This will be the first of three posts defining what the words in the last post mean for me.
The Jayhawk is the mascot of the University of Kansas. Kansas is currently ranked 3rd in Mens' Basketball and their Football team is going to play Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl on January 3. Therefore, most folks, or at least if you follow college sports, have heard of Jayhawks. The animal however is non-existent and seems to be a combination of two birds: The Jay and a generic Hawk. Both these birds strike fast and hard and tend to operate alone. But being a Jayhawk and being a Jayhawker or two different things. The former is a mascot or a fan of the University of Kansas sports while the later is more interesting and certainly more complex than a game.
The combining of Jay and Hawk evidently happened during the Civil War, while some say the phrase occurred prior to the war breaking out. One of my friends here at KU who is studying Kansas territory and Kansas Slavery says its a Civil War era word. The folks at Oxford apparently agree with her. Below is what the Oxford English Dictionary writes to define a Jayhawker.
"1865 Pall Mall G. no. 143.5/1 Jay-hawkers, cut-throats, and thieves. 1867 A. D. Richardson Beyond the Mississippi x. 125 Found all the settlers justifying the 'Jay-hawkers', a name universally applied to Montgomery's men, from the celerity of their movements and their habit of suddenly pouncing upon an enemy." and Rudyard Kipling wrote in 1900, "Suppose that you who read these lines had been out with Rimington's jay-hawkers or somebody else's fly-by-nights, riding hard and sleeping light for weeks."
My Great, Great Uncle, Wilberforce Jones was a member of the 7th Kansas Cavalry raised and commanded, for a time, by Colonel Charles Jennison. The unit came to be known as "Jennison's Jayhawkers." His brother Chester, my Great Great Grandfather, served in the 9th Kansas Cavalry. The 9th did not earn such a Jayhawking nickname as their commander was perhaps less out for fame.
So, out of the Civil War comes this wonderful word describing a ruffian irregular, a guerrilla soldier, using unjust methods to fight for a just cause. And I am descended from those Kansas Jayhawkers. That's why I love studying history. It is complex ..... for it would be incorrect to say all Jayhawkers were good guys and it would be just as incorrect to label them bad guys. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the wartime service of the Jones brothers to know whether they were good men or bad men in the Civil War. They would have to be judged individually, as are we all.
15 December 2007
