How to make a Bird Bolas

A “Bird Bolas” is a hunting apparatus used by many tribes of Indians a long time ago. They were used to, as you might expect, catch and kill birds. They accomplished this by twirling the Bolas around their head in a circle, then letting go at the right time to make them fly into a group of birds and knock them to the ground.

In order to make this ancient weapon, you will need five or six stones about the size of large marbles. In addition you will need five or six leather squares with dimensions of 6 inches on each side, as well as five or six four foot lengths of strong nylon string that won’t break easily. There are alternative materials, since leather is sometimes expensive or hard to find. An old t-shirt would work if you cut the squares from it; however with the string there really is no alternative. The string needs to be strong and light. You don’t have to use stones; you can use marbles. Really you can use anything hard that will fit in the fabric you are using. Actually, the Eskimos used Ivory from the tusks of Walruses.

To begin construction of the Bird Bolas, take one of the stones and place it in the center of one of the squares of leather. Take up the corners of the square and pull them together above the stone. Now start to twist the corners together as to keep to rock from falling out.  While still holding the corners, tie one end of one of the strings around the corners a couple times. This is our first bola! To test it, give it a few hard swings around your head. Then check to see if the knot has loosened or if the rock has come out. Do the same with the other five stones, and you are almost done!

To finish up, you are going to take the untied ends of the strings and tie them all together with a strong square knot. If you wish to make this an Indian Bolas, you can attach feathers. Now when you throw this into a flock of birds, the stones will either wrap around one of the birds or knock it right out of the air. If you have good aim you are almost guaranteed 3 or four birds. Now, obviously you are not going to be able to just go out and kill birds. You will need to find a place where it is legal and where there are not many people.

I would like to give you some more information about this Bolas. The Indians were not the only ones who used these; the Chinese used them, as did the Eskimos! In fact, not only humans use these weapons! There is a type of spider called a Bolas Spider. It uses this weapon made from sticky web to catch their prey. This small spider was smart enough that, from its creation, it was using this weapon, which probably took us years to conceive.

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