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What is the significance of the heart?

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As I embark on making historically “reminiscent” hunting bags, I can’t help but notice many examples of the New Hamshire bag that always seems to have the cutout heart with two circles on the front flap.

As these were historically hunting bags, I wonder what the significance of the heart with two circles was that made it so popular?

I could imagine a representation of the hunter’s “kill” shot (heart and lungs?), or maybe it was a symbol of their companion’s love?

Rather than guess at it, I put the question to our experts here. Anyone know the origins of that pattern, or why it became so popular?
 
Unfortunately stories about what a mortif represents are as many as stars in the sky. All claiming to be the real reason. Sometimes the meaning is applied after it becomes popular.
 
The most common reasonable explanation for the cross is that it was and is a Penn/Dutch hex symbol and on many, many examples of their folk art. In their folk lore, a heart was a symbol of "Your heart is at home" or popular saying, "Home is where the heart is".
 
TXFlynHog said:
As these were historically hunting bags, I wonder
Can you show reference to these "historic" bags?

horner75 said:
The most common reasonable explanation for the cross is that it was and is a Penn/Dutch hex symbol and on many, many examples of their folk art.
Wha?
 
Looking forward to other responses. All I know is that the weeping heart is/has been found to be used in cultures and countries all over the world for many years.
Same puzzlement, to me, for use of a dragon on European and American influenced firearms.
 
The heart was such a common symbol in the 17th and 18th centuries, it even showed up on original Pirate Flags.

As Horner75 mentioned, it was a very common Pennsylvania Dutch symbol and perhaps there is the tie in to being added to rifle pouches, because Pennsylvania was the place rifle making and usage took off from in the 18th century.

Since only the rich could afford miniature portraits of their loved ones, and of course there were no photographs for many more decades, it is possible that it was a "token" or symbol of love for someone, but it is just as likely it may have only been a decoration or the meaning Horner75 already gave. There is no way for us to know unless the original owner of the Shot Pouch wrote what he believed was the meaning.

The use of the heart on Shot Pouch flaps may be much more common on reproduction pouches today than it was in the 18th or 19th centuries. We just don't know as so few pouches survive from the 18th century and it seems most original pouches with the heart come from the 19th century.

Gus
 
The heart symbols were popular in a form of folk art known as "Fraktur"
Fraktur is a highly artistic and elaborate illuminated folk art created by the Pennsylvania Dutch,(Germans) named after the Fraktur script associated with it. Most Fraktur were created between 1740 and 1860.

According to the book,
Folk Hearts: a Celebration of the Heart Motif in American Folk Art

Schaffner, Cynthia V.A.; Klein, Susan
 
Ive always wondered about this too. It shows up on regimental uniforms and even shirts (the reinforcement on the bottom of a bosom slit for instance)
 
SOME of the "hearts" that you see are the Luckenbooth which for Scots, meant betrothal, and also loyalty, and today it is also known as a ward against witches and the evil eye for children, BUT that might have been for anybody including adults displaying it back in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was a very popular emblem for Indian trade silver, especially among the Iroquois.

It has been suggested that the Weeping Heart, is a variation on the artwork with a heart motif that one sees in PA Dutch i.e. Low German artwork, and that both are actually based on the leaf of the Linden tree. In Germanic myths, the Linden has very magical properties for good, and wards off evil, and this may be the basis for it's being seen so much. This would also explain why folks would adorn their shirts with heart shaped reenforcement that centers on chest, or with it appearing on the items of the hunt.

Some confuse the Luckenbooth with the Weeping Heart/Heart/Linden, but so far it appears that the Luckenbooth is independent of the Linden-Heart.

LD
 
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