Title: Goat Slayer
General Information about Item:
- Verbal and Customary Folklore (Tradition)
- Language: English
- Informant: Sam Lincoln
- Date Collected: 9 November 2019
Informant Data:
- Sam Lincoln is a 21 year old college student studying mechanical engineering at Arizona State University. He was born in Wisconsin and raised in Arizona. He began overnight backpacking when he was 15 and hiked the Colorado Trail after he graduated from high school in 2016. He enjoys archery and playing video games. Sam is the twin brother of Rachel Lincoln, who collected this item.
Contextual Data:
- Cultural context: Hikers give each other trail names based on notable attributes, defining events, or personality traits. From then on, you are known by your trail name. Some hikers met people and never learned their real names. Hikers often keep the same trail name their whole lives. This tradition helps immerse hikers in their experience and distances them from their real-life identity while on the trail.
- Social context: Being named by the hiking community tightens friendships and serves as a rite of initiation into the thru hiker life.
Item:
- Sam earned the name “Goat Slayer” on the Colorado Trail. He and his friend Justin had hiked 24 miles in an alpine area with lightning in the distance—they were the tallest things around, so they had to make camp for the night. They heard noises outside their tent and thought a bear was outside. Sam went out with a bear mace and mallet to scare it off, but it was just a herd of goats. He chased them off and became Goat Slayer.
Associated file:
Sam explains how he got his trail name.
Informant’s comments:
- Sam likes this name. He never got one during his earlier two or three week hikes and receiving one was an important part of his experience.
Collector’s comments:
- Trail names can be tongue-in-cheek or teasing, but all informants felt that their name was used affectionately. Sam’s name plays up the fear and adrenalin he felt to reflect his emotions in that moment, when all he really did was shout at some goats.
- We collected trail names from all of our informants except those who hiked the Chilkoot. That trail is shorter than the other, so we hypothesize that length may be correlated with receiving a trail name.
Collector: Rachel Lincoln
Tags/Keywords:
- Trail Name, Colorado Trail