Shaman Staff-Part 14

Deer print

Sorry about the format today.  The platform is giving me a problem and I don't have time to work with it today.  This was the best I could do with the time available.

Sheep

I have finished wood burning another section onto the walking stick.  This time I was working on animals.  In keeping with the theme that the shaman's stick would hold information that was crucial to the tribe, I decided that while I was adding the animals, that I would also add pictographs of the tracks the animals made.  I spent an afternoon reading through hunting and tracking sites to find out what various tracks looked like.  It was interesting to learn about how much you could learn about an animal's age and weight from its tracks.  Next to each drawing of an animal, is a drawing of its footprint.
 
There were plenty of animals that could have been put onto the stick, but I decided to use animals who might have been hunted for meat or for pelts, or ones that could have been considered a danger to the group.  After all, humans aren't the only ones doing the hunting.    

Wolf

Putting the animal tracks did throw me a bit of a curve though.  Among the animals that I planned to put on the stick, I had thought to put a deer, a sheep, and a moose.  In real life, the size and shape of the prints are very different.  When the prints are reduced to an inch or so in size, they appeared to be a bit redundant.  So I decided not to add the moose, which was probably for the good.  When reproduced as a basic silhouette drawing, it tended to look a lot like the Bullwinkle cartoon from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show.

Besides the deer and the sheep, I also added a wolf and a bear.   I ended that segment with a barbed spear pointed at the animals.  This is in keeping with the theme that the shaman's staff walking stick would show the implements used to catch various types of food.

Wolf print

It was a bit hard to get good pictures of the animals.  The walking stick is narrower at this point.  The animal figures curve around the stick, so it was hard to get all of the animal in one picture.  Hopefully the pictures I've posted will show enough of each animal that you get some concept of it.

It was a chilly day out with a stiff breeze while I was wood burning.  I am going out later in the afternoon so that I am working in the warmest part of the day.  Unfortunately, in the afternoon, my workbench is in the shade.  It sits where it sits because it is near an electrical outlet.  My fingers were really cold by the time I came inside.  It is supposed to be a little warmer this week, so perhaps I will get more done in the next session.

Bear

Bear print