'd trade all the bagh-nakhs, throwing stars, and other hurled objects in Cantr for a tomahawk.

[Wolf]

"Great swords"... ah, but in some languages, that would cause trouble when translating broadswords, long swords and other swords of some size or shape.
I know I'm having a bit of a brain-meltdown when trying to translate broadswords, claymores and one other type of sword that I came across in the translations-page, because they'd all be up for that "just call it a big sword"-kinda translation.
If they all did the same damage and stuff, I might be able to pull it off, but since there are some in-game differences, well, the idea goes kinda limp to just go for that simple translation.

And I've come across other items for translations that would have ended up kinda ambiguous, which would result in two things that have different names in English, having the same name in Dutch... luckily, we Dutch have a creative language lol... that, and a little translation-site that focussed on technical translations (industrial stuff, tools, machineparts and the likes) have helped me past two such cases.
The other ones in that category I'm not touching yet until I've come up with a decent enough translation, which means digging through anything from old-school dictionaries to sources where people get more creative and come up with new ways of describing things in Dutch that still are good enough to be decent translations.

I can see the same thing happening in other languages, where an English word just doesn't have a counterpart in that language.
Or where the direct translation would in fact point to a completely different item.

[Floyd]

Which would be a really really stupid thing to do as the majority of indians are Hindu....