Tent of Many Voices: 03310605TMB

and all of the people they met to the local communities and this tent of many voices is just that it we bring people in from different backgrounds different walks of life and different perspectives to tell their side of the story of Lewis and Clark's story of the cultural story of the local area and today we are very pleased to have with us Misty Blakeley and Deanna wheeler both from Grand Ron and they're going to do some Flint napping for us so let's please make them welcome thank you huh are these two too close no they should be fine thanks a lot good morning how is everybody today I'm going to show you how to do the traditional way of making arrowheads you want to take show them I'm start out with C out with The Rock these are very sharp the of them very sharp they can hear me though no they can I'll move my chair over here so they can see you got your larger piece and your small do damage on the end yeah not too bad the leather is to protect your leg because it will cut you badly what you do is you take your blank and you just push down I'll be right and flakes of obsidian will come off you do that all the way up each side and you use a down pressure motion kind of like a flip on it there from one halfway done and then I'll go ahead and do another one mhm that's what you get you just keep flaking it off a little bit at a time yeah you just and eventually it'll get thinner and sharper and you got to use the right amount of pressure or you'll just get a little piece and it won't flake all the way across the stone here this is a halfway and normally you would take they would come off a big chunk of obid obsidian yeah and they would take a what do they call that little whacker antler antler bone to use and you get a you know a concussion and it just you hit it just right and a thin chunk will come off not like you know your modern day so that's what she was doing right here yeah well she yeah she's doing the pressure flaking okay pressure pressure pressure napping yeah it's napping flaking whatever we like to call it huh copper they didn't have copper no and the way they would do it is they would just take a piece of antler this is a little bit big for a blank but here let me get this one flaked down and I'll show you the way they did it see with using obsidian flakes they're a lot th come off in in layers along when they flake off the stone using a rock side I cut them out perfect size then they have different uh colors of aidian too that you can that's this a big one up here Dan is the mahogany mahogany obsidian very nice I have a six-year-old nephew I taught how to do this and he doesn't cut himself nearly as much as I do so you after you get that broke down on each side or flaked off take it and this is the way they did it they would tap along the edge and you don't have to hit it hard you just got to hit have to hit it at the right angle huh surpris how the pieces break off that's the thing about obsidian it just flakes it flakes really nicely oh no it's okay they're supposed to do that traditionally though they would use bone or antler either one so and just kind of hit it at an angle here just taking a little bit off the sides at a time Misty what are you using on your leg for protection the thickest piece the leather I can find yeah that yeah always protect your leg and you're supposed to have gloves but I can't do it with gloves I know when I was taught they taught us to hold it with the piece of leather when we were doing the that pressure plate huh like that yeah like that and you know it kind of protects your hands or you're going to need a big box of Bandon I need a band see and the thing about doing it this way is you waste a lot more of the rock because they had a lot more of it then I guess than they do now so but that you can let them feel that Doh it's just like glass okay but don't cut yourself yeah very very sharp I know when I took the the the class we were told the story of a man that made his own surgical tools out of obsidian and um had his surgery done with them and he had um virtually no scarring very very sharp yeah very sharp yep very nice very nicely you slice your skin that was a good flake and you're supposed to have eye protection on and all that stuff but I just take my chances I'm more comfortable with it just like this so far I've been lucky you just keep taking it down a little bit on the sides as it gets thinner and thinner and the thing about if you ever find Arro heads like in fields or anywhere like that each Arrow Head has its own individual Story one Warrior made that it was one Warrior's arrow and that's it it didn't belong to anybody else they weren't mass produced it's got its own story just like all of the kitchen stuff you find the Rocks the grinding Stones that's one made stuff one woman you know that's what has always intrigued me about it is it's just one person did you tell them about the removal of them not to if you ever find an artifact anywhere you should not remove it because once you take your artifact or whatever it may be out of its place you lose part of the story because now it it's removed and there's probably other artifacts around there you put it all together and you have a story so once you take a part of that away then that it's missing part of the story and you really don't know you can't call your culture Department in your area if you find something yeah call yeah your cultural department so you ladies from this area yes we we are ground around tribal members yeah I was born and raised and I was just born lived here my whole life so but we both took a cultural Technician class and that's where we learned the history that we know about this yeah cultural sight protection we learned all that stuff y yeah we're certified see you see I'm taking it down quite a bit and once I get it down so thin then I will go around the edge and just kind of fine-tune it so to speak and it's okay if it breaks off because that happens a lot just start over or work with what you got story on my life yeah and you don't do the end of it if you're doing it out of blanks don't do the back of this until you're all done making the rest of it because that's your gripper there you don't want to yeah you don't want that sharp sure I'm okay now that I've got it down so thin on the sides I'm going to go ahead and make it to where it'll be able to cut grass and you just lay it down flat and you just kind of go click it along the sides I broke that one in half bummer all right now she the way was supposed to be though sorry you didn't do nothing go another piece that a big piece it was your eyes see that what I started with was a big blank this is what I have that's the way it works yep and with obsidian as you flake it off it'll taper itself and if you get too far on one side or you're you know the sharp side's not even just flip it over and go the other way and it'll even itself out yep and the Really the really neat part of of these this Flint napping is our ancestors I mean we found some arroe heads that are just itty bitty I mean just really tiny you know and that's some Talent if you ask I've never found any I I make them people have found them we haven't found nothing we've seen them I've seen him ouch and I need another Band-Aid you need a tourniquet seriously e see why you're supposed to wear gloves I was Flint napping one night and a big flake came off and it went right through the leather and into my leg and it was that was a bad one they bleed oh do they bleed yeah pretty clean cuts they bleed pretty bad I'm not going to sharpen the tip of this one cuz I want you to take it around and show it to everybody so there's going to be kids touching it bleeding bad huh that's why she gets to do this practice I'm a big weenie I don't like the I don't like to bleed I get no pleasure in it believe me can get that last piece off what can't get the this one I got blood all over it give him an idea I clean it off for you guys biohazard and remember she started out with this big old chunk of glass obsidian that's not my best work but you know with the time I'm given we were we were just yarded out for a second we need you guys snuck up on me I didn't see this whole row fill up anybody have any questions right the size of the uh Arrowhead would determine I guess what kind of game you're going to be able to exactly exactly yeah remember I'm all leaning over a fall over on you guys here no I was just simply asking that I'm assuming the size of the arrowhead would determine what kind of game you would be able to bring down well yeah yeah you wouldn't want to use one this size to kill a bird no you got a lot of rabbit size yeah yeah these ones this size anything a little bit bigger than this was probably for Spears you know you can get a um obsidian I don't usually attach any of the ones I make green brown that's all that's how you put all right some questions for Misty and Deana no it's a it's a um you got an antler she had um pressure flaking and then she hits it with an an antler and the could you describe how they're attached yeah what you do is um just a piece of copper down inside you take your arrow which is your stick and you split it at the top you'll split it down like this then you take your Arrowhead and you put it in like that and then you wrap it with press hold that you just put a little bit keep wrapping it and W and you see how it comes off in and layers then that's the way the rock or the the glass obsidian I'm sorry senu senu is Pretty Tough yep yep and they would hit them with an so does the sticks I mean you just put it down in there and your stick will come up on it like that break a piece off and then you take your s and you tie it around like that and then you know and you take that and you shape it I'm bleeding really bad and arrow you know just all kinds of tools anybody else have any other questions sure I hope I have all the answers kind of a question kind of guy here um what have you found like the arrowheads associated with any of the animal bones to make a connection yeah they find them yeah like for instance if the animal ran off with the arrow in it and that sort of thing I'm sure they have I have not personally I don't know of any documentation I've never seen any but the cultural Department I'm sure has some oh you can have it some other questions for Misty Indiana this has been awesome thank you so much for coming in and showing us how to Flint nap uh this is amazing those of you that are here might want to see some more of this and I believe you're set up over in the tent next door yes yeah I got a booth over there and if you're curious about flit napping come on over and I'll show you a little bit closer just watch your eyes and your fingers I just got your blood off the chair all right let's give them a big hand thank you thank you you thank you very