Fireboard with a Chopper

The sleet was coming down as I decided to put the large Keokuk spall, from the previous post, to work. I had mentioned that my first impression was that it would make a good chopper. It fit in the hand well and tapered to a nice edge.

I couldn't locate my fireboard so I decided to make one from a thick cottonwood tree root. I couldn't split it so I used this quicky technic. With the chopper I cut half way thru the root.


Bracing one end of the root on a log, with the chopped out notch facing the ground, I stomped the limb in two. The 'notch' caused a section to split off length-wise, thinning the limb down for a fireboard. I bored a depression and used the choppers edge to saw a notch into the depression.





With in a few minutes had a smolder ember.

Rumaging around I came across my deer leg bone drill extension for the bowdrill. Kennie Sherron presented this idea, which John McPherson introduced in his booklets. Sometimes you can't always find nice long staight drill material, or the ones you have are worn down from use. I notice in my supply of yucca stalks, only a small portion are good for drills. But, I have plenty of bit-size pieces. To make the drill extension-a lower deer leg bone has been scored, and the top and bottom ends removed. Sinew, and a little hide glue, is wrapped around both ends to prevent splitting. A pointy hardwood 'cap' is carved and glued into the top end, that will spin in the handheld socket (...actually a hardwood stick simply forced into the top would have been simpler.) The bits are shaved to snuggly form fit into the lower end. The square-ish shape of the bone rides well in the bow string with no slippage. As Mr. Sherron describes it..."for the Indian who has it all."

Two-Stick Fireboard II

Got home today and immediately grabbed a mullein stalk and split it in three sections..."hello" kiss from the wife would have to wait. One part became my drill, the other two I tied together with some cord. In my area there is alot of mullein. I was curious how well this would work with the two-stick fireboard technic. Mullein has a styrofoam-like, soft pithy core, surrounded by a tough woody exterior. In the past, using a stalk as a handdrill I often drilled thru the fireboard before getting a coal...because of the hard woody sheath. I've learned though, you need to shave down the lower half-inch to thin the exterior wall for better results. My first 30-second attempt yeilded some smoke and brown powder in the groove. I re-shaved the lower end. The second attempt, with a little more determination, nearly drilled thru the two sticks of the fireboard. But, I had a smoldering coal for my efforts. It was small and needed some extra coaxing. Also, I recognize that a previously tried hole, with a little char to it, forms a coal easier than a fresh one. All in all, it answered my question of how well it would perform using this fireboard method. I sort of came to the conclusion, that for the time & ease of making the drill & hearth from a single stalk, I preferred this technic over splitting the stalk, forming the hole, and cutting the notch. And as for the "hello" kiss from the wife...I think I burned that bridge from the onset...lol.

Two-Stick Fireboard

I had been thinking about trying this technic with a mullein today. When I came home the first thing I came across was an 3-foot long yucca stalk. Worms had infested it, but had since burrowed out, and departed. I scored it and snapped it into three sections. The straightest became my drill. The other two sections I simply tied together with some buckskin thongs. This is the two-stick fireboard method. You need to brace the drill against your foot when you start, so it won't travel up and down the groove. After a few strokes it will burn into the two stalks and settle in...you can move your foot a little to the side now. It only took about 10 seconds and I had two smoldering hot coals, one on each side of the drill. The groove formed by the two ajoining sticks forms a notch for the powder to accumulate, till it is hot enough to form an ember. Simply drop the coals into a tinder and blow to flame. Another cool thing about this technic is that you can untie the pieces, rotate the stalks, re-tie, and have a new area to work with.

Cattail Handdrill Attempt

I had read that other primtive skill practitioners had used cattail stalk for handdrill fire making. Having worked with the handdrill for years, I recognized how limited my choices were for appropriate material to make it with in my area. Mullein grows wild along the roadsides. Yucca is more of an ornamental plant here, but grows in the sandhills in northcentral Nebraska. Cattail is an easily recognizable plant, that to my knowledge, grows in moist areas and is available everywhere I've seen. I went out a couple weeks ago and cut half a dozen stalks, and stripped them down, to dry. Over the past couple of days I've been attempting to make a hot coal with a cattail stalk on a yucca fireboard. So, far I have smoke, but no hot coal. Some observations: The stalks are fragile higher up, denser lower. If I squeeze too hard I compress the stalk, and buckle them. Some of the stalks have a styrofoam-like inner pith, like mullein. Others are fibrous. Maybe I need to study out where this changes in the stalk. In my enthusiasm to try this, I harvested these stalks before the seed head were mature. I will gather some later in the season. The powder that forms in the notch in brown. I am not getting enough heat, from friction, to form the black powder and combust it into a hot coal. Also, the stalks outer portion is sturdy enough to drill through the yucca fireboard, perhaps a harder fireboard like cottonwood. Well, primitive skills is just that...skills. Right now I am just embarking on the learning curve with this new material. But, what a great plant if I can make fire with it. Cattails are food, cordage, medicine, insulation, shelter, tinder, torches, etc.

Newpaper Pictures

I had the day off work and decided to do some deep cleaning behind furniture...what a good hubby I am...lol. That's where everything goes when I lose it! Next time I misplace something I am going directly behind the old computer desk. Found some old newspaper articles from 2001 - 2004, and a small case of stone points I have been looking for a year >sheesh<. The top pic is from the August 2004 Lewis & Clark bicentennial event...making a stone knife. Middle pic is blowing a tinder nest to flame at 2001 city event, son Jacob in the background. The bottom pic is special. My wife, Joyce, is grinding clay to clean it for making pottery, a 2002 local event. What a good woman!

Egyptian Bow Drill

There was a variation of the bow drill introduced, by John Olsen to the primitive skills community, at the 2001 Winter Count rendezvous in Arizona. It was based on the bow drill set found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun, of ancient Egypt. The differences, from the standard bow drill, was that the cord was twice as long as the bow, and ran thru a hole in the center of the drill (I simply tie it on with a clove hitch). The excess cord, to one side of the drill, was wrapped around the drill till the slack was taken up. Then it was pretty much the same operation as the standard bow drill.

I've used this technic teaching Boy Scout groups-as one advantage is that the drill does not slip in the cord, as it periodically does with the standard method when the cord stretches and becomes loose. Conversely, on the standard, if the cord is really tight the drill can flip out and go flying as they learn to coordinate the pieces. Plus, it is nice to have one less loose component, because it is attached. Also, you can a weaker cord because it is not under constant tension. Is it better? I think- it is just different. I still prefer the regular bow drill, but I recognize the value of this set up to teach new practitioners who are learning to coordinate the pieces and movements to make fire.

Fire

Millenia ago, when man crossed the landscape, all he had to depend on were his wits and the resources that nature provided. He learned to fashion sharp knives and spears from the stones of the earth. Buffalo and deer provided food, clothing, and shelter. He watched the ebb and flow of the seasons to take advantage of natures bounty. Some Native American traditions reasoned that the trees absorbed the heat from the Sun in their limbs, and that thru the fire ceremony they were able to release it from the wood.
Fire was a sacred element- it was life itself. It cooked your food, gave light and warmth to your shelter, and kept bothersome insects and predators at bay. Fire was useful in the manufacture of tools - bending or straightening shafts, baking clay into pottery, or coal burning bowls or spoons. Larry Dean Olsen said that most of human history was made by people sitting around the hearth fire.

Yucca's in Bloom

The yucca's are in bloom this past week. Their cream-colored flower petals, eaten raw, are a right of summer.
In a couple of months I'll harvest and dry the stalks for friction fire sets. These stalks are unsurpassed for generating a hot coal, with the handdrill or bow/drill, in under 30 seconds.
The fibers in the leaves make a strong cordage. Archaeologist, Carl Elfgrin, taught me to take the leaves hard pointed ends, along with a fibrous section peeled from the leaf, and use it as a 'needle and thread'. At the Beaver Creek Primitive Skills & Knap-In we constructed coiled
baskets with beargrass and yucca.

I found an interesting bit of info in the book: Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River
Region, by Melvin R. Gilmore. In it he said that on the tree-less plains of the Dakotas, Indians
would make hand drills from the narrow, hard-tipped, leaves of the the yucca. The dried leaves would be bound tightly together with sinew to form a slender handdrill which would be spun in a section of the stalk to make fire. Hmmm...another project to add to the list.

Left to Right:
- Bow/drill firemaking set
- A handdrill fireboard and shaft.
- Coiled basket made from beargrass & yucca leaf strips.
- Yucca cordage attached to a bone fishing hook from a deer leg
phallanges.
- Dried yucca stalk.