Alabamus Indian Survival Skills. Charles David Scott

there were limbs, these limbs would make the removal of the knots they leave behind hard to work around. Make sure that you do not lose the center.

      Next, take your hand, put it around your bow blank, and mark this end on the top of your hand and bottom of your handle. Do not remove the bark from this part of the bow. Now take your bow blank to any flat surface and let it roll to a stop. This will tell you which side to take the wood off to make your bow. What an Indian would say is, take everything off that is not a bow.

      You can make a bow by trimming down what you have now, but the best way is to tie your bow blank to a popular log or a 2 x 4.Tie the bow blank in the center first where your handhold will be and then tie either end. The Indians would have used rawhide, but you can use duct tape.

      Starting where the edge of your handle is, lay your machete flat and pull it to you. Take care to keep it as level as possible.You can also use a drawing knife or sharpened stone and do the same thing.As you take off the wood, try to work on one end and then the other, making sure that you are not taking off too much wood.With wood, you can take it off but you cannot put the wood back on, so take your time.

      When you have what looks like a bow, you will know that you are doing it right.You can sit on the ends of the bow to draw what you are using; make sure it is flat and does not take off too much at one time.You might not know it, but this fits you and the size of your body.When you stood beside the tree and felt for the right diameter this bow became a bow only for you.Just like when you place the arrow shaft from the end of your hand to your nose. This arrow was made for you.

      Remember that you left your bark on the center and when you are finished, it will still be there.Cut the notches in each end of your bow and remember that you are working with green wood. Get you some very strong string and string your bow. The first time you pull it back with the string on it, you will be a new person. You have built something that can keep you alive as long as you have the will to live. The arrow shafts need to be fletched and I always used the wing feathers of crows because they work. If you have an objection to getting the feathers, then use store bought.

      If you are to survive, you may need to know how to make a blowgun and darts. To make these you will have to find a different kind of cane.This cane grows in swamps, between slews, or along creeks.Unlike the hill cane, this cane is very large and very green.This cane will be over an inch in diameter; the larger the better.This cane is the same cane from which the Indians made their baskets.For the cane for the blowgun, you will need to go to the center middle of the patch of cane and chose the largest cane.The Indians called this cane the mother cane.

      Making the blowgun takes a little time, but making the dart takes a longer time. This book is the only place where you can find the method for making darts, except for my book, The Knots of Time, by Charles David Scott, at Amazon.com. In my book, the directions are in context, so the steps are not impossible to follow. This book, however, gives me a way to make sure you need to know how to make them. Like the bow and arrow, it works every time if you follow instructions.

      There are 32 kinds of cane in my state (I am a biologist), and no bamboo will work to do this. Look for cane growing in the wild. I need to put what I am telling you into context.

      My grandfather Moore had killed an eagle with a blowgun.I remember seeing his blowgun and it was made of a copper pipe but his darts were split cedar with a cotton ball glued to the end of the dart.

      I had to find out what the Indians used to make their darts. so I started by going to different types of plants, and different ideas for how they got the dart to work. I tried many things through the years.

      One year at the Indian fair (my job during the fair was to work in the museum) I asked if there was any one that could tell me what their ancestors had used.They said there is an old man from across the river that could tell me if he would.

      When I met him, he was an old man. He said, “Go to the store and get you a small dowel rod and put some cotton balls on the end and sharpen the other end.”The old man smiled as he said this to me.

      I said, “How did your people make them before the store and dowel rods and cotton balls?”

      He said one word, “Cane.”