today i got ahold of a small trunk from my nieghbors bottle brush tree. i decided to make a couple of atlatls and a 'rabbit' or throwing stick out of it.

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i cut it in half and split it lengthwise.

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i set aside three staves for future use and got to work shaping the rabbit stick.

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the wood, despite being extremely tough, works very easy. and as a bonus the inner bark makes great cordage.

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i had the rough shape in no time. one side flat, the other rounded, and a simple handle are all that's required.

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rabbit sticks are left/right dependent, so if you are a right hander then the curve faces forward and the flat side is down.

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this shape acts like an airplane wing in that it generates lift when thrown, keeping it buzzing just above the ground for a long distance.

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here's another view from the handle end.

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and again edge on.

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a little detail on the handle...

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and, voila! spinning, buzzing, rabbit killing stick of death! it may seem simple, but this was the primary small game hunting weapon in the southwest region for thousands of years.

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nice dude

i have a cuved hickory stick that i consider my rabbit stick  ;D it isnt as fancy as yours though lol

'fancy' is hardly the word i would use for this. utilitarian, maybe, but fancy no.

lol..not fancy just a bit more artful  8-)

good luck on the atlatls too. those should turn out great

i'm hoping! gonna try my hand at a split finger 'basketmaker'. i'll have to let the wood season for awhile first so it doesn't crack.

Paleoarts. Bottle brush is a form of Acacia is it not?
What does the completed stick weigh?
I'd have thought it a little on the light side for a form of throwing stick.
It sounds like you're making a type of boomerang, as you probably know the Australian Indigenous peoples make 2 types the returning boomerang and the hunting or war boomerang which does not return. Typhon

i'm not sure what species my 'bottle brush' is from. it's a short tree/shrub with bright red blooms that look like bottle brushes. around here we just call them bee magnets! i'm not sure what it weighs, but it has about the same density and hardness of american live oak. very robust! and, yes, the american 'rabbit stick' is essentially a non-returning boomerang developed independently by native american peoples, although probably several thousand years later than our australian cousins. ;) for a comprehensive history and how-to on construction and use, check out 'survival skills of native california' by paul d. campbell. i've cited this book many times, and for a very good reason. it's absolutely chock full of practical and amazing info on stoneage crafts and skills. i highly recommend it to anyone interested in primitive technologies.

Paleoarts wrote on Jul 30^th, 2009 at 12:18pm:

check out 'survival skills of native california' by paul d. campbell. i've cited this book many times, and for a very good reason. it's absolutely chock full of practical and amazing info on stoneage crafts and skills. i highly recommend it to anyone interested in primitive technologies.

I heartily second that, I have it and its fantastic.

Paleoarts. Don't be too sure it post dates the Australian Indigenous peoples discovery of the boomerag. I remember reading of a Boomerang discovered in California (from memory) that was dated as 25,000 (also from memory, I gotta get my reference books out of storeage) years old! Typhon.

well, typhon. not to question your memory, but that's older than any known manmade artifact or remains from anywhere in the americas by several thousand years. although i believe man was here somewhere around or shortly after 20,000 b.p., there is no direct evidence as yet. this is probably due to the rise in sea levels after the ice age drowning most habitation sites. what is well documented is human habitation in australia going back at least 40,000 years and as long as 50,000!

i think a proper rabbit stick will be the next thing on my list 8-)

Hmmmmm. . . .

Not that we have many rabbits around here, but I bet it'd do a number on rock chucks (not to be confused with ChuckRocks, who eats less hay and doesn't make that annoying chirping sound)

I have some hickory sledgehammer handles that might work.

K'Jev
8-)

An aerodynamic style rabbit stick should have some curve along its length to give it stability and keep it flying edge on. If it is straight it will tend to flutter edge over edge and lose all its power. With a club type of rabbitstick this doesnt matter so much.

http://www.caliberdt.com/~bill/dirttime2005/rabbitstick.htm

http://www.kumeyaay.info/indian_artifacts.html?http://www.kumeyaay.info/museums/artifacts/rabbit_sticks.html

http://webprojects.prm.ox.ac.uk/arms-and-armour/o/Throwing-Blades-and-Sticks/1903.36.41/

great links, David, as always!

Paloarts thanks for the pictures, David thanks for the links.

More good papers on rabbit sticks:
http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1633&context=ucmercedlibrary/jcgba
http://www.pcas.org/Vol34N3/343Krper.pdf

A survival PDF Rabbit sticks and Bits of everything:
http://www.housegate.net/woodvival/manualistica/Primitive%20Weapons%20and%20Survival%20Skills.pdf

My favorite paper is :  Non Return Boomerangs in Baja California Norte
not as much info I just like the documents style

I now have Primitive Technology Volumes 1 and 2. There is a *ton* of rabbitstick info in those that I am still getting my head around.