BECOMING A CRAFTER

Not long after I finished college, I had a craving for woodworking again. It’s something I grew up doing and something I had time for in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Specifically, I wanted to relearn the bowmaking craft and everything that came with it.

I made my first stick bow at such a young age, I don’t remember it well. It was nothing more than a bent sapling with some sinew or rawhide on it. When i was about 10 years old, though, I made a bow that actually flung arrows but it wasn’t anything to take on a hunt. Nonetheless, I was obsessed with archery as a kid because it was something my father and uncle loved to do with me. I have indistinct and hazy memories of the hours we spent chipping away at Mule Fat with our knives making arrows or the time we spent carving at wood and chopping logs for fires. Being in the woods was part of our bond. I loved knives and anything in the realm of outdoorsmanship and working with natural materials. At this age, I knew nothing about tribal rights or land sovereignty. I knew nothing about lost traditions or craft revitalization. I was just having fun.

By the time I reached high school, I became too busy for crafting. It was something I wouldn’t genuinely think about for years. I went on compound archery hunts with a good family friend, though I was not at this time concerned with the craft of bowmaking.

In 2019, I picked up my fathers hand-me-down tools again. My close friend wanted to make a bow and asked me what I knew about the process. He was stuck on a shaping issue while removing wood. I told him what I knew, which I recall being very vague and unpracticed. I even questioned what I was saying. His questions burned something in me that had been dormant. I had forgotten the things I grew up seeing my uncle and father do. It was time to relearn.

I picked up books, information on websites, spoke to my dad, contacted my uncle, and gathered my materials. My first bow was pathetic and snapped on me. I started with oak boards from the lumber store while I soaked up all I could about stave bows (staves are where the magic is). My main issue was that I didn’t have any seasoned staves besides the osage orange that my dad’s friend gifted him, though I was too scared to jump into what is considered the best bow wood and ruin it. Natural bow wood needs about a year to dry after being harvested in order to make a proper hunting or target bow, so I couldn’t just start. I got on harvesting the straightest bow wood I could find and gathered a good amount for time to come. With a good sized log, you can get 5-8 bow staves. The log shouldn’t be too big or too small in diameter.

Splitting logs into bow staves for drying

Some of my stave collection

In the meantime, my craft was limited to kiln-dried oak boards and the inconsistent stave I could buy or trade friends. I ended up finding a bowyer that sells hickory staves on occasion and bought a few from him. I was hooked again. I put in every spare hour of the day into learning and trying things. Eventually, I got good. My tiller (the process of slowly removing slivers of belly wood so that the bow limbs will bend perfectly in unison) improved vastly and my process solidified. I became a genuine bow maker.

Deer rawhide backed hickory board bow with an osage handle and a flemish string.

As time went on I became practiced and I collected many different types of wood. I sold a few bows and ventured more into the detailed art of arrow-making. I began to craft Atlameh (plural word for atlatl in Nawatl) and people online were interested in supporting me by purchasing my work. I focused so much of my time to crafting for some time, though I eventually burnt out in the business side of it. I never wanted to sell my work initially, but the pressures of requests online while I was sharing my work got to me. People wanted to own my work, and I was happy to engage in sales at first. I eventually lost my initial passion in the craft and ultimately decided to close down sales. It wasn’t for me and was never why I started making bows in the first place. I wanted to get back into crafting for the passion of it without due dates and worries.

A rattlesnake skin bow with a traditional arrow.

I crafted 2 bows with the purpose of small game hunting and big game hunting. I love these bows and every time I use them they remind me of why I fell in love with archery and crafting in the first place. It’s meditation. The slow process of it all centers me and takes me back to a time when daily concerns didn’t involve capitalism or materialism. I made these bows for hunting (primarily jack rabbit). I have not successfully harvested a deer with my large game bow yet as of 2022, but I am hopeful that I will soon. I have no intention of rushing it.

I’m immensely grateful to everyone who supported, and still supports, my craft whether through purchasing or following me online. I am so proud to be able to pass this old tradition on to my children in the near future. I am grateful to be in a position where I can give bows away when I feel they are meant to be gifted to community or relatives. I am now taking it slow, and understand the process clearly: “Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished.” - Lao Tzu

Weyetlasokamachilistli. Thank you for reading.