Blowpipe (blowgun) and having fun making your own.

When I was a kid all my friends had air rifles so I begged my dad to get me one for my birthday (He had seen first hand what a mess guns can make while training to be a doctor in apartheid South Africa so was pretty against the idea). In the end he relented and I had heaps of fun shooting competitions at cans and targets. However, what would have been really great would have been to build my own blowpipe, which would be creative and easily done with readily available stuff. Blowpipes/guns have been in use for thousands of years by ancient jungle tribes.

Wikimedia Commons

For writing they are interesting because certain Amazon tribes dip the darts in toxins secreted from poison dart frogs to hunt monkeys, birds and other game. This would be pretty scary if someone was after you with one of these blowpipes. Especially if it was dipped in batrachotoxin secreted from the skin of the ‘Golden Poison Frog’ of which there is no known antidote.

Wikimedia Commons

Traditional ways to make the blowpipe and darts differ among Amazon tribes. Below are two different techniques I saw on Youtube:

In this video the man uses a hardwood that he drills a hole through over two days. He carves wood away to create the round pipe shape, using a rasp he further rounds it off and then smooths and sands. He is using metal and sandpaper, I haven’t found information yet on what the traditional tools to shape would have looked like. So if anyone knows please post below.

Another video shows a different tribe who takes a variety of bamboo and splits it in half to hollow out the core and smooth down. They glue it together with sap from a rubber tree (latex sap) using plant fibers dipped in the sap heated up as a sticky glue to tie the two halves to together. The tribe glue the edges and seal the whole surface with the latex sap allowing them to wrap a certain kind of bark around it. They carve the mouthpiece out of wood and glue it on with heated latex sap. The darts are made from spines from certain trees and palms. Cotton from the kapok tree is used on the ends to create a seal that allows a blast of air to force the dart out.

Making Your Own

I found this great video on how to make your own.  Below are my fun and successful results!

To make your own blowgun you need:

2 foot length of pvc pipe.

½ inch (1.27cm) pvc pipe

Female reducing adapter from ¾ inch (1.9cm) to ½ inch (1.27cm).

Sellotape/scotch tape

Sticky notes

Glue gun/poster tack

Party hat

nails