What do native hunters use to skin thick hided animals like elephants, buffalo etc.?

It really depends on how far back in time you want to go.. flint napping and so forth. But today, the natives (I mean bush natives, jungle natives, and common folks) will use whatever they got to cut with and that generally means low cost steel. Knives were a big trade item back in the North American Indian days when the trappers and traders wandered the west and north west. I suspect that they were worth many blankets or furs.... I also suspect that many of the larger knives for using looked a lot like the Condor Hudson Bay (essentially modified butcher knives) and knives for fighting were straighter same as today.
 
This:

[video=youtube;1CdtOSPXADM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CdtOSPXADM[/video]
 
The biggest thing I have skinned is a bunch of cows. A thin sharp blade with a comfortable handle is what you want. It does not take anything fancy. With a little practice you can take apart the largest joints and even split the pelvis on a younger animal.
Josh
 
Floweroflife got it right- axes for the most part.
There are 2 aspects to life in big game areas.

1. The foreign hunter comes over and shoots a beastie- the natives skin it carefully for a shoulder mount or full mount, clients choice, and supplied with basic, inexpensive knives bought from the local wholesaler in the nearest "town". The video above shows the men in coveralls using these "supplied" knives.

The hard work is done with an axe, as below- an actual Elephant/ Buffalo/ Hippo/ Eland/ Rhino chopping "Katemo".




2. This is where locals use their own tools to butcher a beastie that died by other causes, ie: trapping, hunting with local weapons.
They use their axes to cut up the carcass and care nothing for the skin, except as a wrapping to carry the meat. Butcher knives or pocket knives, whatever is at hand will be used to further cut the meat up. Nothing of quality.

Ps: Capstick was a good story teller, loved his books, but...
 
When I was there Okapi folders (the non-locking model because it was cheaper) were used for most skinning. There were also a variety of commercial meat packer type butcher knives available if needed. These guys are way beyond good at their trade and can make a totally dull Okapi do things I would never accomplish with the best hunter Bob Loveless ever turned out.
 
spear used by the pygmies of africa to hunt and butcher elephants (the rare jungle-dwelling type.) however, an elephant kill among the pygmies is rare. more often they hunt small duiker antelope or colobus monkeys.
27428638_1_l.jpg


i don't know what to call them now. they are residents of bangui. they hunt forrest elephants for its tusks but also for its meat. it's not wanton killing just for profit of man.
070606_elephant_hmed3p.grid-6x2.jpg
 
Capstick was an excellent hunter but there are a number of better PHs without stretching the facts.

The knives are simple. don't give them presents of a fine knife !! Look at how they sharpen things - the nearest rock ! There was a TV program that dedailed the whole elephant operation - very interesting and it ffeeds the village in a protein deficient area. Other animals are given to the natives also. More TV programs like that should be shown to show people that the game is not just thrown away !
 
A long time ago, a writer* took a bunch of custom made knives to Africa to try on a safari. He tried to get the natives to use them, but they didn't like them. For one thing, they couldn't sharpen them their usual way which was to throw a handful of sand on a log. The natives knives ranged from blades made out of dead soft barrel bands to poorly tempered car springs. Since the natives didn't know any better, their knives did the job very well. I wonder what they would think about much of the nonsense discussed ad nauseam on BF about the merits of one type of super steel over another. :D


*I think it was Ken Warner.
 
This what i found at a zoo in Basel couple weeks ago


BTW, i have seen locals (Sumatra, Borneo and Papua) roasted the animals without gutted. They deal with the poop :) later, once all of the hairs burnt out. Keep the meat clean from ashes
 
From what I have seen in my travels (I agree with Sidehill): Okapi folders are popular in Africa, as are cheap butcher knives; in Central and South America, once more, cheap butcher knives, Swiss Army Knives and various machetes.

Just my $0.02 worth!
Ron
 
As mentioned above, this (including the ubiquitous panga) plus cheap knives that can be sharpened on a flat rock):

large.jpg
 
Franciscomv said:
I worked as a hunting guide for a while, most guys who weren't seriously into knives used butcher knives from Böker or Eskilstuna (a local brand that uses Swedish O1 and 12C27 blades).

Something like this:

Cuchillos_Eskilstuna_y_Mundial.jpg


They are sold at hardware stores, feed stores and so on. There are cheap aftermarket leather sheaths available for most of them.

Edge holding isn't very good on most of them (Böker's 440C is quite soft, at least on their "industrial" line), but geometry is spot on, handles are comfortable and easy to maintain. Most guys I worked with carried a honing steel (sometimes on a loop in the knife sheath) and constantly touched up their knives as they processed the animals.
Click to expand...

Same general idea for the native Indians that I met in north central Canada. The northern stores brought in basic but decent inexpensive knives that got used for everything and anything. They were just an inexpensive tool. Prices up there for goods are very high as it is flown or barged in, so low cost butcher type knives sell. A gallon of milk went for 12 bucks when we were there.
 
There was a time when all our ancestors were using stone tools for cutting. While carrying a stone knife like Otzi was practiced, a knife like that was not extremely sharp, in fact is was more like a small serrated blade than a slicer.

Where there is igneous rock or other glass-like rock suitable for knapping, our hunter ancestors would simply knock off a flake to skin an animal, etc. as an unmodified flake is going to be a rock at it's sharpest. If fact, some rocks such as obsidian, are far sharper than we can make a knife of metal and have been used in modern surgery.

Here is a simple video I made on knocking off flakes, good to know should you lose your knife.

[video=youtube;77TucCtMDy8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77TucCtMDy8[/video]
 
In the National Geographic article, African pygmies use machetes and their broad hunting spears for butchering jungle elephants.
 
This thread is over 5 years old, just so everyone is aware.
 
I would think that they could use anything locally available, even parts of an old machete if broken. The key was they used what they had and they had the skills to be do whatever was needed. And they could sharpen it in the field with a rock or anything that would touch up the edge. As long as the thread has useful or interesting info, it is still relevant. Better to use the search function, as we are always encouraged to do, than to start another new one.
 
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