Here is a great little instruction set on how to make a European Medieval-style belt bag. You see these in paintings and illustrations on just about every traveler. Not only will you come out with a nice bag but it is a fine and simple introduction into leather working and sewing. All makers need to start somewhere and this might be the right project.
During the Middle Age was common carrying small items like coins, keys, inside pouches or purses attached to the belt.
There are many archaeological and iconographical documents, you can search for your favorite patterns, but there is a model that in my opinion, is one of the best for a bushcrafter.
I wanted to re-blog this excellent post about functional pottery construction from “Survival Sherpa”. I’m no great pottery maker but appreciate the craft for sure. Have a look.
Coffee drinkers like myself usually have a favorite mug or cup. My all-time favorite “tankard” developed a crack and DRG trashed it. A sad day indeed!
My sob story may seem petty, but there’s nothing trivial about not having a way to “contain” stuff. Think of all the ways you use containers daily. Then imagine all your modern containers being gone… poof, no more. Welcome to the Stone Age!
Here’s what else disappears with your containers. Your ability to…
Cook stuff without skewering it on a stick
Collect, disinfect, transport, and drink water
Raise plants and livestock
Store food without stuffing it in an animal stomach
Dispose of waste
Personal hygiene
Ferment food and drink
Make medicinals
Gather food
Keep stuff clean
Organize stuff
etc., etc., etc….
This is why containers are king!
After attending a local two-day primitive pottery class, my respect and appreciation for the humble container grew…
Starting as a field scientist in the heady days when men were men and GPS was not available to common civilians, I learned my way around a compass pretty well. I thought I knew something coming out of Boy Scouts but putting those skills to the test mile after mile in order to locate a distant waypoint or build a map by hand honed those skills and etched them indelibly on my brain. Friendly competition arose amongst colleagues testing our pace and compass work over miles of rough ground in the eastern woodlands. The West is easy in comparison with open forests, plains, and grand vistas for taking long sightings. To this day, I generally prefer a pocket compass to a GPS and if I could choose only one, it would be one of these wireless beauties.A surveyor’s sighting compass can just about perform miracles in the right hands and my trusty Brunton Pocket Transit, after all these years, still finds it’s way into my field bag for big jobs. Get a compass, learn to really use it. Keep it handy, and you may never be truly lost.
This is part of an ongoing theme to document travel and camping gear that has served me over the years. These will be mirrored on the Traveler’s Gear page as I get them up.
As a traveler, primitive technologist, peaceful survivalist, affected provincial, long-time Idler, and sometime field scientist I find the necessity for a shoulder bag to carry essentials. I have two size shoulder bags as well as various backpacks, brief cases, and messenger bags that have served me well over the years walking thousands of miles on survey and in my travels.
I made this bag a few years ago based on an 18th century gentleman’s shooting bag. If you are interested to see it’s construction, it is documented HERE. Carried by naturalists, sportsmen, and explorers, this small compartmentalized bag keeps the essentials handy. Sturdy 10-12 oz vegetable tanned leather from Hermann Oak means that this bag will serve many decades without fear of damage from wear.
This is most of the contents from the above bag; mostly things I don’t like to be without. Clockwise (more-or-less) from the upper left: Brunton pocket compass with signal mirror, Moleskine notebook, pencil, folding knife, whetstone with bag, belt knife, wooden spoon, 550 paracord, insulated mug, hand lens, sunglasses.
Since I was eleven, I have been infatuated with mountain man style wilderness survival. It was, by far, my favorite merit badge as a Boy Scout. The merit badge book taught about the old idea of a “possibles” bag carried by early explorers that we now think of as a survival kit. Although the above is far from a complete survival kit, this little bundle, with the addition of a water bottle, gets me through many long days of travel and field work. Additional items include: lighter, flashlight, bandanas, and some first-aid essentials. However, traversing the wilderness, or even through civilization, means more than having the right stuff handy, being dressed properly is probably even more important. After years of walking in the wilderness I have learned the same lessons that our forefathers did; the importance of being well shod and covered with a proper hat.
Learn them, use them. I understand that some folks are topologically challenged but knots are always a great skill to have under one’s belt. Learn ’em. Have someone teach you. Carry a bit of rope and practice until they come naturally. Teach your kids! I suggest learning the dozen or so from the Boy Scout Handbook. That is really all most people will ever need.
Some mighty fine heat-treated biface preforms ready for general use or to be made into something a little more refined. Source material from the St. Louis area, Burlington chert. Thanks Larry!
Learning a thing or two from the past…Part 1, 21st century americans are not the first to minimalize.
How much stuff do we really need to lug through life?
This is a lengthy ramble. So long in fact, that I have broken it into several posts to be trickled out over the coming days, weeks, or months. Skip on to the fun stuff if you aren’t interested in Minimalist* philosophy. There’s a lot of recent talk about Minimalism as a social movement. Not long ago, it was associated with artists and aesthetes, wanderers, mystics, and philosophers. That is to say, the fringe element, outsiders, and weirdos. These things come in cycles and I think, as a backlash against generations of sell-out philosophy and the creation of a professional consumer class, many people are reaching for something new.
We come to learn that everything old is new again.
I’ve been looking into history and prehistory on a full-time basis for many decades now. As hard to believe as it may be, I even get paid a salary to do it. One of my professional interests involves tools, tool-kits, and strategies for surviving that various people have come up with for dealing with the world. As a primitive skills-survival instructor and full-time frugalist I think it important to not reinvent a lifeway when we have millennia of ancestors who dealt with most of the same issues we do today.
A San bushman demonstrating fire-making. Ostrich egg canteen in the foreground.
For most humans, for most of our history, owning too much stuff has never really been an issue. We had what we needed and either made what we needed or did without the things we didn’t have. It brings a smile to my face to know that more than 2,400 years ago, well-to-do people in China, India, and the Middle East were contemplating the nature and evils of acquiring Stuff; even writing about it. That’s not to say that I have immediate plans to become a wandering mendicant like a medieval friar (as appealing as that might sound to some) but I do have an interest in lightening my material load and some very specific goals for the coming year.
My foundation as a minimalist – I have been thinking about what stuff a person needs to survive since I was a teenager. Like virtually every young boy, I had grand ideas of escaping the family and traveling unhindered across the world. I devoured Jack London and Mark Twain stories as a kid. I loved the extensive and well-thought out gear lists provided in the Boy Scout Handbook, the Explorer’s Handbook, and the Philmont Guides. I read Larry Dean Olsen’s great book of Outdoor Survival Skills and Colin Fletcher’s The Complete Walker. I read about the mountain men of the fur trade, and always, took note of what they carried or didn’t seem to need. I would copy lists into a notebook and ponder them while sitting in some boring high school class, making my own lists of what I have, what I need, and what I want. This thinking encouraged me to work and save money to buy a better knife, backpack, or stove. I was probably the only kid I knew who wanted, and got, a file and whetstone for Christmas one year (my grandpa was good that way). My friends and I spent our teens and early twenties hiking and camping year round, mostly in the woods of the Ozarks in southern Missouri testing our mettle at that time in life time when all teenagers know they are invincible. Some of us even made it to Europe, Asia, Africa, and beyond.
In a modern sense of survivalist, many people look to the military or the loonies of teh mainstream media. Often, military service is the time when young men and women are introduced to such things for the first and only time. Realistically however, the military itself acknowledges it’s shortcomings on a personal basis as (with the exception of a few special operations units) its entire system is dependent on lengthy and complex supply lines, support chains, and de-emphasis of the individual and personal decision making. Military survival is therefore, approached as a means of keeping alive until help arrives. Great for fighting a war, but not always so good when you are turned loose into the world.
* here are a few links to modern Minimalists of various ilks and philosophical merit. A journey through these links will hint at the breadth and depth of people on different paths but moving in the same direction.
Old style bushcraft: a medieval possible pouch 
Preindustrial Craftsmanship 