Living Primitively

I am leaving for Fyresdal to run a course soon, I’ll update every day then and there will more than likely be plenty of new material up after new year. Sorry, but I’m taking some time off, until 5th of December.

Regards

Torjus Gaaren

A new prototype on an ice spike is ready. The last one worked fairly well, but it fell off into the water and it was just too much work making a new one. This one is simpler and based on archeological evidence. It’s made from a dried moose leg bone. I left most of the membranes on, to preserve as much integrity as possible.

First, score around the piece, in a diagonal fasion, to achieve a weaker link so to say. It doesn’t have to be so deep.

Next, support the closest end on something and strike off the end with a hammerstone, club or similar.

Stake out the marrow with a willow stick and hot water.

Grind it sharp.

The last problem is of course the hafting, a problem that neither I or the archaeologists have solved yet. I have some ideas though…

Cant get through to write on the blog now it seems
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The cooking pit is a simple, but effective way of cooking large pieces of meat or vegetables. Compared to cooking directly on the fire, this method requires less attention from the cook as you can be off working on something completely else while dinner is made.

Dig a hole in the ground.

There are essentially two different ways of utilizing such a pit. Either you light a fire in the pit lined with rocks and remove the coals before cooking or you dump preheated rocks in the pit before putting the food on top. In either case, put some hot rocks ontop of the food also. The purpose of the heated rocks is that they slowly release heat, making this function like an oven. Cover it well to keep the heat in. A piece of birch bark and sand on top will work. This time I didn’t bother with that though, since the piece of meat was rather small and cooking then quick.

After a couple of hours, depending on how long you want it to cook, remove the cover and take out the food. Yummy!

When I was a kid we used blowguns made from Wild Angelica (Angelica Sylvestris), they were only used for a day or two, then discarded. This was for playing war only, we used berries as ammo. It never occurred to me that I could use it as a hunting weapon.

Lately I have started thinking about this again. There arn’t many suitable pieces of blowgun material in Norway, most are too short. I decided to go for red elder (Sambucus racemosa), though I guess that several roses (Rosa sp.) and common reed (Phragmites australis) and Cattail (Typha latifolia) could be used too. I drilled out the soft pith of a dead piece. It cracked one place, but I wrapped it with sinew so then it was fine. I made a quick dart out of an elm splintre and wrapped small feathers around to fletch it. the feathers were secured with sinew

Since it’s very short it isn’t accurate nor powerful, Accuracy suffers badly on distances over 3-4 metres and it could only kill the smallest of birds and maybe mice. But for a first try, it’s fair enough.