Interviewer: Student, Magnolia Junior High School, Grade 7
Teacher: Sue Miles
Location: Magnolia, Texas
Date: November 6, 1999
"Hog Killing "
Justification:
I chose to interview Mr. Purvis for several reasons. He is eighty-eight years old and has seen a lot of life. He knows a lot about the past and the old ways of doing things. I like to listen to him tell his stories about the old days.
I like to talk about animals. My dad and I hunt a lot and gut and skin the animals. One reason I chose Mr. Purvis is because he is a lot like me and my dad.
We are here to talk about hog killing in Texas.
In the early days, people didn’t have grocery stores to provide their meat, so they had to kill their own. Most families either raised a pig or two for slaughter, or they traded for one at butchering time.
Pork was a favorite meat for several reasons. First, the pigs were easy to raise. They could find their food in the forest and didn’t need much attention. Second, the flavor was good, and third, the meat could be cured and preserved without refrigeration. The usual methods of preventing spoilage involved smoking the meat or preserving it with salt or sugar.
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| Poland China hogs on the Witherspoon-Nagy hog farm in La Salle County, 1928 |
Nowadays, because pork is so easy to get at the stores, very few families are killing their own hogs, and this ancient skill is dying. Not many people know how to do it anymore. We are fortunate today to have with us a man who remembers how it was done in the old days, and he is willing to tell us all about it.
Good afternoon, sir. Please tell us your name.
Say it again. I didn’t hear you.
Please tell us your name.
You’ve gotta speak louder.
Oh. Please tell us your name.
I can hear you, but I can’t understand your voice.
Please tell us your name. (louder)
Oh, I’m A.R. Purvis.
Well, Mr. Purvis, how old are you?
I’m eighty-eight years old.
I understand that you know quite a bit about butchering hogs the old-fashioned way, and I’m really excited about hearing you. Thanks a lot for taking time with me. So, if you don’t mind, tell us about hog killing in Texas, starting with your earliest memories.
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Mrs. J.A. Winkler feeding hogs on her farm in Bexar County during the WW II, April 4, 1943 |
Starting where?
With your earliest memories.
Oh, well, this is the way we did it at home where I was raised. That was in the early days. We had a hog to kill, maybe two or three. We’d get up at four o ‘clock in the morning, go out, take the wash pot, the old cast-iron wash pot, fill it with water, build a good fire around it, get it hot, get it to boiling.
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| Hogs in pens for slaughter, Falls City, Texas, 1921 |
Then I’d take my rifle, my .22 rifle, shoot the hog in the head, between the eyes. When he fell, he’d lay there and start kicking. Then I’d take my knife and get over in the pen and cut his throat, put the knife in his throat, cut his jugular vein, and let him bleed. In just a few minutes, he’d be dead. Then I’d drag him over to the water pot and put him into the vat head first, put his head in first, [two or three words not understood] down in a barrel.
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The John Karisch family near Warda in Fayette County, ready to butcher with barrel in the background, c. 1926 |
We had a barrel in the ground, set in the ground, the back end of it set in an angle, and we’d drag that hog over there and stick him in that barrel head first. Then we’d waller him around a little bit, then pull him out, turn him over, and stick the other side of him in there. Then we’d do that, keep a ’feelin’ of the hair on the hog. When it got to where you could pull it off, pull it out, then we’d pull him out of the barrel, we’d pull him out of the barrel.
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| A hog ready for dipping at La Mota Ranch, La Salle County, 1915 |
Then we had the hog scraped, and we had to get around him and scrape that hog and get all the hair off of him. And, when we got all the hair off of him, got him clean, then we had a tree there with a block and tackle tied on it. We’d cut the hog’s tendons right behind his hooves and get a stick, stick each end in his hooves, spread his legs out like that. Stick that in there, and then we’d pull him up where we could hang ’im up by his hind legs.
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Fritz Faseler (right) with a butchered hog hanging from a tree near Yancey, Texas, 1920 |
And then we’d open him up from up at his back end plumb down to his throat, hang him bottom side upwards, and open him up, pull out his intestines in a washtub, uh, clean him out. Then we’d take the water bucket, we didn’t have no hoses back in them days. We’d just take a water bucket, fill it full of water, and slosh it on the old hog, wash him out good. And then, when we got that done, well, we was ready to cut him up.
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| Desiderio Rodriquez (left) and Narcisco Majio (right) by a headless hog carcass on the Peeler Ranch near Campbellton, Texas, 1901 |
We took the old handsaw—we didn’t have meat saws, we had to use handsaws—and sawed his backbone open, right down the middle. Start up at his hind legs plumb on down to his head. We just cut his head off. Then, when we done that, that left him in halves. We’d take half out, put it on an old table over here, lay it down there. Then we’d cut it up. We’d cut his forelegs off; we’d call that the hams. Then also his back legs, back hams, we’d cut them off. Then we’d take the ribs out, take a knife and go along, cut between the hog’s flesh in the outside and just take the ribs out of each side. Then we’d cut the, what we call the middlin’s, what we made the bacon out of. We’d cut that up some [two or three words not understood] each side, out of each side of the hog. And, that was all we done at killing the hog and dressing it.
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Paul Prather (left), Mr. Carazos (center), and Irving Youngquist (right) with a cleaned hog carcass, near Manor, Texas, January 1951 |
Now, we’d take…we had a barrel, a fifty-gallon wooden barrel. And we’d cut that, cut that bacon up, cut the meat up. We had more than the bacon. We had ribs and all of it fixed up. Then we’d take some sugar, three pounds of sugar and two pounds of salt, mix it together, and uh, two ounces of saltpeter. That’s a good sugar cure, a good [one or two words not understood]. And we’d take and roll that, roll it in that meat good, and put it down in that barrel. And after we got it all put down that way, I’d take a big ol' rock I had, oh, I’d say about twenty pounds, I guess, and spread some newspaper down, (not newspaper, some [not understood]) down on that meat. Then I’d set that [rock] down on top of it to hold it down. Of course, now, in a few days that would ferment and make a brine, and it would want to float up, and it would have something to hold it down in there. We’d leave that in there for about ten days for every pound of meat we had. That was a good sugar cure; it was one of the best I ever had.
And then it was ready to eat.
Well, Mr. Purvis, thank you for the wonderful talk you’ve just given us, and the wonderful experience about hog killing. Well, Mr. Purvis, after that story you’ve just given us, I’d like to ask you to answer some questions, if you don’t mind. Are you fast at butchering hogs?
[Didn’t hear]
Are you fast at butchering hogs?
I can’t understand it.
Are you fast at butchering hogs?
Oh, oh, am I fast at butchering hogs? No, I’d say I wasn’t really fast. I never did, uh, I done it for myself and wasn’t in no hurry.
Have you ever butchered a baby hog?
No.
What year did you start butchering hogs?
Oh, I don’t know what year it was. I don’t have no idea what year it was in numbers. I was still, I was still just a young man, but I don’t know really what year.
Do your kids know how to butcher hogs?
Do what?
Do your kids know how to butcher hogs?
No.
Well, thank you for answering some of my questions.