The History and Philosophy of Branding

A New York family bought a ranch out West where they intended to raise cattle. Friends visited and asked if the ranch had a name.
  "Well," said the would-be cattleman, "I wanted to name it the Bar-J. My wife favored Suzy-Q, one son liked the Flying-W, and the other wanted the Lazy-Y. So we're calling it the Bar-J-Suzy-Q-Flying-W-Lazy-Y." 
   "But where are all your cattle?" the friends asked. 
  "None survived the branding." 
D.A.C. News

We know from Egyptian hieroglyphics that branding livestock dates back to 2700 BCE. The Romans used symbols that were part of a magic spell to protect the animals... at least until the owner wanted to slaughter them. By the Middle Ages, the custom had spread through Europe. From Europe it emigrated with colonists to North America where, even with our modern technology, it is still one of the most effective means of establishing ownership -- or proving theft.

The term brand may come from "firebrand" or heated stick, which was the oldest way of applying your brand. (Or from the Norse "brandr" meaning burn. Take your pick.)

Obviously, only one end of the stick was brought to a smouldering temperature. That lead to the term being applied to people who were hot-headed. An iron rod, or running iron, eventually took the place of the stick, but don't be caught with one in the Old West. Honest ranchers had their brands made by blacksmiths. Carrying a running iron suggested you might be a rustler, adept at changing one brand to another.

To work, brands must be unique. Like Coca Cola and Pepsi, the marks are registered. Unlike other product brands, however, the blacksmith hammer (and the beeves' hides) can only handle so many flourishes. So a simple hieroglyphic language was developed.

2 Lazy-2 P Ranch - from The Smithsonian site

Letters and numbers can be boxed, walking, winged, rocking or lazy. Bars can be T'ed, doubled or crossed. In Under A Texas Star, I refer to the Rocking-R (whose owner breeds horses) and the Bar-B Ranch.

I promised a little philosophy and for that I'm going to go back to Coca Cola and Pepsi and brand loyalty.

Branding livestock was a practical necessity. Menkahf had to make sure that his goats didn't find themselves in Sebni's herd when it was time to bring them in from the pasture. Branding merchandise started about a thousand years later to identify the product with the maker. Both types of brand engendered brand loyalty.

Product loyalty is pretty easy to recognize. If you doubt it, offer a Coke drinker a Pepsi. (My ex once said, if dying of thirst in the desert, he'd rather eat a lizard than drink a Pepsi.)

The cowboy's loyalty to the brand is an ethical issue. I learned the concept from Louis L'Amour, particularly in his collection Riding for the Brand, but best expressed by Conn Conagher:

"I've covered a lot of country in my time but when I take a man's money I ride for the brand."
Louis L'Amour, Conagher

If you have a problem with your employer, you come out with it. If it can't be solved, you suck it up or ride on. An ally who wasn't loyal might have to be tolerated, but he'd never be respected. An enemy who stood by his villainous employer until the end, would be respected and couldn't be seen as entirely evil. He was redeemed by his loyalty.

References:
The History of Branding, Smithsonian Magazine
Livestock Branding, Wikipedia
The History of Brands, Wikipedia
US Legal Definitions

Ride for the Brand

You can't ride for the brand if you don't know what your brand is.  Each outfit had a man who kept a brand book and who could identify brands from far and wide.  Four-legged critters on the open range can mosey a long way.  When identifying a brand, the speaker uses a particular jargon that readers and writers of Westerns innately understand, even if they can't identify those same brands themselves.  So let's ride into the world of brands.

Exactly how were brands used?

For everything.  We all know about roundups and have read about branding calves with the same brand as their mamas, but brands were also used on horses, mules, fence posts, saddles, and nearly anything belonging to the ranch.  Brands were embroidered on saddle blankets, pillows, and hatbands.  Now we wear Nike's and American Eagle's brands, but in those days, they were proud of their own ranch's brand.  A brand constitutes ownership, the final arbiter.  (We'll get to those dern rustlers a little later.)

Were American ranchers the first to brand their livestock?

Spanish-grant brand
1762

Brands were our nation's first trademark system, although branding is nothing new.  Egyptian carvings show brands on oxen three millenia BCE.  Throughout recorded history, livestock and slaves have been branded using a red-hot iron.   The practice was brought to North America by the Spanish conquistadors and later the vaqueros to Texas, then spreading across the North American continent, and on to Australia.  Spanish brands were quite a bit fancier than American brands, which used mostly letters numerals, bars, and circles or segments of circles.

How do you read a brand?

Brands are read left to right, top to botton, outside in.  The brand of the hero's ranch in my next book, Much Ado About Mavericks (May 2012), is Bar E L, so would look like this
—EL
and read left to right.  If the brand had been EL—, then you'd say E L Bar.  

The heroine's ranch is the Circle J, with a J surrounded by a circle, so read from outside in.  If there were two letters, say J O, it would be read Circle J O: outside in, left to right.

This is from Western Brands:

Lazy is a letter laid on its side to the left or right.

Crazy is an upside down letter.
Reverse is a backwards letter.
Bar is a dash or line before, after, between, over or under the letters.
Combined is when 2 letters share a common side or upright. (You need a common upright for this one.)
Connected are when 2 letters touch.
Offset is when one letter is slightly lower and to the side of the other.
Hanging is when a letter is hanging from the bottom of another.
Rail is a back slash ( \ ).
Slash is a forward slash ( / ).
Quarter Circle is 1/4 of a circle above, right or left of letters.
Rocking is 1/4 of a circle below letters.
Swinging is 1/4 of a circle above and touching a letter.
Circle is a full circle around 1 letter.
Flying is a set of wings on either side of a letter.
Tumbling is when a letter is leaning left or right

My family's brand is no longer registered to us since none of us are in agriculture anymore, but just to show a typical brand, I made up a crude version it.  We called it the Rocking J W, although it is actually a Rocking J W combined, since the J and the W share the same upright.  The brand was applied on the left hip.  We only branded cattle, not horses. 

Some states have the registered brands posted online.  Take a look at California or Kentucky.   There might be more because I didn't look up all the states.  Here are some examples of brands from Richard Beal's Blog:

String up those rustlers!
More than one famous rancher got his start by picking up a calf or two here and there for a long-term "borrow."  It was a risky business.  Many ranchers thought nothing of stealing cattle in Mexico and driving them north.  Of course, the Mexican ranchers did the same thing.

Cattle thievery wasn't confined to the Mexican border, by any means.  Men (and a few women) were hanged for rustling in every state in the West (probably in the East, too).  Usually when we think of rustlers,  it's the fellows who round up herds at night, brand the cattle, and sell them right away.  You know—the bad guys.

The tool of the rustling business was the running iron.  This was a straight or slightly curved branding iron that could be used to alter an existing brand or used to make nearly any brand on an unmarked animal.  The one pictured here has no handle, so don't get confused. 

The running iron was heated and applied "on the fly," meaning the iron was used more to draw the brand on the animal rather than stamping it on.  I've read different opinions on whether getting caught with a running iron in your possession would lead to an immediate hanging.  Some sites say this tool had legitimate uses.  Personally, I think it would be best to leave them home and use your own ranch's brand.

Some good sources:

History of branding in Texas

Eastern Oregon Brand Book (1890), but has 1950s regulations, so not sure when it was published.  What's cool about this book is they have pictures of a bazillion brands.  Malheur County abuts Owyhee County in Idaho, which is where my books are set, so these brands are especially useful to me.

May your saddle never slip!

Jacquie Rogers

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