October 4-5:
Twenty-three people gathered at Allan & Lucy's near Penetanguishene.
Walking, sweatlodge Saturday evening.
November: Meeting at
Hildegard's. Here is a young participant's story of her experience that
weekend:
The Bow Drill by Felicia Saunders (8 years
old when she wrote this):
On November 22, 1997 my family went to Hildegard’s
house to do bow drill fires. Claudette went there too. When we got there
everyone went inside for lunch.
A bow drill is something to make a fire with. The bow part is
like a bow from a bow-and-arrow but only the bow part. The spindle or drill is 6
inches long and spins with the string from the bow drill. The handhold is a
piece of wood that you use to hold the drill in its place. The fireboard
collects the coal, and the tinder is what you dump the coal into and then you
blow, then poof!, there’s a fire.
(Back to the beginning). We ate and then we went outside and
watched Matt try to make a fire with a bow drill. Then I asked, "Mom, can I
try the bow drill?". "Yes", Mom said. First I tried with Kathy a
tiny bit but I had to stop because she wanted to see the ceremonial fire, and I
couldn’t do it with Mom because she was going to help Matt make the fire.
When we got to the firepit everyone was getting smudged. Then
Matt put wood in a square. Then he put rocks in a triangle. Then Mom and Matt
tried to make a fire with the bow drill. It took them 20 minutes, I think.
Then Mom and I tried to make a fire with the bow drill. But it
was a lot harder than I thought it would be! It took us forever to get a
coal. We worked at it and worked at it and worked at it for a long time. It took
us an hour, I think. We were working so hard we had to make a new hole! (You
make a hole by just doing the bowdrill without a hole in the fireboard until you
get a dent, then you cut a V-shape in the wood).
I was getting more and more tired, so I stopped and Mom did
some. The she stopped to see if there was a coal, and there was! So we carefully
dumped the coal into the tinder, and I blew and blew and blew! Finally it burst
into flames!
So that was my adventure with the bow drill, at eight years
old.
(no other records of meetings
are available for this year)
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