Bindle is a term used to describe the bag, sack, or carrying device stereotypically used by the commonly American sub-culture of hobos. The person carrying a bindle was called a bindlestiff, combining bindle with the Average Joe

Average Joe

Average Joe is an American reality television show broadcast on the NBC beginning in 2003. There were a total of four seasons, the first two following the original show premise, and the last two bringing back contestants from prior seasons.-Show Premise:...

 sense of stiff.

In modern popular culture the bindle is portrayed as a stick with cloth or a blanket tied around one end for carrying items, with the entire array being carried over the shoulder. Particularly in cartoons, the bindles' sacks usually have a polka-dotted or bandanna design. However, in actual use the bindle can take many forms.

An example of the stick-type bindle can be seen in the illustration entitled The Runaway created by Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell

Norman Percevel Rockwell was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening...

 which appears on the cover of the September 20, 1958 edition of The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...

.

Though bindles are rarely used anymore, they are still widely seen in popular culture as a prevalent anachronism

Anachronism

An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...

.

Other uses

Bindle is also a term used in forensics

Forensics

Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...

. It is the name for a piece of paper folded to hold trace evidence – not to be confused with a pharmaceutical fold. On a similar note, bindle is sometimes used to describe a small package of cocaine

Cocaine

Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...