I’ve read where the word origin of primitive comes from prime
… meaning first. If we use prime as an adjective it refers to the first or main
importance of something.
A lot of the focus in the woodcraft-bushcraft community, when it comes to cutting tools,
centers on knives and axes for survival purposes. A good fixed blade knife and
an axe are the bare bones essentials in the cutting tools department and these
are honesty enough to accomplish an awful lot if they are all you have and know
how to use them.
Cutting tools, cordage, and fire. These three, and the knowledge-skills base to utilize them,
are everything we need to build everything else we need.
I do not know what or which prime skill was the first to be
developed. I was not there to observe that life changing event. What I do know
is that primitive man adapted to the environment, developed prime skills, migrated
and adapted to harsher less familiar environments, and got along quite well
enough to leave behind progeny that continued to develop the skills passed on
to them by those that left them behind.
What developed as the foundation of those prime skills are
cutting tools, cordage, and fire … three things we are so familiar with that we
take them for granted in this modern age because of their ready availability in
this industrialized technological computerized age. We are though, when it
comes right down to it and despite all the technology and computerization,
still as dependent upon those prime skills as primitive man was … we are still
learning … we are still adjusting and adapting.
The significant difference is that all these centuries of
learning and development have made our tools a lot more advanced. That, and the
fact that modern technology and the efforts of a few craftsmen employed in the
building trades, makes it unnecessary for the average modernite Joe and Jane to
know how to build or repair anything. While we are at it we may as well throw
in a third tidbit. We live in the age of instant
gratification. We want things big
and we want things now. Anything we
can do to make big and now happen quicker is the route
modernites are most apt to take. There is a fourth thing that comes to mind
while we are rocking this rickety little boat. We are a “throw-away” culture. When something becomes outdated, worn out or not, we throw it to the curb for the garbage
collectors to haul to the dump. A lot of products we purchase today are
designed to be thrown away rather than repaired and made usable again. Throw
away products keep us running to the store to buy up to date replacements.
Self-reliance, and
the ability to be self-reliant, are
far from the minds of most modern folks in a culture that has been groomed to
be reliant upon the labor of others to produce everything they eat and manufacture
everything they use. Self-reliance has itself become a primitive ideal. The
skills necessary to live self-reliantly have become relics of the past.
I think this is one of the great modern day tragedies
affecting us in the 21st Century. I made up my mind long ago that I
would not stay between the hammer and the anvil where this self-reliance
tragedy is concerned.
Recognize a problem.
Educate yourself regarding a problem.
Develop a mindset.
Acquire the tools and develop the skills necessary to
address the problem.
Do something about the problem.
That’s the way the self-reliance deal works. The onus is on
the individual to work the deal. Self-reliance doesn’t happen on its own or overnight.
Total self-reliance is pretty much a myth. I’ll not say that
it is impossible but it is definitely improbable for the vast majority of us. Becoming
as self-reliant as individually possible, however, should be an ongoing
personal working goal. Especially in the woodcraft-bushcraft
community. There is so much more to the many-faceted craft than knowing how to
get along if the bridge washes out or some other event happens that suddenly
launches us into some sort of a get along
as best we can to save our fanny with just what’s on our backs or in our pockets kind of situation.
This is not to diminish survival
skills that we pull out and use in a dire unplanned situation. These are
non-negotiable skills that everyone should possess and sadly most people do
not. It is to suggest that woodcraft-bushcraft
includes skills that we can use every
day as part of a self-reliant lifestyle … skills that will serve us well and
make our lives a lot more comfortable in the event we discover ourselves in an
unplanned long-term situation or voluntarily opt for an off-grid human powered
lifestyle.
There is another side to this … a deeper intimate side that
is better experienced than explained. It is hard to put into words the feelings
of satisfaction and personal reward that come when a person takes a bit of raw
materials and turns them into needed items with the help of a few human powered
tools that do not create hearing damaging decibels.
You can buy new human powered tools and shell out quite a
lot of hard earned cash in the process. Good quality ones are expensive. Low
quality ones are affordable but cheap in quality. Scouting garage sales, estate
sales, and flea markets for good quality used human powered tools can be an
adventure. It takes time to find them … and they may need a little TLC to clean
them up and sharpen them … but the time and effort invested in the process is
well spent.
I’ve been collecting these few old tools for a good while now as
part of our self-reliant homestead mentality. A few of the tools are antique
family heirlooms that I discovered in the nick of time and managed to salvage
before they totally wasted away laying either on the ground or on a damp
concrete floor … both total disasters for metal tools.
As electric power tools give up the ghost I simply switch
over to non-electric as their replacements. Using old school muscle powered tools
as my preferred go-to tools is an interesting and pleasant transition away from
the power tools I’ve used all these years. The old school tools accomplish the same job as
their electrical counterparts. You just have to go about it with a different
and more relaxed mindset.
Human powered tools are a refreshing break. I prefer the old
used stuff if it’s still usable. It has a history to it. I enjoy bringing that
past history into the present history that I am making and can’t help but to
wonder about who used those tools before me, where they used them, and what was
crafted with them.
The financial investment in my “old school” tool kit has
been minimal. There are a few items that I need to complete the kit. A couple
of them I will need to purchase. Some of them, like a shave horse and a spring
pole lathe, I can build from harvested green wood and I will be working on
these projects over the course of the next several weeks. The shave horse will
be the first of the two builds. It’s a pain using a draw knife without one. Some
of the items, metal tools including a couple of froes and small adzes, I can turn
out on the forge I built a few years ago from a discarded brake drum that I found.
The combination makes for an interesting learning curve …
knowing good quality tools from cheap, working with muscle powered tools as
opposed to plugging some noisy hard on the ears contraption into a power
supply, and the process of harvesting wood, processing, and crafting useful items
from raw materials.
Crafting … wood-crafting
… bush-crafting … wild-crafting … . Whatever folks are comfortable calling
it. Wood … bush … wild. You know. Out “there”
somewhere. Folks get that part easily enough. It’s the rest of it that needs
filling in.
The crafting part is about being able to craft what we need for
daily life whether it is something as simple as a log bench to sit on, a table
to hold our plate while we eat, or something more complicated like a
comfortable dwelling that far surpasses a tarp, thatched lean-to, or brush
shelter. These are skills that have to be learned and developed. The learning
and development requires a lot more time and effort than is involved in a
weekend course that focuses on extremely basic fire, shelter, water, and food.
Making mistakes is a valuable part of any learning curve.
There is no exception to this rule when it comes to the woodcraft learning
curve. Especially if we allow the mistakes to become teachers and the bulk of
the expense is primarily time invested.
Personal experience, practice, and patience have always
been, and I am of the opinion that they ever will be, our greatest teachers.
The important thing is to simply begin and
keep adding experience to that
initial beginning.
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