Sunday, July 19, 2009

"Leaf Knives"


I was playing around the rock pile the other night and came away making a couple of "leaf knives." A good number of cultures have these simple cutting blade forms in their tool kit. They are pretty much a simple ovoid preform finished off with a cutting edge. Simple and efficient.

An event promoter contacted me and asked if I wanted to participate in an upcoming "Pirate Fest." It took a little thinking how I would fit into this kind of theme. Eventually, I came up with the idea of doing something like...Survivorman - Marooned. I'll demo/display survival skills and tools, such as firemaking with the bamboo firesaw, making discoidal and bipolar cutting blades with quarzite cobbles, the bamboo rat trap used by a contestant fromt the show "Survivor", etc. Probably, decorate the tent with some tribal masks, rubber snakes, various items 'salvaged from a ship.' All in all, it is entertainment with some educational aspects..."edutainment." Anyone have any ideas other ideas?

3 comments:

Scott said...

Smokey,

Can you do anything with coconuts? How about showing them how to make foofoo drinks with only primitive tools;-)

Mila

Mark said...

LOLLOLOL...the little umbrella's would be the tricky part...good one Scooter.

Ron Layton said...

Very nice leaf blades! Do you use raw or cooked rock for your tools?