Tending the Village Fires

This Tuesday we went questing up the Candelabra Trail in Butano Park for mountain lion sign. We found it, and much more stuff besides. The Candelabra tree is a destination worthy of anyone who's ever dreamed of living in a treehouse. The scrapes we found were of varrying ages, with one quite recently-refreshed mound.




We also collected huge amounts of tinder materials of all sorts, as well as lots of bow drill materials, mostly from the buckeye trees. As if to help, the buckeyes shone out from the greens and browns of the woods with their bright silver bark.



Back at camp, over our cookfire, we considered our conduct on the land. What does it mean to be scouts? What is the conduct of the scout? What conduct do we owe the animal and plant residents of the environments we explore? What ways of being on the land, what mindsets and behaviors, will best form strong ropes to the land and to our human communities?

The next day, we stayed at Venture for an exploration of our firemaking abilities. The whole village, Essentials, Cultural Mentors, and Native Eyes, gathered at the Native Eyes fire circle for the intro. Then we all picked up our materials and started practicing.



Native eyes had a special challenge: to help those among us and the larger group who were inexperienced in friction fire, and to push our own edges. We were challenged to make fire using natural cordage from the land, and to do so without using knives or sharp rocks.



We started by binding two fairly thick (inch and a half wide) alder sticks together for the hearthboard, and made a spindle of a similar stick. The idea was that mounds of char dust would settle on either side of the spindle, between the two sticks of the hearthborard, and be heated sufficiently to form two coals. It did not work as advertised. Quite a few of us worked up a good sweat, and nearly drilled through the board, with only smoke and black dust to show for it.



Then something told me to try my blue elderberry hand drill spindle. With the help of another Native Eyes person, we spun the spindle until piles of dust formed and smoke billowed. Still no coal that we could see. I picked up the spindle to inspect the hole it had made. The end of the spindle continued to smoke -- and glow. We had a coal.



One of the more experienced firemakers made a bow using a fresh pine root string. Inspired, we raced down to the creek. We found a huge Monterey pine standing at the top of the bank, more than fifteen feet above the creek level. It's roots had been exposed by the creek and dangled above our heads. Asking for one of the trees roots, offering a pinch of tobacco, we clambered up and dug out a living root from the creekbank. The root in the photo is already frayed.



Back at the fire circle, we rubbed the rootbark off and worked the root to loosen it's fibers. Then we looped it twice around a buckeye spindle in a buckeye board, and tried out a bowless bow drill.

I held the handhold, stepped on the board and pressed the spindle down. My companion held the ends of the pine root and pulled back and forth, back and forth, until, as sweat began dripping down his forhead, a small red coal sat smoking in the notch. The pine root held together for two coals, before it had frayed beyond usefulness.



Many people got coals that day, and many people experienced the frustration of friction fire. I think everyone experienced renewed respect for our ancestors, who used these methods every day to live.