Way With Words: Bury the Hatchet

The Montagues and Capulets, Lancasters and Yorks, Hatfields and McCoys, are all popular feuding families. At some point they all either died or came to some kind of agreement.

There hasn’t been a major feud lately, but everyone’s had a little sibling rivalry or seen a few good fights for a saying like ‘bury the hatchet,’ to have some context.

For those who’ve never picked up a Gary Paulsen book, or are a little rusty on their Native American history, a hatchet or tomahawk is a small axe.

Said Native Americans had a practice of burying two hatchets to signify peace, perhaps before they passed the peace pipe.

At any rate, it is easy to visualize people fighting with small axes and burying them to signify they will no longer fight with them.

Thankfully most people don’t carry around hatchets to bury, so the saying is mostly metaphorical.