FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

Joe Dabill - Instructor in Primitive Technology

Contact Information

Contact Person: Joe Dabill
Phone: 805-466-4336
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Programs/Resources Offered by this Provider

Native Skills Demonstrations

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

Organizational Information

Type of Environmental Education Provider:  For Profit
Mission Statement:  Joe Dabill, Instructor in Primitive Technology
Joe Dabill uses natural materials to make beautiful and fully functional tools. Tribes hire him to teach native skills to their children. Several museums have his work on display and he is published in the Journal of Primitive Technology.

His skills include: edible and useful plants, bow and arrow construction, flint knapping, tanning animal hides, fire making by hand drill, cordage making, Indian games, instruments and jewelry.
Counties Served:  Marin, Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Ventura

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL/ RAY HARWOOD

Dr. Jeannie Binning with Steve Carter.

Dr.Jeannie Binning bifacing a large obsidian spall, onlookers are Peter Ainsworth, Terry Frederick and Steve Carter. Jeannie alway drew a hefty crowd when she made large Crabtree bifaces.

Alton Safford ,Steve Carter, Joe Dabill and Peter Ainsworth in the knapping circle.

Terry Frederick enters the "knapping zone"

Barney DeSimone using an Ishi stick.

Steve Carter has a strange knapping method, he pulls the flake from the top!? Errett Callahan said Steve is one of a kind! Steve has the respect of both academic and folk knappers.

Ray Harwood tells Barney DeSimone and Steve Carter to look at the camera. We were planning out trip to Arizona for obsidian - we went but did not find it.

Alton Safford Demos the sling! Damn son---

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

Joe Dabil demonstrated the atlatl.

On lookers admire Steve Carter's work, among them Barney DeSimone.

Terry Frederick shows Alton Safford and Steve Carter hiscollection ofSollberger points. Solly was supposedto be at this knap-in but had to cancell at the last minute.

Dr. Peter Ainsworth, an archaeologist, was just out of the Flenniken knapping school and was knapping a pattern flaking Cumberland point here,

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

Joe Dabil does a demo while Alton and Steve Carter look on.

Steve Carter meets Scott Yo, Alton Safford and Terry Frederick look on.

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

Joe Dabil Pressure Flaking an Ishi Point

I remember the 1987 Wrightwood knapin. It was the first Wrightwood knap-in that people were actually selling stuff, before that it was all trading and knapping and so on. This was one of the knap-ins held at Jackson lake. Jackson lake is an alpine type lake in the high country.It was cold at night and warm and sunny in the day. It was the most beautiful place for a knap-in of all. The camp was a flat plateau just above the lake itself and it had a hard sandy floor, it had a good open area for archery, atlatl and knapping. Joe Dabil came with his friend Terry Fredrick, I had known the two friends since 1983, but we formally met in 1984 and the CSUN knap-in. Joe Dabill is a local legend for wilderness skills and native American crafts. Joe did demos on flintknapping Ishi style, fire drill, atlatl throwing and so on. I forgot my sleeping bag and the night was comming on so Joe showed me how to make a fire bed, the only thing was -it was to shallow and my pants started on-fire, it was wierd -I was dreaming I was in a burning barn! He has joked to me about that for 20 years! Terry was a part time archaeologist and knapper of Chumash points of Monterey Chert.

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL PETER AINSWORTH . BARNEY DESIMONE.

Brothers -Scott and Larry Yo were flintknappers from the South Bay, I remember the second night out there Scott came into the camp fire with "hello the fire"! He was a buff steel worker and welder- really cool folks. Scott had a Dutch over and he cooked up some amazing peach cobbler. Barney DeSimone came up "the A-wop-a-hoe", was his joke- he is Italian and everyone thought he was an Indian, so he said I am a "wop" and a hoe -so people thought he was a "A-wop-a-hoe", which is not a real tribe! Steve Carter came up from Ramona in his old flatbed truck, Steve was into pattern flaking and amazingly thin percussion bifacing before anyone else I have known about. Alton Safford was there and he demonstrated using the David and Goliath sling- did knapping and ate a lot of apples, he also brought some longbows he had made, his nickname is "Longbow Safford" . Peter Ainsworth and Jeannie Binning showedupfrom the acedemic knapping community and were doing very nice "Crabtree" large biface work. I can't remember much more about that knap-in except it was really fun and wonderful4 days in heaven.

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL PATRIC AIMS

WRIGHTWOOD KNAP IN STARTED IN 1984, SET UP BY RAY HARWOOD AND ALTON SAFFORD AT JACKSON LAKE., BUT OUR FIRST CALIFORNIA FLINTKNAPPING RENDEZVOUS WAS IN 1983 AT CSUN. SET UP BY RAY HARWOOD. AT THE FIRST KNAP IN 1983 : RAY HARWOOD, ALTON SAFFORD, JOHN ATWOOD, RICK WESSEL, CLAY SINGER, GEORGE HUFF, JENNIE BINNING, ROY VANDERHOOK, TERRY FREDERICK, JOE DABIL, FRED BUDINGER, TED HARWOOD, NANCY HARWOOD, BRIAN GUNTHER, AND A HOST OF OTHERS. FIRST LOCATION: C.S.U.N. . SECOND: JACKSON LAKE FLAT. THIRD; CAMP GUFFY (TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN) FOURTH: INDIAN HILLS RANCH. Ray had flintknapped in an artistic vacuum until he was in his early 20s. This is when Ray met fellow Ishi fans, Joe Dabil, Barney DeSimone, Steve Carter, Jim Win, Jennie Binning and Alton Safford. Barney had a small business called Yana Enterprises where he marketed his Ishi posters and items and had become an expert Ishi style knapper, to the point that he had killed a wild boar on Catalina Island armed with a sinew backed bow and Ishi tipped arrow of glass of his own making. Atlton was an avid traditional bow hunter and knapper, he had even hunted big game in Africa a few times with stone points. Years later Alton and Ray started the yearly California Flintknapping Rendezvous. Joe Dabil had become a California legend by the late 1970s and had the nick name of "Indian Joe", this name given to him by the prominent archaeologists of the day. Joe could make fire in of minutes with a natural yucca file board and mule fat stick. Joe was also a master of the Ishi style flintknapping methodology. Joe's Ishi points of both glass and obsidian were each an impressive work of art. Ray and Joe became friends and Ray began to study Joe's flintknapping methods. Joe Dabil had learned the arts of wilderness survival hands on. Joe was an Olympic class long distance runner in the 1960s, and when a Doctor informed him he had a life threatening decease he fled into the wilderness. There in the woods, alone, Joe eked out a survival on natural foods. Eventually Joe relearned the arts of Ishi, sinew back bow making, arrow-smithing, fire drill technology, cordage making, brain tanning and of coarse...flintknapping. As miracle have it, Joe lived out his death sentence and is still practicing wilderness skills today. Steve Carter was already an established master knapper when Ray met him in the early 1980s. Steve had been friends with J.B.Sollberger of Dallas, Texas and with J.B.s inspiration, at the 1978 Little Lake knap-in, Steve developed his own unique knapping style, one in which he detached the flakes of the top of the preform as opposed to the bottom that rests on the palm of the hand. Steve was versatile and also used the Ishi style knapping techniques. Steve's work even impressed the Grand Masters; Sollberger, Titmus, Callahan and Crabtree. Jimm Winn was there at the second or third Wrightwood knap-in with Barney Desimone and George hough and George Hough and Dick Baugh. Jim did a lot of heat treating of local materials there in the famous Wrightwood fire pit at Jackson Lake Flat. After the close of the Flintknappers' Exchange in 1981, there was a void for two years. Communication among flintknappers slowed to a stop. In 1984 at the knap-in at the Northridge Archaeological Research Center I was talking about the need for a newsletter to Clay Singer and Terry Frederick, they suggested I do it, well I had dyslexia, couldn't type and had no money, okay! Alton Safford, Jeannie Binning and Joe Dabill encouraged as well. I couldn't get anyone to help me with the project so I did it myself. I started work on the first issue, all the words were misspelled, the grammar was just as bad, I cut and past the cover. I wanted to call it the Flintknappers' Monthly but I couldn't find those words in the old NARC newsletters so I got close with "FLintknapping Digest" and cut and pasted it on the cover. I used the address list in the old Flintknappers' Exchange at the end of each article to find the knappers. It worked I began to get a flood of mail about it. It was really amateurish and I got a lot of flak, but everybody who got it loved it. Clay Singer said "it has a folksy, underground publication look" . In any case it got better with each issue. I remember asking J.B. Sollberger to write an article for me and he got really mad. He said that I was just trying to associate with his name to gain fame and make the newsletter sell better , I was unaffected and said yes, so do I get the article? We got along fine after that and I did get the article, I think he trusted me to tell the truth after that. He even made me some fluted points. The "J.B." in J.B. Sollberger is rumored to stand for "John the Baptist" . So you see with a reputation like that truth means a lot. I was amazed that the little newsletter was doing so well, my mom was too, she never thought such a weird newsletter would work. I was 24 years old when I started the newsletter and didn't have a whole lot else going, it was great, I met all my flintknapping heroes. One day I got a letter from D.C. Waldorf and he was asking about something, I can't remember, but he referred to the Flintknapping Digest as "The Digest", I put the letter in the next issue and from then on that's what everyone called it. Even now I see it referenced to time and again and it is almost always given its affectionate name "The Digest" it gave knappers a worm and fuzzy feel, like an old dog that you had when you were a kid. Even old dogs pass on, and in the late 1980s, even with Val Waldorf's help, I couldn't do it anymore. After some coaxing the waldorf's took pity on me and took the newsletter over. They gave it a face lift and a new name "Chips" . .Paul Hellweg, a fellow Army Tanker. Paul, likes to specialise inground stone axe manufacture, and he is quite good at it. He was actually a Crabtree and Flenniken Student, but went over to the servival camp when he got a job teaching it at C.S.U.N. where I first met him in the early 1980s. Paul wrote some nice articles for the Flintknapping Digest in 1984 and published a book on knapping the same year, Flintknapping, The Art of Making Stone Tools that has sold over 50,000 copies. Hellweg has also writen many other books and is doing quite well financially. I attented a week long Callahan school with him in the summer and and he appears to be thinking of redoing his book and becomming more active in the knapping world. San Diego, California was a hot bed of really good knappers in the early 1970s, it sprung from a visit from Sollberger sometime in that era. Only Steve Carter remains of that group. Navodne (Rod) Reiner, another California sad story , Rod was one of the San Diego flintknappers that Steve Carter hung around with in the 1970s. Like Steve, Rod was a really good flintknapper, all traditional, and good person. Rod did a lot of knapping and made nice pieces of lithic art but was also interested in the experimental aspect as well. Rod came up with the two man fluting technique; Reiner gripped the biface in his left hand, held it down tightly against his thigh, while his right hand used the full weight of his body from the shoulder to bear down on the flaking tool. Then, to this he added a little more force by using a second person to deliver a light tapping blow to the end of the pressure flaker with a mallet. Reiner stated that the mallet strikes just at the instant that the pressure flake is pressed off. With Rod's method both constant pressure and a releasing percussion impact a nice flute is detached. Rod, whom was also at the Little Lake knap-in was a very good knapper and a big influence on Steve Carter, but Rod was killed early on in a hunting accident. Chris Hardacker was another, he just faded into the woodwork, I saw him working as a digger for Jeannie Binning at one of her digs in the middle 1980s. Robert Blue of Studio City, California was inspired by a collection of Reinhardt's points , Reinhardt had been long dead but Blue did find fellow Gray Ghost collector, Charlie Shewey in Missouri. Robert offered to buy all of Shewey's Gray Ghosts and Richard Warren points and that money was no object. Charlie refused Blue's offer, but directed Robert to Richard Warren. After Robert bought a fair number of points, Warren shared some of his secrets with Robert Blue and introduced him to Jim Hopper, whom Warren had taught. Jim Hopper andRobert Blue became good friends and Robert became very good at art knapping. Barney DeSimone, couched Robert through his early years of knapping. Later Robert inspired Barney to return somewhat to lapidary knapping. It was Robert Blue that taught Ray Harwood to knap in the lever style of Reinhardt, Ray produced dozens of "Raynish Daggers" with the lever flaker. The Raynish Daggers were simply slab points in the form of 10 inch Danish Daggers ("2-D daggers" -not 3 dimensional). These were what Callahan called the ugliest Danish Daggers he had ever seen. After Robert's death and some prompting from DeSimone and Callahan, Harwood returned to traditional flintknapping. One interesting bit of knapping lore I overheard at a knap in goes like this:" Steve Behenes had invented this steel fluting jig that could flute supper this preforms. Steve was close to Robert Blue at the time and he sent Robert a thin Folsom and the detached flutes, Robert returned the detached flute -and he had fluted them ! . Joe Dabil, Joe had become a California legend by the late 1960s and had the nick name of "Indian Joe", this name given to him by the prominent archaeologists of the day. Joe says he learned his style by trail and error using books with Ishi points as a pattern,same for the knapping tools. His notching style comes a great deal from Errett. Joe could make fire in of minutes with a natural yucca file board and mule fat stick. Joe was also a master of the Ishi style flintknapping methodology. I first came to here about him in about 1969 and then in the 70s, he gave demos on Catalina Island for Archaeologists and movie people. His points were often seen for sale for $3.50 up and down the central to northern California coastal towns, these populated by thousands of hippies. I remember buying one in a hippie shop in Pismo Beech in 1976. The hippie lady at the counter said I could meet the knapper, but like as ass I sais "naw it's OK. I did end up meeting him 8 years later, in 1984, at CSUN. Joe's Ishi points of both glass and obsidian were each an impressive work of art. Ray and Joe became friends and Ray began to study Joe's flintknapping methods. Joe Dabil had learned the arts of wilderness survival hands on. Joe was an Olympic class long distance runner in the 1960s, and when a Doctor informed him he had a life threatening decease disease he fled into the wilderness. There in the woods, alone, Joe eked out a survival on natural foods. Eventually Joe relearned the arts of Ishi, sinew back bow making, arrow-smithing, fire drill technology, cordage making, brain tanning and of coarse...flintknapping.
As miracle have it, Joe lived out his death sentence and is still practicing wilderness skills today.

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

The information set forth in this text relied heavly on the fallowing publications: Fintknapper's Exchange: Atchiston, Inc. 4426 Constution N.E. Albuquerque, NM 87110 Etidors: Errett Callahan, Jacqueline Nichols and Penelope Katson. Flintknapping Digest. Harwood Archaeology 4911 Shadow Stone Bakersfield, CA 93313 Editor: Ray Harwood Bulletin of Primitive Technology. Journal of the Society of Primative Technology P.O. Box 905 Rexburg, ID 83440 Dave Wescot, Editor Chips Mound Builder Books P.O. Box 702 Branson, MO. 65615 Editors: Val Waldorf, D.C. Waldorf and Dane Martin. New Flintknapper's Exchange. High Fire Flints 11212 Hooper Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70818 Editors: Jeff Behrnes, Steve Behernes and Chas Spear 20Th Century Lithics. Mound Builder Books P.O. Box 702 Branson, MO. 65615 Editors: Val Waldorf and D.C. Waldorf. : WARNING: Flintknapping is very dangerous and can cause serious health problems, including death. Ray Harwood, The World Flintknapping Society or any officer or members of said society do not suggest you should attempt flintknapping, do so only at your own risk. All those that are listed in this history book wore

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

Home Opinion News Life Food Arts Calendar Film PW Guides Best of Pasadena Arroyo Life strings Life strings Master bowyer and teacher Joe Dabill always matches the right stick with the right student. By Christopher Nyerges 10/09/2008 Like it? Tweet it! SHARE IT! I was one of several students of Joe Dabill during a weeklong stay in the Sequoia Forest. Dabill is a master at the art of bow-making and all the skills related to it. He handed each of us a stave that he had cut and split a few months earlier. My stave came from a California bay tree. It was nearly five feet long. My job was to transform that stave into a functional bow. Dabill’s job was to mentor me in each step of the process. I liked the look of my raw stave and was eager to see it become a bow. After Dabill explained some of the basics, I clamped my stave to a wooden table and Dabill carefully looked it over. The stave was more than an inch thick in most sections, as much as 2 1/2 inches in parts. Dabill took his carpenter’s pencil and marked my stave to indicate those areas that should be completely removed. Taking a spoke shave, I began the process of shaving off wood, always from the belly of the bow (the side that faces you when you shoot it), never from the back. I spent several hours shaving, though some of that time was spent resting. After days of this, Dabill removed the bow from the clamps and filed nocks for the strings into each end. I’d already twined a bowstring from linen, which I then waxed with beeswax. Dabill strung it and tested the tiller (how evenly each side of the bow bends). Like two scientists, he and his assistant Sig then carefully examined the strung and pulled bow. They pointed out the still-stiff areas, then Dabill marked them for further reduction. After another two hours or so of off-and-on work, Dabill tested the bow’s tiller again. “Looks good,” he said, and he fired a few arrows to a nearby tree stump. “Shoots good,” he said with a smile. One day I sat down with Dabill in the early morning around the fire. I wanted to learn more about this bow-maker. Now sixtysomething, Dabill got interested in archery at around age 15. He was living in Lompoc and had read about Ishi, the last wild Indian in California. “I idolized the Indian lifestyle,” explained Dabill, “and I wanted to become an Indian.” He learned how to make arrowheads from an archaeologist who’d documented a Chumash site. “I started practicing making stone points, using modern methods in the beginning. I had a board with a carpet on it that I worked on. I used obsidian and a copper chipper. I was obsessed with this and did it every day for six to eight months. Today I can make points using modern or primitive methods,” Dabill says. By age 17 he was making crude bows from willow and juniper. “I did it because I loved it,” he adds. Dabill went on to learn most of the crafts of the Native Americans and teach those skills to others. In the 1970s, he offered his first bow-making class by posting flyers in local shopping malls. He had five students paying $5 each for a class in Reservoir Canyon (near San Luis Obispo), where students learned about edible plants, soap plants and woods for bows. Dabill also spent some time bicycling around the Western states, sometimes covering 100 miles a day. He described himself as a “drifter” during those years, having no money, gleaning for food, carrying only a sleeping bag and a few changes of clothes. Dabill has spent the last 20 years intensely focused on making bows and teaching bow-making. He also spent 2 1/2 years at the Catalina Island Marine Institute, teaching the Indian program to children. He gave dramatic presentations to students and also taught groups about bead-making, primitive fire-making, making arrowheads and bows, and all the skills of the Chumash and Gabrielinos, the dominant tribes throughout Ventura and Los Angeles counties. Dabill figures that he and his students make about 50 to 60 bows a year in his ongoing classes. “How many bows have you personally made?” I ask. He smiles and nearly laughs. “I have made thousands,” he says. Though he makes bows with both modern and primitive stone tools, he usually uses a few modern tools in classes since this is the easiest way for novices to learn the art. He shows students how to use the tools and then he gives them each a stick and tells them to get started. He always makes the effort to match the right stick with the right student. Dabill says that when he began making bows he preferred juniper, but now he prefers the wood from the California bay tree. He has been featured in the “Traditional Bowyers Bible” as an acknowledged expert in making juniper bows. “Some of the old-timers couldn’t believe I was using juniper,” says Dabill. Dabill travels four to six months out of the year with his wife Amada. Readers can contact Dabill at 4950 Traffic Way, Atascadero, Calif., 93422, or by calling (805) 466-4336. Christopher Nyerges is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, author of “How to Survive Anywhere” and a wilderness instructor. Contact him at ChristopherNyerges.com. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL RAY HARWOOD

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL RAY HARWOOD

Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin Spring Classes - 2003 MAPOM's Fall Classes in California Indian Skills will take place in the Spring and Fall. Classes are held at the reconstructed Miwok village, Kule Loklo, at beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore near Olema in western Marin County. The classes are designed to give students a concentrated look at one aspect of Native culture. The subjects of all classes are adult skills taught on an adult level and usually involve hands-on participation by students. Traditional materials are used in our classes. Students provide some tools. Classes are for adults (over 15-years-old) and participants must pre-register by mailing a check or money order to MAPOM, 2255 Las Gallinas, San Rafael, CA 94903. Please add $5 membership fee if you are taking a class from us for the first time (or are a senior or a full time student), and $10 if you are renewing your membership. We'll send a confirmation with details of what to bring and a map. Price reductions for California Indians and people working with groups of Indian children. MAPOM thanks the American Indian Cultural Center of San Francisco for a generous donation in support of these classes. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Call Sylvia Thalman 415-479-3281 or e-mail us at MAPOM@aol.com. For registration information or detailed info, see our website at www.MAPOM.com. TOOLS FOR CHOPPING, SCRAPING AND DRILLING - April 5 (Saturday) 10 am - 4 pm This new class will cover manufacture of chert hand tools, including hafted hand axes, used for working wood as in bow and arrow making, adzes for reducing wood on bows and arrows and for scraping willow for basket making, bits for shafted drills. These were fastened to the shafts with sinew and asphaltum. Instructor: Joe Dabill $65 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

FLINTKNAPPER JOE DABILL

/ Joe Dabill, Teacher HEAD WATERS Classes: Wilderness Skills, Bow and Arrow Making, Joe Dabill is nationally recognized as an expert in bow making, fire making, flint knapping, hide tanning and more. He has been teaching wilderness skills since 1980. He has been teaching classes at Headwaters Outdoor School since 1992. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Native American Arrowpoint Jewelry . . White quartz crystal from Calaveras, California. Quartz Crystal . The same crystal used to make computer chips. Silicone Crystal . Reddish amber with dark streaks and swirls. Australian Agate . Volcanic glass from Northern California. Black Obsidian . . . These Arrow Point Neckpieces are made as authenicately as possible to actual ancient native techniques. From the hand-shaped arrow point, to the hardwood arrow shaft, to the deer hide neckstrap, these are in fact made with the similar materials and techniques that indigenous hunters used for milleniums. Duplicated to exacting detail by native skills and survival specialist, Joe Dabill of Mission San Miguel, California, these neckpieces offer a reminder of the people that originally settled the land.