Institute of Texan Cultures Oral

INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL MULE SKINNER INTERVIEW WITH: TRAVIS KUYKENDAL INTERVIEWER : ESTHER MACMILLAN DATE: August 6 , 1983 PLACE: Oral History Office, ITC TK : It ' s really pronounced K I K E N D A L, but everybody says K E R K E N D A L. EM: That's a German name, isn't it? TK: Holland Dutch, I believe. Anyway it's Dutch. Last time I went to get a haircut, it cost me 4 bits a corner. (laughter) EM: You ' re a square head! (laughter) Mr . Kuykendal is listed in the program this year as " Mu l e Skinn er." And I have a great curiosity about mule skinner; what it means and all kinds of things about mules because they were so important in the early days of Texas. TK: That ' s right. That ' s the reason we have organized our selves and called ourselves The Frontiersmen of Uval de, Texas , and to go along with frontiersmen, we figured pack mules would be the most appropriate thing that we could bring to help to show what we meant b y fronti ers. And so bringin' the pack mules--and then we have, of course, as old as I am, I know quite a b i t about pack mules anyway. KUYKEN DAL 2 EM: Sure you do . TK: Years ago, they used to have as many as 20 , 30 or more one right behind the other and they called them mule trains . They were packed. That was the way we moved all the supplies that they had regardless of what it was. Whether it was guns , ammunition, gun powder or whether it was horseshoes or clothes or food or whatever, they were moved on mule back . They didn't have no--finally they began to build wagons . Finally they moved freight trains in, something like that. But at that time , that was the only way they had to do that. During that time, the man that handled the mul es , they called him mule skinner because mules are a little hard headed like these square-headed Dutchmen; they're hard headed. My mules that come in , they ' re all about half Irish. Because they're hard-headed I give ' em all Irish names. EM: You named them! TK: Yes. But the mule skinner, he got the name by--he had a whip or a big, long strap of leather, line , and he could throw that line that they called it, throwin' a line , and pop 3 h e could pop the hair off those mule s. That was skinnin' a mule. EM: That ' s where the t e rm came from! TK: That ' s where it came from. That's where the t erm mule skinner come from. EM: I didn't know that. TK: So after that, you hire d some body to pack your mules, whatever, you hired a mule skinner. That's where the name KUYKENDAL 3 TK: originated from . EM: Isn ' t that interesting. I always wondered what that meant. I hoped it didn ' t mean taking the skin off of a mule . TK : The way t h ey jerked the line , t hey could almost take the hair off the mu l e. I couldn 't do it; I don' t know how . Throwing that way and jerki ng back. You coul d see a few hairs fly off and they called it skinnin ' the mule . EM : Normally , what was in a mule trai n? How many mu l es? TK : Well , lon g t i me ago, t he way I've studied it, normally it was about 20 mules . EM : That many. TK: Yeah . I t hink that ' s where the 20 Mule Team [Borax a~ come from . Originally, I think , that they used about 20 mules in a mule trai n . However, they wasn ' t hitched up to a wagon way back then . One right behind the other, each one of ' em. And most of t h e time, they didn ' t have to put a line on those mules at all. They had one mule in the lead with a bell on and all of those other would follow him. They taught 'em to follow. So here they ' d come, be one mu l e right behind the other. And t h ey called it a mule train. EM: Where is the mule skinner? He's at the back? TK : Well , he might be at the back; he might be at the front. Generall y t here was always two men. One went towards the l ead and he led t he bell mare, they called it. Lot of times it woul d be a n old mare with a bell on. And all these mu l es just followed along behind, just like they were--- EM: An old mare. A mare is not a mule? KUYKENDAL 4 TK: No, not necessarily . However, sometimes it would be a mule but a lot of times it would be an old bell mare. EM: Really? TK: Yeah. Female horse. EM: For instance , you have a mule leading this pack train-- what do y ou call a bunch of mules? A herd? A flock? TK : You call 'em a team of mules mostly. Then you can have a 2-up team; 4-up team; 6-up team. EM: 2-up? TK : Yeah. As many as you want but if you have 4 mules, you call it 4- up. EM: Wonder why they call it "up?" TK: Well, it's another one of those old terms that those people started a long time ago that nobody knows about. Just like the pack on the mule back , originally they didn't have packsaddles. Now we have packsaddles which makes it a lot easier to pack the mule . I don 't know when the packsaddle was invented. It was a long time ago. But the original mule skinner didn't have packsaddles. They just put the pack on there and they 'd take rope and when they got through tyin' it~ they didn 't say tyin' it, they'd say, "We throwed a diamond hitch on it." The diamond hitch, the way they had that hitched, it was a diamond up here on top. It helped the cargo from moving in any direction. It h e ld it on the mule 's back. Called it a diamond hitch. And they said, we throwed a dia mond hitch on--well, load 'em up, throw a diamond hitch on each one of 'em so we won't lose a load . EM: You don't know where the 2-up, the 2-up 1 and the 4-up KUYKENDAL 5 EM: came from? TK: Well now, that's when you started working them. Puttin' t he harness on ' em and workin ' em . If it was 2 mu les , it was a t eam of mules. If it was 4 mules, it was still a team, but it was a 4-up team. And if it was 6 mu l es , a 6-up team. Or 8 mu les, i t was a 8-up team. I don't know where the up started from. Just probabl y slang l a nguage , I guess. EM: Part of the mule vocabulary. You have a whole bunch of mules together, does one stand o ut a s a l eader? How d o you pick leaders? TK: Yes ma 'am. Most of the time, it creates leadership itself. The one that can whip a ll the rest of ' em is the leader . EM: Oh? TK: In horses , the same way . You have a big bunch of ho rses out the re and there'll be one horse, mo st of the time it' s a mare , fema l e . She can just whip all the rest of ' em. And they 'll f ollow her . She c an just take o f f on the run and they 'll all f ollow her. EM : But she--the mule h as to prove i t. How do they- -do they actu a lly figh t? TK : No, not actual ly . I f one gets a little rambunctious in the herd, gettin ' o ff , well this l ead just takes it on itself to be a leader. All of a sudden t hey'll j ust go and whip the heck out of ' em . Just back ' em into a corner of the pen , if they ' re in a pen. EM: In oth er words , they discipline ' em , and the same thing h appen s with mules so t hat particular mule is designated the l ead mule. KUYKENDAL 6 TK: Yes ma 'am. And years ago, that leader, they put a b ell on him. All you had to find was the leader, the bell animal, and take it in and all the rest of 'em would follow the leader; come on in, if they were out in the pasture. EM: Normally, if things were O. K. , you'd have a man in the front and a man in the back. TK : Yes ma 'am. Most all the time. One reason, I guess , years ago they rode shotgun. They carried guns because people would try to staal their cargo. It was very bad. Probabl y in bad country, there was more than two men . There'd be maybe several. EM: Were the men that were accompanying the mu l e train on horses? TK: Yes ma'am.

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