What Is Primitive REALLY ?

[SLIMBOB]

I just have a love of the outdoors, and hunting.  I love trees and plants, or rather I love knowing the various uses of those plants and their qualities.  I love history, especially 18th and 19th century American history.  Favorite book of all time is Undaunted Courage about the Corp of Discovery and their interaction with the native American people.  How they used natural materials by and large, to cross the continent and back.  Just incredible stuff really.  This is where my interests lie, and it all come together for me here.  Call it primitive or traditional or anything else you wish.  I'm not striving to satisfy anyone else's notion of some particular orthodoxy to adhere to.  I like learning about this stuff, making it and seeing how it works and using it.  I try and keep an open mind towards others interests in this arena, but I hate seeing FG tape on a wood bow.  I'm sorry, it's just wrong.  So I too have my own self-imposed boundaries, beyond which I personally have little interest.  Now, I brain tanned an Axis hide once.  It was very thick and I had trouble getting it completely dry and it kept ending up stiff at the end of every day, so I threw it in the dryer with a pair of sneakers.  Worked perfectly.  You couldn't tell it apart from any other hides we were working on.  The purests among us found this entire idea as nearly heretical.  The hide made a great shirt.

[JackCrafty]

---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Mesoamerica
---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_America

[Oglala Bowyer]

Literal translation is brave buffalo bull trust me. In fact, tatanka means buffalo bull. General reference to buffalo is pte. Brave heart buffalo is a totally different meaning. An example would be a lakota society called cante t'inza meaning strong/brave heart. His name makes no reference to that other than brave buffalo bull. I'm not trying to be argumentative either but being a fluent speaker I would know.

[Traxx]

Yes,
You are absolutely correct,OB.
When i read the post of Brave Buffalo and something posted about heart too.I know its translation,is Brave Bull and then my mind whent to thinking about the Brave heart bull family.Im shure you know them.
My screw up.
Note to self,
Dont think about other things when you are typing something else.

Im sure it irritates you too that since Dances,came out,everybody thinks Tatanka,means "Buffalo"

[JW_Halverson]

I would definitely defer to your translation skills, O.B.

In addition, I also agree that metal tools were used after the onset of trappers trading with the lakota. Perhaps the same with the other tribes as well. Does that make them less primitive?  I don't think so. Maybe more practical.

O.B.'s family likely did not spend any time arguing about the purity of stone over metal, except in the case of particular ceremonies or medicine.  They had a life to live and were in the business of being practical.  We, on the other hand, are doing this for fun.  We have the luxury of taking methods that are slower and more painstaking.  If it was put on a more life and death basis, we'd all be kicking down the doors of the gun shop.  The bow would again be a footnote in the back of the book again.

It actually kinda irks me,when someone uses a internet handle,that is an old family name,and they are NOT of that family.Some people take this whole infatuation with Native people way too far and it becomes Disrespectfull after a while.

You hit that nail right on the head.  I'm most definitely lacking any pigmented ancestry and I get a little saddened when I see this. 

[Marc St Louis]

The fact is that steel only makes the work easier.  Most all the bows made here could be made with stone tools, yes even laminated bows.  It would only take longer with more effort.  It's also a fact that several hundred years ago people had more time on their hands because of simpler living, no modern machines to occupy our time, no rat race.  Wen you have less distractions you have more time to spend on those things that really matter.

[DuBois]

New here, and no, I haven't read this whole thread. Forgive me if I re-cover old ground.

I hear a similar argument in the woodworking community. The one thing that always strikes me is that the development  of tools and the choice of tools is always driven by the need to make a living. When my great-grandfather learned to build houses back in nineteenth-century Germany, I guaran-double-damn-tee you he used the best and most 'modern' tools he had available to him.
Best,
Tom

Good point,
I guess at some point in time humans have passed by wanting to speed up the process of making things to make a living and gone to wanting to slow down the rat race instead. When I was a kid I was tethered by a phone cord and no answering machine was ever used that I knew of. Now it drives me nuts to see all this technology and kids can't live without checking cel messages and emails all day. To my kids I will be primitive. UGGHH UGGH OOGA BOOGA

[Onebowonder]

Well, the way I see it, this is primitive ARCHER... so as long as we're all running round in the nude chasing animals and grunting, then we're pretty much meeting the requirement

... wait, you guys do that too right?

Does my wife count?

...as long as you have a long curved stick in your hand while you are chasing chase her.

OneBow

[WDELongbow]

I will offer the general definition used for folks who play period hickory shafted golf clubs.  It should look, feel, and perform like the equipment of the day/time you are trying to replicate or emerse yourself into. For example, if you use a modern adhesive, to secure the clubhead to the shaft, you can't see it or tell any difference from a true period club of early 1900's (where they did not have modern adhesives).  So most hickory players don't object to modern adhesives to secure the clubhead.  you could not pick up a club and tell the difference.  But if you put a rubber grip on it, it would not look or feel like a club of the period.  It would be noticeably different than period-authentic equipment.  That is where you draw the line in my opinion.  It must look, feel, and perform like the equipment of the day/time you are trying to replicate or emerse yourself into

Archery-wise, for many of us, this would translate to historical times of Native American culture (there are few bow artifacts of pre-contact or even early contact).  So I am fine using a bow made with metal tools - it would look, feel, and perform similar to a period weapon.  The string is where I think many of us cheat our intentions.  It is certainly easier to use modern materials for a string, but to me the bow does not have same feel.  I use strings made of rawhide or gut, as this is truer to the period of interest.  You will lose a little performance, but interestingly, if brace height set-up for this material, you will shoot a bow that is ultra-quiet (or has been my experience).  A natural string is a more difficult path to take for sure.

The sealant is another area where I don't want to compromise.  I use bear grease or pitch varnish.  A good pitch varnish is an incredible sealant; and has a look and feel that is different from modern finishes.  And no doubt these finishes look and feel to the touch (if you shoot a SE American D-bow with no grip) different than modern sealants.

Just my 2 cents.  To me, these details matter.  For others, it may be no big deal.  I am not judging, just expressing my opinion.