3.26.2011

arkansas knap-in


Perhaps you've never heard of knapping. You take a piece of flint or chert or obsidian or some other kind of flaky rock and you flake pieces off of it until it becomes an arrowhead or a spear point. Yes, just like the Stone Agers used to do, only now.
   They sell or trade them to each other and get together for knap-in weekends  where they come from all over to camp out and trade with one another and initiate newbies into their Ooga-Booga tribe. (Some of you may remember a phase when I used to try to teach children around the world to say "ooga booga" in hopes that they would shock adults and strangers with this utterance.)
    They remind me of nothing so much as the Rocket Men, who gather to shoot off their missiles and are as happy when the other guy's goes really far as when their own doesn't fizzle. They're spreading the dream. And so they were happy to talk to Bear, who has just started making his own points after finding fewer real arrowheads than he would like.

2 comments:

  1. from one knapp to another...wow is all I can say to the whole story...this is the wonderful real world

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  2. I though you were the ooga-booga person...

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