How would you make blowgun darts in the wilderness?

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SkinnyJoe

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I can only think thin cones made of paper (start with a strip about 6-7 inches long and 2 inches wide) with thorns inserted in the tip, but that assumes having paper...

Any suggestions?
 
I have made some deadly darts out of locust. I used my knife to cut a big splinter off about 4 or 5", scraped it down to shape then wrapped the back in cotton to make it fit the tube. I am sure I could kill birds with it, I don't know what you would substitute for the cotton in the wild though. Chris
 
Cattail down, rabbit fur, or shredded inner bark from willow or shagbark hickory all work. My experiences with blowguns were all failures compared to cast darts though. In fact, most of those old stone points we pick up nowdays were not arrowheads at all but dart points. Fluff or feathers do help them fly straighter.

Codger
 
Codger_64 said:
Cattail down, rabbit fur, or shredded inner bark from willow or shagbark hickory all work. My experiences with blowguns were all failures compared to cast darts though. In fact, most of those old stone points we pick up nowdays were not arrowheads at all but dart points. Fluff or feathers do help them fly straighter.

Codger
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I didn't think of rabbit fur, I think that would be your best bet, I have used it as dubbing tying flys and it works well. Chris
 
For that matter squirrel or deer tail...about any fur you can wrap. And then there is the polyester stuffing in a coat or sleeping bag.
 
I`ve seen articles that used the fluff from the seedpods of nettles. Begin by wrapping a bit of string around the tail end of the dart, leaving 4-6 inches of string hanging. Lay the string across your hand, pinching the end between your fingers.Next lay the nettle fibers over the sting and begin winding the string up by slowly twisting the dart. The string should spiral from the tail towards the point. Finish by fastening the end of the string down with some pine pitch and you`re done.

Wish I could remember where I saw the article. The pictures explained the procedure better than I can.
 
Yup, thistle. When I take my river cane blowgun out, I use darts that are carved from cane with thistle fuzz.
 
Birds nests are also a good place to find fluffy material for the base of the dart. I sometimes use dryer lint from my firestarter kit.
 
As for building the blowgun itself, you're on your own, but the primitive methods are one helluva lot of work from what I've seen. The darts, though, I can tell you a little about that I learned once. Thirty-five years ago I was taking a lot of anthropology courses at FSU. One of my best teachers was a fine fellow named Hampton Rowland, a multi-talented fellow if ever there was one. He enjoyed traveling, and he often spent his summers in South America doing research. He demonstrated blowguns he'd brought back with him (yes, right in the classroom), and he showed us how the Indians there made their darts. At this point in time I can't tell you exactly what they made the thin, tough dart shaft from (some kind of cane maybe?), but the "fletching" I remember well. It seems that the Indians in that region used a kind of wild cotton they collected and carried in their kit. The dart shafts were several inches long, merely sharpened on the pointed end, and they had a small nick or two made with a knife back near the rear, roughly a quarter to a third of the way forward from the back end. The wild cotton bundle was held in one hand while the shaft was twirled lightly against it with the thumb and fingers of the other hand. The nicks made by the blade caught the cotton strands and allowed the fibers to be spun around that part of the shaft until it was the right size, at which time it was simply pulled loose from the cotton and twirled a final time between thumb and fingers to smooth it out a bit. The cotton gave it a reasonably good seal in the bore of the blowgun. If you want to try it, you can duplicate this procedure using cotton from the drugstore and those thin little bamboo skewers sold in the grocery stores. I think the skewers I've seen recently were about 10 to 12 inches long, and some folks use them to spear several shrimp or other delicacies while they are grilled. The process those Indians used to coat the sharpened end of the dart with the toxic excretion of those special little frogs was very interesting, too, but I'll not go into that right now. :D
 
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