...can stir up a whole hornet's nest of trouble... LOL. I am chuckling at the Rachel Ray ad campaign pulled by Dunkin Donuts because she innocently decided to wear a Khafiyeh or shemagh around her neck that morning while taping it. According to the complainants, the Khafiyeh has come to symbolize Palestinian terrorists and insurgents, not to mention Islamic extremists featured in beheading videos. Uh, nevermind that it was already a practical non-religious piece of headgear for thousands of years, not only for that Middle East, but for people around the world in various forms.
Scarf, handkerchief, bandana, muslin triangular bandage, do-rag, khafiyeh, shimagh... whatever you want to call it.... one of my EDC items is always a simple square piece of cloth. Back in the day, gentlemen always carried a handkerchief. I don't care about labels, I just call mine what it is, a scarf and I almost always have some variant of one on my person.
I got my favourite scarf from a Western wear supplier, http://www.jinglebobs.com/ which I can recommend as a square-dealing, reliable merchant. It is a 50" X 50" square of OD Green silk (sage colour), so it is incredibly lightweight, feather soft, compacts to the size of an egg, yet is very strong, durable, and resilient (after years of hard use). Alternately, I have a very nice shemagh (pronounced sheh-MAH) that my sister bought for me at Harrod's in London. Though a bit heavier, it serves most of the same purposes and is one of my everyday favourites. Even back in my military days, particularly in very hot, humid climates, I would wear an OD green all-muslin triangular bandage on my head as a helmet liner to soak up sweat and to keep my head cool, by pre-dampening it.
My scarf is not just a piece of "fashion" or apparel. It is a very handy survival tool, whose uses are only limited by ones imagination. The following is a list that came to mind after about 30 minutes of brainstorming, but I'm sure there are a lot more.
-My scarf keeps my neck warm (ears and face too if necessary).
-As a plain handkerchief, it's handy for blowing ones nose. With washing and care, it's endlessly reusable.
-As was the original function of silk scarves for aviators, it also serves as a liner keeping my neck from chafing when I wear a collar or body armor, or in sandy/gritty environment, or as in the case of aviators, when you have to swivel your head around a lot.
-It keeps the ants/ticks off my neck and blocks them from going down my shirt.
-It can be a blindfold (for humans or horses). Unknown to some non-equestrians, some horses are really skittish about certain sights and situations. Sometimes blindfolding them while they are still in a calm state is the only way to get them past certain obstacles (like plank bridges, or dark trailers, or even certain "shapes").
-It's a sweatband and sweat mop for my face.
-In a loop, it can make a decent weight-bearing Prusik ascender, in an emergency.
-It holds my hat down in high wind.
-It can be a headband for my head (for sweat or to keep hair out of my eyes). In hot weather, I dampen it in cold water, and put it around my neck, cooling as the water evaporates.
-It can be a head bandana (instant headgear) which prevents much heat loss off the top of one's head.
-It can be a sunshade/head wrap to protect the head, neck and ears. Silk is about SPF 15.
-Tied to a branch or a stick, it can be a quick stationary sun shelter.
-It can be a face mask to conceal and/or warm the face. Silk is pound for pound one of the warmest fibers available.
-It can be a dust mask to lightly filter the air that you breath in a dusty environment, sand storm, or smelly area.
-It can be a pre-filter mask from smoke inhalation by first wetting it and breathing through it.
-When nothing else is available, it is a handy towel (enough to dry my entire body after a shower).
-It can be a most basic covering, a sarong, a wrap, around the waist.
-In a pinch, it can be a reasonably functional underwear, loincloth.
-Loosely wrapped and tied off, it can be a handy carry bag, for foraging or carrying lots of small things.
-Tightly wrapped and tied, it can be a secure package, like when you absolutely need a lid to stay on.
-It can be a handy tablecloth to spread your lunch on, when the alternative is dirt.
-The ends/corners can be a handy napkin to wipe your mouth.
-It can be a handy groundcloth to sit on, when wearing nice clothes.
-Among it's myriad first aid uses, it can be an instant dressing and/or a compress for bleeding.
-It can be a sling to support the arm in a sling.
-It can be used to tie on a splint/help immobilize.
-It can be an eyepatch.
-It can be frayed into silk threads for sutures.
-It can be a tourniquet. It can be a flag or signaling device.
-It can be used to restrain someone effectively.
-There are many "weapon" uses for the scarf too, some useful for "hunting", but I will not list them here. Suffice it to say that silk is very, very strong and a larynx would break long before a good piece of silk would. Any nominally weighty object swung around with momentum would impact with tremendous force. Also, certain "classic" missile weapons can be improvised. There's also the ever-fun "rat tail" whip of locker room fame.
The following are apocryphal (things that I heard or read about silk, but they may just be legendary), but might have some value so I list them. Silk shirts (worn under armor by Mongols) made arrow extraction easier because the arrow as it twisted (rotated) into the body would take the silk in with it. Therefore, by pulling the silk shirt out, it nicely rotated the arrow out through the same channel, lessening the severity of the wound.
In early firearms and medical technology, infection from fragments of clothing carried into the body by the bullet/ball was a major problem. Fragments of silk clothing were the exception. The body absorbed the silk much like silk stitches dissolve.
For early firearms, using silk for wadding (packing a musket ball in silk to ensure a tight seal) added an extra 50 yds of accurate range over regular cotton wadding.
Silk carries a static electric field and can be used to magnetically polarize a small piece of ferrous metal, like a needle. Just pass it along the silk in one direction only repeatedly. It's supposed to weakly magnetize the needle so that it can be used as a compass if giving an almost frictionless opportunity to rotate (like floated on something).
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