A Cowboy's Bedroll Was Much Greater than a Sleeping Bag

The cowboy's bedroll, unlike bedrolls or sleeping-bags utilized by modern-day campers, was much, much greater than a sleeping bag. The bedroll offered as his "small-home" around the range.

In the most elaborate form, a bedroll contained lots of personal possessions covered with canvas (when canvas might be found) or sometimes just in make-change heavy grain sack cloth. Tangled up or strapped within this type of bedroll may well be a "sugan" (also typed "sougan" or "suggan" and many other very creative ways) or two and also the cowboy's "war bag" or "possibles sack." Actually, a properly-planned and well-filled bedroll carefully wrapped and tied may be thrown across a horse's back behind the saddle, or maybe it had been too big and troublesome and also the cowboy would be a working cowboy, his bedroll may be thrown from the side of the chuck wagon or hidden lower within the mattress from the chuck wagon together with all of the crew's cooking items.

More compact bedrolls for "portability" might have been installed on the cowboy's equine, although not the real, works of art of portable houses just like a serious, full-grown bedroll. Meaning we ought to request -- what were these mysterious "sugans" or "war bags," and just how did they work with the typical cowboy?

Sugans -- They were heavy blankets, or even more frequently quilts, that contained some substance and when possible some padding that built them into warm for canopy. Exactly the same term may also be employed for a little tarp or canvas that may be drapped on the tree branch or propped track of stays to create a rudimentary one-guy tent. So a sugan may well be a tent, or you will think about it as being a sleeping bag. The key factor in winters around the range in Texas or over the Great Flatlands was that sugans ought to provide both shelter and heat whenever possible.

War Bags or Possible Sacks -- Should you consider individuals terms, you might figure that one out. They were canvas bags or frequently just old grain or flower sacks where the cowboy stored valued possessions. They may be snapped up up and brought along in a rush. Estimating from Winfred Blevins' "Dictionary from the American West":

"In the era of the open range, a snoop most likely might have found some town clothing, the makings (for cigarettes), tubes and perhaps some letters at home inside it [world war 2 bag]."

A contemporary-day bedroll is a smaller amount colorful and exciting. In cowboy terms, "bedroll" was equal to a whole one-person camping setup. In modern terms a "bedroll" really just describes a great sleeping bag.

That old "cowboy ways" of utilizing bedroll attracts me probably the most. It can make a bedroll right into a portable campground, a transportable home abroad.