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Becky and I do a lot of presentations the past few years. One of the first things we say is if you have the idea that early Americans were starving savages to get that idea out of your head. They were quite the opposite… making use of everything at their disposal in creative and innovative ways. Many view what the archeologists find and get the mindset that that’s all there was or that’s the only way it was done.
With that in mind, we try to show examples of tools made of wood, bone, antler and various plant fibers. We call them all “tools” avoiding the term “weapon” altogether. A weapon is one specialized tool rarely used. We refer to knives, spears and bows/arrows as hunting tools.
Anyhow, I had a bunch of tools made from deer leg bones but last summer I gifted them all to Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum for them to use in their interpretive tours. This winter I made more bone tools to replace those. Some are pictured below.
The first are basically paring knives. Bone knives are very sharp but soft so they are great for cutting, dicing, slicing almost any types of vegetables and meat. They won’t cut through hides or cut down trees.
The 2nd pic: bone is a scraper. It will cut/push the meat and membrane off a hide without danger of accidentally cutting hide.
The 3rd picture is “Heart Stopper” It is a warrior’s knife designed to go between the bones of a breastplate and between or under ribs to reach your enemy’s heart.
4th is fish hooks, needles and an atlatl bone point.
Here is a heavy duty and a light duty awl made from sharpened deer antler.
The next picture is the “hook” that fits the notch in an atlatl shaft. This bone hook will be fitted to the back end of the atlatl throwing stick.
The last picture is a fork or skewer and a small scraper or rounded end knife. It is sharp on the end but sometimes you don’t need a point. btw… the skewer started out being a knife but the blade had a split so removing more material from either side of the split made it a skewer rather than a useless blade. All of these bone tools can be made by hand just using a coarse-grained rock as “sandpaper”
Dreaminghawk;37824 wrote: Becky and I do a lot of presentations the past few years. One of the first things we say is if you have the idea that early Americans were starving savages to get that idea out of your head. They were quite the opposite… making use of everything at their disposal in creative and innovative ways. Many view what the archeologists find and get the mindset that that’s all there was or that’s the only way it was done.
With that in mind, we try to show examples of tools made of wood, bone, antler and various plant fibers. We call them all “tools” avoiding the term “weapon” altogether. A weapon is one specialized tool rarely used. We refer to knives, spears and bows/arrows as hunting tools.
Anyhow, I had a bunch of tools made from deer leg bones but last summer I gifted them all to Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum for them to use in their interpretive tours. This winter I made more bone tools to replace those. Some are pictured below.
The first are basically paring knives. Bone knives are very sharp but soft so they are great for cutting, dicing, slicing almost any types of vegetables and meat. They won’t cut through hides or cut down trees.
The 2nd pic: bone is a scraper. It will cut/push the meat and membrane off a hide without danger of accidentally cutting hide.
The 3rd picture is “Heart Stopper” It is a warrior’s knife designed to go between the bones of a breastplate and between or under ribs to reach your enemy’s heart.
4th is fish hooks, needles and an atlatl bone point.
that is cool stuff , John at saponi made me a beautiful deer rib knife..( thanks JOHN) .. I wanted to let you know that natives even did almost these same tools in even rock.. I was so shocked to see knives that looked almost like knives we have today only one piece of rock. now that is amazing .
people ca google Rick and ‘Levallois in the usa’ and he has a web site and can bring so many pictures of fancy tools that the old people made, very cool stuff to learn hiding there !
When we talk about stone tools I will often tell people to think of them more as glass than stone in terms of sharpness. Obsidian is still used in the finest scalpels because they are sharper than you can make metal, even razor blades.
All of these tools would be used for specific functions although some of these blades could be used by various trades or crafts for differing functions. The blades were knapped by Deerman of Elkin, NC. His widow gifted them to me after his passing. The rest of the work is mine.
1. Multitool….sort of a paleo Swiss Army Knife. It has 3 cutting surfaces and can be held overhand or underhand for slicing, chopping, etc. Use your imagination.
2. Offset handle… for when a straight cutter won’t work well.
3. Obsidian scalpel for fine work needing a gentle touch done with finese.
4. Short handle general purpose
5. This blade and handle are identical to the one carried by the “Ice Man” discovered in Alps glacier, although his sheath was made of reeds.
Both of these knives were made by Deerman and the sheaths were made by Lady Hawk.
The first knife was Deerman’s personal knife, gifted to me by Lady Hawk after Deerman’s passing.
The second picture is the knife commisioned by Becky for me and one of the last pieces that Deerman completed.
Fantastic work! Thanks for sharing. I love it.
In many ways what people consider primitive is so much more advanced than
many people give credit for. Nothing wasted, and nothing wastes. Nothing natural
will harm the world in that it goes back into creation unlike many synthetic or
plastics and such the stay long and pollute, creating damage to the environment.
In that way, the way of the ancients was much wiser. Its a shame that respect
and wisdom was lost in a great sence to mankinds own detriment.
Very nice! Since Ive done brain tanning, I know all too well about the scraping involved and what you have there looks good! Very well done indeed. Do you ever use your own creations?
~suthainn
See the regalia thread for more of my creations. I wear a total of 7 whitetail deer hides. I’ve been dancing that buckskin for over 5 years with no signs of wearing out. With the exception of a few items that I was gifted, all of my regalia is my creation. Love my buckskin;-)
Do you wet-scrape or dry-scrape?
I soak the hide for up to 3 days, (depending how hard it will be for hair removal), tie to the frame wet, then scrape til dry. I try to get it all clean and ready in one go, if not, I take down to soak (or use the hose 🙂 ) and scrape again. Once ready, use a flat board to wring the hide in the same motion I scrapped then once damp, I rub in the brain paste with a round fist sized stone and the scrape until the fibers are beginning to soften and fluff. Depending on the size of the hide, I may rub it on a rope or just keep using my scraper to the desired feel and look. I have also used lard instead of brains and it too worked well, but not as soft as brain tanning, but is pretty water proof. I’ve never smoked a hide yet though…
~suthainn
I will be trying dry scraping in a couple weeks
Our procedures are entirely different. Here in southeast it is very difficult to work on a frame because of the high humidity.
I do all my scraping, fleshing, graining on a waist beam. Soak hide in brain solution, wring, stretch, soften and dry by hand.
Since I collect heads and feet with the hides that hunters give me, I have had plenty of deer brains to use on all my buckskin. Some of my deerhides become rawhide for my hand drum maker. I also have a dedicated freezer for my body parts >;-)
oh I wish we could tan hides together so I could learn from you! Sounds great!
You should make a video!
~suthainn
I’ll post some pictures of my setup next week….. getting ready to drive 4 hours tomorrow to join some friends doing a Native American cultural presentation/ dance demo at a street festival/fair in SC all day Sat. Then we’ll drive back home on Sunday… leave our stuff packed for a Monday evening presentation for about 60 cub scouts/leaders/parents in Hillsborough, NC.
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