WITH YOUR TOMAHAWK IN THE WOODS

Articles In This Section:

· WITH YOUR TOMAHAWK IN THE WOODS

· THE TOTEM POLE

· THE BOOMERANG - Part 1

· THE BOOMERANG - Part 2

· MAKING A BOW AND ARROW - Part 1

· MAKING A BOW AND ARROW - Part 2

· TRICKS WITH A LASSO - Part 1

· TRICKS WITH A LASSO - Part 2

· TRICKS WITH A LASSO - Part 3

There are many constructive things you can do with your Bowie knife or pocket knife. 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.

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.

Use a protective block

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.