Why do you use primitive skills?

Howdy. Was reading a new book from Amazon called Survival Theory. When I got to the chapter on fire ignition the author made an interesting point I'd never thought about.

According to him, primitive skills like bow drills and hand drills are good to know just because, but they should never really be relied upon for fire starting in an emergency or after a disaster. The logic being you might be exhausted or injured. So things like flint and steel or fire pistons were good for saving matches or your Bic, but primitive skills should not actually replace the modern method.

It got me to thinking.

So do you use primitive skills as your primary method? Or why do you practice and learn them?

Jeep

Practice and learn as many as possible........on the outside chance it may be needed.
The time to learn and practice is not when you NEED to....but when you Want to.

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Originally Posted by jeeptj1978

primitive skills should not actually replace the modern method.

It got me to thinking.

So do you use primitive skills as your primary method? Or why do you practice and learn them?

Jeep

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I agree with the author. The rule of murphy states that the best laid plans will go wrong somehow. If someone has all their firemaking equipment in a fanny pack or a backpack that becomes lost (like in a river crossing, crevasse recovery, theft) and it is a survival situation, it is good to know the primitive skills.

However, where more modern tools/methods are available, those should be used because they are quicker and burn up far less energy. Conserving mental and physical energy is a top priority in any potential survival situation. So the primitive skills are the backup and not the primary. The same is true of other primitive skills. If you can shoot a hare or squirrel, do that instead of making traps and setting snares, especially if you are on the move. If your gun went down the river with your backpack, then you wind up falling back on the primitive skills.

I practice and use primitive skills to honor those before me.
Having said that, I don't rely on them. But primitive skills are nice to know because you never know...

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Originally Posted by Sunset Sam

............................... If your gun went down the river with your backpack, then you wind up falling back on the primitive skills.

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........or your back up piece and PSK....One is none, two is a good start.

I learn them just to learn them. I like education and learning and it is just fun. Fun that may become useful later.

Because I can.

My instincts urge me to and I'm addicted to knowledge


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Hunter63 summed up my beliefs!

Sounds reasonable. Thanks for the input. I always supposed being able to apply one thing made you better at the other. Sorta like if you can harvest deer with a bow, you should have the odds way in your favor with a rifle.

Thinking about that in terms of fire, water, shelter....know how to do it the hard way but when it counts just get it done is what I take away from it. So spending time on primitive skills really does still have a big place in it.

I think they are fun and interesting things to do while hanging around my camp. I've not really gotten into primitive fire starting (yet) but more into primitive cooking, shelter, grass weaving, that kind of stuff. All stuff fun to do while relaxing around camp. It's really good to know things like fire starting even if you never HAVE to use them. It helps open the brain paths to other insights that might come in useful in emergencies. If you don't have the mindset of thinking outside the box, you are in much more danger then if you are not only willing, but ABLE to think of other options.

You could look at gear the same way to a certain extent. Matches can get wet lighters can break even fire steels and pistons can fail. Even worse you may not have the gear or lose it or have it stolen. I always look at it this way the gear is great to have and it is better but I might not have it all the time, knowledge however is always carried with me.

Also I think back to the times when people had to rely on those skills they too may have been injured or exhausted but had no other choice, in situations like that easy or not sometimes you have to rely on mental strength over physical strength

Nobody really questions the why of flint napping, primitive cooking, shelter, grass weaving, brain tanning, food preserving, wild edibles and so forth.

The primitive skill just as the OP said that everyone questions is primitive fire. Why learn it?

When you first try you will much more likely fail. Every failure is a lesson. I would go back and watch a couple of videos and see that I had missed something. Even after I succeeded in getting a coal I still failed to grow it a few times. Then when you master the coal and transfer to the tinder bundle. You still have the learning of how to build the best tinder bundle.

Tinder bundles that would ignite effortlessly with a match or a lighter would be problematic with a coal. I had to learn to break up the material at hand to create bundles of parts that had an area small enough to be quickly be brought up to combustion temperature to ignite. Look at it like if I hand you a wrist size piece of firewood and you have good fire skills. You would shave some fine tinder, some shavings, some small tinder, medium tinder, large tinder and progressively larger. It using flint or ferro you probably would make a dust pile to add to the fine tinder.

That same philosophy of fire applies to an already good tinder. By working from the smallest particles up. You make a fire ladder that will light almost instantly and faithful transfer heat to the next rung in the ladder. It helped to make lighting a fire even in very adverse conditions a simple matter of raising the temperature of the material.

Once you master fire to this level. Even when others might struggle to get a flame, just a flick of your Bic will do the trick! ;)

Practicing primitive fire-making and other skills is just added insurance for the absent minded or hard headed.

It ain't easy, and until you try it a few times, and finally master it, that might be something one simply pushes out of mind.

After realizing how perfect the materials and conditions have to be to obtain fire using primitive methods the average hard headed male, who will not stop and ask directions, will decide that dropping a lighter in the pocket or keeping a ferro rod on the keychain is much easier than "Putting yourself through all that!"

I have done the fire trick many times using many different methods, firebow, primitive flint and steel, burning glass, sparks from batteries, bla, bla, bla....

And due to that I find myself buying disposable lighters in 5-packs every trip to the dollar store, hording strike anywhere kitchen matches in Mason jars, stripping the shelves at Harbor Freight of ferro-mag blocks at every sale, carrying a boy scout ferro-rod on my keychain and being the proud owner of three lifetime guaranteed Zippo lighters....

And I don't even smoke!

Same with flint knapping, much easier to fish the pocket knife out of the change bowl and drop it in the pocket that start a search for sharp rocks or broken glass.

Thanks for the replies. Really awesome points from everyone. Collectively ya'll really lock in the point that an outdoorsman or survivalist should still learn some primitive craft no matter how many gadgets they carry, even if they do not master it, the effort will make him or her better. I'm going to make sure my kids devote some time in to primitive fire, it'll be a good learning experience.

Jeep

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Originally Posted by jeeptj1978

So do you use primitive skills as your primary method? Or why do you practice and learn them?

Jeep

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No, primitive skills are not my primary method but I practice them. I just recently made my first bow drill fire at the age of 61. It was a milestone reached and was on my bucket list. My son reached it at age 17. It's a good skill to know and a challenge to overcome. I love challenges.

So, have you reached that milestone? A bit of advice, learn it while you're young & PRACTICE using the natural resources unique to your region/environment.

Here is a scenario. It's two years after teotwawki, there's no matches, butane lighters, no type of fuel period, no electricity, no ammo for guns, you get the picture. It's time to make fire for cooking, warmth, purifying water, etc. Thank God for primitive methods...

DomC



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Originally Posted by DomC

So, have you reached that milestone? A bit of advice, learn it while you're young & PRACTICE using the natural resources unique to your region/environment.

Here is a scenario. It's two years after teotwawki, there's no matches, butane lighters, no type of fuel period, no electricity, no ammo for guns, you get the picture. It's time to make fire for cooking, warmth, purifying water, etc. Thank God for primitive methods...

DomC

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Yes, I'd say the first time I made fire with a bow drill, hand drill, or flints was in the boy scouts around 25 years ago. As a kid I was fascinated by anything to do with primitive or prehistoric life. Later in the army I got addicted to the never ending gadgets from all over the world though.

I totally agree with your teotwawki scenario.

Learning the primitive skills, even if they are never really mastered or used daily, should make a person more skilled in the outdoors because he or she will think carefully and use resources as efficiently as possible. Even in a suburban setting, the person who uses a wood fire to light charcoal will have to plan and think about building the fire rather than simply dousing charcoal with gasoline and using a propane torch. :cool:

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Originally Posted by Faiaoga

Learning the primitive skills, even if they are never really mastered or used daily, should make a person more skilled in the outdoors because he or she will think carefully and use resources as efficiently as possible. Even in a suburban setting, the person who uses a wood fire to light charcoal will have to plan and think about building the fire rather than simply dousing charcoal with gasoline and using a propane torch. :cool:

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Bingo.....It becomes a mind-set and way of life.......
Good observation.

I started learning primitive skills after I lost my backpack on a four day hiking adventure. Someone found it and returned it to me on day three, but I learned that life is hard if you lose your backpack, and have no primitive skills.

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Originally Posted by Adventure Wolf

I started learning primitive skills after I lost my backpack on a four day hiking adventure. Someone found it and returned it to me on day three, but I learned that life is hard if you lose your backpack, and have no primitive skills.

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.......so you have a Personnel Survival Kit? (PSK)

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Originally Posted by hunter63

.......so you have a Personnel Survival Kit? (PSK)

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I had one before I knew what one was, yes. My hunting expedition gear looks like a BOB.

I teach boy scouts....
The other day, I had two new scouts. Saturday morning I told them to light a fire. They watched me do it Friday night. There was a good amount of wind...but I did it in the wind the night before. It took a little bit of time before they came and asked for matches or a lighter. (Rule number 1: also carry something to start a fire with). Eventually I gave up my firesteel. 10 or 15 minutes later, they came back and said they couldn't get it to work. So, I showed them how to spark it. (Rule #2: know how to use your equipment). Not too long later they came back and asked for a match. They assured me that they could get a fire going for sure..with a match. I then gave them a small box of matches. 10 minutes later, they came back defeated after using up the whole box. At that time, I had finished breakfast and so they ate, and then we played some games, packed up, and went home. What they learned was that fire isn't easy, it takes skill, and a match isn't guaranteed fire without skill. I will get to teach them at the next campout how to set up a proper firelay and all the stuff they need to get a fire going. Hopefully they were humbled enough to want to pay attention when I do show them.

My point... fire isn't a given. I have seen people fail to get a fire going with gasoline and a lighter. I have seen many people fail with a match (or a whole box). I have seen people fail to light a lighter. For me, a lighter is the easiest method to start a fire (well, maybe a road flare). I have seen people fail with a road flare as well. And, although I have seen scouts all fail at these, I have seen adults fail as well. But, if you can do it with a bow drill, or a magnifying glass, or even a fero rod.... Then the other methods are much easier, and your chances of success are much improved.

So I can brag about it on the very BIG bragging social media site, Facebook.
Why else would I self teach myself fire by friction?:o

One is none, and two is one! Always have a plan B, and the primitive skills are the best of the plan B's, because they mostly use natural materials found in the wild. If your backpack gets wet or lost, it doesn't matter how many matches or Bic lighters you have in your backpack because you no longer have it, or it's wet and needs to be dried out! That is why I carry as much as possible in my pockets, and even those can fail or get wet.
The primitive skills are the plan B's that can really save your life!

Honestly, I've never made friction fire and with these shoulders I never will. If I can't do it with matches or a lighter or a fero rod it ain't gettin' done. Unless I'm near the car then plan B is road flares. But they are primitive road flares. They don't a piezoelectric starter on them. You still have to strike them.

We don' need no stinking primitive fire skills! :sorcerer:

Seriously though, one of the main rules in any survival situations is to conserve energy. I never could figure out how that rule worked with somebody sawing away on a fire saw for a couple of hours when a simple bar-be-que long-barreled lighter does the job just as well. I carry strike-anywhere matches and ferro rods stashed in various places on my person...there is even one in/on every fixed blade knife I own. I'm too old to backpack so I drive to where I'm going. I agree with FinallyMe: learn to make a fire with two matches, the way the Boy Scouts of old had to. You'll spend a lot less energy that you can apply else where....:thumbup:

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Originally Posted by Sarge47

We don' need no stinking primitive fire skills! :sorcerer:

Seriously though, one of the main rules in any survival situations is to conserve energy. I never could figure out how that rule worked with somebody sawing away on a fire saw for a couple of hours when a simple bar-be-que long-barreled lighter does the job just as well. I carry strike-anywhere matches and ferro rods stashed in various places on my person...there is even one in/on every fixed blade knife I own. I'm too old to backpack so I drive to where I'm going. I agree with FinallyMe: learn to make a fire with two matches, the way the Boy Scouts of old had to. You'll spend a lot less energy that you can apply else where....:thumbup:

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I disagree:smartass:

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Originally Posted by Wildthang

I disagree:smartass:

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That was sarcasm....LOL

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Originally Posted by hunter63

That was sarcasm....LOL

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So was my reply:smartass:

To see if we can, to gain self-confidence
to 'work out' in an enjoyable way
to devote some hours to
spend in the forest ;)
all kinds of reasons! :thumbs_up:

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Originally Posted by 7whitewolf7

To see if we can, to gain self-confidence
to 'work out' in an enjoyable way
to devote some hours to
spend in the forest ;)
all kinds of reasons! :thumbs_up:

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That's a good answer....When I head out,.. it is generally for some specific reason, hunting gathering, trying out new skills....

Heritage or perhaps it's only natural.

When you practice primitive skills you learn more about whatever you are doing than you would otherwise. Like with a bow drill, you really start to understand the value of heat and dry material. If you flick a bic and it all goes up in flames you never need to bother learning about that.

I learned a lot when primitive trapping. It helped me to understand animal behavior and how all of the animals in the wilderness interact. It's a little more up close and personal. Just like when you hunt with slingshots as opposed guns. You need to be better at stalking and accuracy than you would when using a shotgun for example. While primitive skills seem rudimentary, they actually IMPROVE your overall skills, even when going back to modern implements.

I learn how to make bows, spears, knives, etc just for the fun of it. The same goes with shelter. But when it comes to fire, every modern object runs out so it is important for you to be able to make a fire the primitive way.

Simply put the more you know, the less you carry. Another point is we live in a "instant gratification"society, and wants things easy and already done. An example is look at the new cars and all they do for you,I phones,aps for everything, no need to think. Learning primative skills makes you learn to improvise,adapt,and overcome your situation, actually make you think and accept responsibility for your outcome.

learning the primitive skills are important for two reasons I think, I am sure that has been covered so this is no great break through. 1st, it was the was it was done by our ancestors before us, it was passed down until we became used to modern way of survival. I practice them, learn them, pass them down. I use modern tools but I also keep my mind and wit sharp with the ways that my ancestors kept to survival when all else failed. 2nd. Yes the matches, lighters, and other modern day things are easy but sooner or later you will be caught where you have to figure out this one thing....."Crap don't have them any more, If I was living back hundreds of years ago how would I survive like my ancestor"........Learning is never ending trail...I may not always use them when I am out but I know how and what to do if I need the most of primitive.

Modern conveniences were developed because our ancestors got tired of doing it that way. You could either rub sticks together or strike a lucifer. Walk 20 miles in a day, ride a horse 20 miles in half a day or drive a car 20 miles in 20 minutes. Doesn't take a lot of thinking to figure out the times savings and all the other things you could be doing besides rubbing sticks together or walking.

Now we have a lot more time to text and talk on our cell phones.........(this was a joke)

Seriously? The clock on my VCR still blinks. I'll figure it out some day but it will probably be obsolete by then.