Another thought

[Skippy]

A Bushman does not 'Survive' he lives naturally in all of his surroundings.

 

[Stuart]

Bushcrafting is by choice,
Primitive living is by birth/circumstance/situation
Most primitive living people (aboriginals) modernize to include as many newer technologies as they can make use in their daily needs, sometimes they go to far... and lose themselves. They also died a lot from starvation, exposure accidents, their isolation also made them sensitive to outside disease etc.. there is/was no safety net for them.
just a thought

I think Carcjou Garou hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned native peoples living what the west describes as a primitive lifestyle (a very subjective title) are living bushcraft with out a safety net, unlike us they do not have much of a choice about whether they practice bushcraft or not and they cannot return to the modern world if they or there family gets ill or injured.

people who teach primitive living/bushcraft are attempting to pass on the skills used by these people on a daily basis to people who may choose to dip into this lifestyle when the whim takes them.

to fully appreciate "primitive living" you would have to immerse yourself in it and use only the materials and technology available to the people you wished to futher understand even if only for a weekend

bushcraft (for me at least) is different, bushcraft is where I go into the woods by choice as in the above, but I don't restrict myself to only the technology of a specific peoples, instead I combine that knowledge with modern tools (Tarps, firesteels, billycan, sleepingbag) directly controlling my comfort level to my choosing to enjoy my surroundings.

Survival is when the unexpected happens and I am forced against my will to leave the safety net of modern life, and use the skills i have learnt to stave off death with what ever is at hand (modern or primitive) until i can return to the modern world.

 

[Gary]

So general consensious is primitive living and bushcraft skills are the same while survival skill are different?

OK lets expand further, if I practice skills using only materials which would have been available in 1700/1800 frontier North America am I bushcrafting or primitive living?

It I practice skills using only materials available in 310 BC Britian am I bushcrafting or prmitive living?

If I practice skills using materials available in the stone age am I bushcrafting or primitive living?

What is I practice stone age skills but use modern materials we apllicable?

 

[Stuart]

thats what I meant by primitive being a subjective label

 

[Gary]

Oh I agree mate, as I said before 'flint and steel' to some is modern to others primitive.

But what I am after is just seeing how others view it.

For instance in a survival situation if the survivor is forced to use stone tools is he primitive living or surviving - is the difference here choice?

How about this --- is the difference between bushcraft and primitive living (from the view point of wanting to practise it) gear? To do bushcraft do you have to have the latest what not, a flash knife, a saw and a hammock? To do Primitive living do you need home spun gear, home made rucksack and a blanket or two to sleep under?

 

[jamesdevine]

I was think about this over lunch and I was originally falling on the idea that primitive living meant you had to lie it but what about Bushcraft?

So some more thought and reading the above I feel that for someone to live primitivly they have practise and master Bushcraft. They are intertwined it one another.

The kit part of the aquistion; they are simply tools. Weather your knife is made of Flint or stainless steel or you use a blanket made of hides instead of the latest synthetic sleeping bag it makes little difference.

So in the end I think that to you must have Brushcraft to Live Primtivly but you can learn Bushcraft without living Primitivly.

If that makes any sense.

Survival is something you have to do everyday our very beings demand that.

James

 

[Kim]

Interesting question...I know when I was first looking at ways to learn about the outdoors I looked specifically for a bushcraft course, even though there was also a primitive skills course going...I guess I saw the bushcraft course as more applicable to me, in that it would help me to understand what gear I had, why I had it and how I could understand that usage in the natural world around me, whilst utilising the natural world in a more understanding and beneficial way.

I saw primitive skills as being about learning how to live as people had 'in the past', flint knapping etc and didn't think it would be as useful to me when I was out and about.

Now, having done a little bushcrafting, it has furthered my interest in learning more about primitive skills.

And do you know what...I still can't properly explain the difference between the two... :shock:

 

[Gary]

Clear as mud Kim - thanks!!

 

[bambodoggy]

Think I'm a similar story to Kath....I got into Survival first through scouts and then cadets....furthered this in the TA and then moved into Bushcraft as a way to live more comfortably if in a survival situation....then as I did more bushcraft I found out about primative skills and drifted into learning that...and so on...

oh....and I too can't quite put my finger on where the devide between them all is :?:

 

[Bob Hurley]

You try to exist as did some people from the past.

Reenactment - You pretend to kill each other so visitors can watch. When you're done you eat a chicken, and tell the visitors it's a squirrel.

Living history - You prepare squirrel for dinner, using methods documented in at least three primary sources. You describe to visitors the whole process of killing, dressing and cooking the squirrel, and you offer them a taste of it.

Bushcrafting - You walk through the woods, lightly encumbered, enjoying nature's beauty and majesty. While eating trail mix and drinking a cup of tea, you see some squirrels.

Primitive living - You catch, clean, cook and eat a squirrel. You wish to hell you had six of them.

All in good fun,
Bob

 

[Hoodoo]

Interesting discussion. To be honest, from my perspective, terms like this are just that: terms. I try not to let definitions of terms get in my way of enjoying the outdoors. When I was a kid, we called bushcraft "scouting" or often, "camping and woodcraft." Later in my life, I called it backpacking and vagabonding. I reckon people can call it whatever they want. I see the whole process as part of a continuum that I participate in, from the very primitive to the very modern. The primitive and modern are not separate but flow into each other, just as primitive tribes in the rainforest use steel machetes. My goals are pretty simple. Get outdoors in the wild. I do it many ways. Those ways have many different names. It's not the names that interest me but the doing.

 

[jakunen]

Interesting discussion. To be honest, from my perspective, terms like this are just that: terms. I try not to let definitions of terms get in my way of enjoying the outdoors. When I was a kid, we called bushcraft "scouting" or often, "camping and woodcraft." Later in my life, I called it backpacking and vagabonding. I reckon people can call it whatever they want. I see the whole process as part of a continuum that I participate in, from the very primitive to the very modern. The primitive and modern are not separate but flow into each other, just as primitive tribes in the rainforest use steel machetes. My goals are pretty simple. Get outdoors in the wild. I do it many ways. Those ways have many different names. It's not the names that interest me but the doing.

:super: :You_Rock_ :clap: :notworthy

 

[Gary]

Abbe there is no right or wrong answer here - I am just interested in peoples views.

Modern man is, in many ways, to hung up on terminology. Just reading the replies above, and harking back to the survival/bushcraft thread, I am inclined to believe they are really all the same thing the only difference is how we percieve them to be.

Bushcraft, Primitive living and survival skills are all the same, the gear changes in some respects so does the ethics but they are all feathers on the same bird.

I agree HOODOO but it is good food for thought.

One good thing about terminology is that to classify a hobby or interest as one thing people need to research it and understand it a little and in this there is learning too!!

 

[Hoodoo]

Gary, I don't think we could communicate very well without terms. Western civilization has immersed itself in terminology and naming things is an effective tool for understanding many aspects of life on this planet. This is especially true in the sciences and defining terms is critical to understanding science. But I always tell my students that naming things is what humans do in an attempt to understand the natural world around them. We classify and categorize. Nature, however, exists whether we name things or not and it has a way sometimes of not being easily categorized. So I think it's important to realize that terms are artificial (cultural) creations that may or may not fully represent the phenomena they were meant to describe. Terms are one thing. Reality can often be another. I keep both feet firmly planted in both worlds. :rolmao:

 

[Gary]

Are you a quadruped? :rolmao: . Seriously though I agree, it is important to keep things in prespective and this is one of the reason I posed the question in the first place I was curious to see how others viewed things.

Here, as with the gold mining thought, my intention wasnt to offer my opinion merely to open peoples hearts, eyes and minds!

 

[Fallow Way]

I see them in this way....


Survival - using what resources are available to you to stay alive in an emergency situation

Bushcraft - The study of those skills which enable us to travel to wild places in safety (be they modern/ancient)

Primitive Living - Abcense of dependence on modern materials and technologies of your own choosing or circumstance through your community (generally i would say in terms of time frame, whatever period they drawing those skills from, if it requires manual skill, it is traditonal/primative living)

So to me, the difference is the choice, or absence there of, you make regarding your dependence on primitive skills. With Bushcraft we choose to use these skills, but we are quite happy to use compasses, snow mobiles and GPS to accomplish what we are trying to do, which is gather understanding of traditional skills. I am quite happy to acknowldge the use of modern technologies, they are a marvel and why should we push away this element of human accomplishment all together? We should re-gather our skills, but not loose out on others at the same time. Its that whole argument of the balance of technology verses human ability. I think in Bushcraft there is a good balance, and that we use modern technology for the study of past technologies.

I`m waffling now, i`ll stop

 

[TheViking]

Interesting discussion. To be honest, from my perspective, terms like this are just that: terms. I try not to let definitions of terms get in my way of enjoying the outdoors. When I was a kid, we called bushcraft "scouting" or often, "camping and woodcraft." Later in my life, I called it backpacking and vagabonding. I reckon people can call it whatever they want. I see the whole process as part of a continuum that I participate in, from the very primitive to the very modern. The primitive and modern are not separate but flow into each other, just as primitive tribes in the rainforest use steel machetes. My goals are pretty simple. Get outdoors in the wild. I do it many ways. Those ways have many different names. It's not the names that interest me but the doing.

That's a good perspective... :biggthump

 

[Abbe Osram]

I would like to know what do you call a guy who got fed up with our way of living, moved into the woods and staid there. Through hunting and fishing he get enough food for himself and the little money he needs for flour, baking powder etc he makes as a wilderness guide.

cheers
Abbe

 

[Hoodoo]

Here, as with the gold mining thought, my intention wasnt to offer my opinion merely to open peoples hearts, eyes and minds!

Topics like this are excellent because they often do lead to introspective thought. "Things" like bushcraft are often done simply because they are "things" that people do. For some it's a fad--a movement. For some it's an obsession bordering on religion, with a proscribed dogma. "Doing bushcraft" becomes the goal rather than a participation in a process. Competing bushcraft groups form as if there's something to compete over (like money? ). People argue about right and wrong as if everything is written in stone. X is a bushcraft knife, Y isn't. Yes, but suppose you had neither? I usually just go with the flow and often prefer confusion to order.

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

The emotional motivations for pursuing these different labels bears examination. I practice, and in measure respect all. But, if "the emperor has no clothes (cammie, buckskin or Ventile) we all can stand naked before an illuminating fire ( friction, firesteel and flint or disposable lighter.) 'Primative' has a very not so subtle message to and from some people. The modern world is awfull, I feel out of touch with the real world and older cultures had this connection. So, I flee asphalt for some Rousseau vision of THE NOBLE SAVAGE. Trouble is, if I go to visit living 'primative' cultures they likely as not have steel knives and wear a NIKE swoosh T shirt. Oetzi had a copper axe, not a flint aechulian handaxe. Our born again Iishi gets into further trouble with clumsy labels. First Nations popped up not long after Afro American and Latino over here. I remember this starry eyed german girl on a field excavation address a Dine' friend this way. He looked rather puzzled. "Uh, I'm an american miss.Oh no, your first nation, before the white americans. No miss, the people here are Chumash. I moved to L.A. in 1975 and those white americans came from Germany and a bunch of other places (instant pan european guilt transfer for the new world holocost.) My NAME is Charles Begay." Survivalist can be the anti government social phenomenon of militias. I feel disenranchised from the system. So I am going to create my own system where I am a WINNER as designated grand poobah Lt Col of the 5th Michigan mechanised division ( 3 rusting Chevy Suburbans.) This social expression may eschew our society and it's ills, but it has an umbellical cord still attached as big as a oil pipleine. Basic survival skills like we promote at ETS imply a big OOPS! in our social calender. I wasn't planning on camping this weekend, but the plane crash or Tsumani changed my plans.I can become almost anal retentive about my PSK and going through withdrawal symptoms on a commercial flight though. Bushcraft is a logical extension of camping out, dayhiking, birdwatching, collecting mushrooms or pretending we're Snoopy crossing No Man's land after the Red Baron flamed our Sopwith again. I think it can avoid some of the pretensions of the other two if we avoid gurus, obligatory dress or exclusionary slang that alienates landowners, constables or T.V. scriptwriters looking for a new group to exploit. So, I'm off for a recon, vision quest, walkabout. I need to test my new infrared rifle scope on my Hawken rifle and this neat set of Donegal tweeds. if I shoot down a black helicopter I have my tobasco sauce to make it taste better ):