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Chapter 8. With Knife, Bow and Lasso

With Your Tomahawk in the Woods | The Totem Pole | The Boomerang | Making a Bow and Arrow | Tricks with a Lasso

WITH YOUR TOMAHAWK IN THE WOODS

There are many constructive things you can do with your Bowie knife or pocketknife. There are just as many things you should never do with it. If you want to practice knife throwing, make a target of a softwood board propped against a wall. Anyone who uses a living tree as a target is simply destructive and proves that he has less intelligence than a field mouse. It is just as thoughtless to carve a totem pole in a smooth oak trunk or to use the bark as a buffalo hide and leave initials as a memorial.

There is completely different work in the woods for your knife, and using it can become an art. For carving, gather fallen branches which already have the general outlines of the objects you want to make. Here are a few such objects.

Upper row, from left to right: different clothes hooks, tent peg
Lower row: cane handle, flower planter, candleholders

There is nothing more demanding than the art of making little root figures. Search for suitable pieces among gnarled roots, bits of fallen limbs and branches, driftwood from streams and beaches and so on. In this case "suitable" means that the pieces naturally have the shape of some figure or some fabulous sort of animal. Your imagination is more important here than your ability to work with the knife. Select the pieces of wood so that you have as little to add or fix up as possible. Perhaps you will have to remove a knob or a growth, or carefully add a limb that nature forgot.

1. Natural state
2. Into the water
3. Bend
4. Tie up with cords
5. Fasten the candle-holders with wire

The results of such work are really totem figures and are very desirable today as room decorations. With such fabulous figures as these, you can transform your hut in the woods or your room into a medieval witch's kitchen or a medicine man's tepee.

Keep in mind that too much work with the knife ruins the figure. There is a completely natural way of giving one or more branches the form you want. Tie the wood into the desired form with cords. Then lay the figure under water for a day, and afterward let it dry in the sun. Remove the cords, and the shape you want will remain.

THE TOTEM POLE

Carving a totem pole is a splendid thing to do. Ask a forest ranger or the owner of the property on which a tree was felled for the fallen trunk. Then, start to work with your ax and knife, and later with your paintbrush. With careful work and imaginative planning, you should be able to make a totem pole similar to those the Indians made.

Since many of the Indians' totems represented their guardian spirits, each figure had a specific meaning. Some intricately carved figures on the totem poles represented tribal laws, customs, and usages covering kinship, marriage, property and descent. If your totem pole is to be authentic, see that the figures you carve have some personal meaning to you.

If you travelled through Alaska today, you would see totem poles rising in the midst of Indian villages. Many tower as high as 30 to 50 feet and are 3 or 4 feet thick. Usually they stand in front of the owner's house, but they often also serve as cornerposts of the huts themselves. Powerful forms of animals and humans are artfully carved into the wood and painted with rich colors. The Indians prepare these paints themselves according to traditional recipes of ashes, burned colored shells, mosses, and various stones mixed with plant and animal fats.

Hilunga or Tatooch, the thunderbird. He is the powerful creator and ruler of all the elements and spirits. We recognize the beating of his wings and sparkling of his eyes as thunder and lightning.

In British Columbia there are also totem figures standing today which have not changed their forms or meanings for hundreds of years. Some of them are illustrated here.

Eh-Halie, the whale, the personification of evil powers.

Yelth or Hooyah, the raven. He gave the Indians light, fire and water. He could assume the form of a human or an animal according to his desires.

Kwel-Kwel, the owl . He endowed the medicine men with their secret powers.

Chak-Chak, the eagle, a symbol of great wisdom.
Chet-Woot, the bear, a symbol of great strength and noble spirit

THE BOOMERANG

The boomerang is a throwing weapon which the Australian aborigines and other primitive peoples even today continue to use in war and for hunting birds. Boomerang throwing is a very interesting sport, and you can make your own boomerang very easily, but of course you won't use it to kill birds. Even though it isn't difficult, you must work with care and exactness, for a bungled boomerang will not fly any better than a piece of firewood. Make your boomerang of oak or birch according to the dimensions given in the following illustrations.

a-d: Various boomerangs from a museum. Boomerang a. is also shown from the side and in cross section. *

The short end of the boomerang stands up about 1 inch when the long end is lying flat on the table.

Top view and cross-section of a homemade boomerang.

The length of the arms is in a ratio of 4:5. However, the long arm has to be exactly as heavy as the short one, so it must be somewhat thinner. The bend near the middle forms an angle of about 140 degrees.

It is especially important that the fibers of the wood have the same angle as the bend. If you saw or carve the boomerang out of a piece of wood in which the grain is perfectly straight, it will break when it hits.

Probably the most essential part of construction is giving the boomerang an angle to the wind. When the long arm is lying flat on the table, the short end should stand about 1 inch away from the table top.

To throw the boomerang, hold one end (it does not matter which one), and then fling it out straight or at an upward angle. It can take several different possible paths of flight. For example, if it is thrown against the wind, it might sail along flat for a while, suddenly rise as high as a house, and then finally return to the starting point. If it is thrown with the wind, it will not return.

Never throw your boomerang from the midst of a group of your friends, nor when there are people standing anywhere near the spot where it may return.

You can make a small model boomerang out of a piece of cardboard and observe its path of flight. In this case it is important to make one arm a little wider and shorter than the other and to twist it at a slight angle to the long arm. To throw a paper model, lay it on the edge of a book, and flick a pencil sharply against the extending arm. It will shoot up, turn rapidly and then approach the starting point in a large curve.

MAKING A BOW AND ARROW

Archery , a popular sport today, has been practiced by man for thousands of years. First used in the deadly pursuit of animals for food, the bow and arrow now provides fun and recreation.

The Indians used yew wood for their bows. Hickory, lemon-wood or ash will serve equally well for making a bow.
 
The Bow Get a staff that is as tough and as evenly grown as possible. Its dimensions should be about 5 to 6 feet long, depending on the length of your arm span, fingertip to fingertip, and about 1^- to 11/2 inches thick. The side opposite the bowstring should be sanded smooth, and the thickness should taper off toward both ends. However, the thickest point should not be in the middle (M in illustration), but about half the width of your hand below it. Although you will set the arrow at the exact center of the bow, you hold the bow at the thickest spot. When you are shooting, the lower limb of the bow will be longer than the upper limb.

At the ends of both upper and lower limbs are the nocks— notches in the wood that hold the bowstring. Make the nocks on the side opposite the bowstring and plane them slightly flat. (See the center cross section.) Now take a cord that is solid but not too thick, fasten it with a slipknot in one notch, and bend the bow to get the correct distance between the bow and bowstring. Then measure off on the other end of the cord where you have to make the spanning loop. When the loop is finished, you can hook up the bowstring. To complete the bow, wind the handgrip and the ends with cord. The Bowstring

For your bowstring, use unbleached linen thread.

Get three pieces of No. 12 Irish linen thread, wax each piece with beeswax, and braid the three together. Then twist the braided string and wax it again. The Arrows

The length of your arrows can vary from 22 to 30 inches. The longer your bow, the longer your arrows should be. They should not be thicker than -5/16 of an inch. Hardwood is preferred, but you can use a very tough softwood if necessary. To be sure that they will fly well, stabilize your arrows with feathers. Aiming

An arrow does not travel in a straight line for more than a very short distance. As it loses speed, it starts to fall in a slow curve. You must aim so that the arrow's path of flight, or trajectory, brings it to the target.

Aim as shown in the illustration.

You can make a target from moist earth or weave one with braided straw. Whenever you are shooting, be sure no one is standing between you and the target, or even in the area in which the arrow can go astray.

If you take care of your bow and arrows, protecting them from moisture, they will last a long time.

TRICKS WITH A LASSO

In the movies you've often seen cowboys lasso steers and wild horses. Their lassos have a loop at one end. The South American gauchos use a bola, a thong or cord, which has balls of stone or iron attached to one end instead of a loop.

Handling a lasso correctly is a lot of fun. To make one, first get a rope about 3/8 of an inch thick and 25 feet long. Make an eyelet or noose at one end. This loop should not have a diameter of more than 11/2 inches. Fasten the loop with wire. To reinforce the loop itself, use either leather or another piece of wire. Examples of nooses are shown in Fig. 1.

The Basic Position

At the beginning, practice in a level, not too grassy clearing. Hold the lasso in the basic position, as shown in Fig. 2, using the first two fingers of both hands to grasp the circle you have made. The palm of your left hand should face your body, while the palm of your right hand faces outward. Hold your hands about 24 inches apart.

Right hand	Left hand

1. Loose end of rope
2. Part forming the loop

With a quick swing, throw the sling into a horizontal position, as in Fig. 3, and then start the circling, as shown in Fig. 4. The Top

Fig. 4 is called the top. When you twirl the end of the rope, the loop should turn in a full circle. Be sure to turn the rope in a counterclockwise direction. Start the circling by moving your hand a few times in a circle, which corresponds, to that of the loop. Then, reduce the circling of your hand as much as possible to allow you to turn the rope that much faster. The Hoop

Another figure, the hoop, is shown in Figs. 6 and 7. Lay the loop out on the ground in a circle with a diameter of about 5 feet. Now start to turn, changing the rope from one hand to the other in front of you and behind you. You have to practice changing hands this way, but it is not too difficult to get the loop circling easily and regularly. This switching of hands results in the loop encircling you. When you are in the center and the loop is going around fast enough, suddenly raise the hand holding the rope and bring it above your head. Using only this hand, turn the rope faster than before. While the loop is swinging around, you will be able to bend down, kneel, and get into various other positions.

Jumping into the Lasso

Here's a lasso stunt that calls for some practice. Make the top as in Fig. 4, forming a large loop. Then jump into the loop (Fig. 5) and at the same time bring your hand with the rope over your head.

The Standing Hoop

Once you have formed the top, you can gradually go into the standing hoop, shown in Fig. 7. A clever artist with the lasso can turn this into a rolling ring by letting the loop graze the ground and roll along. You have to walk along beside the ring to keep it in motion.

Throwing the Lasso

When you have become proficient with your lasso, you can begin to throw it. For this purpose you need a long rope. Hold the loop in your hand, leaving the long end of the rope neatly coiled at your feet so that it can uncoil without difficulty when you throw it. Put one foot on the loose end. Then throw the loop at the target the way you would throw a life preserver. (A good practice target is a heavy tree limb, about 9 to 12 feet high and without any branches.) After the throw, let the rope run lightly through your hand so that as soon as the loop is around the target you can pull it tight.

Up and at 'em, Buffalo Bill.

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