Hide for Bow & Drill Socket

In a previous post I mentioned that the Mescalaro Apache of southwestern US and northern Mexico used the bow and drill fire making method, when the handdrill proved too difficult for some.  In a 1935 article, in the American Anthropologist, it was stated that no special set was made.  Even fighting bows were modified, when needed, to spin the drill.  Also, no special socket was used, simply a piece of rawhide or buckskin to protect the hand.  Using a piece of hide as the socket intrigued me.  We tend to get stuck in preconceived notions of how things must be to work  Traditionally, a socket being -  a piece of wood, rock, or bone with a depression in it for the top of the drill to ride in. I had a scrap of racoon rawhide, with the hair still on it.  Folded  into a thicker pad, I fired up the bow and drill.  The hide pad worked well, though the drill did start to abrade thru it.  A little freshly pulverized grass would have lubricated it and helped.  Another lesson in simplicity and primitive living skills.

The Bow & Drill Revisited

When I first started demonstrating primitive skills at historical events, I tried to tie the technics to local history....what was practiced in this area.  My firemaking technic initially was the bow & drill, and later the handdrill method.  I could find references to use of the handdrill on the Plains more readily, but the information on the bowdrill was sketchy in North America.  It was thought that the bowdrill was an Alaskan Eskimo influence, who had adopted it most likely from Asian migrations across the Bering Straight during  Paleo times.  It is a fairly sophisticated technic for the time...using a bow and socket to give a mechanical advantage to spin a wooden drill in a depression in the hearth board.  The resulting friction grinds off tiny charred wooden particles, which heat up till they combust into a "hot coal".  This is placed in a nest of combustable materials and blown into flame.  It took a decade to come across solid information placing the bow & drill among Native Americans.  Archaeologists have found pieces of a bowdrill set, among the cliff dwellings of the Pueblo Indians of southwestern Colorado, dated to 1400 years ago.  And, in an article in the American Anthroplogist from 1935,  interviews revealed the technic was used by the Mescalaro Apache who lived in what is now western Texas, southeastern New Mexico, and northern Mexico.  It was said it was a technic used by those who had difficulty with the handdrill technic.  No special set was constructed for firemaking. Fighting bows were even modified and used to drive the drill.  It was related that no special socket was made either, simply a piece of folded rawhide or buckskin was used as a makeshift handhold...(hey, that is a clever idea).