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5 comments about Crow Killer: The saga of Liver-Eating Johnson.

1. This is an interesting book, no doubt about it. I am, however, a firm believer in the maxim "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Many of the tales in this book are clearly untrue. Take, for example, when Johnson was captured by the Blackfeet. Johnson disables his guard, cuts off the living guard's leg for a food supply, then sneaks off into the wilderness. It turns bitter cold, the leg freezes solid and a naked-from-the-waist up Johnson supposedly travels 200 miles through snow and blizzards. One night, sleeping in a cave, he is awakened by a mountain lion trying to drag the leg away. Soon after the cat is driven away he sees a grizzly coming towards him from deep in the cave. He beats the bear with the frozen leg, and the grizzly retreats. Obviously this is a story that was fabricated for laughs but it is presented as fact in this book.
   
   I believe there was a Mountain Man named Johnson, but not all the many tall tales told in this book. If this were a book of fiction, I'd give it 4 stars, but as a biography it only deserves 1 star due to its fictional nature.



2. I have read many books and biographies about trapper and traders and this one although a fictional biography (hearsay and letters to the author) was fantastic; many true items; I'm sure. John Johnson - the main character; inspired the movie Jeremiah Johnson, that Robert Redford stared in. Quite the read!



3. If you're looking for a quick-reading, action story with colorful characters then this book is for you. If you're looking for accuracy, you better keep looking.
   
   As many reviewers have already mentioned, this book is based upon third- and fourth-hand information from old mountain men. Mountain men were famously known for telling "tall tales" and spinning "yarns". They took great delight in telling exagerated stories to "flat-landers". That, alone, should cause one to be skeptical of the authenticity of this book. I can't help but feel that the old mountain men who related these stories to the authors were laughing up their buckskinned sleeves the whole time.
   
   Two specific points regarding the lack of authenticity in this book come immediately to my mind... First, Johnson is said to have purchased a .30 caliber Hawken rifle before heading into the mountains. I seriously doubt the Hawken brothers ever made a .30 caliber rifle for mountain men. As an owner of several .30 and .32 caliber blackpowder rifles, I can testify to the fact that they have about the same ballistic performance as a modern .22 rifle. Blackpowder is not as powerful as modern smokeless powder. As a result, rifles intended for hunting and fighting were typically .50 caliber or larger. In those days (as well as today) a .30 caliber blackpowder rifle was considered a "squirrel gun" and was definately not a mountain man weapon.
   
   The second point that comes to my mind involves Johnson's escape from Blackfoot captivity. After biting through his rawhide bonds, and knocking his Indian guard unconscious, Johnson used the Indian's knife to cut his leg off at the hip. Facing a winter trek of hundreds of miles, he needed the human leg for food. In the book, the Indian is said to have survived this trauma. Ummm, excuse me, but cutting off a human leg at the hip involves severing the femoral artery. It's one of the biggest arteries in the body, and when severed, results in death in just a couple minutes. I don't doubt some mountain men occassionally resorted to cannibalism to survive, but the idea that this Indian could survive such an injury is hard to believe.
   
   There are many other points in this book that I feel are highly questionable, but I won't belabor the point. As I said above, if you like action-packed adventure stories, this book might be right up your alley. Otherwise, it's best to take this supposedly true tale with a very large grain of salt.



4. Crow Killer is a book of the tales of Johnson. Without those stories, Johnson would not be remembered this day and age. The movie Jeremiah Johnson would not have been made. There would be no interest of finding out more of Liver Eating Johnson. There is a site.....johnlivereatingjohnston.com that covers the real man and there is a picture therein of him circa 1877. He does not look like Redford.
   Crow Killer covers his adventures and various peers of a time from primitive living to the modern age.



5. There is alot of good info in this book anyone who is into the per1840's will like this book.

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