yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

The Mani Tribe's Blowgun | Primal Survivor


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[music playing]

HAZEN AUDEL: The Mani have an unrivaled knowledge of the local plants and trees, relying on them for almost everything they need. [non-english speech] Huh? [non-english speech] [non-english speech] That one right there. [non-english speech] Oh. It's basically like a palm tree. And it is spiky and thorny everywhere on it. [non-english speech] Up there? [non-english speech] You just climb this to get all the way up there. Look at that.

The Mani are expert climbers. Training begins at a young age. By adulthood, they're able to scale the tallest trees in the forest. Now, that man can climb a tree. It makes perfect sense because in a forest like this, it's a whole 'nother world out there. And to the Mani, half their meat market and grocery store is up in those branches. He's doing this all methodically. All this comes with a lot of practice.

OK, yeah, this is the stuff. It's like this really felty material, really fibrousy. It's the stuff that grows between the really spiky outer bark in the inner cambium up there. [music playing] Nice. [laughs] This plant fiber makes excellent tinder, but we've collected it for a different purpose. [non-english speech] Take one of these? [non-english speech] OK. These are target darts. [non-english speech] No poison on the end.

Oh, OK. Take this. So this little wadding, shove that right in there. And then that totally completes the air seal. Huh? Making the tube airtight allows us to fire the darts using the power of our lungs. [inaudible] has been hunting with blow guns since he was 15. These powerful precision weapons rely on an expert combination of steady aim and timing. Bullseye. That is just straight and powerful.

Blow guns are handmade in the village using a special bamboo called [inaudible]. Two tubes are carefully heated and massaged over hot coals, and are made to be as straight as possible. They are then glued together using a sticky tree resin. This extra length provides deadly force and accuracy. Launching darts at several hundred miles per hour. Look at that. Just to see how powerful, this dart went all the way through the target.

Now, it's my turn. It's a good thing these things are light, because there's a lot of leverage on the end. But then, your hands don't get in the way of siting the blowgun. I got this. [groans] Yeah, I didn't make it that time. [inaudible] It'll take some practice. It went way into the jungle. During a hunt, you rarely get a second chance. I need to demonstrate this is a skill I can master.

OK, so how do you hold your hands? Just put that on the bottom. Oh, wow, OK. So you lock your two index fingers up on top. There we go! Yeah, bullseye, bullseye. Nice, nice, getting more practice. They fire so fast and accurate, they really jam in there.

MANI PERSON: [non-english speech] Huh?

MANI PERSON: [non-english speech] Yeah, [non-english speech]. Good deal, good deal. Yeah, yeah, nice. Starting to get the hang of this.

More Articles

View All
7 Things I Wish I Knew At 20
What’s up guys? It’s Graham here. So, these are a few of the things that I wish I knew when I was a lot younger, in no particular order. Because now that I’m in my early 30s, there’s a lot of things that I look back on 10 years ago and I think to myself, …
TIL: Dinosaurs May Have Danced Like Birds | Today I Learned
[Music] I think one of the most exciting things that people don’t really realize is that birds are living dinosaurs. And dinosaurs giving rise to birds probably did the same thing that birds [Music] do. Virtually all birds use their feathers for display.…
Jeff Bezos: The electricity metaphor
When you think about resilience and technology, it’s actually much easier. You’re going to see some other speakers today, I already know, who are going to talk about breaking-bones stuff, and, of course, with technology it never is. So it’s very easy, com…
Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold | Official Trailer | National Geographic
What is he holding on to? On another L, yeah W. It’s like watching a movie, huh? Yeah, pretty much. After Alex Freid, all cap, he seemed lost. Now he’s found other ways to keep contributing to the world: a wall that has never been climbed. A place where …
Food Fight! The Big Genetically Modified Food Debate
Genetically modified foods are one of the most controversial concepts of today’s modern world. Genetically modified foods have had specific changes introduced into their DNA. Crops undergo this process to have desirable traits, like a brighter color, a sm…
The Fourth Amendment | National Constitution Center | Khan Academy
Hey, this is Kim from Khan Academy, and today I’m talking with some experts about the Fourth Amendment. This is the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and the Fourth Amendment deals with unreasonable search and seizure. So here’s the official text o…