About PW - Who is PW? - Igloo - Geri
 
So. what are

White folks doing

teaching "Indian" skills?

Geri McPherson
(Geri on a primitive outing)

Well, I, John, am of Scottish heritage.

I have bagpipes -
and I can't play them!

The American Indian - as with most aboriginal peoples of the world - have left primitive skills behind as "civilization" has come upon them.

A metal pot DOES make life easier -

as does a match - or a firearm.

In a culture with no written language, any skill will be lost in only one generation.

 
         
  Hide Tanning
With the Mic Macs - tanning (above)
& smoking a finished Buckskin (below).
 
  Over the years, we have taught many individuals of Native American heritage these "lost" skills.  
  Smoking a Buckskin   On two occasions we have been invited to reservations to teach: once to New Brunswick, Canada to teach an extended Mic Mac family, mostly how to brain tan deer skins - once to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana - to teach children how to make bows & arrows and some few adults how to brain tan.
 
 
         
 
With the Blackfeet in Montana

Between the tanning and bowmaking sessions, a young buffalo that had been culled was brought to our camp and we were invited to take the hide and head - "if we took it apart the old way". A few blows with a hammerstone produced several fine flake knives from our Kansas chert. The work was completed in short order.

 

  Culled Buffalo

 

Hammerstone
 

 
         

ABOUT PW - WHO IS PW? - IGLOO - GERI