Primitive Technology

by David Wescott

  It is interesting to note that the shape of the haft element of the handle dictates the shape of the haft area of the blade. The blade has to fit! The handle is more time consuming to produce and blades are easily and quickly made by an experienced knapper. This presents the knapper with a set of constants to achieve in the finished form. In this case those constants are piano convex cross section and width of the haft area. That leaves the cutting part of the blade the only portion open for variability. Perhaps similar experiments could lend insight into projectile point and knife hafting elements in relation to function.

  The rawhide was obtained from a large doggy chew toy. Just soak it in water until it unravels and cut into strips. They can be purchased for as little as one dollar or a strip of innertube might do the job.

  Using a stone adze to rough-shape a bow stave.

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  Section 4

  Fibers

  Holding The World Together

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  Gathering and Preparing Plant Fibers

  By David Wescott

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  Fibers are manufactured by plants to aid in stability, protect vulnerable plant parts such as the vascular bundles (the circulatory system), and aid in the dispersal of seeds, and possibly deter herbivores. The primary cell wall of plants is a layer of cellulose chains* which mat together to form a semi-rigid structure. As the cell is actively growing, longitudinally up the stem, the microfibers tend to be stretched and laid down predominantly along or slightly off the axis growth. In plant cells that produce secondary cell walls, such as fiber cells, new layers of cellulose are laid down with the microfibers lying in different angles to the last layer deposited. These alternating layers can number up to seven. This "cross helix" orientation of microfibers, added onto the strength of the microfibers themselves and the cellulose chains, gives fiber cells great mechanical strength. The fiber cells of flax are about 30 microns in diameter, and up to 30mm in length: a length to width ratio of 1000:1. (Mathewson, 1985)

  According to Kroeber, material culture follows traditional paths thus making patterns of change or experimentation slow. In order to avoid this problem, here are some suggestions for stimulating experimentation.

  1. No plant list or description is complete until you have experimented with it yourself. Try all new sources of fiber. Any strong, flexible plant fiber makes good cordage. Do not get stuck on lists. Try anything. If it has the right properties to do the job of a fiber, it's a fiber!

  2. Try new ideas for fiber rendering until you have mastered them. Take someone else's discoveries as only a springboard to advance your own.

  3. The only time to ignore #1 is when you are recreating an artifact and exactness applies. Know the bio-regional demands of the people who created the artifact and do enough research to match all materials.

  4. Learn some simple tests to aid in your exploration.

  A favorite quote of those who teach cordage making is from Margaret Wheat's Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes. Speaking of those who practiced the traditional lifeways she said "they literally tied their world together." When you begin to count up the variety of ways that fiber materials were used, it's easy to see how true this statement is.

  When novices learn the techniques of rendering plant fibers into useful tools, the experience is, like fire making, almost magical. One can reach out and grab a fiber bearing plant and then twist into cordage without doing anything other than working it to a flexible state. The product is improved by making the cord thicker or refining the fibers further into a tighter twist.

  Learning the basics of fiber collecting, preparation and processing liberates the outdoor traveler by compensating for any need for "attachers"...string, thread, even rope.

  Where To Find Fibers

  Thousands of years before the domestication of cotton or flax, native people were already gathering and spinning plant fibers. Over 1000 species of plants in North America have served as fiber sources (Buchanan, 1985). Due to lack of commercial value, many common and valuable sources of fiber have been overlooked by modern opportunists. The ability to recognize, harvest, and utilize plant fibers from their most simple form should be important to all interested in primitive technology.

  Fibers come from a number of sources, but 5 types are the most common:

  leaf fibers - hard fibers surrounded by fleshy structure,

  bast fibers - soft vascular fibers located between outer bark and woody stem.

  root fibers - underground fibers.

  bark fibers - both wet inner bark and dry outer layer.

  whole plant - including shoots, stems, roots and vines.

  Seed fibers are also common but are far too small to be of use for making cordage. Bast fibers on the other hand are the most common fiber source dealt with in articles about cordage making. Bast fibers from woody plants (the phloem or inner bark) are also common.

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  Testing Fibers For Use

  * Tie a knot in the plant/fiber to check for flexibility.

  * The Flexibility Twist Test - spin a bundle of fibers clockwise at each end while the ends are grasped between the fingers. Pull slightly on the ends to provide tension on the bundle while twisting. Twist until a kink is formed (Kochanski, 1987).

  * Remember that all fibers have their own idiosyncrasies. Some are weakened when wet while others bind tighter and become more flexible with moisture. (Mears, 1990) Try all samples both wet and dry.

  * Try small and large bundles of fibers.

  * Check the minimum bend result before fibers kink or break.

  Check fibers for length. Test by gently pounding on bast fibers until they can be separated, or peel a sample of inner bark or leaf fiber to see length and flexibility.

  * Test for strength and durability by twisting a sample length of cordage and pull until it breaks or you give up. More twists per inch in a length of cordage increases strength and stiffness (Kochanski, 1987). But remember, it is possible to over twist some fibers and actually lessen their tensile strength.

  Some Plant Fiber Sources

  Dry outer bark: bulrush, cattail, willow, clematis, sage, cliffrose.

  Wet inner bark: basswood, aspen, cottonwood, juniper, sage, willow, saskatoon, cedar, walnut, cherry, aspen, ash, box elder, hawthorn, cliffrose, mesquite, slippery elm, big tooth maple.

  Bast fibers: dogbane, milkweed, nettle, evening primrose, fireweed, thistle, flax, hemp, velvet leaf.

  Leaves: yucca, reed grass, cattail, agave, iris, sotol, palmetto.

  Roots: spruce (conifers), poplar, dune roots, lupine.

  Shoots: ash, birch, willow, oak, grape, clematis, squaw bush.

  Seeds: cattail, cottonwood, fireweed, milkweed.

  Whole plant: rush, grass, cattail, sedge.

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  Know When To Gather

  Many people are of the opinion that useful ropes cannot be made from fibers close at hand, but they are wrong. Native people who are often referred to as primitive were able to manufacture cordage from grasses, plant fibers, and hair which were strong enough to capture elephants, to harpoon whales, to climb cliffs, and build bridges (Mears, 1990). Other uses include trap triggers, bowstrings, fire cords, fish line, snares, shelter lashings, snares, pack ties. Plant fiber was also used extensively where stronger sinew fibers would rot.

  Fiber quality is determined by condition of plant, time and method of harvest. Most bast fibers are best obtained at the end of the growing season and prior to winter. Nettle, for example, begins to degrade almost as soon as it dies so it is best gathered green as is flax (This does not work in some areas. Air must be allowed to dry the stalks so they don't mold and rot). Dry or slightly green stalks can be bundled and stored until needed. Leaf fibers such as yucca can be gathered green or dry. I prefer to gather them green and pound them lightly so that fibers are separated from the tissue. They are then set aside to dry for storage. When they are to be used they can be soaked more rapidly than if they were gathered dry
or if they were left intact.

  Inner barks and shoots are easier to gather and are more flexible in the early spring as the sap begins to rise and prior to wood production. Both are best used while they are green and damp and allowed to dry in place. Some shoots and branches such as sumac (Rhus trilobata) can be used all year by simply heating the woody branch over hot coals until the bark begins to slip. Any grasses that resist crumbling when worked may be used. If they are dampened before twisting they are more manageable. Grass is at its best soon after death. Cattail leaves are best in fall and early winter. The flowering spring shoot may be split and twisted as is.

  How To Obtain Fiber From Plants

  I can still remember, after hours of work to make a 6" piece of string, the amazement and new appreciation I felt as I looked at a picture of a dogbane rabbit net that had recently been unearthed at a local dig. It was 4' high and 140' long.

  Fibers can be extracted from plants mechanically or via the retting (rotting) process (see Gibby article on flax). Most extraction is fairly obvious....use as is....break, scutch or hackle.....soak and split.....split green and use......ret.

  However, when it comes to removing the soft bast fibers from their woody stalk a simple understanding of this specialized technique is in order.

  Step #1 Lightly scrape the stalk with a knife held perpendicular to the stalk. You are trying to remove the papery outer sheath without damaging the bast fiber itself. If the surface begins to "fuzz-up" you are into the soft fiber bundles. Step #2 Buff the stalk over a smooth green limb or your pant leg to remove the remaining outer bark. This also aligns any fibers separated by the scraping.

  Step #3 Crack the woody stalk with a dull rock or between the fingers. Do not pound so hard as to cut the fibers with the broken woody core. Simply crack the stalk in half or in quarters lengthwise to expose the inner material.

  Step #4 With the bast fibers against the skin, bend the stalk over the fingers until the woody core cracks inward (toward you and away from your finger and the fibers). Do this for the length of the stalk about every inch or two.

  Step #5 Gently peel the short pieces of woody material away from the remaining fibers and discard. To do this, work the wood at both ends until it releases without taking fiber strands with it.

  Step #6 Roll the fiber bundles between your palms or palm and thigh to align the fibers and remove any remaining outer bark. If large pieces of bark remain, work them between the fingers until they are removed. Chunks of garbage left in the fibers looks bad and will also weaken the cordage you worked so hard to produce.

  Step #7 Roll the fiber bundles into coils and store for future use.

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  REFERENCES

  Kochanski, Mors

  1987 NORTHERN BUSH CRAFT.

  Mears, Raymond

  1990 THE SURVIVAL HANDBOOK: A Practical Guide to Woodcraft and Woodlore.

  Buchanan, Rits

  1985 Using The Fibers Of Native Plants. SPIN-OFF, Vol. IX, No 5, Winter

  Mathewson, Maragret

  1985 THREADS OF LIFE: Cordage and Other Fibers Of The California Tribes, Senior Thesis, Univ of Calif.

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  REDISCOVERING FLAX

  BY EVARD GIBBY

  When I was a young boy my father gave me the bow that he had used as a Boy Scout. The bow didn't have a string anymore, so instead of buying one, Dad took me to town and we purchased a roll of flax shoemaker's thread and some beeswax. He explained that flax was the best material he knew of to make bow strings. He then taught me how to make one from these materials

  Back then I didn't know what flax was or where It came from. I still knew little more than that until recently, when certain events prompted me to do some research. In early 1986, I watched Larry Olsen demonstrate the technique of making primitive reed arrows. While working on the arrows, I began thinking about making a primitive bow. It was then that the flax bowstring making technique came back to mind. I decided I had to find what flax was and if it could be obtained and used under primitive conditions. Olsen's Outdoor Survival Skills did not mention the use of flax for cordage, nor did other survival literature that I checked. Then checking in the encyclopedia, I discovered that flax is a plant with blue flowers and stems containing strong fibers. These fibers can be spun into thread and woven into linen cloth. I also learned that several species of flax grow in the United States. During my research I was happy to discover a flax plant growing in my own yard in a patch of wildflowers that my wife had planted. To her dismay I chopped out part of it and began to experiment with it.

  During a field trip with Olsen and others a plant was found with blue flowers like the flax in my yard. It had to be flax! Larry, interested in this new plant encouraged some experimentation with it. I then Picked a few plants and soon had a short length of cordage twisted from the fibrous skin.

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  Linum lewisii

  Flax belongs to the Linaceae family. It is an annual or perennial herb having simple alternate leaves, five stamens, five sepals, and five petals that are usually blue or yellow and soon fall off the plant. The ovary is superior and the capsule is ten loculed and 10 seeded. Local plants (Great Basin) have several stems arising from the base, sometimes branched, that are a foot or more in height. There are over 200 species of flax in the world with about six species in the Utah-Idaho area alone. The most common flax found in this area is Linum lewisii. This is one of the most common and widespread native species and was discovered and named by Captain Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It has attractive blue flowers.

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  Larry's questions prompted further research. "Is this a native plant?" he asked, and if so, "Did the Indians use it for cordage material?" I found the answer to be yes to both questions.

  Several authors confirm that flax is native to America and Indians used it for cordage. Also according to Jim Woods of the Herrett Museum in Twin Falls, ID, flax and linen have been found in some pre-columbian American archeological sites.

  Flax fibers are among the strongest natural fibers known, and the plant is one of the first useful fiber species known by man. Many stone-age people used flax to make cordage and linen cloth. The flax plant could have been cultivated as early as 7,000 BC in Syria and Turkey. Egyptian mummies were wrapped in linen cloth.

  Flax is processed commercially by retting (rotting) the plants in water, drying them, and then mechanically crushing, beating, and combing them to separate the fibers. The fibers are then spun into thread. From this information and experimentation, I developed two methods to separate the fibers from the plant via simpler means.

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  Preparing Flax Fibers

  The first method is best suited for immediate production of small quantities of cordage. Strip the leaves from the green stem. With a knife blade or stone flake, start scraping at one end of the stem, removing the fibrous skin from the woody core. Hold the knife perpendicular to the stem, scrape with short strokes, and allow the fibers to form a ball or "cocoon" in front of the blade as you proceed (Figures 1 & 2). An easy method is to place the stem on your knee and rotate it back and forth as you scrape to remove all the fibers. When the cocoon is about 1/2 inch from the end of the stem, carefully pull the free end to unravel and remove the yarn-like fibrous mass from the stem (Figure 3).

  The second method involves the retting process. Submerge bundles of flax in water and allow them to ret from several days up to about two weeks. The fibrous skin can then be easily peeled off the still wet stems by hand. Once removed, the fibers can be twisted into cordage either wet or dry, but twisting fibers while slightly damp seems to work best. The strongest fibers are obtained when the plant reaches the seed stage, but fibers can be used any time after the plant blossoms.

  Future projects will be to compare fiber quality, quantity, and workability for cordage from various species. None of the references I researched gave any indication of variations among the different sp
ecies. For more information on cordage, see other articles in this issue, or Outdoor Survival Skills by Larry Olsen.

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  AGAVE FIBERS

  On recent visit to remote villages of southern Mexico and Guatemala, BOSS staff Carrie Wilson and Michael Ryan were fortunate to see a number of skills with ancient tradition still in use today. One village in particular was completely dependent upon an industry based upon the fibers obtained from giant Agave plants grown on the steep hillsides surrounding their homes. Photos of the plants show how plants from 6-12' high were cultivated on the high coastal steppe.

  Each day, the entire village (men, women, and children) was busy harvesting, preparing, and weaving the fibers. The huge green spikes are brought to a rendering location where they are pounded with a dull wooden mallet to separate the fibers from the fleshy part of the leaf. Once the fibers are exposed they are left to dry.

  Finished fibers are resoaked and used by the villagers to produce rope, bags, tumplines or other serviceable items. Being so remote, most items are for utility rather than the tourist trade. The streets are filled with teams of workers producing rope with "Pomo rope twisters", a simple mechanized method of rope production from long fibers. Other workers were involved in dying and weaving fibers into bags and tumplines examples of which were brought back to use on the trail. Tumps are a vital part of village life and used to carry huge loads of wood or other products