Phase 01 — First days: water, fire, shelter / About year 1
01.12
Bamboo cups and water tubes
first containers
AWhat it needs
Needs 2 other products in all, 1 of them directly.
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- 01.12 Bamboo cups and water tubesMaking Year 1 needs 2 products
- 01.03 Sharp stone flakeMaking Year 1 needs 1 product
- 01.02 HammerstoneMaking Year 1 raw materials only
Open a box to see what it needs. A dashed box is a product already drawn in full: click it to jump there. In the org chart, drag to move around.
BWhy
Until there is pottery, bamboo is the only good container. A stem of bamboo is a row of sealed tubes: every joint has a solid wall across it.
CYou need
- Mature bamboo, as thick as the wrist or thicker, green or dry
- A stone flake (01.03) and a rough rock for smoothing
DSteps
- Cup: saw a groove all the way round the stem just below a joint, and a second groove a hand-width above the same joint. Snap at both grooves. The joint is the bottom of the cup.
- Rub the rim on a rough rock until it is smooth. A fresh bamboo edge cuts like a knife.
- Bottle: cut a piece with a joint at both ends. Bore a small hole through the top joint wall by twisting a pointed flake. Plug the hole with a whittled stick.
- Bucket: use the thickest stem you can find and keep two sections, boring through the middle joint wall from above.
- Cooking tube: cut a green section with one joint as the bottom. Fill it with water or food, lean it against a stone at the edge of the fire, and turn it now and then. The green wall chars slowly and the water boils before it burns through.
- Water channel: split a long stem in half lengthways. Start the split at the thin end with a flake tapped in by a stone, then pull the halves apart. Knock out the joint walls. Lay the halves end to end, each overlapping the next, to run water from a spring to the camp.
- Rinse new containers twice and let them dry in the sun between uses.
EIt worked if
- A filled bottle hung upside down by its plug does not drip.
- A cup stands by itself and nobody cuts a lip on it.
FWhat goes wrong
- It cracks while drying. It was dried too fast in hot sun. Dry new containers in the shade.
- It leaks at the bottom. The cut went through the joint wall. Cut a finger-width below the joint.
- Mould inside. It was stored wet. Dry it open end down, and scorch the inside over the fire.
GSafety
- Never heat a section that is closed at both ends. The steam inside bursts it like a bomb. Always bore through one wall first.
- Some bamboo has fine hairs on its sheaths that sting the skin. Rub them off with sand before handling.
HIn the story
Ulani walks out of the trees on the second morning with six green cups strung on a vine, and the camp drinks without kneeling at the stream for the first time. Sofia claims the thickest stem on the island for her kitchen.
IFigures
