There’s a timeworn adage in the living history community used to justify any number of modern make-do practices and arrangements: “If they’d’ve had it, they’d’ve used it!”

Now personally, I feel that’s lazy.

Most of the fun of living history is the experiential anthropology of it all! Getting to experience for myself the settings, conditions, physicality, entertainment and all the other facets of an historical life keeps my brain, heart, and body engaged. I gain context to share with others, and that’s a tool to help them find their own connections to our shared human family history.

I’m a big fan of Original Practice. Put simply, that’s What They Actually Did (or had, or used, or thought, or felt). Focusing on Original Practice lets us start with our base in actual history, versus imagination or “what if.”

We can use some very basic questions to help us get there.

1. What did people of the past do, have, use, say about This Element of history?
2. Can I replicate that?
3. If I cannot replicate that, what else did they do, have, use, say, etc?
4. What, from all the historically-documented options I’ve found, works best for me?

When we use these “progressive questions”, we walk through every decision starting in the past, so no matter what the individual’s ultimate set of choices is, they are far more likely to be consistent with documentable choices from the past.