Primitive Skills Checklist

abo4ster

abo4ster

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The following is a Primitive Skills Checklist from an article entitled Going Wild – Organizing a Primitive Living Experiment by Alice Tulloch in the Fall 2007 edition of the Society of Primitive Technology’s Bulletin of Primitive Technology. I posted it here right after it came out. Having recently found it again, I thought I would share since there have been so many recent topics mentioning 'primitive skills' as well as new members.

Per the article, it is for discussion purposes only and it is not intended for one person to have every skill mentioned. Nor is it supposed to be a complete list. A person would bring a set of skills to the tribe and hopefully the tribe could meet its goals.

Once a year I do a stint in the wilderness that kicks my butt as to just how hard it would be going primitive. This list reminds me of that reality check. I possess some of these skills – but not many, and I am surely not a master of them either. I hope sharing this with you increases your knowledge, awareness, perception, and/or provokes further thought.

Social Skills
• Ability to work in a team, for the common good
• Ability to receive criticism and to effectively offer constructive criticism
• Desire to work harder than others, and take the initiative to get things done for the common good
• Ability to maintain a positive attitude
• Knowledge of primitive games, fun, music and celebrations

Travel
• Ability to hike solo over unfamiliar terrain without getting lost
• Ability to guide others, physically and verbally, to a location unknown to others
• Ability to read the landscape to anticipate the easiest route of travel, and the location of water, game, plants and useful materials
• Knowledge of safe stream crossings, snow crossings and rough terrain travel
• Knowledge of long distance travel strategies and the economic calendar of the area
• Good physical condition, moderate body fat, tough feet
• Ability to hike 5-15 miles per day with a 30-lb. pack

Fire
• Consistently started fire by friction using a variety of materials
• Made a successful friction fire set from materials on-site using stone age tools
• Consistently made friction fire in the rain, snow and dark
• Experience using fire for cooking with pottery, stone boiling and pit bake
• Experience banking fire or other methods to maintain coals overnight
• Carrier fire using a long match from one camp to another
• Used fire to bend wood
• Used fire to coal-burn a container

Shelter
• Made a nearly waterproof wickiup, lean-to and debris hut and slept in them
• Made a coal bed and slept on it
• Slept in a primitive shelter using only natural, local bedding and stone age gear
• Made a primitive shelter in the rain or snow and slept in it
• Made a woven or sewn tule or cattail mat

Food (See also next two categories)
• Has lived completely off the land for one week
• Ditto, in each of the four seasons in your area
• Proficiency with a variety of food storage techniques and pest controls, including smoking, drying, rendering, granaries, and caches

Plants
• Has a thorough knowledge of plant families and their characteristics
• Has a thorough knowledge of original people’s plant uses, harvesting, processing, and storage methods in the area
• Has a thorough knowledge of medicinal plants and their uses in the area

Trapping, Fishing, and Hunting
• Has a thorough knowledge of the habitats and habits of the fish and wildlife in the area. Has an understanding of sustainable harvesting
• Has skill in reading animal signs and tracks
• Has captured animals with primitive deadfalls, snares and traps
• Can construct 4 kinds of triggers on site using stone tools
• Can construct 2 kinds of snares on site using stone tools
• Has caught fish using primitive line and lure, spear, fish trap and/or gill net
• Knowledge of stalking and skill hunting techniques
• Harvested a big game animal with stone age equipment
• Made and is proficient with primitive bow and arrow, atlatl and dart, and throwing stick
• Butchered and skinned an animal with stone tools

Clothing
• Made buckskin using only stone age tools and brains of the animal
• Made a complete set of buckskin clothing including shirt/dress, leggings/skirt and moccasins
• Sewn buckskin with only stone age tools and materials
• Tanned fur-bearing animal and made garment from the fur
• Knowledge of rawhide processing and construction methods
• Knowledge of bark tanning process
• Made clothing out of plant fiber (examples: tumpline, sagebrush sandals, cedar bark blanket)
• Made and used winter footwear in wet or snowy weather. Knowledge of greased or insulated footwear
• Knowledge of clothing, equipment and methods to deal with cold and rainy conditions

Basketry and Cordage
• Made baskets from a variety of materials and techniques including a burden basket and water-tight basket (without pitch and sealant0
• Made baskets sealed with pitch or other sealant
• Knowledge of netting techniques
• Knowledge of stone boiling in a basket
• Made cordage from a variety of materials and techniques
• Made rope from many strands braided and multi-plied

Pottery
• Made a fired pot holding 1 gallon from wild harvested clay
• Knowledge of cooking with pottery on a fire

Knapping
• Competency in basic spalling, percussion and pressure flaking, pecking and hafting
• Made uniform thin, straight blades, 5 inches or longer, using stone age tools (no copper)
• Made and proficient in use of scrapers, burins and drills
• Made and proficient in use of stone axe
• Knowledge of heat treating stone
• Made tools from a variety of stone
• Knowledge of useful stone materials in the area

Bone and Antler Tools
• Made bone and antler tools with stone age equipment, including fish hooks, spears, awls, needles
• Used bone or antler for wedges, cutting, stabbing, sawing, pounding and knapping

Woodsmanship
• Knowledge of security measures regarding wolves, bears, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, scorpions, etc
• Awareness of weather changes and patterns
• Awareness of wildland fire behavior and safety measures
• Has developed their intuition and woods savvy
• Awareness of changes in natural flow (bird and bug chatter, wind direction, etc)
• Knowledge of collection, preparation and use of pitch and glues, mineral pigments
• Knowledge of useful knots including fisherman’s, bowline, square, clove hitch, tauntline, and stopper knots
• Knowledge of lashing and splicing
• Knowledge of telling time by the sun and stars

Healthcare
• Knowledge of primitive hygiene concerns, preventative measures and remedies
• Thorough knowledge of backcountry first aid, CPR and evacuation methods
• Knowledge of infectious diseases, adverse syndromes, hypothermia, parasites and poisonous plants that occur in the area; preventative measures and modern treatment
• Knowledge of how a wild diet and primitive activities impact nutritional needs
 
I read somewhere getting back to being truly primitive coming from our society today would take about 13 years. If you think about it, it is not that hard to comprehend such a long time-line; so much of what must be learned is seasonal, i.e., it would take you four years just to get a year's worth of summer plant knowledge. Couple that with everything else that must be learned, seasonal or not, and 13 years doesn't seem that unrealistic. It is amazing what we take for granted.
 
Not to mention so much of what you need in the winter must be procured in the summer. "Living off the land for a week" in the winter isnt that simple.
 
Too, even when we were hunter gatherers, certain individuals specialized in different areas of your list. Not being chauvinistic, but by and large the knowledge of plants and gathering fell to women, and hunting tasks to the men as just one example. Now surely each individual had a much better skill set across the whole list than we do today, but even among extant hunter gatherers there is some specialization. To a degree, it contributes to the survival of the group.

It certainly is a list that I think you could use to guide your learning for a lifetime if you wanted to.

uhh, just reread your intro, and see you made that very point! Been a long day.
 
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mapper, you bring up a good point about men/women responsibilities and it is worth pointing out a difference we see today vs. primitive cultures.

In primitive cultures children (boy & girl) spent more time with thier mother for the first 6 or 7 years, hence, the boy (or girl) would develop their feminine side (and knowledge). Age 7 or thereabouts, the child (boy or girl) would start to spend more time with their father developing thier masculine side. This would obviously provide some crossing training too.

Unfortunately in today's society, not enough children are getting thier masculine side ~ that is my personal opinion by the way.
 
Or feminine side for that matter, it seems more and more children are raised by school, daycare and television. But on the plus side women get to make just as little money as men now.
 
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