Iroquoian wooden armour. Pt 1. Introduction. 

As an historian, it's the calm rigourous historical method that makes me love the video. Your attention to real-life physical and cultural limits, the way you give proper credit to ancient sources and don't sensationalize history (with a good touch of humour to go with it :D ), don't take shortcuts, do comparative history from around the world, say what you don't know (takes courage, many fail at that). Your passion for ALL histories from around the world, from the Mycenean greeks to the Alaskan native peoples, is contagious and unites humanity. Good job! That Iroquoian armor looks great. Love indigenous history when presented like you do!

2:52 Aside from the clear anachronism of the guys thinking "Jesus Christ!" I really love the inner voices of the warriors encountering guns for the first time...

Your style of narration is really entertaining :D

Dang, going hard af with the Vonnegut Tralfamadorian. "As far as I know, there are no examples of Iroquoian armor. Wood doesn't survive well and this armor has not been produced in 400 years. So it goes." Gave me chills.

This armor is absolutely beautiful and it's so unique. Thank you for sharing! You did an amazing job!

0:16 - Malcoln P.L. is Iroquoi. 2:00 - wood armor tied with thread. 3:57 -armor of the NE. 4:52 - two men said wooden sticks bound tight with cord. 9:37 - breastplate tied together with cords. 10:40 - the skirt wood armor. 11:22 - the apron n breastplate 11:47 - method worked 11:52 -backplate goes well above wearer's head n extends past shoulders. 12:37 - wing panels have their own strap............. 12:52 - panel was made n worked. 12:57 - legs, wooden slats being sewn through holes. 13:11 - worked 13:14 - helmet

Thank you so much. I've been wanting to see this armor in "action" for several years.

The channel deserves more subs! Growing up in western New York, we got a decent education on the Iroquois. So happy to have found this channel

This work is very important please continue

Not sure if even relevant, but I am a funeral director and recently did a service for a Native Alaskan of the Tlingit Tribe. I researched their culture and was shocked to hear they may actually originally come from the Ainu people or Native Japanese. I am half Japanese so found this very interesting. Look into ancient Japanese armour and you may see many similarities.

They actually used a lot of neck protection armor like that in Europe. If you take a circular viking shield and wear it on your back, it protects your neck like that

Excellent work! I love the current trend of experimental archaeology, and it's great to see it applied to North American warfare. Random thought on the leg armour: I had seen this woodcut image in the past, and I always "read" the warrior as having leather leggings, such as those I've seen Mohawks (probably others among the Six Nations, but I recall Mohawk specifically) wear in art and historic reproductions of daily clothing. Now, leather is already reasonably protective against slashing (moreso than skin or cloth anyway). However, the fit in the woodcut seems to indicate that it hung just a bit "baggy" - perhaps indicating that it was multi-layered, padded or both. This should (in my completely untested opinion) put it at a level of protection similar to a European gambeson, if not a bit better. Adding to this, I've played around with a bit of leather curing myself, and an idea occurs to me: If a hide is not treated properly, it will grow hard and "wood-like" in density - completely unsuitable for clothing. However, it might be just the ticket, if one wants something more protective than hide. I've never tested a hardened hide against weapons, so I don't know if the fibres would come apart under the narrow-point force of an arrow, spear or tomahawk (as, for example, sinew does when pounded). However, my first impulse is that it would be a potential "step up" from basic leather. In terms of production, it seems like it would be easy enough to stretch a hide over a leg-shaped facsimile (a shaped post, or similar) and allow it to dry into a leg-shape. Stitched together, it might well look like the woodcut depiction. It would also be smoother than a chord-wrapped piece of wood, reducing the likelihood of snagging in brush as one runs. Anyway, it's a bit of food for thought. Once again: great work on the reproduction! I'm now eagerly moving on to Part 2!

The Japanese used lacquered bamboo, very similar.

this is so cool, thanks for putting this on RU-vid for us all to see. Also your way of explaining is very interesting!

You sir are a master story teller! Very well done.

This was fascinating thank you. Im MÉTIS my great great grandfather was mixed European and Iroquois and his wife was mixed European and Cree.

I love everything about this: you can get a feeling of the sense of deep loss from forgotten skills and stories. Your willingness to put forth a large amount of time to bring back a particular item is truly commendable, and seriously awesome. Also, that armor is seriously badass. It looks great, goes on quickly and seems to offer great protection for the context it was made in. The fact that the Iroquois shifted their tactics and armaments so swiftly speaks well of their ability to adapt. I find the lack of hand or forearm protection interesting. I would assume any weapons would be pulled back or up immediately after being swung to keep the hands out of harms way. I love both the history and craftsmanship in your endeavor! Thanks for sharing it!

I love your recounting of Samuel de Champlain's point of view of the battle. XD

You're doing some really interesting stuff Malcolm. You're an inspiration!

Very interesting video. Hard woods and fire hardening the wood could make a huge difference in how well the armour protected.

Wow, this is very important history. You are seriously a groundbreaking historian. This kind of reconstructive history where you build something you know little about has long been done for various things (in a european context the whole "Secrets of the Castle" series is the most extravagant example... building an entire castle attempting to use what they know about period technology and procedures) and isn't given enough credit for how much it can reveal. I can only imagine how important it is for american nations whose history was severed so severely. If only 1% of the attention was paid to things like this that is given the overly obsessed over middle ages of Europe... Thank you for being part of the solution to this great imbalance. Your problem solving and relating global history throughout so many disparate eras and contexts is also impressive and a sign of a creative, open minded, eclectic, and lateral thinker. This video is my introduction to your channel but I can't wait to watch all your videos and see what you have in the future. My reaction may seem over the top but as someone who obsesses over all kinds of areas of history and who has among that spent some time trying to learn about and understand the 500 nations prior to settler invasion in a way that undermines the settler biases and myths... to find something that exposed my own ignorance of an area so deeply is a true joy. I had seen pictures of armor but I never gave it any real thought at all even though I've watched hours of documentaries, youtube channels, and read books that fixate on uncovering historical minutia of European armor and weapons. So glad you pointed out this ridiculous oversight I'm sure countless people are guilty of. Thanks for your work!

Fascinating work, hopefully your demonstration can persuade the museum to update their exhibit. Excellent work!

Thank you so much for sharing and exploring this history... There is such a deep scar left on the world by the devastation of colonialism, wiping out so many nuances and diversities. Something that I find deeply remarkable is that despite how hard the world tried to wipe all of this from it's face, there is still such a powerful spirit that lingers. I love to garden... It reminds me of someone chopping down a grand tree, to the stump, forests made naked and bare. But even if many die, roots are still there, seeds are still there, and the historical work you do now may be the green buds of new growth coming through. Maybe that's an overly poetic way of putting it, but it just... I don't know. I found the story of this extremely touching, on top of how goddamn fascinating this ancient technology is and what it could tell us about the people who lived then, and it made me feel really hopeful in a world that feels like it is going to such a dark place. 400 years ago people lived these lives and so much of what they were was torn down to the faintest of shadows and yet, from those, new things can grow and that's just... Devastatingly cool. I fucking love history.

What an EXCELLENT video! The clarity of your speech and the expressiveness of your voice opens up the world of your investigation and inventiveness. I feel as if I've crossed through a gate into a world of the past made current and real. Thank you!🙏

You i think, are doing something very important. Its for people to understand themselves and others. I think you are enlightening darkened areas and aspects of the past. Much respect

These vids are an awesome combination of niche historical sleuthing, and practical ingenuity/craftsmanship. Thanks for posting.

Excellent video! I hope you continue to publish great works such as this.

It could be a mis-translation but a "Rod" is an English word meaning a ROUND pole or stick. A fishing "Rod" is a pole, made from a round branch. A lightning "Rod" is a round pole on a steeple. When you "spare the rod" you don't hit a child with a round branch. They would measure units in "Rods" by way of laying down a round pole end on end. You made flat, square "slats" which is also a European word that means "Flat small boards, usually for windows shutters" from the word "Slate". I appreciate the great armor - but I think they used round Rods = stripped branches. They would have a hard or near impossible time making small, flat boards.

WOW, this is incredible!!!!! The level of research and skill!!!! Amazing!!!

what wonderful work you've done. thank you from connecticut.

Your narration style is delightful- insightful but with a great dry humor. I too would not stick around if I realized that I was one of my group's best guys after our previous best guys got sniped like it was nothing. The journal record also made me cackle.

You did a good job with this video.

Champlain was not only an explorer - he founded Québec city. Great video - Merci

I knew about the islanders and their shell armor but this is beautiful

Malcolm, your narration sends me to sleep on many a night. I love the tone.

This video is awesome! You really know your stuff and your speculative history is very well founded! You should be proud of this, and I enjoyed it!

So glad I found this channel

What a great presentation! This really deserves more views. 👍

This video completely blew my mind, i never knew some native tribes in North America used armor in combat

The result looks really cool. Great channel, cheers from Germany.

excellent video on a really fascinating topic. shared it around with my friends

This is a great video! Thanks man. Love the topic and the delivery nice work.

I just found your channel. I very much appreciate your Iroquois coverage 🥰

You are not alone in being fascinated by these descriptions of Iroquois armor that Champlain made. I came across it while reading the book 'Champlain's Dream' and it immediately struck me as something I had never seen depicted before.

Interesting video! What you miss about the French VS the Iroquois is, imagine never having seen or heard anyone using a weapon that emits fire and smoke, with the sound of thunder. That alone would scare the crap out of anyone in those times. Also, you should do a video on JOSEPH BRANDT.

Looks workable , amazing work an deduction

Very nice series , earned my sub .

This is good work and amazing, I am following your other videos on this topic now!

Extremely interesting we need more vids like this

This is so cool. Thank you for sharing. Also your story is super funny.

Wonderful and interesting history lesson. I like your thoroughness.

Amazing . This is totally new information to me. Keep this up. Doing what you're doing. You remind of archeology who becomes a flint tapper expert, recreating what they dig up. I believe you will have real insight by your construction attempts.

This is outstanding content, I can't believe I just stumbled across it

You have a passion for discovery that I have never seen among the few others who study pre-colombian native americans. Good work.

I'm going to binge your videos now, great work

I loved this! Fascinating

I appreciate your work. Thank you.

Love this! Excellent work

I always known about the Iroquoi tangentally but I really need to look them up further. Fascinating stuff. I am going to look at your backlog.

I appreciate your content!! Very cool & informative

Your methodology seems very sound for making your armour as historically accurate as possible. Exceeded video. You did a great job.

Just stumbled across your channel. I really enjoyed your content and it’s the first time I have heard about this specifically really good video.

This was very interesting. I was aware of PNW and Inuit armour but I had no idea it was used further south. Also I found myself following your conclusions watching along, like as soon as you showed that helmet I thought "it looks just like a boar tusk helmet" or comparing the back plate to Inuit designs. This is a very interesting project and I look forward to watching your tests. It might also be interesting to try to recreate their style of combat based on the armour and other descriptions. Incidentally, it's possible that winged back plate is just convergent evolution caused by similar requirements, but given the regions it's found in my suspicion is that it's a tradition that goes right back to the ancient north eurasians. I've always wondered exactly what it was for. The large shoulder plates on japanese armour favour a fighting style where the warrior is mostly sideways but the back plate is a mystery to me. Maybe they expected to be surrounded and only wanted to have to deal with missiles coming from the front.

Thank you I both learned a lot and throughly enjoyed it

Public school was pretty good for teaching me native history, I took a bit more in university as well. I find it super interesting. We had to do a lot of projects on all the habits they could cram into the school year period. This far out it's actually surprising how much we had to remember for test, we also had to make giant half wall posters on the western, plains, great lakes, east coast, northern, and southern american natives and all the stuff was very specific, like we had quizzes on all the housing types, survival methods, important dates etc. It all held up pretty well compared to the uni classes I took with similar historical review. So kudos to public school. Thanks for the video, I just found your channel and am watching a bunch of videos.YOUR CREATION LOOKS SO COOL!

I am moving on to part 2. This is a subject I often wondered about, being educated in NC public schools where they gloss over Native American history but don't really give much detail. Thank you for putting so much into a topic I also find fascinating. I enjoy the videos.

I’m from the Chautauqua (Seneca) area, and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the Iroquois running for any reason. Any other story I’ve heard here is about them having a “cold dead hands” approach to battle. I guess I never thought to look

Awesome work mate 👏

Thank you for sharing this information, the future is tied to the past.

I'm glad I stumbled across your channel, keep it up👍

Great video. TY

This is great. Hell yeah.

Nya:wëh Sgë:nö “I am thankful you are well” I am Seneca from the Hawk Clan. I just found this channel and I love the content you put out. Your narration is wonderful. Nya:wëh (thank you) ✊🏽

Great video!

This is such an interesting rabbit hole you researched 👀

She yo O sig wot su What you is do great. Your information you give on other topics also is likely the best and most honest. I'm setting here working on SCA fighters gear listening to you in the Cherokee Res. I appreciate and hear the low relaxing tone of your words as natives talk .You do good work. I now must wonder did Cherokee have such things . Maybe I'll try making some,I've joked about it but I see it real lol ,the jokes on me. May you could design something for SCA /LARP. It's from North America and really the Oriental armor is more out of place . You could really educate many peoples with your stuff if with a workable design on the basic safety as the long bowmen do. Must get back at it. I wish you the best. Osda Ega..

Your video is a wealth of knowledge

Wow awesome effort for a solo project! Bravo

I believe all my thoughts have been covered in the comments below, so I will simply say "Thank You" !

Incredible work even if it is only an estimation! You should be very proud of yourself. I'm sure ancestors would have been proud of your work too!

this is really cool armor, it reminds me alot of lamellar. this was a interesting video

Mi'kmaq half breed here, i really enjoy your teachings

EXCELLENT content. Good stuff. Keep it up homie. I am also a northeasterner and find it depressing how little we know about our native heritage. Thanks!

That looks just like the picture!

Pre Samurai Japanese armor was also laced wood. I'm not sure if investigating it would add any insights into wooden armor or not, but your shin armor reminds me of Samurai shin armor (Suneate) in form, which presumably was influenced by its pre Samurai wooden predecessors.

Amazing content, subscribed.

just found my new favorite channel

Another great job Malcolm. I'd love to collaborate with you on bringing rational reasonable fair history, as a historical rivalry in a Lnug man.

Awesome doc thank your from France

13:30 I feel like a genius having that same thought.

Good work.

Wonderful. Thank you,

Awesome video, would love to see one talking about Comanche armor, Spanish, French, and Apache attestations state that the armour was made from rawhide scales stitched onto a leather backing, in a not dissimilar fashion to some of the Old World scale armors. Some accounts say that the rawhide scales were further reinforced via a coating of glue and sand, though opinions on the accuracy of this vary. Bison hide and deerskin are the two materials most commonly mentioned.

I really thought there were no more iroquoi, is interesting to know something about this people and know there are still some people

Awesome!

Good information makes perfect sense with sloping back plate giving both visibility and protection. The branches enable both camouflage and the ability to break up the target for arrow aiming.Also in ranks it decelerate an deflects arrows. The high helmet protects the head from blows and gives an impression of size to an enemy. The army flexibility says they faced enemies side on behind the back plate and shot. Even articulated skirt enabled fast movement and prone shooting. The pick axe enable sharp penetration also of opponents potential armour especially the head area Dacian style. They would fire arrows reduce numbers and close with the axe. It is probable skirmishers had shields and spears to fend of frontal attacks.

this is awesome!

(translated from french) This kind of video is very interesting.👍 If I may, about the apron. You've developed your technical approach according to a vision of the object, based on an old illustration. And therefore, according to the "style of graphic representation" of the time. Old illustrations also depict Western armor. Many of these suits of armor (and not only in the West) had movable parts, particularly at the hips (in French: tassette, flancart). And these parts were often designed in a simplified manner. Given that the warfare of the time, often hand-to-hand, required a great deal of mobility, perhaps this part of the wooden armor was also "articulated". Readers of the images of the time perfectly recognized what was drawn, even simplified, as part of their daily lives. No details needed. (Images representing foreign or imaginary objects, animals, etc., are in a different reading field). As a rigid wood apron, this seems a little bit problematic in combat situations. We could imagine each wooden strip of the apron (perhaps slightly bevelled); directly attached (sewn + glued with resin (of the kind used for bark canoes)) to a thick skin "skirt" (leather) and attached at two or three points to the next strip. This would add flexibility and strength to the whole. The wooden strips could also be in double rows, overlapping each other. All in 3 vertical rows. It's also possible that this protective apron wasn't made from a multitude of superimposed or juxtaposed wooden strips. Maybe............................. .

I think you're on the right track in looking to preserved elements of yours and neighboring cultures to find remains of how the armor was constructed. But not just the ceremonial attire. There could easily be a floor mat or a basket lid or some other seemingly everyday craft that preserves in it the same weaving or planking technique. It might be worth gaining a deep understanding (if not already possessed) of how these things are made to perhaps better understand how something that isn't much made anymore could have been when it was in popular use. As to the accuracy of the engraving print. They killed the three best warriors and the rest fled. So, it occurs to me that the French and their allies would have had sole and uncontested access to those dead men and their attire for as long as they cared to. Perhaps they buried them. perhaps they were more callous than this and looted them, leaving the bodies where they lay. But the opportunity to study the best of what the enemy had was right in front of them. The motive could have simply been the chance that they may have to fight them again. That the enemy might not be scared off next time with only a few deaths. It would be foolish not to investigate everything those three best warriors had on them. The engraving of the drawing takes care to present the figure in a way that allows the viewer to see clearly everything the figure has (the point of the posture and framing is to show off the gear). With such details as fine as the necessary staggering of leg brace plank holes are included. From the level of detail there, it seems like what opportunity there was to investigate the armor was taken advantage of thoroughly. Especially since the man who originally drew is was no unfamiliar with wearing and using armor, and because neighboring cultural evidence provides external attestation in example. I think a very high degree of confidence in the accuracy of the engraving print can be assigned.

I remember a movie with Johnny Depp, it was one of the best movies i have seen ..the indians and their high culture was very well portrayed in that movie. It blew my mind to see the building technology of these people. Great video thank you for your efforts. P.S. i think that movie was called Dead Man .