Rivercane habitats are threatened in the Carolinas and other parts of the southeast. The rich bottoms are perfect for agriculture as well as rivercane. Consequently, cane has been driven to the edge of fields and streams by more than 200 years of cultivation. This is of much concern to blowgun makers in the area. Cherokee craftsmen often travel long distances to obtain proper blowgun cane. Trips to Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky from their North Carolina mountain homes are not unusual. The search for good blowgun cane is ongoing, and a Cherokee maker—no matter where he travels—is ever on the lookout.

Much of the rivercane in the southeast has hybridized with bamboo, an Asian import.³ This crossing results in shorter lengths of sections between the joints and deeper flutes at the branch junctions. These attributes, along with the tendency of bamboo to split when drying, have made bamboo itself an unsatisfactory substitute for the native material. Traditional blowgun makers seek out the long-section canes of the pure stock.

Second-year growth is chosen for blowgun making. First-year growth rivercane is weak and never seems to dry out firmly enough to produce a good gun. Craftsmen scan the canebrakes for plants of their favorite diameters and lengths. Some are chosen for serious hunting or competition, and some for sale to tourists. Yet, the traditional blowgun maker chooses each cane carefully, scorning those who clear-cut a patch and use canes of mixed or inferior quality.

All of the known accounts of blowgun manufacture that we have from the Historic Period refer to the use of metal tools for hollowing and smoothing the weapon’s bore. It must be remembered that European contact in the North American Southeast began more than four hundred years ago with the Spanish invasions. Access to metal tools, no doubt, quickly altered aboriginal blowgun manufacturing techniques.

Once the cane has been cut, bundled and allowed to dry, the blowgun maker begins the process of straightening. A cane that looks as straight as an arrow in the field will reveal all kinds of kinks, curves and wiggles when later examined. Fortunately, rivercane responds well to the heat straightening techniques that are commonly used with wood. The blank (the cane cut to length) is heated over flames or coals and bent at the crooked places over the maker’s knee or the edge of a log, stump or rock.

According to Lossiah (1980),⁴ there are two straightenings which must occur: curves in the sections between the joints, and bends which occur at the joints. At-the-joint bends require more care as the cane is likely to snap at this juncture if too much pressure or too little heat are applied. Straightening can be a frustrating process. An experienced blowgun maker can straighten a blank in a matter of minutes. Less experienced folks can spend hours working to straighten without undoing sections already dealt with.

Once the blank is straightened, it is time to turn attention to the blowgun’s interior. The joints must be removed and the walls of the joints reamed flush with the interior of the already hollow sections between the joints. It is this reaming process which is critical to making a good blowgun. Failure to adequately reduce the interior joint walls will result in an excessively slowed dart or, even worse, a stuck one.

The historic method for penetrating the joint walls most often involves the use of a heated metal rod. An experienced blowgun maker will have several different diameters of metal rods on hand to accommodate various cane sizes. The more joint wall material that can be removed in this boring/burning process, the less remains for the next step of reaming. Yet, too large a diameter rod can burn through a wall or split the blank at the narrower muzzle end.

1. A well-seasoned piece of rivercane is chosen and straightened, then cut in length (4-8 feet). 2. The blank is split in two equal halves. 3. The joint walls are cut away. 4. The two halves are glued back together and bound with cordage.

For reaming, the traditional Historic-era tool is the homemade rasp. This consists of a slender piece of split hardwood—hickory or locust—at least half the length of the intended blowgun. Once sized and smoothed so as to work freely back-and-forth within the cane’s interior, the last few inches inside the forward end are wrapped with a roughened piece of metal. Strips of tin cans with small holes punched to create many sharp edges (like the common kitchen cheese grater) are often used for this. It is truly remarkable how well these homemade rasps get the job done, quickly removing the remaining joint walls inside the gun. Once reamed, the interior is smoothed further by sanding or burnishing with a hardwood rod to remove any remaining splinters or rough spots which may catch or slow a dart. Truly well-made blowguns exhibit polished interiors which become even smoother with the passage of time and many darts.

Trimming and smoothing the mouthpiece and muzzle ends complete the blowgun. Exteriors may be polished at this stage, and on rare occasions, decorated by sooting patterns of rings or spirals. Even less common is the practice of sooting the whole exterior surface—resulting in a totally black blowgun.⁵

Blowguns may vary in length from as short as three feet to as long as ten feet or more for serious hunting or competition. Longer guns provide more accuracy—all other things being equal. Yet, longer guns are much more difficult to manufacture. Five to seven foot guns are very common. The Choctaw even distinguish between five to six foot guns for nighttime hunting in the brier patch and eight to nine foot guns for daytime hunting on open ground (Nash 1963).

Before leaving this consideration of historic techniques, it must be remembered that this is an ever-evolving craft among contemporary Cherokees, Choctaws and others. Even though the blowgun is an important symbol of their past, it is also alive within the culture of the present. And, even though the simple hand tools described above are considered traditional at this point (and completely adequate to get the job done), many present-day native craftsmen employ modern substitutes. The commercial round wood rasp is sometimes substituted for the punched tin variety. Drill bits attached to long metal rods are sometimes used for boring instead of the older burning method. And, sandpaper often substitutes for a hardwood burnishing tool. The techniques change but the blowgun remains.

A Proposed Aboriginal Method of Construction

For those wishing to understand how southeastern rivercane blowguns may have been manufactured prehistorically or for those seeking to manufacture such a weapon themselves using only aboriginal-style tools and techniques, questions remain. How the boring and reaming operations were accomplished prior to the introduction of metal tools is still a matter of speculation. Various suggestions and traditions have been offered. The Choctaw believe that the joints were knocked out using a sharpened piece of cane of a smaller diameter, and the remaining joint wall fragments were reamed using a stone point/drill hafted to a long shaft (Nash 1963). The Catawba version cites the same knocking out method followed by rasping with sand and a hardwood shaft.⁶ Either of these methods, or yet other methods not here noted, may result in the successful manufacture of a serviceable weapon.

I have tested one possible method and offer it below. In short, it involves a splitting and rejoining technique. This approach corresponds to South American Indian methods and is alluded to in at least one historic Creek reference: “The blowgun was made of a cane stalk about as long as a man is tall. To remove the pith it was sometimes necessary to section the cane, then bind it together again (Speck 1907).” Does this sketchy Creek account reflect a personal or tribal idiosyncracy, or is it an echo of a widespread technology which predates the iron rod?