Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Flintknapping => Topic started by: AncientTech on August 11, 2015, 09:44:17 am
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"The Duci'ne originated from a boy of evil disposition who killed people. His mother was an Indian woman, and his father unknown. When just a tiny boy, he made arrows. As he grew up, he made the arrows larger and put stone heads on them. He shot first at marks, and then at small animals, such as mice. Later he shot larger animals, and finally a dog. His mother thrashed him for this. After this he made stronger arrows. One day he was playing a shooting-game with other boys, and shot one of them.
The people were angry, and blamed the mother for not correcting him and for allowing him to behave badly. The boy ran away, and his mother followed him. She held out her breasts to him, and entreated him to come back, saying, "Come, here are your breasts! " He shot her through the breasts. He became completely wild now, and never returned to the people.
He went to the mountains where obsidian is abundant, and made many arrow-heads. Whenever he made one which did not suit him, he threw it away. He spent all his spare time making arrow and spear heads. All the unfinished arrow and spear heads found here and
there scattered over the country were made by him. They are the "heads" he discarded in his travels around the country and when hunting. He used no flakers of any kind. He flaked the arrow-heads with the palms of his hands, which were of bone."
(THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLK-LORE, VOL. 34.--OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1921.--No. 134. 'TAHLTAN TALES.' BY JAMES A. TEIT.)
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Where are the pictures? :D
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nc, you took the bait. ::) :'(
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nc, you took the bait. ::) :'(
"Took the bait"? Can I have an interpreter, please?
The story is a myth, from the Northwest. It is from the Tahltan tribe. The Tahltan mined obsidian from Mount Edziza. The story explains how the Tahltan viewed flintknapping - or the products of flintknapping - to some degree.
https://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/exhibits/journeys/english/mountain_1_4a.php (https://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/exhibits/journeys/english/mountain_1_4a.php)
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"He flaked the arrow-heads with the palms of his hands, which were of bone."
That's the point, more evidence for Ben theory that we are all doing it wrong.
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Please pass the pipe and popcorn
Zuma
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LOL! It is a myth, people. It is not meant to be an instructional on how to use skeletal hands to chip stone. It is also not an instructional on how to shoot other people's dogs. It is a myth that explains the presence of flintknapping products found around Mt. Edziza. Duci'ne is a mythical character. Also, the myth shows how "primitive archery" was viewed by the Tahltan tribe, even during the early 1900's, when the myth was recorded by Teit. LOL!!
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Why do you need a myth to explain fact? Come on Ben your motives are as clear as glass.
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I have been learning TCM (acupuncture) for a really long time and one thing that I have learned is that these stories are true but just not in modern language or perhaps I should say thought. It is a tongue of the heart and stomach not of math.
IMOHO!! It means this:
"The Duci'ne originated from a boy of evil disposition who killed people. His mother was an Indian woman, and his father unknown. When just a tiny boy, he made arrows. As he grew up, he made the arrows larger and put stone heads on them. He shot first at marks, and then at small animals, such as mice. Later he shot larger animals, and finally a dog. His mother thrashed him for this. After this he made stronger arrows. One day he was playing a shooting-game with other boys, and shot one of them.
As boys grow up they don't understand weapons and shoot the wrong things as they play. They also become macho and what to use weapons on someone just because they are bad ass. I remember to this day the time I shot a small song bird with my wrist rocked. Before for that I had never hit what I was shooting at. After that I NEVER shot at anything I did not need to eat! Even then, I still feel quite bad for the life I have taken and honor the spirit as best I can. I feel this even for plants but not as strongly.
I was a MA teacher and young and have to admit putting myself in places I should not have been to see if my stuff worked as well as I thought (knew) it would or just because I wanted to try it out or some thoughts equally stupid, young and dangerous. We are talking walking downtown Atlanta at night on the side streets in the late 80s. I was lucky; I live.
Warning strong language:
My marine roommate used to call it young, dumb and full of cum. I hope that is not to far into the R ratings for this board but that is how marines often talk.
Safe now.
The people were angry, and blamed the mother for not correcting him and for allowing him to behave badly. The boy ran away, and his mother followed him. She held out her breasts to him, and entreated him to come back, saying, "Come, here are your breasts! " He shot her through the breasts. He became completely wild now, and never returned to the people.
He was unlucky and others saw is poor and young stupidity. His mother wanted to forgive him but he could not forgive himself so he ran off. Perhaps this is a warning not to be so stupid because we all go through this sort of thing.
He went to the mountains where obsidian is abundant, and made many arrow-heads. Whenever he made one which did not suit him, he threw it away. He spent all his spare time making arrow and spear heads. All the unfinished arrow and spear heads found here and
there scattered over the country were made by him. They are the "heads" he discarded in his travels around the country and when hunting. He used no flakers of any kind. He flaked the arrow-heads with the palms of his hands, which were of bone."
(THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLK-LORE, VOL. 34.--OCTOBER-DECEMBER, 1921.--No. 134. 'TAHLTAN TALES.' BY JAMES A. TEIT.)
And now that we have your interest because we created sympathy for the main character just as all good stories do at the start we will teach you some very important stuff.
Obsidian is found in the mountains and it makes good arrowheads but it takes lots of practice.
There are arrowheads all over the place (I for one still wonder about this. How often do you find a quarter on the streets? How can it be that we go out and find 12 arrowheads in a day of looking and everyone of them is made in a different way? What is up with this? How can there possibly be so many and so varied??)
He used no flakers of any kind? Is that a modern addition? I don't know this story so I could be making a real fool of myself. :-) I really don't get this line. Perhaps his techniques were so good that he did not need one? Any ideas anyone? what does flaker mean in this context? Is not bone used to flake and rock for the big work?
Flint is best knapped with bone. Would they include antler as bone?
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And Ben has answered more questions in this new "myth" then he has in all of his earlier Post.
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Obsidian is easy to work, maybe he flicked em off with his finger nails.
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Obsidian is easy to work, maybe he flicked em off with his finger nails.
Bi-coastal, no doubt. .
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More popcorn and a keg of Maker's Mark please.
::) :-X >:D O:)
Zuma
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(Duci'ne or Duce'na are a kind of wild people, partly cannibal, of wicked disposition, believed to inhabit the country, especially to the east. They wear clothes, and look like people. They often sing and dance as they go along. They possess great shamanistic power, and, when hunting in the mountains, conceal themselves in a cloud of down, so that people cannot see them. At a distance the down looks to people just like fog. They are said to cat only the ribs of game they kill. They are good hunters and travellers. At the present day the name is used as a common designation for the Cree Indians.)
A man went with his family to trap marmots. He thought Duci'ne people were near. Therefore he told his wife to build the door of their house in the form of a passage, with a recess on one side where a person could hide. He said, "If you see a fog travelling on the mountains on a clear day, you may be sure that it is a Duci'ne man." One clear day after this the man was hunting sheep. He killed one, and brought it home to camp. His wife told him that she had seen the fog that day : so at dusk he asked her to hide with the children in the woods near by, while he would wait in camp. He kept up a large fire, and laid the body of the sheep alongside the fire, and covered it with blankets. About midnight the fire had burned down a little. Then he heard a sound as of some one approaching, and he hid in the recess near the door. Soon a man holding bow and arrows entered, and, seeing what seemed to be a man asleep near the fire, he discharged an arrow into the sheep. At the same moment when he lifted his arms to shoot his bow, the man from the recess shot an arrow into his body below the arm. The Duci'ne ran out, making a noise like a bird flying, and disappeared. The man went out and called on his helper, the snow. Then snow began to fall, and covered the ground. Early in the morning he called his wife and children to camp, and told them he was going after the wounded man. He followed his tracks to a lake, where he came to the Duci'ne in the water, and a loon sucking his wound to heal it. He called on the man to spare him. The man refused, and shot him again; and his body sank in a deep part of the lake. Next morning he saw the Duci'ne afloat again, and the loon sucking his wounds. He shot him again, and this time cut off his head. He put his body in the water at one end of the lake, and his head at the other. The next morning the parts had come together, and the loon was attending to him as before. The man shot him again, and cut his body into small pieces. He carried them around, putting them here and there in different lakes and streams some distance apart. In this way he managed to kill him for good and all.
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Maybe he should have shot the loone.
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Native American people have a long memory of flintknapping traditions, the use of stone tools, etc. In the plains, the practices continued into the early 1800's, but were remembered in the late 1800's, with a few trinket makers around to sell to collectors.
In the west, to the west of the Rockies, the traditions continued into the early 20th century, in some places. In remote parts of the arctic, lithic traditions also continued into the early 20th century.
In Chiapas, and Guatemalan highlands, such traditions have continued up until the present day.
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In Chiapas, and Guatemalan highlands, such traditions have continued up until the present day.
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1: Is there anyone on here from Chiapas or the Guatemalan highlands, that can tell us anything about how they flint nap there?
2: Is finding someone from one of these areas that is into flint napping, the way we will find out the lost ways you hint at AncientTech? Ed
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traditional like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqG4ki4C3C4
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traditional like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqG4ki4C3C4
That's nuts.
Likely 3/8th or maybe 1/2 inch nuts.
Maybe metric beings it is in Mexico.
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In Chiapas, and Guatemalan highlands, such traditions have continued up until the present day.
1: Is there anyone on here from Chiapas or the Guatemalan highlands, that can tell us anything about how they flint nap there?
2: Is finding someone from one of these areas that is into flint napping, the way we will find out the lost ways you hint at AncientTech? Ed
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Hello Ed,
Here are two images showing Lacandon knappers using blade core technology:
(http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv135/benjamineble/mayan%20knapper/Mayan-NAPPER1-copy.jpg) (http://s677.photobucket.com/user/benjamineble/media/mayan%20knapper/Mayan-NAPPER1-copy.jpg.html)
(http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv135/benjamineble/mayan%20knapper/LACANDON%20PALM%20PUNCH%20A.jpg) (http://s677.photobucket.com/user/benjamineble/media/mayan%20knapper/LACANDON%20PALM%20PUNCH%20A.jpg.html)
Here is some footage I believe shot around 1950. The footage was taken after hiking, I believe, nine days into the interior of Chiapas, with burros.
https://youtu.be/CfQUFERvPxI (https://youtu.be/CfQUFERvPxI)
Also, in the fall of 2010, I spoke with a Mexican gemologist, who witnessed the Lacandons carrying out a similar core/blade technology, as seen in the photos, and video. But, he also saw another technology that was used only by the best flintknappers, to make "arrowheads". He described it as an arrowhead dancing on the hand, with the knapper holding a flake between three fingers, and a punch between two fingers. The knapper would flip the flake vertically, and horizontally, while banging the punch over and over again. Apparently, the process reaches fairly high speeds, so that it looks as though the flake is "dancing on the hand'. My gemologist friend, Dante, said that this is probably the most amazing thing he has ever encountered in his life.
It appears that one of the other posters may be attempting to suggest that that steel bolt technique is somehow an authentic technique. The steel bolt technique is a form of direct percussion. The threads of the steel bolt are used to rasp the edge of the stone, which is frequently obsidian. When a platform is formed, the knapper jabs the platform with the head of the steel bolt. If you go to Mexico, and you see obsidian heads lining shops, the heads are probably made in Teotihuacan, with the steel bolt technique. Apparently, the knappers like the way that the threads are so useful in rasping away at the edge, to create a platform. From a practical perspective, it is a "two-in-one" method - percussion/edge rasper.
There was a very early Folsom replicator/forger named Marvin McCormick. He seems to have learned his techniques from his uncle, or great uncle, while a young boy. Apparently, his uncle was a team-driver on the Old Santa Fe trail. And, he had a chance to see Indians making arrowheads, firsthand. Some of McCormick's methodology reflects that. What is odd is that he used a similar technique as seen with the Mexican knappers. He used a rod to jab at the edges of his heat treated bifaces. Also, I believe that a similar technique was seen in Guatemala, though the knappers rested the glass cutting tools on a pad of soft bark.
My view is that this jabbing technique, with steel bolt heads and such, probably works well on brittle materials, such as obsidian. But, it might not work so well on the harder cherts. So, I am not sure whether this is a morphed version of a prehistoric technology, or whether some other technology preceded it.
Anyway, here is McCormick's preform technology, and fluting technology, used in the early 1900's. (Photo credit: Tony Baker's website/photo showing anvil was aligned to show the anvil on his lap, with the leg positioned horizontally)
(http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv135/benjamineble/Marvin%20McCormick/2%20uses%20blunt%20shaped%20object%20with%20jabbing%20motion%20to%20flake%20preform.jpg) (http://s677.photobucket.com/user/benjamineble/media/Marvin%20McCormick/2%20uses%20blunt%20shaped%20object%20with%20jabbing%20motion%20to%20flake%20preform.jpg.html)
(http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv135/benjamineble/Marvin%20McCormick/3%20note%20shape%20of%20flaking%20tool%20it%20is%20cylindrical.jpg) (http://s677.photobucket.com/user/benjamineble/media/Marvin%20McCormick/3%20note%20shape%20of%20flaking%20tool%20it%20is%20cylindrical.jpg.html)
(http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv135/benjamineble/Marvin%20McCormick/6%20seating%20preform%20in%20a%20notch%20in%20a%20hollow%20log%20as%20described%20by%20Cushing.jpg) (http://s677.photobucket.com/user/benjamineble/media/Marvin%20McCormick/6%20seating%20preform%20in%20a%20notch%20in%20a%20hollow%20log%20as%20described%20by%20Cushing.jpg.html)
(http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv135/benjamineble/Marvin%20McCormick/7%20preparing%20to%20jab%20hammertone%20at%20small%20metal%20punch%20led%20wrapping%20corresponds%20to%20leather_1.jpg) (http://s677.photobucket.com/user/benjamineble/media/Marvin%20McCormick/7%20preparing%20to%20jab%20hammertone%20at%20small%20metal%20punch%20led%20wrapping%20corresponds%20to%20leather_1.jpg.html)
(http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv135/benjamineble/Marvin%20McCormick/8%20showing%20successful%20removal%20of%20channel%20flake.jpg) (http://s677.photobucket.com/user/benjamineble/media/Marvin%20McCormick/8%20showing%20successful%20removal%20of%20channel%20flake.jpg.html)
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When referencing the bolt knapping video, i believe the other poster was merely attempting to refute your argument that traditions are carried out for generations and if it was seen by early explorers then it must have been a millennia old tradition and could be extrapolated to extend as far back as even Clovis.
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Ed,
The person who referenced the bolt knapping video is presenting a strawman argument.
For the record, I do not believe that simply because an explorer saw a technique, that proves that the Clovis knappers used the same technique.
At the same time, I do not believe that at the end of the Ice Age, a group of "anti-overshot police" rose up among the paleoindians, and patrolled two continents, while forcing everyone to "stop the practice", or "stop the practicing of overshot technology".
I do not believe that it can be proven that late stage overshot technology "disappeared". Nor do I believe that it can be proven that late stage Clovis overshot is necessarily the signature of a distinctive technology.
In other words, if late stage controlled overshot is not actually the signature of a distinctive technology - or a "standalone technology" - then how could one know whether the practiced disappeared, if only the creation of overshot disappears from the record?
The idea might make a good movie, though,"Red Warriors Stop Overshot Makers On Two Continents, Before Ice Thaws".