Mountain man throwing dates back to the Rendezvous’s that fur trappers used to have in the 1800’s in the USA. 

Trappers would have only one knife and one hawk. At the Rendezvous ( meeting of trappers ) competitions took place involving marksmanship with the knife and hawk. ( It was not unknown for the ownership of squaws to be decided on the single spin of a knife ) 

These competitions have now been updated by reenactors and are a great deal of fun. They can also be deadly serious. 

A typical example is shown below where throwers throw the hawk and knife at each of the playing cards. A hit on the target scores 1, a split on the card scores 2 and a direct hit inside the card scores 3.